Candris, Scots, and Carbon Friendly Flowers

Shall we see what’s doing in the world of nuclear energy?

Aris Candris, the CEO of Westinghouse makes the case in the Wall Street Journal:

Nuclear energy … must play a larger role in our effort to become and remain energy independent, and to reduce carbon emissions. The growth of nuclear power will also have peripheral benefits, as it constitutes an economic stimulus package in and of itself.

Although any industry can sell itself as an economic stimulus if it starts hiring more people and doing more work, Candris demonstrates that this is happening now:

To date, the recent growth of the nuclear energy industry has created at least 15,000 jobs, with many more on the horizon. Westinghouse's work alone in the deployment of four new nuclear plants now under construction in China will create or sustain an additional 5,000 U.S. jobs in 20 states.

Do read the rest. Candris does a good job laying out the economic case.

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The British have lately released a draft plan that approves building 10 new nuclear units, most at sites already existing. But:

The SNP [Scottish National Party] government at Holyrood have vowed to block two new nuclear stations at Dounreay and Hunterston, claiming they are dangerous and unnecessary because of the amount of wind and wave power generated in Scotland.

Uh, oh, this kind of thing always ends in tears.

SNP energy spokesman Mike Weir MP accused [Energy Secretary Ed] Miliband of "cheerleading for the nuclear industry".

He said: "Right now, Scotland is capitalising on our vast clean, green energy potential, instead of following London Labour's blind faith in costly, dirty, dangerous and unreliable nuclear power.

Scots Labour, too.

But a Labour spokeswoman warned that would damage the Scottish economy - and run the risk of the lights going out across the country due to power cuts.

She said: "The SNP are in the 'just say no' camp and it shows they're not serious.

We’re surprised she didn’t call them the Party of No. Scotland has an election next year – let’s see how this plays out.

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We don’t have any particular brief on the Toyota Prius, but critics say (and why not?) that the Prius manufacturing plant puts out enough carbon to nullify the car’s benefits. What to do?

Toyota has created two flower species that absorb nitrogen oxides and take heat out of the atmosphere.

The flowers, derivatives of the cherry sage plant and the gardenia, were specially developed for the grounds of Toyota’s Prius plant in Toyota City, Japan.

So that’s that. (There’s more to it – see the whole story for more.)

A Toyota solar flower (not related to the flowers above), which they’re putting up in various locales to promote the 2010 Prius. Read more about them here.

A Design Team Pictures the Future of Nuclear Energy

For more than 100 years, the shape and location of human settlements has been defined in large part by energy and water. Cities grew up near natural resources like hydropower, and near water for agricultural, industrial and household use.

So what would the world look like with a new generation of small nuclear reactors that could provide abundant, clean energy for electricity, water pumping and desalination and industrial processes?

Hard to say with precision, but Third Way, the non-partisan think tank, asked the design team at the Washington, D.C. office of Gensler & Associates, an architecture and interior design firm that specializes in sustainable projects like a complex that houses the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. The talented designers saw a blooming desert and a cozy arctic village, an old urban mill re-purposed as an energy producer, a data center that integrates solar panels on its sprawling flat roofs, a naval base and a humming transit hub.

In the converted mill, high temperat…

Sneak Peek

There's an invisible force powering and propelling our way of life.
It's all around us. You can't feel it. Smell it. Or taste it.
But it's there all the same. And if you look close enough, you can see all the amazing and wondrous things it does.
It not only powers our cities and towns.
And all the high-tech things we love.
It gives us the power to invent.
To explore.
To discover.
To create advanced technologies.
This invisible force creates jobs out of thin air.
It adds billions to our economy.
It's on even when we're not.
And stays on no matter what Mother Nature throws at it.
This invisible force takes us to the outer reaches of outer space.
And to the very depths of our oceans.
It brings us together. And it makes us better.
And most importantly, it has the power to do all this in our lifetime while barely leaving a trace.
Some people might say it's kind of unbelievable.
They wonder, what is this new power that does all these extraordinary things?

Seeing the Light on Nuclear Energy

If you think that there is plenty of electricity, that the air is clean enough and that nuclear power is a just one among many options for meeting human needs, then you are probably over-focused on the United States or Western Europe. Even then, you’d be wrong.

That’s the idea at the heart of a new book, “Seeing the Light: The Case for Nuclear Power in the 21st Century,” by Scott L. Montgomery, a geoscientist and energy expert, and Thomas Graham Jr., a retired ambassador and arms control expert.

Billions of people live in energy poverty, they write, and even those who don’t, those who live in places where there is always an electric outlet or a light switch handy, we need to unmake the last 200 years of energy history, and move to non-carbon sources. Energy is integral to our lives but the authors cite a World Health Organization estimate that more than 6.5 million people die each year from air pollution. In addition, they say, the global climate is heading for ruinous instability. E…

NEI Nuclear Notes

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