Renewable Sources Provide Over 20% Of Global Power Production

Global renewable electricity energy capacity rose to a new record level last year — more than 1,560 gigawatts (GW), up 8% from 2012. More than 22 % of the world’s power production now comes from renewable sources. Renewables currently meet almost one-fifth of world final energy consumption.

That is one of the conclusion of the new Renewables Global Status Report published by REN21, “the global renewable energy policy multi-stakeholder network.”

The Renewables Global Status Report relies on up-to-date renewable energy data , provided by an international network of more than 500 contributors, researchers, and authors.

With developing world’spolicy support, global renewable energy generation capacity jumped to a record level; 95 emerging economies now nurture renewable energy growth through supportive policies, up six-fold from just 15 countries in 2005.

These 95 developing nations make up the vast majority of the 144 countries with renewable energy support policies and targets in place. The rise of developing world support contrasts with declining support and renewables policy uncertainty and even retroactive support reductions in some European countries and the United States.

In 2013, an estimated 6.5 million people worldwide worked directly or indirectly in the renewable energy sector. O ther important developments include:

• Renewable energy provided 19% of global final energy consumption in 2012, and continued to grow in 2013. Of this total share in 2012, modern renewables accounted for 10% with the remaining 9% coming from traditional biomass the share of which is declining.

• Heating and cooling from modern biomass, solar, and geothermal sources account for a small but gradually rising share of final global heat demand, amounting to an estimated 10%.

• Liquid biofuels provide about 2.3% of global transport fuel demand.

• Hydropower rose by 4% to approximately 1,000 GW in 2013, accounting for about one-third of renewable power capacity added during the year. Other renewables collectively grew nearly 17% to an estimated 560 GW.

• The solar PV market had a record year, adding about 39 GW in 2013 for a total of approximately 139 GW. For the first time, more solar PV than wind power capacity was added worldwide, accounting for about one-third of renewable power capacity added during the year. Even as global investment in solar PV declined nearly 22% relative to 2012, new capacity installations increased by more than 32%. China saw spectacular growth, accounting for nearly one third of global capacity added, followed by Japan and the United States.

• More than 35 GW of wind power capacity was added in 2013, totalling just more than 318 GW. However, despite several record years, the market was down nearly 10 GW compared to 2012, reflecting primarily a steep drop in the U.S. market. Offshore wind had a record year, with 1.6 GW added, almost all of it in the EU.

• China, the United States, Brazil, Canada, and Germany remained the top countries for total installed renewable power capacity. China’s new renewable power capacity surpassed new fossil fuel and nuclear capacity for the first time.

• Growing numbers of cities, states, and regions seek to transition to 100% renewable energy in either individual sectors or economy-wide. For example, Djibouti, Scotland, and the small-island state of Tuvalu aim to derive 100% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

• Uruguay, Mauritius, and Costa Rica were among the top countries for investment in new renewable power and fuels relative to annual GDP.

• Global new investment in renewable power and fuels was at least USD 249.4 billion in 2013 down from its record level in 2011. More

 

© 2014

“Climate Change War” Is Not a Metaphor

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just completed a series of landmark reports that chronicle an update to the current state of consensus science on climate change. In a sentence, here’s what they found: On our current path, climate change could pose an irreversible, existential risk to civilization as we know it—but we can still fix it if we decide to work together.

But in addition to the call for cooperation, the reports also shared an alarming new trend: Climate change is already destabilizing nations and leading to wars.

That finding was highlighted in this week’s premiere of Showtime’s new star-studded climate change docu-drama Years of Living Dangerously. In the series’ first episode, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman traveled to Syria to investigate how a long-running drought has contributed to that conflict. Climate change has also been discussed as a “threat multiplier” for recent conflicts in Darfur, Tunisia, Egypt, and future conflicts, too.

Climate change worsens the divide between haves and have-nots, hitting the poor the hardest. It can also drive up food prices and spawn megadisasters, creating refugees and taxing the resiliency of governments.

When a threat like that comes along, it’s impossible to ignore. Especially if your job is national security.

In a recent interview with the blog Responding to Climate Change, retired Army Brig. Gen. Chris King laid out the military’s thinking on climate change:

“This is like getting embroiled in a war that lasts 100 years. That’s the scariest thing for us,” he told RTCC. “There is no exit strategy that is available for many of the problems. You can see in military history, when they don’t have fixed durations, that’s when you’re most likely to not win.”

In a similar vein, last month, retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley co-wrote an op-edfor Fox News:

The parallels between the political decisions regarding climate change we have made and the decisions that led Europe to World War One are striking – and sobering. The decisions made in 1914 reflected political policies pursued for short-term gains and benefits, coupled with institutional hubris, and a failure to imagine and understand the risks or to learn from recent history.

