NUKE NEWS

Energoatom and Hyundai E&C sign cooperation memorandum

14 May 2024

The memorandum of cooperation signed by the Ukrainian and South Korean companies covers cooperating on the design, construction and commissioning of new nuclear power units in Ukraine.

(Image: Ukraine's Ministry of Energy)

The agreement was signed by Energoatom's Petro Kotin and Korean Hyundai Engineering and Construction Executive Vice President and Operations Director Choi Young in the presence of Ukraine's Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko and South Korea's Ambassador to Ukraine Kim Hyun-Tae.

Halushchenko said the agreements were important in terms of the plans for new Westinghouse AP1000 units at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant: "It is important that, together with the Korean side, we sign this memorandum during the war and, without waiting for its end, move forward. I am confident that together we will build an energy industry in Ukraine that will meet the best global standards."

The ambassador said the memorandum would "contribute to the development of Ukrainian-Korean cooperation in the nuclear industry, in particular, the exchange of experience in the field of nuclear technologies".

Kotin said: "South Korea"

IAEA warns against attacks on, or from, Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has restated that "there must be no attack of any kind from or against this major nuclear facility".

The six reactors are now all in cold shutdown (Image: IAEA)

In his latest update on the situation at the six-unit Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been under Russian military control since early March 2022, Grossi said that on the question of military action targeting the plant, or being launched from it "the five concrete principles - widely supported by the members of the United Nations Security Council - are very clear".

He said that the agency's experts at the plant had heard military activity on most days "including artillery and rocket fire some distance away ... as well as small arms fire both near to and further away from the site". There had also been air-raid sirens on Wednesday and Thursday.

The IAEA was "aware of reports alleging that a training base for drone operators as well as drone launch pads have been deployed near the ZNPP's reactor unit 6 and its training centre. The IAEA experts have not seen any evidence of drones being launched, or the presence of training facilities or launching pads, within the site perimeter, but have requested access to the rooftop of a nearby laboratory building. The ZNPP has informed the IAEA team that the request is under consideration".

Since September 2022 there have been IAEA experts stationed at the facility, helping to monitor the situation and seeking to reduce the risks to safety and security at a place which is located on the frontline of Russian and Ukrainian forces.

They have carried out regular walkdowns across the site, although there have been some areas where they have had to request access a number of times before being allowed to visit. This week they have visited the two fresh fuel storage facilities, performed radiation monitoring along the site perimeter and measured the levels of the site's sprinkler ponds, which they reported to have enough water to provide cooling to the six reactors.

Another issue that the IAEA has been monitoring has been the staffing situation at the plant. The Russian operators say there are currently 5000 staff, an increase on last year but "still significantly fewer than it had before the conflict", the agency added. There are 800 open positions, and the operators have told the IAEA that staffing levels at Rosatom-operated nuclear power plants are generally "significantly lower than the corresponding staffing levels of Ukraine". The IAEA says its experts are "prevented from freely talking to main control room staff, affecting the agency's ability to independently assess the knowledge and experience of these personnel that are essential to maintaining nuclear safety at the ZNPP".

Grossi said: "We are continuing to monitor the staffing situation closely, as it is of vital importance for nuclear safety and security. For this purpose, our experts would also require an opportunity to discuss with the operators of the main control rooms, and other qualified staff."

The IAEA said that its teams at Ukraine's other nuclear power plants of Khmelnitsky, Rivne and South Ukraine, plus at Chernobyl, "reported that nuclear safety and security continues to be maintained".a has developed nuclear energy and expertise in the nuclear industry. Energoatom and Ukraine as a whole are interested in the development of our cooperation with the Hyundai company, which is one of the world leaders in this market."

The agreements build on a letter of intent that was signed by the two companies in November 2023. In May 2022 Westinghouse and Hyundai E&C signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly participate in global AP1000 plant opportunities and last month a ceremony was held to mark the start of the project to build what will become unit 5 at Khmelnitsky NPP.

Ukraine has 15 nuclear units which could generate about half of its electricity, including the six at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which has been under Russian military control since early March 2022. Ukraine's nuclear expansion plans include proposals for nine new AP1000 reactors across the country.

Khmelnitsky's first reactor was connected to the grid in 1987, but work on three other reactors was halted in 1990, at a time when unit 3 was 75% complete. Work on the second reactor restarted and it was connected to the grid in 2004. A project to complete units 3 and 4 is under way - last month, the Ukrainian Cabinet put forward a draft law on their construction/completion. Halushchenko said earlier this year that unit 3 could come into operation in as little as two and a half years.

