Even Legacy Environmentalists Have Come Around on Advanced Nuclear Power
It’s unmistakable that there’s been a sea-change around popular support for nuclear energy. A confluence of factors, including the ongoing need to confront climate change, turmoil in global oil and gas supplies due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and persisting electric grid instability in states like California and Texas have drawn the public’s focus […]
Western Utility Announces Consideration of Five SMRs for Coal-to-Nuclear Transition
Wyoming and Utah are looking to lead the wave of next-generation advanced nuclear energy. PacifiCorp, the parent company of the western-state regulated utilities Rocky Mountain Power and Pacific Power, announced a partnership on Wednesday with the small modular reactor firm Terrapower. The two firms will be conducting a joint study to evaluate the feasibility of […]
Energy and Land-Use: Rural Communities Continue to Spurn Renewables
Robert Bryce has a great piece in RealClearEnergy today on the latest land-use conflicts roiling planned wind and solar buildouts across rural middle America. From the piece: The hype about wind and solar energy keeps colliding with the hard reality of land-use conflicts. Nowhere is that more obvious than in Ohio, where 41 townships have […]
New DOE Study Finds 5 Coal Plant Sites in Colorado That Could Convert to Nuclear
A brand new study released today from the Department of Energy (DOE) finds multiple locations in Colorado that could benefit from a coal-to-nuclear power transition. The study authors examined both operational and recently retired (within the last 10 years) coal plants across the country to screen for siting characteristics deemed favorable for a nuclear conversion. […]
Poll: Nuclear Energy Now Enjoys Broad Support Among the American Public
Soaring energy prices, geopolitical instability, and climate change—both itself, and misbegotten policy responses to it—have cast a new light on the need firm up the domestic production of clean and dependable energy. The realization has been stark among political leaders around the world, many of whom have been forced to reverse course on rash plans […]
What Not to Do: California Energy Policy Serves As a Warning to Colorado
Just days after finalizing a future ban on the sale of gas-powered vehicles, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) sent out a bulletin Tuesday afternoon warning that an expected heat wave posed serious threats to the reliability of the state’s electric grid. Starting tomorrow through Tuesday, California and the West are expecting extreme heat that […]
Environmentalists For… Higher Emissions?
A new bombshell report released today by the Breakthrough Institute details the lengths gone to by a prominent environmental group and a major renewables lobbyist to produce a bogus study in order to justify closing California’s last operating nuclear plant. Here’s an excerpt: Since PG&E negotiated an agreement with anti-nuclear environmental groups in 2016 to […]
Elon Musk Calls for Boost in Oil & Gas, Nuclear
The founder and CEO of one of the world’s largest electric vehicle and battery companies wants us to “drill baby drill.” According to CNBC: The world must continue to extract oil and gas in order to sustain civilization, while also developing sustainable sources of energy, Tesla founder Elon Musk told reporters at a conference in Norway on […]
Japan’s Nuclear U-Turn
The country of Japan is often trotted out by anti-nuclear environmental types as a go-to case study for why the U.S. should eschew nuclear energy in favor of renewables to meet our emissions goals. It’s experience during the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, when a massive tsunami triggered a partial meltdown in three of the plant’s […]
California, Germany Finally Receive Nuclear Energy Wake-up Call
Though it may not seem like it at first glance, the state of California and the country of Germany share some uncanny characteristics, particularly when it comes to energy policy. Both fancy themselves pioneers in the green energy transition, and both punch above their weight with their respective abilities to influence surrounding governments to adopt […]
Federal Support for Advanced Nuclear is Bipartisan, Why Not in CO?
In a previous post I covered the partisan split that still exists in public polling over nuclear energy. “Currently, 39% of Democrats versus 60% of Republicans and 53% of independents favor nuclear energy,” according to the latest Gallup polling on the issue. But that hasn’t stopped a bipartisan consensus from forming in the federal government […]
Energy and Land Use: A Sober Look at the Space Needed to Power the Future
Much of the conversation surrounding energy policy in Colorado these days has to do primarily with the emissions currently being produced and ways to continue reducing said emissions. The arguments over the role of various energy sources in getting to a decarbonized future are familiar at this point. But there has been comparatively little discussion […]
