"Nuclear startups reimagine atomic energy" by Martin LaMonica | Globe Correspondent May 11, 2014
To most people, the outlook for nuclear power wouldn’t seem bright. The Fukushima disaster in Japan three years ago increased public resistance to the industry. Cheap natural gas is undercutting its competitiveness. Aging nuclear plants around the country, including Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vt., are shutting down.
But into this bleak environment come two startups with roots at MIT hoping to revive an industry that has long struggled to make a comeback. Their technologies aim to solve issues that have bedeviled nuclear power for decades: safety, cost, and radioactive waste.
(Blog editor's chin sinks to chest at insanity on the whoreporate paper)
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Despite the political, economic, and technical challenges facing the industry, these companies, and handful of other startups, are betting that the increasing urgency of climate change will mean a bigger role in the energy mix for emissions-free nuclear power.
(Pffffffffft)
Last week, in an alarming report known as the National Climate Assessment, a panel of scientists concluded that climate change, accelerated by the burning of oil, coal, and natural gas, is already having serious effects. Many parts of the nation, including the Northeast, are experiencing them in the form of violent storms, increased flooding, extended droughts, and severe wildfires.
And record winters with extended cold. It's cloudy and cold again here today, the middle of May, and it still feels like March.
Related: After brief lull, San Diego County wildfire roars to life
I'm not alarmed by the lulls anymore, although the outright militarism of the fight raises them.
*******************
They saw the potential for nuclear to supply large amounts of electricity without producing greenhouse gases that raise global temperatures.
Except global temperatures have been stagnant if not dropping for fifteen years.
Don't get me wrong, readers. If I were one of the elite of Bo$ton and were sitting down on a Sunday this is just the kind of piece in which I would be very interested.
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A growing number of entrepreneurs say it’s a good time to innovate in nuclear power, in part because of advances in other fields. Supercomputers, for example, can simulate material and nuclear reactions, saving the time and expense of building experimental reactors.
The Energy Department, led by an MIT physicist, Ernest Moniz, supports nuclear innovation as well. In announcing a grant to advance small modular reactors — scaled-down versions of today’s plants — Moniz said in December that the Obama administration is committed to “strengthening nuclear energy’s continuing important role in America’s low-carbon future.”
And any environmental group that supports that betrayal is controlled oppo$ition.
If they were really committed they would shut down the Amerikan war machine, the biggest polluter on the planet, and ground John Kerry's jets. That's how we know this all an agenda being pu$hed.
As Wilcox shows, the possibilities for nuclear power are attracting successful entrepreneurs from other areas of technology. Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder, is bankrolling TerraPower, a company near Seattle that also is designing a reactor to run on spent nuclear fuel.
$elf-$erving $will.
He wouldn't be helping Iran, would he?
*****************
Nuclear faces opposition from environmental groups, which say the risks from waste, accidents, and proliferation of nuclear weapons remain unacceptable.
Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science-based advocacy group in Cambridge, said even the latest safety improvements can’t take into account all possible catastrophes, such as the tsunami that devastated the Fukushima plant.
Yeah, somehow that just keeps getting lost and forgotten in the discussion.
Nuclear startups also face lengthy regulatory processes and development costs that could reach into the billions....
Don't worry; federal government will cover that with taxpayer loot.
Finding investors willing to put up this kind of money and wait that long for a potential payoff is another daunting challenge, industry officials said. More government funding of research and development could help, said Ray Rothrock, a venture capitalist at Venrock in Palo Alto, Calif., but regulations also need to be overhauled to accommodate new technologies, particularly a faster licensing process.
I'm sorry, but WE DON'T HAVE IT! Go ask the RECORD-PROFITTING BANKS for a f***ing change, you $ick addict!
“The regulatory framework has to be able to adapt to all sorts of innovations,” said Rothrock, who invested his own money in Transatomic. “And right now, it can’t — it’s simply not equipped for it.”
Unless it threatens certain intere$ts; then it's government foot-dragging for decades.
--more--"
Here is a regulation that are working hard as hell to impo$e:
"Brothers taking on climate change; Two are shaping how US, world address warming" by Coral Davenport | New York Times May 11, 2014
WASHINGTON — Robert Nordhaus, 77, a prominent Washington energy lawyer, wrote an obscure provision in the Clean Air Act of 1970 that is now the legal basis for a landmark climate change regulation, to be unveiled by the White House next month, that could close hundreds of coal-fired power plants and define President Obama’s environmental legacy.
