Nuke Carnival #21 at Next Big Future

Brian Wang is hosting the 21st edition of the Carnival of Nuclear Energy. Here is a quick look:

3.The ANS Nuclear Cafe has a guest contributor Ted Rockwell. Guest contributor Ted Rockwell questions the 'special status' accorded to nuclear technologies in regulatory circles and in public perception. Requirements that don’t make a nuclear power plant safer, or cheaper, or better in some way merely add to the cost and saddle the developer with a device or procedure that may bring problems of its own. Adding more and more “safety" requirements does not necessarily make a system safer.


Rockwell outlines the rewards and penalties associated with being special and concludes that there is wisdom in the advice, “Don’t fix what ain’t broke.

4. Atomic Insights reports that Michael Brune of the Sierra Club discusses actions that the club is taking to reduce the environmental impact of extracting and burning fossil fuels. The actions should make nuclear energy more competitive. If they are not against us, they are for us.

5. The Areva north America blog has an article that Expanding nuclear energy makes sense for Americans.


As we consider ways to meet our nation's energy demands and increase our energy security while reducing our CO2 emissions, building new nuclear power plants makes a lot of sense. Each new nuclear power plant that we build also will create thousands of jobs and spur billions of dollars of investment in local communities. In this economic environment, who wouldn't welcome new jobs and investment in their community?
_NukeCarnival21

Brian also looks at an interesting partnership between Toyota, Toshiba, and Hitachi to produce the world's first commercial molten salt reactor using fertile Thorium as a breeder fuel.


NextBigFuture also keeps up with advances in fusion energy research.

Item #4 in the carnival excerpt above points out an irrationality in the argument in favour of nuclear energy -- the compulsion of many nuke advocates to reflexively attack hydrocarbon fuels, out of carbon hysteria. Such an approach may sway a few opinions toward nuclear power in the short term, but in the long term it is yet another form of suicidally self destructive energy starvation. It is painfully obvious that nukes alone will not see us through this century without suffering through a devastating energy suffocation. And clearly wind and solar are huge rat holes sucking up maximal resources for less than minimal returns.

Get real, people.