Two of the new AP1000s are due to become the fifth and six units at Khmelnitsky and would bring the plant's total capacity beyond that of the six-unit Zaporizhzhia plant which has been under Russian military control since early March 2022. During their talks, Energoatom and Hyundai E&C discussed all these projects as well as agreements with Holtec International on the construction of factories for the production of equipment for small modular reactors and containers for used nuclear fuel.

10 May 2024

Estonian parliament begins preparations for nuclear power programme

09 May 2024

Members of Estonia's parliament, the Riigikogu, have submitted the draft resolution which will allow preparations to begin for the adoption of nuclear energy in the country and the creation of a suitable legislative and regulatory framework.

The Riigikogu building is situated in the courtyard of Toompea Castle and was the first public building in Estonia which was designed to have electric power (Image: Riigikogu Photo Archive/Martin Siplane)

The draft calls for the Riigikogu to pass a "fundamental decision" on whether to allow production of nuclear energy in Estonia. According to the Riigikogu, the draft is mainly based on the analysis conducted by the Nuclear Energy Working Group in 2021-2023 which concluded that the adoption of nuclear energy in Estonia was feasible. The findings of that study were submitted to the Estonian government in March.

The 55 members of the Riigikogu who submitted the draft "support the preparations for the adoption of nuclear energy and the creation of a necessary legislative framework for it", including the drafting of the Nuclear Energy and Safety Act and supplementing the existing legislation, the establishment of nuclear regulatory institution, and the development of "sectoral competences".

According to the draft's explanatory memorandum, the adoption of nuclear power would provide a "controllable and continuous generation capacity" to balance fluctuations in renewable energy generation, help Estonia reach its climate neutrality target, ensure "stable and affordable electricity" in the long term, promote research and development, bring economic benefits and create jobs for local people. It would also bring challenges such as the training of a qualified workforce, handling and storage of used nuclear fuel, and emergency preparedness. "To address these, it is essential to ensure appropriate regulation, supervision, competence development and timely and adequate funding that would guarantee the safe and responsible use of nuclear energy when it is adopted," it states.

The draft does not grant the right to build a nuclear power plant in Estonia, the Riigikogu said.

Estonia's current domestic electricity generation is dominated by fossil fuels, but the country is seeking to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and is looking at nuclear power as a reliable and low carbon option to diversify its energy mix by 2035 when it plans to phase out its use of domestic oil shale. A draft law which would suspend the issuance of new domestic oil shale mining permits until the end of 2025 - to allow time for climate laws to be drafted - has been announced by the Estonian government and is being sent to parliament for consideration.

An IAEA mission to Estonia reported in October that the country had developed a comprehensive assessment of its nuclear power infrastructure needs to decide whether to launch a nuclear power programme. In February 2023, Estonia's Fermi Energia announced it had selected GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy's BWRX-300 SMR for potential deployment in the Baltic country by the early 2030s.

Hungary and China sign nuclear energy cooperation agreement

10 May 2024

A memorandum of understanding on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy has been signed by the China Atomic Energy Authority and Hungary's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, right, hosted talks (Image: Peter Szijjarto/Facebook)

The agreement was one of 18 covering a wide variety of areas signed during President Xi Jinping's visit to Hungary on Thursday.

A joint statement issued by the two countries on the establishing of an over-arching All-Weather Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for the New Era, said: "The Chinese side will continue to encourage capable Chinese enterprises to invest in Hungary. The two sides will promote orderly cooperation in emerging fields including clean energy, artificial intelligence, mobile communication technology and nuclear energy and technology."

Hungary's President Viktor Orban said, after his talks with the Chinese president: "The Hungarians have serious ambitions. The previous 100 years, the 20th Century, was a shameful one for Hungary. It was a century in which we lost, a century in which we suffered extremely heavy losses of historic proportions. And the concept driving the Hungarians is that we want to win the 21st Century, and not lose it. And to win we need partners, investors, trading partners and the world’s most advanced technology."

He added: "I will make special mention of something which is not only an economic fact, but also an expression of confidence: the fact that we can extend our cooperation to the whole spectrum of the nuclear industry, where up until now there has been no cooperation between our two countries. This holds great potential, because in this respect - in terms of the nuclear industry - Hungary has considerable international experience and prestige, as we have been involved in this industry for more than 50 years, and currently the largest nuclear development in Europe is taking place in Hungary.