In short, climate change could be the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the 21st century.

Earlier this year, while at the American Meteorological Society annual meeting in Atlanta, I had a chance to sit down with Titley, who is also a meteorologist and now serves on the faculty at Penn State University. He’s also probably one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever spoken with. Check out his TEDxPentagon talk, in which he discusses how he went from “a pretty hard-core skeptic about climate change” to labeling it “one of the pre-eminent challenges of our century.” (This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.)

Slate: You’ve been a leader when it comes to talking about climate change as a national security issue. What’s your take on the connection between war and climate?

Titley: Climate change did not cause the Arab spring, but could it have been a contributing factor? I think that seems pretty reasonable. This was a food-importing region, with poor governance. And then the chain of events conspires to have really a bad outcome. You get a spike in food prices, and all of a sudden, nobody’s in control of events.

I see climate change as one of the driving forces in the 21st century. With modern technology and globalization, we are much more connected than ever before. The world’s warehouses are now container ships. Remember the Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name? Now, that’s not a climate change issue, but some of the people hit worst were flower growers in Kenya. In 24 hours, their entire business model disappeared. You can’t eat flowers.

Slate: What’s the worst-case scenario, in your view?

Titley: There will be a discrete event or series of events that will change the calculus. I don’t know who, I don’t know how violent. To quote Niels Bohr: Predictions are tough, especially about the future. When it comes, that will be a black swan. The question is then, do we change?

Let me give you a few examples of how that might play out. You could imagine a scenario in which both Russia and China have prolonged droughts. China decides to exert rights on foreign contracts and gets assertive in Africa. If you start getting instability in large powers with nuclear weapons, that’s not a good day.

Here’s another one: We basically do nothing on emissions. Sea level keeps rising, three to six feet by the end of the century. Then, you get a series of super-typhoons into Shanghai and millions of people die. Does the population there lose faith in Chinese government? Does China start to fissure? I’d prefer to deal with a rising, dominant China any day.

Slate: That sounds incredibly daunting. How could we head off a threat like that?

Titley: I like to think of climate action as a three-legged stool. There’s business saying, “This is a risk factor.” Coca-Cola needs to preserve its water rights, Boeing has their supply change management, Exxon has all but priced carbon in. They have influence in the Republican Party. There’s a growing divestment movement. The big question is, does it get into the California retirement fund, the New York retirement fund, those $100 billion funds that will move markets? Politicians also have responsibility to act if the public opinion changes. Flooding, storms, droughts are all getting people talking about climate change. I wonder if someday Atlanta will run out of water?

Think back to the Apollo program. President Kennedy motivated us to land a man on the moon. How that will play out exactly this time around, I don’t know. When we talk about climate, we need to do everything we can to set the stage before the actors come on. And they may only have one chance at success. We should keep thinking: How do we maximize that chance of success?

Climate change isn’t just an environmental issue; it’s a technology, water, food, energy, population issue. None of this happens in a vacuum.

Slate: Despite all the data and debates, the public still isn’t taking that great of an interest in climate change. According to Gallup, the fraction of Americans worrying about climate “a great deal” is still roughly one-third, about the same level as in 1989. Do you think that could ever change?

Titley: A lot of people who doubt climate change got co-opted by a libertarian agenda that tried to convince the public the science was uncertain—you know, theMerchants of Doubt. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of people in high places who understand the science but don’t like where the policy leads them: too much government control.

Where are the free-market, conservative ideas? The science is settled. Instead, we should have a legitimate policy debate between the center-right and the center-left on what to do about climate change. If you’re a conservative—half of America—why would you take yourself out of the debate? C’mon, don’t be stupid. Conservative people want to conserve things. Preserving the climate should be high on that list.

Slate: What could really change in the debate on climate?

Titley: We need to start prioritizing people, not polar bears. We’re probably less adaptable than them, anyway. The farther you are from the Beltway, the more you can have a conversation about climate no matter how people vote. I never try to politicize the issue.

Most people out there are just trying to keep their job and provide for their family. If climate change is now a once-in-a-mortgage problem, and if food prices start to spike, people will pay attention. Factoring in sea-level rise, storms like Hurricane Katrina and Sandy could become not once-in-100-year events, but once-in-a-mortgage events. I lost my house in Waveland, Miss., during Katrina. I’ve experienced what that’s like.

Slate: How quickly could the debate shift? How can we get past the stalemate on climate change and start focusing on what to do about it?

Titley: People working on climate change should prepare for catastrophic success. I mean, look at how quickly the gay rights conversation changed in this country. Ten years ago, it was at best a fringe thing. Nowadays, it’s much, much more accepted. Is that possible with climate change? I don’t know, but 10 years ago, if you brought up the possibility we’d have gay marriages in dozens of states in 2014, a friend might have said “Are you on drugs?” When we get focused, we can do amazing things. Unfortunately, it’s usually at the last minute, usually under duress.

