NEI Nuclear Notes

Back in 2012, The New York Times noted a certain ethical laxitude about some of the biggest tech companies : Internet companies often cloak themselves in an image of environmental awareness. But some companies that essentially live on the Internet are moving facilities to North Carolina, Virginia, northeastern Illinois and other regions whose main sources of energy are coal and nuclear power, the report said. The report singles out Apple as one of the leaders of the charge to coal-fired energy. At the time, this just seemed silly. Companies needing a lot of electricity moved to states that had a lot of electricity or could easily generate it. If it came from nuclear energy, even if some people griped about it, so be it—believe it or not, if you need a lot of clean electricity, you couldn’t do better. That was 2012. How are things going in 2016 ? Apple is being criticized for trying to justify its placement of a data center in Ireland, by keeping it as far away from nuc...

... make some up. From The Guardian (U.K.), our old friend in nuclear alarmism: The radioactive core in a reactor at the crippled Fukushima  nuclear power  plant appears to have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor, experts say, raising fears of a major release of radiation at the site. Experts? Really? Well, one, and he was an expert 40 years ago: Richard Lahey, who was head of safety research for boiling-water reactors at General Electric when the company installed the units at Fukushima, told the Guardian workers at the site appeared to have "lost the race" to save the reactor, but said there was no danger of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe. If he was head of safety research then, that was 1971. So it's a reach, at best. No one is quoted to agree or disagree with Lahey, so the story is just the opinion of one fellow - a fine fellow, we're sure, but still. The only other "expert" quoted in the story is  Robert G...

The British Department of Energy and Climate Change (and boy, does that sound up-to-date) has released its list of 11 sites for new nuclear plant deployment. You can guess why they’re doing this : U.K. utilities are vying to build reactors, backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown as a way to combat climate change and replace older stations. Atomic plants may generate power more cheaply than coal-fed units, in part because they aren’t required to buy emission permits for carbon dioxide. We’d say definitely, at least within the projected time for these plants to start up. If clean coal technology catches up, fine, but that probably won’t happen by 2020, so expect some sour times for coal in Britain. (And as we’ll see, coal’s not the problem in this story.) Most of the plants sites are in England, with one over in Wales; moreover, most are on sites that are hosting or have hosted reactors – that should keep various environmental and other reviews fairly contained. We won’t list...

Now that the U.K. seems poised to embark on building a new generation of nuclear power plants , Ireland -- which already draws on nuclear-generated electricity from the U.K. grid -- is considering its options . Rod Adams has some more thoughts. For more, click here .

Ireland's minister of energy and natural resources is working to shut down potential uranium mining there , saying it would be hypocritical for a country that doesn't use nuclear power to do so. Dave's Rants responds with some inconvenient truths.

In Ireland, the new group Better Environment with Nuclear Energy is looking to stir things up. Be sure to stop by their Nuclear Debate site too.

The Good Life ponders the production of electricity in an interconnected Europe: No European nation is an island when it comes to their national grid. There are no national grids anymore just a Europe wide grid. So, if a proportion of Irish electricity is already provided by nuclear power stations then why not build our own? Why not indeed? For more from our archives on Ireland, click here . UPDATE : More from We Support Lee .

That's ESB as in Electricity Supply Board , Ireland's largest electric utility. The following item ran this morning in RTE Business : One interesting story over the weekend was the news that ESB would consider joining forces with a nuclear power producer. The company's chairman Tadhg O'Donoghue said the group was interested in all opportunities to produce power by all legal means. While the Government opposes nuclear power, O'Donoghue said realistically that would have to change. But he stressed that the company was neutral on the issue and said the decision was one for the Government. Ireland already imports a small amount of nuclear power through an interconnector pipe with Britain. Interesting. For more, click here .