The third volume of NRC’s safety evaluation report on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository finds that DOE’s design meets its post-closure performance objectives. On October 16, 2014, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published Volume 3 of its Safety Evaluation Report (SER) on the Department of Energy’s (DOE) license application for the proposed underground geologic… Keep reading →
It seems to be a recurring trend After years where nobody was building any, 4 new reactors are under construction in the US, supported by all manner of support, subsidies, government loan guarantees and you name it. Much rests on how these 4 reactors will turn out in terms of getting built on schedule and… Keep reading →
The U.S. has lost three percent of its summertime nuclear generating capacity as troublesome plants are retired. Robert Stone’s controversial film Pandora’s Promise has brought the question of how nuclear power might fit into a clean-energy future to center stage. We’re not going to hold (let alone resolve) that debate here and now. Instead, we’ll just note that… Keep reading →
To the experts, it’s a Geomagnetic Disturbance, or GMD. To most of us, it’s a solar flare.
Whatever its name, it can fry a large electricity system, burn out controls, and black out square miles in seconds, like the massive flare that brought down the grid in Canada’s Quebec province for nine hours in 1989.
Now, the power industry and regulators responsible for electric reliability are trying to figure out how to stop it, or at least minimize the potential damage. Keep reading →
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko rejected Republican calls for his resignation Wednesday after the other four commission members publicly accused him of threatening NRC’s ability to act as the nation’s nuclear safety watchdog.
“If you do the right thing for your country, you will resign,” Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said at the hearing. Keep reading →