This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, the New America Foundation, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, visit the Future Tense blog and the Future Tense home page. You can also follow us on Twitter.

The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has just completed a series of landmark reports that chronicle an update to the current state of consensus science on climate change. In a sentence, here’s what they found: On our current path, climate change could pose an irreversible, existential risk to civilization as we know it—but we can still fix it if we decide to work together.

But in addition to the call for cooperation, the reports also shared an alarming new trend: Climate change is already destabilizing nations and leading to wars.

That finding was highlighted in this week’s premiere of Showtime’s new star-studded climate change docu-drama Years of Living Dangerously. In the series’ first episode, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman traveled to Syria to investigate how a long-running drought has contributed to that conflict. Climate change has also been discussed as a “threat multiplier” for recent conflicts in Darfur, Tunisia, Egypt, and future conflicts, too.

Climate change worsens the divide between haves and have-nots, hitting the poor the hardest. It can also drive up food prices and spawn megadisasters, creating refugees and taxing the resiliency of governments.

When a threat like that comes along, it’s impossible to ignore. Especially if your job is national security.

In a recent interview with the blog Responding to Climate Change, retired Army Brig. Gen. Chris King laid out the military’s thinking on climate change:

“This is like getting embroiled in a war that lasts 100 years. That’s the scariest thing for us,” he told RTCC. “There is no exit strategy that is available for many of the problems. You can see in military history, when they don’t have fixed durations, that’s when you’re most likely to not win.”

In a similar vein, last month, retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley co-wrote an op-edfor Fox News:

The parallels between the political decisions regarding climate change we have made and the decisions that led Europe to World War One are striking – and sobering. The decisions made in 1914 reflected political policies pursued for short-term gains and benefits, coupled with institutional hubris, and a failure to imagine and understand the risks or to learn from recent history.

In short, climate change could be the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the 21st century.

Earlier this year, while at the American Meteorological Society annual meeting in Atlanta, I had a chance to sit down with Titley, who is also a meteorologist and now serves on the faculty at Penn State University. He’s also probably one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever spoken with. Check out his TEDxPentagon talk, in which he discusses how he went from “a pretty hard-core skeptic about climate change” to labeling it “one of the pre-eminent challenges of our century.” (This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.)

Slate: You’ve been a leader when it comes to talking about climate change as a national security issue. What’s your take on the connection between war and climate?

Titley: Climate change did not cause the Arab spring, but could it have been a contributing factor? I think that seems pretty reasonable. This was a food-importing region, with poor governance. And then the chain of events conspires to have really a bad outcome. You get a spike in food prices, and all of a sudden, nobody’s in control of events.

I see climate change as one of the driving forces in the 21st century. With modern technology and globalization, we are much more connected than ever before. The world’s warehouses are now container ships. Remember the Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name? Now, that’s not a climate change issue, but some of the people hit worst were flower growers in Kenya. In 24 hours, their entire business model disappeared. You can’t eat flowers.

Slate: What’s the worst-case scenario, in your view?

Titley: There will be a discrete event or series of events that will change the calculus. I don’t know who, I don’t know how violent. To quote Niels Bohr: Predictions are tough, especially about the future. When it comes, that will be a black swan. The question is then, do we change?

Let me give you a few examples of how that might play out. You could imagine a scenario in which both Russia and China have prolonged droughts. China decides to exert rights on foreign contracts and gets assertive in Africa. If you start getting instability in large powers with nuclear weapons, that’s not a good day.

Here’s another one: We basically do nothing on emissions. Sea level keeps rising, three to six feet by the end of the century. Then, you get a series of super-typhoons into Shanghai and millions of people die. Does the population there lose faith in Chinese government? Does China start to fissure? I’d prefer to deal with a rising, dominant China any day. More

 

© 2014

Onagawa: The Japanese nuclear power plant that didn’t melt down on 3/11

Three years ago, the biggest recorded earthquake in Japanese history hit Tohoku prefecture, leaving more than 20,000 people dead or missing. On the heels of the destructive magnitude 9.0 earthquake came a tsunami that reached a run-up height of 30 meters in some areas, sweeping entire towns away in seconds.

Within the affected area were three nuclear power plants: the Fukushima Daiichi and Daini nuclear power plants operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), and the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station operated by the Tohoku Electric Power Company. While the three power stations shared similar disaster conditions, nuclear reactor types, dates of operation, and an identical regulatory regime, their fates were very different. The Fukushima Daiichi plant experienced fatal meltdowns and radiation releases. Fukushima Daini was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami, but the heroic efforts and improvisations of its operators resulted in the cold shutdown of all four operating reactors. Onagawa managed to remain generally intact, despite its proximity to the epicenter of the enormous earthquake.