Called “the Manning brothers of climate change,” the Nordhauses are scions of a New Mexico family long rooted in the land. But for the Nordhaus brothers, protecting the Earth depends far more on dispassionate thinking and intellectual rigor than on showy protests outside the White House.
Yeah, protesters suck when they come up against smart elites.
They have neatly divided their world.
How ironic that they are being promoted by a paper that does the same.
*******************
The two have a friendly rivalry, but both believe that cutting carbon pollution is crucial to protecting the environment and the economy from the risks posed by climate change.
Never mind the risk posed by lying, looting, Wall Street bankers.
They also agree on the best way to do it: A William-style carbon tax, they say, would be far more effective and efficient than a Bob-style regulation.
PFFFFFFFFT! How frikkin' $HAMELE$$ of the NYT!
Their story starts in Albuquerque, where their father, the grandson of a wealthy Santa Fe merchant, started the ski resort at the top of Albuquerque’s Sandia Mountains and with a partner built the city’s iconic tram up the granite cliffs to get there.
The cops still killing people over there, and how is that radiation leak?
A specialist in energy and Native American law, Robert Nordhaus Sr. won a Supreme Court case giving Apache tribes the authority to leverage fees on the oil companies that drilled on their native land.
Like him, both brothers went east to Yale.
I don't trust anyone from Skull and Bones or Harvard's Hell anymore. Evil people come from those institutions.
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Bob wrote the provision — it became Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act — at a time when carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, was not considered harmful.
It isn't harmful. plants thrive in it and life could not exist without it.
It was not until 2009 that the Environmental Protection Agency defined carbon dioxide as a harmful pollutant because of its contribution to global warming.
In the face of record cold and record snowfall winters, you know, the BRUTAL and TOUGH WINTER they are BLAMING the BAD ECONOMY ON?!!??!!
--more--"
Not the reaction they were expecting, huh?
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Buried back on page B10:
"US Energy secretary says climate action critical" by Wilson Ring | Associated Press May 17, 2014
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Friday that changing the way the country gets its energy is critical to protecting the climate, boosting the economy, and enhancing national security.
What does that mean? We are not going to infiltrate, invade, and overthrow our way to stealing their resources anymore?
During an energy conference at Middlebury College, Moniz told the state’s congressional delegation, Governor Peter Shumlin, and industry officials that President Obama’s administration is committed to finding ways to reduce carbon emissions.
Moniz said the effects of climate change are being felt, and he focused most of his 20-minute talk on that.
I'm not going to react to the fart-mist today. People are pathetic.
‘‘In the East, we will have much more increased coastal damages [and] storm surges,’’ Moniz said. ‘‘Superstorm Sandy could be looking like child’s play if we do not really move forward aggressively,’’ he said, referring to the 2012 storm that devastated parts of New Jersey and New York City.
Sandy came just over a year after Vermont was hit by flooding from Tropical Storm Irene. Officials at Friday’s meeting said the damage from Irene focused the state’s attention on the need to reduce energy use as a way to combat climate change, create jobs, and save people money on their heating bills.
As HE FLIES ALL OVER the PLACE, because official dogma from those on high is filled with hypocrisy that you should not que$tion!
And there I go reacting again.
Shumlin and others praised how Vermont has become a national leader in the installation of solar panels and how the renewable energy industry is creating jobs in the state.
Moniz said different solutions to climate change are needed in different parts of the country.
I'm waiting to see the N-word.
‘‘Clean energy is the answer to at least three questions,’’ Moniz said: climate, economic growth, and national security. But there is not going to be a single solution.
‘‘We’re going to look at different low-carbon solutions everywhere,” he said. “The Vermont solution is a terrific one in looking at a combination of efficiency and renewables as the core.’’
Moniz saw firsthand how emotional the climate change issue can be as government and industry consider ways to address it. A heckler interrupted near the end of the meeting to ask him what can be done to stop construction of a natural gas pipeline.
OMG! Now we have a CONTROLLED-OPPOSITION EVENT, a PLANT in the audience! Otherwise, it wouldn't merit a mention in my propaganda pre$$!!!
You guys and your damn mentioning of pipeline that has been delayed for political purposes and diversion (pun intended).