"Our plan is that by the beginning of the next decade the share of Hungary's energy provided by nuclear power will be between 60 and 70 per cent."

In the text of his published remarks, President Xi said the two countries would "connect our development strategies more closely, deepen economic, trade, investment, and financial cooperation, and advance the Budapest-Belgrade railway and other key projects. We will expand cooperation in emerging industries and foster new quality productive forces to empower and facilitate economic and social development of the two countries".

The official statements and publications during the visit do not yet appear to include detail of the content of the memorandum of understanding on nuclear. China is the fastest growing generator of nuclear energy. According to World Nuclear Association figures, it currently has 56 operable reactors with a capacity of 54 GW - and it has 27 more reactors under construction which would provide 28.9 GW more capacity. Hungary currently has four operable nuclear reactors with a capacity of 1.9 GW, supplying about 40% of the country's electricity. It has also embarked on the Paks II project which would see Russia's Rosatom supply two VVER-1200 reactors.

Eletronuclear updates Angra 1 lifetime extension progress

13 May 2024

Brazilian nuclear power plant operator Eletrobras Eletronuclear says it is on track to complete all the steps required to get approval for extended operation of the Angra 1 unit.

Angra 1 and 2 (Image: Eletronuclear)

Angra 1, Brazil's first nuclear power unit, is a 609 MWe pressurised water reactor that was first connected to the grid in 1982. Eletronuclear is seeking a lifetime extension from 40 to 60 years.

Getting a lifetime extension is a long and complex process and years of preparation had already gone into it even before the initial request for renewal of its operating licence was submitted to the Brazilian Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) in 2019. Eletrobras said that during 2023 it submitted 16 reports to the regulatory body, including assessments of safety factors as defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

It said it had also responded to 166 follow-up questions from CNEN by the end of last month. And it had also carried out the third and final Periodic Safety Reassessment, a document produced every 10 years looking at things such as safety performance, emergency planning, equipment qualification and management systems.

The company also uses the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's License Renewal Application process and is preparing next month for a fourth visit by the IAEA for a Safety Aspects of Long Term Operation (SALTO) mission - the previous ones were held in 2013, 2018 and 2022.

José Augusto do Amaral, superintendent of Operational Support Engineering and responsible for the LTO, said: "The negotiation process with [CNEN] should last until the end of this year to finalise the steps. But the company is prepared and continues to have constant dialogue ... we are managing to demonstrate that Angra 1 will be able to continue operating efficiently and safely."

Measures already taken to extend the service life for a further 20 years include new steam generators, changing the reactor pressure vessel cover and replacing the main transformers, the company says, as well as implementing ageing/obsolescence management systems. It estimates safety and modernisation spending of around BRL3 billion (USD585 million) between 2024 and 2028. it will get short term financing from its main shareholders, ENBPar and Eletrobras, while negotiations are completed with the US Export-Import Bank for the full modernisation programme.

Angra 1 reached criticality in 1982 and entered commercial operation in 1985. The pressurised water reactor (PWR) has a design capacity of 640 MWe (net capacity 609 MWe). Eletrobras Eletronuclear also operates Angra 2, a 1275 MWe (net) PWR which began commercial operation in 2001. Together with Angra 2 it generates about 3% of Brazil’s electricity. Work on the Angra 3 project - to feature a Siemens/KWU 1405 MW pressurised water reactor - began in 1984 but was suspended two years later, before construction began. The scheme was resurrected in 2006, with first concrete in 2010. But, amid a corruption probe into government contracts, construction of the unit was halted for a second time in 2015, when it was 65% complete. It resumed again in November 2022 - at the time of the project’s revitalisation, Eletronuclear’s aim was to start operations by the end of 2026. However, work has again faced interruptions pending agreement with local authorities on "socio-environmental" compensation payments.

Brazil also began a process to identify sites for new nuclear power plants in 2022 - its National Energy Plan to 2050 said the country aimed to add 10 GW of nuclear capacity in the next 30 years.

Turbine building roof installed at Akkuyu 2

13 May 2024

The three-month process of installing the roof on the turbine building of the second unit at Turkey's Akkuyu nuclear power plant has been completed.

