Nuclear

Nuclear delusions

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The heating of Earth remains the most urgent symptom of humanity’s mismanagement of our technological civilization. Desperately seeking answers for a low carbon energy regime, some observers propose a “nuclear renaissance” to replace hydrocarbons. Nuclear companies, nations, and advocates offer nuclear as a possible “low-carbon” energy path. However, the evidence in hand shows that nuclear energy is not the solution to humanity’s energy needs that many hope for. Here are the reasons…

Energy and peace: the dangers of our slow energy transition

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Resource scarcity and climate change should be driving forward our transition to the energy systems of the future. Though this transition has started in important ways in several locations, change is not being undertaken at either the scale or speed required.

ODAC Newsletter – July 15

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The world could soon be short of oil again, despite the worsening fiscal crisis, says the IEA. Although the turmoil in Europe threatened to engulf Italy – with the world’s third largest bond market – and the US budget standoff threatened its AAA credit rating, the Agency raised its 2012 oil demand growth forecast by 270,000 barrels/day.

Nuclear energy: man’s low-carbon best friend or planet-polluting worst enemy? – July 4

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-Has the green movement lost its way?
-Radioactive Cesium Is Found in Tokyo Tap Water for First Time Since April
-Revealed: British government’s plan to play down Fukushima
-Don’t believe the spin on thorium being a ‘greener’ nuclear option
-Response: don’t dismiss the potential of thorium nuclear power
-French nuclear power plant explosion heightens safety fears

U.S. nuclear scares, Fukushima update, and De-growth

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In this episode we talk about three nuclear facilities in the United States hovering on the brink of catastrophe in the last month of June 2011 – due to climate change. We also bring you an update on the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and we also hear from two panelists from a recent “de-growth” conference in Vancouver, Conrad Schmidt and Bill Rees.

ODAC Newsletter – June 24

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The oil market was plunged into turmoil as the IEA announced it will tap its strategic reserve for only the third time ever. The agency had hinted in the past months that it might be prepared to release stocks to offset the shortfall in production from the Libyan crisis, to calm prices and avoid a “hard landing” for the global economy.

Review: Reinventing Collapse – Revised and Updated by Dmitry Orlov

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Neither an economist nor a formally trained scholar, Dmitry Orlov is perhaps best described in his own words, as “more of an eyewitness” to the phenomenon on which he writes. He’s a Russian émigré who saw the Soviet Union fall firsthand and has been drawing on this experience in warning of the coming U.S. collapse. He came to fame five years ago with a smash-hit Internet article that won him a loyal following and a subsequent book deal. The book, Reinventing Collapse, is now in its second edition—and regardless of how well it holds up to scholarly scrutiny, it’s admirable in its wit and prodigious street smarts.