Saudi Arabia’s Ambitious Plans for Nuclear Energy

It’s not clear that the plans will work as expected in terms of the announced timeline of completing 16 reactors (17.6 Gwe) by 2032. The cost of the program is close to $90 billion which over a period of more than two decades for a feasible schedule would involve a significant diversion of oil revenue […]

Thieves steal chunk of China’s new solar highway

Thieves in China have vandalised a newly opened solar highway, less than a week after the road was christened with much fanfare. The one-kilometre stretch of road in the eastern city of Jinan consists of solar panels under a layer of transparent concrete, allowing cars to drive over the photovoltaic cells. But just five days […]

Recent Developments in Advanced Reactors in China, Russia

China Reported to Commit $3 billion to Development of Molten Salt Reactor Designs. China Begins Construction of a 600 MW Fast Reactor. Taishan 1 EPR Startup Delayed to 2018. Russia to Build Fast Reactor Fuel Plant for Brest-OD-300 Reactor. English language media reports indicate that the Chinese Academy of Sciences has announced plans to invest […]

Bioplastics Threaten Big Oil

What sector will account for the largest source of oil demand growth over the next two decades? Most people might assume transportation, with hundreds of millions of people in the developing world acquiring cars for the first time. However, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the petrochemical industry will represent the largest source of […]

Why Germans Are Being Paid To Use Power

Germany’s drive to use renewable sources of energy seems to be bearing fruit. Beginning last weekend, prices for electricity in the country declined below zero.   That means consumers are being paid to use the power, rather than the other way around. This isn’t even the first time this has happened. According to one of […]

In 2017, The Myth of Powering the World with 100% Renewables Has Started to Crack

When thinking about 2017, it is easy to see the bankruptcy of Westinghouse and the subsequent cancellation of its Summer project in South Carolina as this year’s big issue.  But as the year has drawn to a close, the continuation of its AP1000 project at Plant Vogtle in Georgia has been approved by the regulator […]

The long wait for fusion power may be coming to an end

Renewable energy sources like solar and wind account for a growing share of the world’s electric power. That’s no surprise, given concerns about the carbon emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants and their harmful effect on the climate. Nuclear energy offers some advantages over renewables, including the ability to make electricity when the sun doesn’t […]

ITER Nuclear Fusion Plant Is Halfway Finished

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor plant in Saint-Paul-Lez-Durance, France, is 50 percent complete. ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/Getty Images The sprawling landscape of construction cranes and partially completed buildings, along with a massive metal-and-steel ring, was described as looking like a “modern-day Stonehenge” by The New York Times in March 2017. It’s been a decade since construction began […]

Fancy Having Your Own Power Plant? “Fuel Cell Micro-Cogeneration is Market-Ready”

SolidPower’s BlueGen fuel cell unit. More than 1,000 fuel cell micro-cogeneration units have been installed in homes and business in ten countries over the last several years by the ene.field project. Its successor, the PACE project, aims at bringing costs further down, although manufacturers and users say the technology is market-ready. “I thought it would be nice to have my own […]

It’s Final — Corn Ethanol Is Of No Use

OK, can we please stop pretending biofuel made from corn is helping the planet and the environment? The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released two of its Working Group reports at the end of last month (WGI and WGIII), and their short discussion of biofuels has ignited a fierce debate as to whether they’re […]

Thermonuclear Fusion: How Scientists Hope to Extract Energy of Stars on Earth

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project has reached an important milestone, passing the 50% completion mark this month. Nuclear physicist Anatoly Krasilnikov, director of Russia’s ITER Project Center, told the RIA Novosti news agency about Russia’s key role in the project. ITER project general director Bernard Bigot announced last week that the ambitious $23.7 […]

The Great Energy Transition: A Progress Report

On Nov. 24 in Stockholm, there was a demonstration of the progress that the Italian, Andrea Rossi, has made in his decades-long effort to develop a new source of energy based on Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR). As Rossi’s last demonstration of an earlier version of his energy-producing device was back in October of 2011, […]

Footing The $9 Trillion Renewable Bill

As the world is growing increasingly conscious of the need to invest in cleaner and more sustainable energy to limit the impact of global warming, it’s no secret that a faster and universal renewable energy transition will require trillions of dollars of investment over the next couple of decades. The trillion-dollar question is, who will […]

The Energy Transition: Too Little, Too Late

  The idea of the energy transition (“energiewende” in German) originated in the 1980s and gained legislative support in Germany in 2010. The idea is good and also technically feasible. But it requires sacrifices and, at present, sacrifices are politically unthinkable since most people don’t realize how critical the situation really is. What we are […]

ITER nuclear fusion project faces delay over Trump budget cuts

ITER, an international project to build a prototype nuclear fusion reactor in southern France, said it is facing delays if the Trump administration does not reconsider budget cuts. FILE PHOTO: A crane loads equipments at the construction site of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance,Southern France, October 6, 2016. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier Seven partners […]

Toyota will build the first megawatt-scale hydrogen fuel and renewable generation plant

Toyota will build the first megawatt-scale hydrogen fuel and renewable generation plant, setting a new energy benchmark that experts hope with pave the way for Australia’s hydrogen industry. Toyota North America will build the plant to support its operations at the Port of Long Beach, in the US, using agricultural waste to generate electricity, water […]

Can We Skip Straight to Renewable Energy Without Natural Gas?