One of the sections is lifted under clear night skies (Image: Akkuyu Nuclear JSC)

The roof is formed from nine sections, weighing between 95 and 175 tonnes and measuring 61 metres long, with a Liebherr 13000 crawler crane used. Each section had to be installed to an accuracy of within 10 millimetres.

Sergei Butskikh, first deputy director general of Akkuyu Nuclear JSC, said: "Installing roof trusses in a turbine hall is a complex task that requires a high degree of attention to detail and flawless execution. Despite the strict schedule and difficult weather conditions, the team of builders successfully completed the task. We are proud of the results achieved and thank each employee for their diligence and professionalism. At the next stage, we will begin installing the main units and components of the turbogenerator unit."

The section is lowered into place (Image: Akkuyu Nuclear JSC)

Akkuyu, in the southern Mersin province, is Turkey's first nuclear power plant. Rosatom is building four VVER-1200 reactors, under a so-called BOO (build-own-operate) model. According to the terms of the 2010 Intergovernmental Agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Turkey, the commissioning of the first power unit of the nuclear power plant must take place within seven years from receipt of all permits for the construction of the unit.

The licence for the construction of the first unit was issued in 2018, with construction work beginning that year. Nuclear fuel was delivered to the site in April 2023. Turkey's Nuclear Regulatory Agency issued permission for the first unit to be commissioned in December, and in February it was announced that the reactor compartment had been prepared for controlled assembly of the reactor - and the generator stator had also been installed in its pre-design position.

The aim is for unit 1 to begin supplying Turkey's energy system in 2025. When the 4800 MWe plant is completed it is expected to meet about 10% of Turkey's electricity needs, with the aim that all four units will be operational by the end of 2028.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

 

Italy sees role for nuclear in hitting climate goals, says minister

29 April 2024

Italian Energy Minister Gilberto Pichetto Fratin said he hopes there can be a discussion based on science about the renewed role of nuclear, specifically small modular reactors, in the country's future.

(Image: Screengrab from Atlantic Council TV/Youtube)

Pichetto was speaking at an Atlantic Council event on The role of nuclear in the energy transition, on Sunday, ahead of the G7 ministerial meeting taking place in Italy at which he is heading the energy ministers' talks.

He said that Italy currently gets one-third of its energy from renewables and two-thirds from fossil fuels, and it had the aim of reversing those proportions by 2030. But he also said that "we must consider the use of nuclear in the short and medium term" because its contribution would help meet the 2050 net-zero target.

The minister said he was specifically talking about small modular reactors (SMRs) and referenced the research and development funding the government had put into both their development and into nuclear fusion. He also noted the countries which, at COP28, had backed the goal of tripling nuclear energy capacity.

Pichetto, who spoke in Italian with a translator summarising his words in English, said that as well as the environmental benefits of new nuclear power, it would also help "to shield" Italy from the impact of geopolitical events. It was also confirmed that Italy is taking part in the European industrial alliance to develop SMRs. The minister added that he hoped Italy could have a "constructive and scientific discussion and not an ideological one" on the nuclear energy subject.

Italy operated a total of four nuclear power plants starting in the early 1960s but decided to phase out nuclear power in a referendum that followed the 1986 Chernobyl accident. It closed its last two operating plants, Caorso and Trino Vercellese, in 1990.

In late March 2011, following the Fukushima Daiichi accident, the Italian government approved a moratorium of at least one year on construction of nuclear power plants in the country, which had been looking to restart its long-abandoned nuclear programme.

The public mood has changed since then, and in May 2023, the Italian Parliament approved a motion to urge the government to consider incorporating nuclear power into the country's energy mix. In September, the first meeting was held of the National Platform for a Sustainable Nuclear, set up by the government to define a time frame for the possible resumption of nuclear energy in Italy and identify opportunities for the country's industrial chain already operating in the sector.

There are a variety of emerging plans for nuclear energy in Italy, including Edison last October announcing its ambition to construct two nuclear power plants based on EDF's SMR technology between 2030 and 2040 "if the conditions are created for its return to Italy".

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Nuclear Power’s Lethal, Larcenous End Game

BY HARVEY WASSERMAN

 APRIL 26, 2024
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Image by Nicolas Hippert.

For the first time since 1954, no large new atomic reactors are under construction or on order in the United States.

On March 1, 2024, Vogtle Unit 4 connected to the Georgia grid …years behind schedule and billions over budget.   Once hyped as “too cheap to meter,” America’s last large light-water reactor thus forever froze the “Peaceful Atom” in financial failure.

