Technology

As nuclear falters, here is a practical, affordable (and safe) clean electricity plan

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In the wake of the Japanese nuclear debacle, we need a practical and affordable clean electricity plan that does not rely on new nuclear power. This article presents just such a Plan. New nuclear is absent from the Plan not because of any safety concern, but simply because it fails the “practical and affordable” test. President Obama called for “80% Clean Energy” by 2035. This Plan presents how we can do it right.

Nuclear crisis in Japan – March 13

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– Japanese Scramble to Avert Meltdowns as Nuclear Crisis Deepens After Quake
– Meltdowns Grow More Likely at the Fukushima Reactors
– US lawmakers say go slow on nuclear energy
– Japan nuclear fears as systems fail at second reactor
– Nuclear plant issues in Japan are the least of their worries
– Background
– More links at TOD

How black is the Japanese nuclear swan?

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We need to evaluate the potential for a nuclear future in light of the disaster in Japan. This was not unpredictable, and should have been accounted for in any realistic assessment of nuclear potential. It cannot realistically be described as a black swan event.

Human behaviour can easily turn what should be a one in one hundred thousand reactor-year event in to something all too likely within a human lifespan. Nuclear power may allow us to cushion the coming decline in fossil fuel availability, but only at a potentially very high price. (Excerpts)

Review: Disaster on the Horizon by Bob Cavnar

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It’s been nearly six months since BP Plc.’s runaway oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused the largest unintentional offshore spill on record, was finally deemed “effectively dead.” And those six months have brought almost as many books on the disaster. Cavnar’s book has a particular ring of authenticity, and I suspect that’s because he’s the only one of the above authors to have spent a career in the oil and gas drilling business.

ODAC Newsletter – March 4

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Continued violence in the Middle East kept oil prices high this week. Libyan exports are down at least 1 million barrels a day and fears are escalating that the stand-off there could turn in to a protracted civil war. The unrest spread to Oman this week where security forces clashed with demonstrators. Meanwhile news of the arrest of a Shi’ite cleric demanding democratic reforms in Saudi Arabia sent the Saudi Tadawul stock exchange down 11%.

The week of the game changer in oil, or was it?

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This past week was supposedly the week of the game changer in the world of oil. Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables from Saudi Arabia called into question the ability of the globe’s largest oil exporter to raise production to satisfy a world increasingly thirsty for petroleum. In the United States a technique called hydraulic fracturing–which has seemingly unlocked vast natural gas resources–will now be applied to oil trapped in shale deposits. Are these two developments really the so-called game changers they are claimed to be?

To ‘Frack’ or not to ‘Frack’?

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Ohio, the home of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, and site of the world’s largest oil-producing provinces in the late 19th century, is again at the center of the action in domestic fossil fuel production as a controversial drilling technique, known as fracking, is draining Ohio’s remaining oil and gas reserves. With global oil production peaking and the number of new large oil finds dwindling, is increased domestic production in Ohio and other states through fracking a vital contribution to our energy security, or a fate to be fought?