“The earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, were natural disasters of a magnitude that shocked the entire world. Although triggered by these cataclysmic events, the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly manmade disaster—that could and should have been foreseen and prevented.” - Kiyoshi Kurokawa, “Message from the Chairman,” The Official Report of The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission

Everyone knows the name Fukushima, but few people, even in Japan, are familiar with the Onagawa power station. Fewer still know how Onagawa managed to avoid disaster. According to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency mission that visited Onagawa and evaluated its performance, “the plant experienced very high levels of ground motion—the strongest shaking that any nuclear plant has ever experienced from an earthquake,” but it “shut down safely” and was “remarkably undamaged.”

Most people believe that Fukushima Daiichi’s meltdowns were predominantly due to the earthquake and tsunami. The survival of Onagawa, however, suggests otherwise. Onagawa was only 123 kilometers away from the epicenter—60 kilometers closer than Fukushima Daiichi—and the difference in seismic intensity at the two plants was negligible. Furthermore, the tsunami was bigger at Onagawa, reaching a height of 14.3 meters, compared with 13.1 meters at Fukushima Daiichi. The difference in outcomes at the two plants reveals the root cause of Fukushima Daiichi’s failures: the utility’s corporate “safety culture.”

Higher ground. While the Fukushima Daiichi and Onagawa plants are similar in many ways, the most obvious difference is that Tohoku Electric constructed Onagawa’s reactor buildings at a higher elevation than Tepco’s Fukushima reactor buildings. Before beginning construction, Tohoku Electric conducted surveys and simulations aimed at predicting tsunami levels. The initial predictions showed that tsunamis in the region historically had an average height of about 3 meters. Based on that, the company constructed its plant at 14.7 meters above sea level, almost five times that height. As more research was done, the estimated tsunami levels climbed higher, and Tohoku Electric conducted periodic checkups based on the new estimates.

Tepco, on the other hand, to make it easier to transport equipment and to save construction costs, in 1967 removed 25 meters from the 35-meter natural seawall of the Daiichi plant site and built the reactor buildings at a much lower elevation of 10 meters. According to the National Diet of Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC), the initial construction was based on existing seismological information, but later research showed that tsunami levels had been underestimated. While Tohoku Electric learned from past earthquakes and tsunamis—including one in Chile on February 28, 2010—and continuously improved its countermeasures, Tepco overlooked these warnings. According to the NAIIC report, Tepco “resorted to delaying tactics, such as presenting alternative scientific studies and lobbying.”

Tepco’s tsunami risk characterization and assessment was, in the judgment of one the world’s renowned tsunami experts, Costas Synolakis, director of the Tsunami Research Center at the University of Southern California, a “cascade of stupid errors that led to the disaster.”

Emergency response. Tohoku Electric also took a different approach to emergency response—one that was more organized, collaborative, and controlled than Tepco’s. Tohoku Electric established an emergency response center at the Onagawa plant, as well as at company headquarters, immediately after the earthquake. Throughout the disaster, headquarters supported the plant operators minute by minute. Supervisors and chief engineers were dispatched to the main control rooms of the damaged reactors to make decisions, and information was sent in a timely manner to all levels of the response team.

Why did the Tohoku Electric team remain more poised and unified than their counterparts at Tepco? According to the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Facilities Research Institute, Yanosuke Hirai, vice president of Tohoku Electric from 1960 to 1975—a time period that preceded the 1980 groundbreaking at Onagawa—was adamant about safety protocols and became a member of the Coastal Institution Research Association in 1963 because of his concern about the importance of protecting against natural disasters. With a senior employee in upper management advocating forcefully for safety, a strong safety culture formed within the company. Representatives of Tohoku Electric participated in seminars and panel discussions about earthquake and tsunami disaster prevention held by the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization. The company implemented strict protocols for disaster response, and all workers were familiar with the steps to be taken when a tsunami was approaching.

These initiatives were not part of Tepco’s culture. The company had a mindset that its domination in the electricity industry was an indication of flawlessness. After the disaster, Hasuike Tooru, the former president of Tepco, described how management decided to lengthen the expected lifetime of power plants, even if there were severe safety consequences.

Safety culture. Government investigations of the Fukushima accident, as well as a statement by US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chairwoman Allison MacFarlane, have explicitly acknowledged the vital role of safety culture, which the NRC has defined as “the core values and behaviors resulting from a collective commitment by leaders and individuals to emphasize safety over competing goals to ensure protection of people and the environment.”

The NAIIC report described the Fukushima accident as “made in Japan,” because Japan’s nuclear industry failed to absorb the lessons learned from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. In the words of NAIIC chairman Kiyoshi Kurokawa, “It was this mindset that led to the disaster.” Safety culture has also been implicated as a primary root cause of the Chernobyl accident.