Despite enormous public hype and subsidies, ZERO new US atomic reactors—large or small— are likely to become significantly available here for at least a decade.

The first will likely be an unproven “Small Modular Reactor” prototype already leaning toward a trillion-dollar failure.

***

When it comes to the myth of nuke power helping to fight global warming…there’s no there there.

Atomic reactors cause climate chaos.  Some 415 reactors directly heat our air and water in concert with mega-explosions like Chernobyl and Fukushima.  All pour radioactive carbon 14 into a lethal brew of filth and wastes.

Despite the latest round of “Nuclear Renaissance” hype, the US lacks the industrial capacity to produce impactful new reactors—large or small— before 2030, if then.

The void comes when we most desperately need to reduce carbon emissions.  The mega-grift for unproven new nukes cripples the vital transition to renewables, multiplying the planet-killing impacts of fossil fuels…and of decrepit old reactors whose average age is now over 40.

***

The original fantasy that the “Peaceful Atom” would be “too cheap to meter” came from Atomic Energy Commission Chair Lewis Strauss, played by Robert Downey, Jr., in “Oppenheimer.”

Harry Truman’s 1952 Paley Commission Report on the future of energy had predicted an epic boom in renewables, including 15,000,000 solar heated US homes by 1975.

But in December, 1953, President Eisenhower—in a remarkably war-like speech—told the United Nations that “Atoms for Peace” would limitlessly power the planet.

On September 6, 1954, the Navy and Westinghouse began building the first US commercial reactor, which opened at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, on May 26, 1958.

In 1974 Richard Nixon promised a thousand US reactors by the year 2000.  There were in fact 104.  With Vogtle 4’s opening, there are now 94—and none on order or under construction.

Atomic power has become what Forbes Magazine called in 1985 “the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.”

A 2014 study of 180 nukes worldwide said 175 of them cost 117% more than promised, while going 64% beyond schedule.

Despite the early hype, the Peaceful Atom’s financial catastrophes are too frequent to count, and with price tags too huge to compile, including…

X  the 1966 “We Almost Lost Detroit” accident at Michigan’s Fermi I, costing at least $100 million;

X  the 1979 Meltdown at Three Mile Island, which—aside from killing innumerable downwinders—converted a $900 million asset to a $2 billion liability;

X  the 1983 Washington Public Power System’s $2 billion pubic bond default, the first of its kind, killing four reactors then under construction;

X  Sacramento’s 1989 landslide vote to shut the municipal utility’s money-losing Rancho Seco reactor, where surrounding solar panels (unlike the dead nuke) still produce juice;

X  the Public Service of New Hampshire’s 1988 dump of Seabrook Unit Two, fueling the first investor-owned utility bankruptcy since the Great Depression;

X  the 1998 failure of New York’s never-to-operate $7 billion Shoreham, which shattered the Long Island Lighting Company;

X  the 2017 collapse of South Carolina’s VC Summer, whose $9 billion dead loss joined Vogtle’s $20 billion cost overrun to bankrupt Westinghouse;

X  NuScale’s 2023 SMR collapse in Idaho, fusing into financial failure the industry’s ever-escalating crises in safety, seismic instability, un-insurabililty, heat and radiation emissions, terrorism, war.

Massive explosions at Russia’s Kyshtym and New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Project underscore the industry’s unsolved waste management problem.  So does radioactive devastation at California’s Santa Susanna and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.

After seven decades of experience, massive 21^st century catastrophes continue in the US, Finland, France, England.

Westinghouse’s Summer/Vogtle bankruptcy follows 70 years of a “negative learning curve.”

Finland’s Olkiluoto, France’s Flamanville and England’s double reactor project at Hinckley Point are all hugely over budget and years behind schedule.  Olkiluoto has occasionally shut to make way for cheaper wind and hydro.

Many of France’s flagship 56 reactors regularly curtail their output for generic repairs…or as rivers become too global-heated to cool the cores without serious downstream eco-damage.

But Germany’s 2023 final reactor closures allow more than half its power to come more cheaply and reliably from renewables.

California’s similar-sized economy now often gets 100+% of its power from renewables, dwarfing remnant double reactors at Diablo Canyon, now costing $1+ billion/year over market.

Undaunted, Brussels’ World Nuclear Summit just hyped a tripled global fleet, calling for investments beyond $5 trillion to fund a production schedule than many believe is simply impossible.

