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There had been an immense amount of hype, and considerable nonsense written about Small Modular Reactors. When you are trying to solve a problem as big as the Gordian knot, the closely coupled issues of electricity poverty and planet heating, small is not beautiful. There are strong economies of scale in nuclear power generation. Any solution that does not recognize this will be hopelessly wasteful. But it is also true that we must take advantage of the order of magnitude improvement in productivity and quality associated with assembly line manufacture, as compared to conventional on site construction. What we need […]

Until recently proponents of all RE grid have argued that a combination of hydro and batteries could turn unreliable power into reliable. But this solution has proven limited at best and transparently silly at worst. It does not scale planet wide. The new solution to intermittency is green hydrogen. Hydrogen is produced from wind and solar electricity by splitting water with electrolysis. When the wind does not blow nor the sun shine, the hydrogen is converted back to electricity, by burning it in a gas turbine.T his piece examines how this solution fares in the context of Germany.

This note argues that deep geologic repositories for used nuclear fuel are monumental exercises in hubris.

Extract from Creating the New World; stories and images from the dawn of the atomic age, by Theodore Rockwell, 2002, 2003, 1st Books Library, Bloomington Indiana, pp 150 – 176

An informative introduction to nuclear power with a light touch by A. C. Rodenburg.