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station’s meltdowns were not due to the natural disaster, but rather to a series of decisions by Tepco not to be proactive with safety, dating back to when the reactors were being constructed. With most other factors being similar, it was Tokohu Electric’s overall organizational practices and safety culture that saved the day for Onagawa. If safety and disaster response had been properly recognized, addressed, and implemented at Fukushima Daiichi—as they were within Tohoku Electric’s corporate safety culture—perhaps the disastrous meltdowns would have been prevented.

Editor's note: This article is adapted from a research paper based on material available in the public domain in Japan and the United States; the full version of the paper can be found here.

 

© 2014

Agreement Could Catapult New Nuclear Reactor Technology Forward

On Feb. 17, Babcock & Wilcox Co. (B&W) and TerraPower announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to support the development of the traveling wave reactor (TWR).

The TWR is a Generation IV commercial reactor design that uses depleted uranium as fuel. The 1,150-MW liquid sodium-cooled fast reactor is different from typical light water reactors because it is able to operate for an extended period using only uranium 238 (U-238) rather than uranium 235 (U-235).

In the past, U-238—a by-product of the enrichment process—had been set aside as waste. The new design could enable a TWR to get up to 50 times more energy out of every pound of mined uranium than could otherwise have been utilized with conventional light water reactor technology.

B&W expects to provide TerraPower with support in many areas, including design and fabrication, fuel services, engineering, operations support, licensing, and testing. It appears that B&W will also continue working on its other nuclear development project, mPower, which is a Generation III++ small, modular reactor (SMR) based on pressurized water reactor technology and standard fuel enriched to 5% U-235.

The TWR and SMR are not the only new nuclear design technologies under development. Prior to the Fukushima disaster, the nuclear industry was flush with new ideas. Now Generation IV designs seem to be picking up steam again.

“We have a long tradition of providing industry leading engineering, manufacturing and services and look forward to supporting TerraPower and to participating in the development of the next generation technology,” said Joe Zwetolitz, president of B&W Nuclear Energy Inc.

“This MOU with B&W makes it possible for us to tap the nuclear industry’s excellence and keep American companies active in the international supply chain for advanced nuclear energy technologies,” Doug Adkisson, senior vice president for TerraPower added.

If all goes as planned, the partners will utilize fast reactor technology, high-performance computing simulations, and real testing in current fast reactor test facilities to make the TWR concept a reality. More

 

©

The Peak Oil Crisis: Cold Fusion Moves East

Many of us believe that life on this planet is in a lot of trouble. The climate is becoming unstable; there are too many people; oceans are dying, sea levels are rising; and water, food, clean air, and minerals are coming into short supply. For many, the economy refuses to grow fast enough to maintain living standards.

Tom Whipple

Although appreciated by only a handful, the evidence continues to build that, unless we have reached some kind of a tipping point, there may be a way out of our mounting problems. A few minutes’ reflection should be enough to convince most that a source of unlimited clean, cheap energy just could reverse global warming, provide unlimited water, food, and a better life for all.

While there may be sources of clean cheap energy that as yet we have no idea exist in this universe, for the present, cold fusion or the preferred term Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) looks like the only solution currently extant with the potential to save us. It may not be a stretch to say that either we develop and put into widespread use this technology or it is “game over” for life as we know it.

For the last 25 years, the U.S. government, at the urging of its scientific advisors who unfortunately had, and in some cases still have, axes to grind on the LENR issue, has been denying that the “cold fusion;” or LENR phenomenon, actually exists. According to the government, the anomalous heat that so many have been reporting on since 1989 is only experimental errors or scientific fraud or even wishful thinking. When the U.S. government says there is no such thing as “cold fusion” then naturally most other governments and the mainstream media with minor exceptions say the same.

This position may be changing however. While a few scientists at NASA have been saying that the LENR phenomenon is real for some time, the Department of Energy which reigns supreme in these matters remains pretty firm in its denial despite occasional reviews. Recently, however, we may have seen the beginnings of change when a component of DOE which funds exotic energy R&D efforts said it would entertain proposals to fund LENR experiments. Now this may simply be a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, but it would be nice to believe that at least somewhere in DOE, a few are coming to their senses,

So where are we on this revolutionary and likely disruptive technology? There are dozens of independent laboratories around the world experimenting with low energy nuclear reactions at the lab bench scale, but only three or four saying, and in some cases demonstrating, that they have devices producing enough energy that commercially useful products should be available soon.

Readers of this column know by now that there is a small but devoted blogosphere out there in cyberspace that not only fervently believes that cold fusion is real and someday will save humanity, but follows and comments on developments daily.