The international banking response has been a grim “Just Say No”…accompanied by a vote of confidence in a renewable future.

***

But most terrifying is the demand that decrepit reactors (average age 42+) operate without meaningful inspections or insurance.

Thus Congress has just extended the 1957 Price-Anderson Act which exempts reactor owners from liability for a major disaster, an official vote of no confidence in the industry’s ability to guarantee the public safety.

With the February 29 passage of the Advanced Atomic Reactor Act, the industry stands to grift billions in public subsidies for decrepit reactors whose licenses they want to extend for 60-80 years while fighting basic safety inspections from federal regulators.

Thus the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—whose financial support comes from the operation of the reactors it supposedly regulates—is infamous for its blind eye to the deep structural and operational holes that could soon doom the aging US fleet.

The NRC is currently green-lighting operations at Diablo’s 40-year-old Unit One despite a dangerously embrittled core that could irradiate all of downwind California.  Ohio’s Davis-Besse is riddled with mismanagement and decay.  Ohio’s Perry, Virginia’s North Anna and Diablo have all been recently shaken earthquakes.  California’s San Onofre shut in 2014 because its newly-installed unfixable steam turbines leaked radiation.

Convicted of 92 federal felony manslaughter counts, Diablo’s Pacific Gas & Electric is a criminal operation.  Its 2010 negligence at San Bruno gas lines incinerated eight people.  Its faulty transmission lines killed 84 people in northern California’s infamous 2017 Camp Fire.  No PG&E executive went to prison any of those killings.  In 2021 its CEO was paid $51.2 million.    .

For the public, the costs in health, ecological and economic damage at any US reactor could climb into the trillions, with radioactive clouds and multiple bankruptcies leaving countless victims dead, destroyed, destitute.

According to the US Government Accountability Office, from 2001 to 2006 alone, more than 150 reactor incidents violated acceptable safety guidelines.  A 2010 survey of US nuclear accidents showed least 56 by then involved loss of human life or more than $50,000 in property damage.

Said former Vice President Al Gore in 2009:

“Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable.^[53]

Yet New York is dumping $7.6+ billion into keeping four decrepit reactors on line (one of which opened in 1969).  Ohio’s legislature recently pocketed $61 million in bribes to scam a $1 billion taxpayer bailout for two 40 and 50-year old nukes irradiating Lake Erie.  Michigan wants $8 billion to revive the 51-year-old Palisades reactor—which shut two years ago—even though Holtec (the waste management company designated to revive Palisades) has no experience building or operating any nuclear power reactor.  Pieces of the reactor have already been sold off for scrap.

***

Aside from operating old uninsured reactors in lethal perpetuity, the industry has hyped three options:

X  Oft-mentioned thorium-fueled reactor designs have no existing prototypes here in the US, and have no prospects for impacting the American energy picture in the near future.

X  Fusion research, centered on the multi-billion-Euro ITER facility in France, has no credible date for a working prototype.

X  As for Small Modular Reactors, the industry-leading Wyoming-based NuScale just lost its sole tangible order due to soaring costs and fading deadlines. 

Warns Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists: “I think the current hype about SMRs is mostly a bunch of hot air…Most of these startups greatly underestimate the resources and time necessary to develop new nuclear technologies.”

As prices soar, the earliest workable SMR prototypes are years away.  Mass deployment—even for Bill Gates’s hugely funded Terrapower and other SMR developers— can’t come significantly on line until well into the 2030s, if then.

Projected costs are already very far beyond currently available renewables…and rising.

According to nuclear expert Lindsay Krall, in conjunction with research conducted by former NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane, SMRs could create thirty times more radioactive wastes per kilowatt-hour than the original light water reactors now reaching oblivion.  Like them, the SMRs would emit radioactive carbon while generating planetary heat and threatening major disasters that remain uninsured.

Current cost projections show Gates would do far better investing in Wyoming’s abundant wind power than in the SMR factory he wants to begin building there this summer.  Proven wind technology is far cheaper to run and quicker to deploy than any new nuclear technology still in speculative development.

.Indeed, amidst all the billions being thrown at yet another “Nuclear Renaissance,” renewable energy far outstrips the risky, unproven SMRs on which the industry is gambling so many public billions.

As you read this, electricity “too cheap to meter” DOES pour from west Texas wind turbines spinning through fierce winter nights as locals charge their house and car batteries, run their computers, lights and washing machines for free.

