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Newsweek Highlights Nuclear Energy

By Eric McErlain
Over at Newsweek's international edition, the magazine is taking a broad look at the global resurgence of nuclear energy and the reasons behind the revival. Click the following links for all of the articles in the package:

Energy: The New Nuclear Power Boom

Nuclear Energy: China Leaps Forward

India's Nukes: A Deal With 'Difficulties'

Europe: A Climate Change For Nuclear

The Nuclear Waste Problem

Thanks to Synthstuff for the pointers.

UPDATE: The Energy Blog has further thoughts.

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Comments

Anonymous said…
I actually found the first article very unsupportive of nuclear power.
January 31, 2006 at 2:38 AM
Anonymous said…
These articles seem to be very technically deficient. One states the PBMR is safer because the fuel transfers heat more efficiently when, in fact, it tolerates high temperatures better. The article on reprocessing suggests that Plutonium is the only reason for long isolation of spent fuel and that reprocessing creates "pure plutonium". The concept of MOX and the various isotopes of plutonium are completely absent.
Newsweek needs better technical resources. These articles are more or less useless.
January 31, 2006 at 11:55 AM
Anonymous said…
I just read the article on China and it's just a bad. It claims the Pebble Bed design, using Helium coolant, is safer than LWRs because "water, of course, contains oxygen, which is combustible". It also claims another advantage of the PBMR is that "hydrogen is a byproduct" of the process. Where did they find these writers?
January 31, 2006 at 1:50 PM
Brian Mays said…
That Pebble Bed design is the "next-generation version that will use helium as a coolant, rather than water." Gee, I guess the old pebble bed reactors that were built in Germany were water cooled.

They really should have run these articles by someone who is technically competent to avoid stupid errors such as this. I know that they want to explain things in as simple of terms as possible, but when the simply get things wrong, it only adds to the confusion that is out there.
February 1, 2006 at 8:32 AM
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