For several years, interest has focused on the Italian inventor Andrea Rossi and his E-Cat nuclear device, which many still consider a scam despite numerous validations. Nearly a year ago, Rossi told his cyber space followers that he had partnered with a well-healed American firm that was helping him develop a commercial product. Until last week Rossi’s American partner was a well-kept secret with speculation focusing on industrial giants such as GE or United Technologies who have much to gain if LENR ever becomes a commercial product replacing combustion of fossil fuels as the principal source of heat in the world.

Last week a hint leaked out when one of Rossi’s associates noted in his biography that he was consulting for an obscure hedge fund called Cherokee Investment Partners LLC, located in Raleigh, North Carolina. The blogosphere jumped on this clue and within days enough information about Cherokee and its new subsidiary, Industrial Heat LLC, was brought to light to conclude that this organization is indeed Rossi’s new American partner in the development of LENR. Cherokee, which has a capitalization of circa $2 billion and has invested $11.5 in the E-Cat project, has a record of investing in cleaning up polluted properties and funding renewable energy projects. More

 

AREVA, EDF sign accords for Saudi nuclear program

RIYADH - EDF and AREVA signed two sets of agreements aimed at supporting the Saudi nuclear energy program on Monday, coinciding with the visit of French President François Hollande's to Riyadh. The two companies have signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with 5 Saudi industrial partners - Zamil Steel, Bahra Cables, Riyadh Cables, Saudi Pumps, Descon Olayan.

The agreements aim to develop the industrial and technical skills of local companies. They reflect AREVA and EDF's desire to build an extended network of Saudi suppliers for future nuclear projects in the country.

A second series of agreements signed with 4 Saudi universities - King Saud University in Riyadh, Dar Al Hekma College and Effat University in Jeddah and finally Prince Mohammed bin Fahd University in Al-Khobar - are intended to contribute to the development of nuclear expertise in the Kingdom.

These agreements follow on from the previous operations organized by EDF and AREVA, through their joint office in Riyadh. These include the "Suppliers' Days" in March and October 2013, the visit to France by Saudi industrial companies in November, the agreement signed with the local professional training institute (NIT) in July 2013, the visits to French nuclear facilities organized for Saudi university faculty members in June 2013 and internship offers made to Saudi students since the summer.

EDF CEO Henri Proglio said: "These new agreements underline EDF and AREVA's commitment alongside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to enable it to successfully implement its national energy strategy and in particular to develop its future nuclear program by contributing to the development of a local network of manufacturers and by training qualified engineers."

Luc Oursel, President and CEO of AREVA, added: "These agreements demonstrate the common will of EDF and AREVA to establish a true long-term partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They will enable the country to build a strong industrial base and a robust skills management program."

The EDF group, one of the leaders in the European energy market, is an integrated energy company active in all areas of the business: generation, transmission, distribution, energy supply and trading. The Group is the leading electricity producer in Europe. In France, it has mainly nuclear and hydropower generation facilities where 95.9 percent of the electricity output is CO2-free.

AREVA supplies advanced technology solutions for power generation with less carbon. Its expertise and unwavering insistence on safety, security, transparency and ethics are setting the standard, and its responsible development is anchored in a process of continuous improvement. Ranked first in the global nuclear power industry, AREVA's unique integrated offering to utilities covers every stage of the fuel cycle, nuclear reactor design and construction, and operating services. The group is actively developing its activities in renewable energies - wind, bioenergy, solar and energy storage - to become a European leader in this sector. More

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Experts say nuclear power needed to slow warming

Some of the world's top climate scientists say wind and solar energy won't be enough to head off extreme global warming, and they're asking environmentalists to support the development of safer nuclear power as one way to cut fossil fuel pollution.

Traveling Wave Reactor

Four scientists who have played a key role in alerting the public to the dangers of climate change sent letters Sunday to leading environmental groups and politicians around the world. The letter, an advance copy of which was given to The Associated Press, urges a crucial discussion on the role of nuclear power in fighting climate change.

Environmentalists agree that global warming is a threat to ecosystems and humans, but many oppose nuclear power and believe that new forms of renewable energy will be able to power the world within the next few decades.

That isn't realistic, the letter said.

"Those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough" to deliver the amount of cheap and reliable power the world needs, and "with the planet warming and carbon dioxide emissions rising faster than ever, we cannot afford to turn away from any technology" that has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases.

The letter signers are James Hansen, a former top NASA scientist; Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution; Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tom Wigley, of the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Hansen began publishing research on the threat of global warming more than 30 years ago, and his testimony before Congress in 1988 helped launch a mainstream discussion. Last February he was arrested in front of the White House at a climate protest that included the head of the Sierra Club and other activists. Caldeira was a contributor to reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Emanuel is known for his research on possible links between climate change and hurricanes, and Wigley has also been doing climate research for more than 30 years.

