Safety

US Experts Help and Learn at Fukushima – http://bit.ly/yeTYEl #nuclear N_E_I


Nuclear power has more than just an image problem.

With huge up front development costs, it is increasingly seen as dangerous and governments are responding to people’s fears by closing plants, blocking new construction and even halting reactor construction mid way. In its latest Vital Signs Online (VSO) report, Washington DC-based think tank Worldwatch Institute documented the numbers for falling nuclear power usage across the globe. Keep reading →


Even as global nuclear power prospects have been overshadowed by events in the past year, US nuclear power has remained relatively steady. But controversy following the Fukushima disaster is starting to impact operations at existing nuclear units as well as permitting for proposed facilities.

Particularly controversial has been upstate New York’s Indian Point nuclear plant run by Entergy in Buchanan, New York. As the plant reaches its fortieth year and Entergy applies for a new 20-year license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, several key stakeholders are trying to block the way. Keep reading →


When the US EPA found water contamination from hydraulic fracturing in Pavilion, Wyoming, the natural gas industry cried innocence.

Many pointed out that in the Wyoming case, hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) took place in very shallow areas close to fresh water aquifers. In most fracking locations, including the Marcellus shale, natural gas is extracted from shale thousands of feet below the fresh water, with rock separating the two layers. Keep reading →


Nuclear is not so hot these days.

The percentage of nuclear electrical generation worldwide is shrinking as countries slow or halt new construction and in some cases even close existing plants in favor of other types of power, according to the latest Vital Signs Online (VSO) report released by the Washington DC-based think tank Worldwatch Institute. Although nuclear provided 6% of the world’s energy in 2001, it constituted only 5% of the world’s energy portfolio in 2010. Keep reading →


US nuclear plant operations, while still very good, are trending in the wrong direction, says Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko, and complacency from years of safe operations, combined with overload from backlogged and new safety requirements, could mean trouble ahead in 2012.

Speaking to nuclear CEOs at their annual Institute of Nuclear Power Operations meeting in November, Jaczko fingered what he fears are declining performance trends. Keep reading →


For the nuclear industry, 2011 was Biblical.

Earthquakes. Tsunamis. Tornadoes. Floods. Fires. 2011 had everything but plagues of locusts. Keep reading →


The hydrofracking that has opened up America’s enormous natural gas resources is a marvel of modern technology, but keeping gas and flowback water from those wells from seeping into drinking water depends on a far more mundane science: cementing.

Cementing is used to seal well bores on- and off-shore, in all types of oil and gas wells, and integrity standards are well established. But those standards “are often difficult to attain,” said James Saiers, a professor of hydrology at Yale University, speaking at a Resources for the Future (RFF) forum on “Managing the Risks of Shale Gas.” Keep reading →


Last summer a Halliburton executive did the unthinkable: He took a big ol’ swig of hydraulic fracturing fluid. No, he didn’t have a death wish. And yes, he appears to be doing just fine. He did it to prove a point: fracking fluid need not be toxic. What the exec drank was a new formulation of fracking fluid made with ingredients sourced from the food industry rather than the chemical industry. As public concern over the controversial practice of fracking mounts, Halliburton and a host of other companies are racing to fill a major void: finding a way of cracking rock to unlock oil and natural gas that is also environmentally benign. This article is a linkout only.

The IAEA issued the latest Status Report on the current status of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. http://bit.ly/tweu7c iaeaorg

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