There may finally be a way to power your car forever — the only catch is that the fuel would be radioactive. Charles Stevens of Laser Power Systems (LPS) is working on creating an emissions free turbine/electric generator powered by nuclear thorium lasers. Though thorium is gaining a reputation as the “safe” nuclear element, with all the recent controversy surrounding nuclear power, we at Inhabitat wonder if it’s worth the risk.
The team is scheduled to build a technology demonstration unit in 2012. This is a cooperative project between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Werner leads the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory involvement in this effort, which includes participation in the reactor design and modeling teams, fuel development and fabrication and development of a small electrical pump for the liquid metal cooled system.
Sunlight and fuel cells were the mainstays for generating electricity for space missions in the past, but engineers realized that solar energy has limitations. Solar cells do a great job supplying electricity in near-Earth orbits and for satellite-borne equipment, but nuclear power offers some unique capabilities that could support manned outposts on other planets or moons.
China has “vastly increased” the risk of a nuclear accident by opting for cheap technology that will be 100 years old by the time dozens of its reactors reach the end of their lifespans, according to diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Beijing.
The warning comes weeks after the government in Beijing resumed its ambitious nuclear expansion programme, that was temporarily halted for safety inspections in the wake of the meltdown of three reactors in Fukushima, Japan.
Cables released this week by WikiLeaks highlight the secrecy of the bidding process for power plant contracts, the influence of government lobbying, and potential weaknesses in the management and regulatory oversight of China’s fast-expanding nuclear sector.
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake just hit Mineral, VA, sending shockwaves up and down the East Coast of the United States that evacuated the Capital Building, the White House, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. With Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi earthquake, tsunami and ensuing nuclear disaster still fresh in our memory — and still sending radiation through that country — everyone is wondering how this latest tremor will affect nuclear power plants in the Mineral, VA area. The answer, as of now, is not much — but there are six nuclear reactors within 150 miles of the earthquake’s epicenter, and a recent report by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that we’re not properly prepared for a disaster.
According to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the consumption of engery from renewable sources recently topped both the current and the historical consumption levels for nuclear energy. The shift was immediately caused by nuclear outages that coincided with the high-water season for hydropower generation.
But there’s a long-term upward trend in renewables which can be seen here, too, thanks to the increased consumption of biofuels and wind capacity additions.
America’s nuclear power renaissance has been just around the corner for years, it seems. Even though 20 percent of all U.S. electricity is generated by nuclear power plants, without any greenhouse gas emissions, safety and cost concerns mean no new plants have been built in decades.
But a new breed of nuclear reactor could unlock the power of the atom in a safe, affordable way. energyNOW! correspondent Daniel Sieberg explores the promise of small modular reactors (SMR) – simple enough to be scalable, powerful enough to power a whole town, and safe enough to be buried underground.
Japan suffered one of the biggest nuclear disasters just 5 months ago. Now, instead of things getting better, they are getting worse, much worse.
The Fukushima nuclear power plant, the epicenter of the earthquake-tsunami disaster, according to TEPCO, the company that owns the plant, now has radiation levels six times higher than the highest level they have ever record before.
Sellafield Mox nuclear fuel plant to close. It’s a headline that generations of Irish environmental activists, and government ministers in Leinster House, never thought they would see. After just 10 years of operation – and at the cost of a vertiginous £1.4bn to the British taxpayer – the mixed-oxide fuel plant nestled on the edge of bucolic west Cumbria is to be decommissioned.
Sellafield has long been an emotive issue in Ireland. At just 128 miles from Dublin, the plant is within spitting distance of Ireland’s densely populated eastern seaboard. The Irish Sea is now the most radioactively contaminated in the world, while in the wake of 9/11 concerns about a terrorist attack on the plant briefly gripped the Irish popular imagination.
Another nuclear disaster, another round of worldwide questioning about the viability of nuclear energy. No doubt that nuclear industry makes a point when they argue that, overall, they have a strong safety record… but, as we saw again at Fukushima, when things do go wrong, they go really wrong…
So, what’s the status of nuclear energy now that we’re wrestling with the repercussions of the disaster in Japan? And what does that mean for renewable sources of power like solar, wind, and biomass? These are simple questions with incredibly complex answers, no doubt… but we can glean some information from side-by-side comparisons about costs, energy production, and environmental impact.
Pockets of lethal levels of radiation have been detected at Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in a fresh reminder of the risks faced by workers battling to contain the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) reported on Monday that radiation exceeding 10 sieverts (10,000 millisieverts) per hour was found at the bottom of a ventilation stack standing between two reactors.
On Tuesday Tepco said it found another spot on the ventilation stack itself where radiation exceeded 10 sieverts per hour, a level that could lead to incapacitation or death after just a short period of exposure.
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