Emanuel said the signers aren't opposed to renewable energy sources but want environmentalists to understand that "realistically, they cannot on their own solve the world's energy problems."

The vast majority of climate scientists say they're now virtually certain that pollution from fossil fuels has increased global temperatures over the last 60 years. They say emissions need to be sharply reduced to prevent more extreme damage in the future.

In 2011 worldwide carbon dioxide emissions jumped 3 percent, because of a large increase by China, the No. 1 carbon polluting country. The U.S. is No. 2 in carbon emissions.

Hansen, who's now at Columbia University, said it's not enough for environmentalists to simply oppose fossil fuels and promote renewable energy.

"They're cheating themselves if they keep believing this fiction that all we need" is renewable energy such as wind and solar, Hansen told the AP.

The joint letter says, "The time has come for those who take the threat of global warming seriously to embrace the development and deployment of safer nuclear power systems" as part of efforts to build a new global energy supply.

Stephen Ansolabehere, a Harvard professor who studies energy issues, said nuclear power is "very divisive" within the environmental movement. But he added that the letter could help educate the public about the difficult choices that climate change presents.

One major environmental advocacy organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, warned that "nuclear power is no panacea for our climate woes."

Risk of catastrophe is only one drawback of nuclear power, NRDC President Frances Beinecke said in a statement. Waste storage and security of nuclear material are also important issues, he said.

"The better path is to clean up our power plants and invest in efficiency and renewable energy."

The scientists acknowledge that there are risks to using nuclear power, but say those are far smaller than the risk posed by extreme climate change.

"We understand that today's nuclear plants are far from perfect." More

 

 

General Atomics in contest for SMR funds

General Atomics has announced that it is among the small modular reactor (SMR) developers seeking funds from the US Department of Energy. It has submitted its Energy Multiplier Module (EM2), a helium-cooled high-temperature reactor.

The Department of Energy (DoE) intends to fund up to two designs for SMRs through a cost-shared partnership which will support first-of-a-kind engineering, design certification and licensing. With the first round of funding allocated to B&W in late 2012, the DoE is now reviewing applications under a second round.

General Atomics (GA) has now confirmed that it is one of several SMR developers to have submitted proposals in the second round. Its proposal is for the EM2, a modified version of its Gas-Turbine Modular Helium Reactor (GT-MHR) design.

The EM2 employs a 500 MWt, 265 MWe helium-cooled fast-neutron high-temperature reactor operating at 850°C. This would be factory manufactured and transported to the plant site by truck. According to GA, the EM2 reactor would be fuelled with 20 tonnes of used PWR fuel or depleted uranium, plus 22 tonnes of uranium enriched to about 12% U-235 as the starter.

It is designed to operate for 30 years without requiring refuelling, the company said. Used fuel from the EM2 could be processed to remove fission products (about 4 tonnes) and the balance then recycled as fuel for subsequent cycles, each time topped up with four tonnes of used PWR fuel. The module also incorporates a truck-transportable high-speed gas turbine generator.

General Atomics has been the primary developer of modular helium-cooled nuclear power reactor systems, while its TRIGA research reactors have operated around the world for over 45 years. GA has teamed up with Chicago Bridge & Iron, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Idaho National Laboratory to develop the EM2.

Senior vice president of GA's energy and advanced concepts group John Parmentola commented, "We welcome the opportunity to join the Department of Energy in advancing the next generation of nuclear technology for reliable and cost-effective clean energy, for this century and beyond."

In November 2012, the Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) mPower reactor was selected as the winner of the first round of funding, receiving access to $79 million to commercially demonstrate the design by 2022. A second round of funding was announced in March 2013. The DoE anticipates awarding those funds by mid-January 2014. The maximum amount available in each of the first and second rounds is set at $226 million. More

 

Big nuke company decides renewables are a better bet in the U.S.

The world’s largest operator of nuclear power plants is dumping its stake in American reactors, turning its focus instead to wind and solar power.

EDF is selling its stake in Calvert
Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Maryland.

French utility company EDF announced this week that it will sell its stake in Constellation Energy Nuclear Group (CENG), which operates five nuclear reactors in New York and Maryland.

EDF cited cheap power produced by fracked natural gas as the big reason why it’s abandoning its American nuclear facilities. But the company said it will now focus its American business strategy not on fossil fuels but on renewable energy. From Reuters:

“Circumstances for the development of nuclear in the U.S. are not favorable at the moment,” [EDF Chief Executive Henri] Proglio said.

International Energy Agency analyst Dennis Volk said CENG’s eastern U.S. power plants were located in some of the most competitive power markets in the country, with high price competition, growing wind capacity and cheap gas.

“It is simply not easy to invest in nuclear and recover your money there,” Volk said.