Still looking for the world nuclear as an alternative in this article.
The plan to build the pipeline from Burlington eventually to Rutland and under Lake Champlain where it would help power the International Paper company mill in Ticonderoga, N.Y., is seen by some as a lower-cost, lower-carbon solution to the need for energy.
Wait just a minute! An OIL PIPELINE UNDER the LAKE? What if it BURSTS or LEAKS??!!??
But some along the proposed path say there are better solutions.
Yeah, I'm all for solar and wind self-sufficiency augmented by back-up generators running on fossil fuels; however, we didn't get that from our government.
What we got were $u$tainable energy programs that were de$igned to fail but they did $u$tain well-connected contributors and corporations. Meanwhile, oil and gas are even more prevalent after all these years. I mean this government is loving oil, loving gas, loving shale right now and selling it as the next solution.
C'mon, fart-misters. Get your heads out of your a$$es. Obummer is no friend.
--more--"
That's enough of a reaction, pffffft (excuse me!), for today.
Not the reaction they were expecting, huh?
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Buried back on page B10:
"US Energy secretary says climate action critical" by Wilson Ring | Associated Press May 17, 2014
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. — US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Friday that changing the way the country gets its energy is critical to protecting the climate, boosting the economy, and enhancing national security.
What does that mean? We are not going to infiltrate, invade, and overthrow our way to stealing their resources anymore?
During an energy conference at Middlebury College, Moniz told the state’s congressional delegation, Governor Peter Shumlin, and industry officials that President Obama’s administration is committed to finding ways to reduce carbon emissions.
Moniz said the effects of climate change are being felt, and he focused most of his 20-minute talk on that.
I'm not going to react to the fart-mist today. People are pathetic.
‘‘In the East, we will have much more increased coastal damages [and] storm surges,’’ Moniz said. ‘‘Superstorm Sandy could be looking like child’s play if we do not really move forward aggressively,’’ he said, referring to the 2012 storm that devastated parts of New Jersey and New York City.
Sandy came just over a year after Vermont was hit by flooding from Tropical Storm Irene. Officials at Friday’s meeting said the damage from Irene focused the state’s attention on the need to reduce energy use as a way to combat climate change, create jobs, and save people money on their heating bills.
As HE FLIES ALL OVER the PLACE, because official dogma from those on high is filled with hypocrisy that you should not que$tion!
And there I go reacting again.
Shumlin and others praised how Vermont has become a national leader in the installation of solar panels and how the renewable energy industry is creating jobs in the state.
Moniz said different solutions to climate change are needed in different parts of the country.
I'm waiting to see the N-word.
‘‘Clean energy is the answer to at least three questions,’’ Moniz said: climate, economic growth, and national security. But there is not going to be a single solution.
‘‘We’re going to look at different low-carbon solutions everywhere,” he said. “The Vermont solution is a terrific one in looking at a combination of efficiency and renewables as the core.’’
Moniz saw firsthand how emotional the climate change issue can be as government and industry consider ways to address it. A heckler interrupted near the end of the meeting to ask him what can be done to stop construction of a natural gas pipeline.
OMG! Now we have a CONTROLLED-OPPOSITION EVENT, a PLANT in the audience! Otherwise, it wouldn't merit a mention in my propaganda pre$$!!!
You guys and your damn mentioning of pipeline that has been delayed for political purposes and diversion (pun intended).
Still looking for the world nuclear as an alternative in this article.
The plan to build the pipeline from Burlington eventually to Rutland and under Lake Champlain where it would help power the International Paper company mill in Ticonderoga, N.Y., is seen by some as a lower-cost, lower-carbon solution to the need for energy.
Wait just a minute! An OIL PIPELINE UNDER the LAKE? What if it BURSTS or LEAKS??!!??
But some along the proposed path say there are better solutions.
Yeah, I'm all for solar and wind self-sufficiency augmented by back-up generators running on fossil fuels; however, we didn't get that from our government.
What we got were $u$tainable energy programs that were de$igned to fail but they did $u$tain well-connected contributors and corporations. Meanwhile, oil and gas are even more prevalent after all these years. I mean this government is loving oil, loving gas, loving shale right now and selling it as the next solution.
C'mon, fart-misters. Get your heads out of your a$$es. Obummer is no friend.
--more--"
That's enough of a reaction, pffffft (excuse me!), for today.