By Heather Goldstone & Elsa Partan Living Lab Radio Francis O’Sullivan, MIT Energy Initiative A protest this weekend at the site of a proposed natural gas power generator on the Cape Cod Canal highlights the controversy surrounding the rise of natural gas. Some say it’s an improvement over other fossil fuels, and a necessary bridge […]

Looking Ahead to 2018 for Nuclear Energy

Each year this blog looks ahead to issues it will follow in the coming 12 months. What this look into the future does is to provide some check marks on the page of news about nuclear energy to return to from time-to-time to see what’s going on. Readers also know that this blog presents a […]

New wind farm in service off the British coast

Norwegian energy company Statoil said Wednesday its Dudgeon wind farm off the British coast is now feeding the grid from its 67 wind turbines. The Dudgeon wind farm is about 25 miles off the coast of Norfolk. Its turbines, with a combined capacity of 402 megawatts, can meet the energy demands of around 410,000 average […]

A fusion future

Laban Coblentz, Head of Communication, ITER gives an absorbing insight into all things fusion and the future of fusion energy From its earliest history, the human animal, among all species, has been the most ambitious to dominate its environment: to conquer the earth, the seas, the skies, and – more than half a century ago […]

Energy market disruption is underway

An unprecedented wave of disruptions is facing energy and mining commodity markets. We have already seen environmental policy, socioeconomic changes and technological innovation kick off a major transition to low- or zero-carbon technologies. With the Paris Agreement targets set, governments are reinforcing their focus on meeting their greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals. This comes at […]

EIA Forecasts Growth in World Nuclear Electricity Capacity

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2017 Reference case. Note: OECD is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. EIA’s International Energy Outlook 2017 (IEO2017) projects that global nuclear capacity will grow at an average annual rate of 1.6% from 2016 through 2040, led predominantly by countries outside of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). EIA expects China […]

No More Blackouts?

Many rural communities are turning to microgrids, small-scale power systems that supply local energy, typically in the form of solar power, to localized consumers, such as individual households or small villages. Image: MIT News Today, more than 1.3 billion people are living without regular access to power, including more than 300 million in India and […]

Fusing Heavy Quarks Can Produce 10 Times More Energy Than Nuclear Fusion

assive amount of energy that can spill out into the universe. The fusion of two bottom quarks will produce 138 megaelectronvolts (MeV), which is eight times more powerful than individual nuclear fusion events inside a hydrogen bomb. Is There Reason To Worry About Threats From A Quark Bomb? Researchers, however, said that this kind of […]

Exxon Dedicates New Funding to Green Energy

When most people think of green energy supporters, fossil fuel companies rarely spring to mind. It is no secret that there is huge money in oil, and coupled with its complex role in international politics, few are surprised by the desire of energy companies to maintain the status quo. However, warnings regarding climate change and […]

The Era Of Oil And Gas Is Nearing Its End

The history of crude oil and natural gas is a history of technological innovation. Until recently the innovation supported crude oil and natural gas. Now, it challenges it, causing structural changes in the crude oil and natural gas markets. Originally, crude oil was only used for lighting. This changed following the invention of the internal […]

Watch Our New Documentary About the Future of Fusion Energy

Every second for the last four-and-a-half billion years, trillions of hydrogen atoms have been converted into helium in the Sun’s core and released an immense amount of energy in the process. This is a process known as nuclear fusion, and figuring out how to harness this source of virtually limitless clean energy on Earth has […]

Energy Efficiency as a Resource: The Power of Getting More from Less

A successful transition to a 21st Century Electricity System requires careful consideration of a range of issues that will ultimately redefine the regulatory framework and utility business model while creating new opportunities for third-party providers and customers to contribute to the operation of the electricity system.  In this third in a series published by Utility Dive, AEE […]

California Cars Are Running on Restaurant Grease

California’s battle against climate change is being fought more fiercely in fast food restaurants than in Tesla Inc.’s car factory in Fremont. Seven years after the Golden State began offering credits to producers of low-carbon fuels, cities and companies across California are using diesel brewed from fats and oils to fuel everything from fire trucks […]

The war on coal is over. Coal lost.

Last week, Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt announced, “the war on coal is over.” If there ever was a war on coal, the coal industry has lost. According to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, many old American coal power plants are being retired or converted to natural gas, and new coal […]

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