Proglio said EDF would now focus on renewable energy in the United States. EDF employs 860 people in U.S. solar and wind, and since 2010 its generating capacity has doubled to 2.3 gigawatts. It manages another 7 gigawatts for other companies.

The French utility’s pullout comes as nuclear power plants shutter in California, Florida, and Wisconsin. The price of operating nuclear power plants has risen as the plants have grown older. Hopes of nuclear power being “too cheap to meter” were long ago dashed.

Mark Cooper, a senior fellow at the Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment, recently published a 40-page obituary [PDF] for the nuclear industry. From an article published a couple of weeks ago in The Plain Dealer:

Cooper, who thinks nuclear energy’s cost overruns and frequent shutdowns have always made it more expensive than it appears, recommends that the industry develop an orderly closing plan over the next few years, avoiding the rate chaos that unplanned closings might create.

“In 2013, more (nuclear) capacity retired early than in any year of the U.S. commercial nuclear sector,” he said in a press briefing. “In recent months, four reactors have been closed in early retirement, five major up-rates (increases in generating capacity) were cancelled.

“The bottom line is that the tough times the nuclear power industry faces today are only going to get tougher. Over three dozen reactors in almost two dozen states are at risk of early retirement. And a dozen face the greatest risk of being shut down,” he said.

Still, we won’t be rid of nuclear energy any time soon. About 100 reactors are still operating around the country, and two more are being built at an existing plant is in Georgia.

And even closing down retired nuclear power plants is a long and costly affair. The shutdown and cleanup at the Kewaunee plant in Wisconsin could cost $1 billion and take more than 50 years. More

 

Climate change threatens nation's energy, DOE report warns

Climate change and extreme weather are disrupting the ways we generate, distribute, and consume energy, according to a report released Thursday by the US Department of Energy. It's part of a growing acknowledgement among officials for a need to adapt to the planet's changing climate.

A nuclear plant shuts down when high temperatures overheat its reactor. A drought-stricken city bans the use of its increasingly scarce water in hydraulic fracturing. More than 8 million customers lose power when winds topple utility poles and a storm surge floods transformers and underground power lines.

Extreme weather and a changing climate are disrupting the ways we generate, distribute, and consume energy, according to a report released Thursday by the US Department of Energy (DOE).

That's not exactly breaking news to anyone who's ever suffered through a blackout in the midst of a storm, but the government report details the extent of energy's vulnerability to weather, from the light bulbs in your kitchen all the way to rigs drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico. It's part of a growing recognition among local, state, and federal officials for a need to plan for and adapt to the planet's changing climate.

"When you think about any individual circumstance, it's not a surprise," Jonathan Pershing, who led the development of the DOE report, said in a phone interview. "What was a surprise was putting it all together and seeing how large and pervasive the damage is."

Higher air and water temperatures, scarcer water resources, and more intense and frequent storms routinely disrupt modern energy infrastructure, according to the report. That includes high-profile failures like the outages in the wake of superstorm Sandy, but the report also points to less-visible, more pervasive ways in which energy is vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change.

Last summer's drought, for example, lowered river water levels, disrupting the shipment of petroleum and coal delivered by barges. In 2010, unusually low precipitation in the Columbia River basin deprived hydroelectric dams of water flow needed to meet electricity demand. In the Arctic, thawing permafrost and melting ice can damage oil pipelines and restrict access to resources.

"Climate change is not the only risk, but it piles on a couple of different problems going in the same direction," James Newcomb, program director at theRocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit focused on resource efficiency, said in a phone interview. "Solar storms, cyberattacks, extreme weather all pose the risk of cascading blackouts that can have extraordinary consequences for the economy."

President Obama highlighted these threats in a speech on climate change at Georgetown Universitylast month. With Congress unable to pass a broad climate policy, Mr. Obama directed theEnvironmental Protection Agency to impose carbon limits on both new and existing coal power plants. He called on other federal agencies to take a hard look at their own contribution and vulnerability to a volatile climate.

State and local governments are also looking at ways they can mitigate extreme weather threats to infrastructure. Motivated largely by the devastation from superstorm Sandy, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled last month a $20 billion plan to protect New Yorkers from storm surges. Four counties in southern Florida have collaborated on a plan to manage the regions ecosystems and slow the flow of seawater into freshwater.

"[The DOE report} is another indication of the recognition among key actors that climate change is a significant risk to what they’re responsible for taking care of," Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute, said in a phone interview. She added that the evidence of threats to the traditional, carbon-based energy system should play a significant role in the broader debate over America's energy future.

The challenges aren't without solutions. The DOE calls for improved efficiency across the grid and the strengthening of transmission lines, power plants, oil and gas refineries, and other energy equipment. Greater coordination is needed between governments, industry, and civilians to identify risks and vulnerabilities, and protect against them, according to the report. More