The first off-shore US wind turbines have opened near Long Island, with cost projections far below nuclear.

Despite persistent official sabotage, wind power may finally come to Lake Erie, one of the world’s most powerful wind resources.

The costs of solar “photovoltaic” cells have recently risen slightly due to interest and supply chain issues

But since their 1953 inception at Bell Labs, PV—and wind power—have soared in direct opposition to atomic power, combining epic price drops with rising efficiency.  

Thus renewables are now public enemy number one for a fossil/nuclear industry whose larcenous end game means to grab endless public money while desperately sabotaging Solartopia.

In 2014, Ohio’s corrupt, gerrymandered legislature imposed a “set back clause” that killed $4 billion in wind projects. Ohio’s “North Coast” is ideal for commercial wind, with steady breezes, flat terrain, farmers seeking lease payments, and ample transmission to Toledo, Cleveland, Akron et. al.

Privately funded projects promised trillions of cheap, clean, safe, carbon-free kilowatt-hours along with thousands of jobs and saving hundreds of farms.  But with a single sentence the legislature killed it all…while also freezing additional turbine development in Lake Erie’s powerful wind streams.

The lawmakers then pocketed $61 million in bribes to throw a $1 billion lifeline to the dangerously decayed Davis-Besse and Perry nukes…plus two ancient coal burners, one of them in Indiana…while killing the state’s highly successful energy efficiency programs.

Likewise, California is attacking a rooftop solar industry that once employed 70,000 workers installing a PV network producing far more power far more cheaply than the state’s decrepit, uninsured Diablo Canyon atomic reactors.  Killing at least 17,000 jobs, the Public Utilities Commission hurled countless solar firms toward bankruptcy.

But Newsom’s legislature is handing a $1.4 billion lifeline to Diablo reactors endangered by earthquakes and riddled with severe structural decay.  Diablo produces far less power than the state’s rooftop solar industry, but does it at $1 billion over annual market prices.

Overall the bottom line is this:  the United States now gets more usable power from wind and solar than from coal or nuclear.  Gas and oil will soon follow.

Because with thousands of square miles of usable rooftops spread throughout the US, and with millions of acres on land and water usable for large-scale wind generation, the fossil/nuclear industry is now facing oblivion.

The ultimate Solartopian threat to King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas) has arrived.  With proven available technology in wind, solar, batteries, efficiency, geothermal, some bio-fuels and more, an era has ended.  Within a few short years, our energy picture can be totally dominated by renewables that are cheaper, cleaner, safer, faster to build and more than fossil or nuclear fuels.

For what has been humankind’s biggest business—obsolete energy—it’s a wholly unacceptable image of extinction.

Thus, across the land, bought governors, legislatures and utility commissions are waging a desperate, last-ditch war against renewables while handing billions to dangerously decayed reactors whose half-century history of failure forever deepens.

Renewables’ accelerating cost, safety and reliability breakthroughs join battery and efficiency technologies for a definitive market advantage over the obsolete fossil/nuclear technologies that are destroying our ability to survive on this planet.  “We need to massively develop renewable energies,” says France’s Prime Minister Macron, “because it is the only way to meet our immediate electricity needs, since it takes 15 years to build a nuclear reactor.”

But rear-guard bail-outs and the continual demand to run unsafe planet-hearing old reactors until they explode threaten our survival.

So do the nuclear industry’s roots in the weapons production that gave it birth.  Said Macron in 2022, “Without civilian nuclear energy there is no military use of this technology – and without military use there is no civilian nuclear energy.”

Thus nuclear power boils, irradiates, threatens and bankrupts us all.

But nuclear weapons and all that “Renaissance” hype aside, the market and Mother Nature are clearly pushing for Solartopia.  What’s likely the biggest techno-ecological-economic revolution in human history—the conversion to renewable energy—is very much upon us. 

But to get there, quickly burying the “Peaceful Atom” and its fossil-fueled partners will be the task of our lifetimes.

Harvey Wasserman wrote THE PEOPLE’S SPIRAL OF US HISTORY: FROM JIGONSASEH TO SOLARTOPIA.  Most Mondays @ 2-4pm PT, he co-convenes the Green Grassroots Election Protection Zoom (www.electionprotection2024).  The Mothers for Peace (www.mothersforpeace.org) could use your help in the struggle to shut the Diablo Canyon nukes.