It was with great fanfare that Tesla launched its home battery recently. Headlines like “Tesla launches Powerwall home battery with aim to revolutionize energy consumption” were the norm as the public read about this revolutionary jump forward in energy storage. A recent article on where famed author Margaret Atwood is Read more…
Have you ever seen something that just amazed you? We were wowed by a recent YouTube video showing what the Chinese have achieved in turning conventional high-rise construction on its head. A 57 story building was built in 19 days – yes – 19 days! Who would ever believe this Read more…
This past month, following the fourth anniversary of the Fukushima accident, it is good to see there is less emphasis on the nuclear accident and more discussion of the significant natural disaster – the tsunami and earthquake that killed some 20,000 and destroyed so much, leaving 300,000 homeless. It is Read more…
The world needs nuclear power – so says the latest edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO) issued in November. “Nuclear power is one of the few options available at scale to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions while providing or displacing other forms of baseload generation. It has avoided the release of Read more…
Quite often we hear about the problem of attracting financing to support new build nuclear projects. In fact financing will be a topic of major interest at a number of upcoming nuclear conferences. While it is easy to agree that financing nuclear projects is a big challenge, in my Read more…
Recently, the 2014 edition of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Energy Technology Perspectives (ETP) was issued. The ETP is issued on a two year cycle; the current edition takes the World Energy Outlook 2013 forecasts and looks to the longer term out to 2050. With climate change now becoming even Read more…
After many years of effort, this month it finally happened. The UK government and EDF Energy, the French-owned UK integrated energy company, agreed to a strike price making the first new nuclear build in the UK in a generation, at Hinkley Point C, a reality. It was a long hard Read more…
It was with great interest that most of us listened to President Obama put climate change back on the US agenda in his state of the union address this month. “After years of talking about it, we are finally poised to control our own energy future. We produce more oil Read more…
Hard to believe we have already come to the end of another year. It was a year with both highs and lows for the nuclear industry. I will talk about this more in the new year. But for today, I wanted to close out 2012 by writing about something that Read more…
I have just done my first pass of the Word Energy Outlook 2012 issued by the IEA this November. Many of you will have seen some of the headlines – one of the most intriguing is that the US is expected to become the world’s largest oil producer by 2017 Read more…
I started writing this while sitting on the very long plane ride on my way to China. The Rio+20 conference had just started, the largest ever UN conference and yet it was receiving relatively little press. I remember the first Rio conference 20 years ago when there was so much Read more…
It seems as if a day doesn’t go by when we don’t hear about the low price of gas in North America and its impact on potential growth in the nuclear industry. In the past month, the price of gas actually dropped below $2 /million BTU; a price that was Read more…
If 2011 was all about the events at Fukushima, 2012 is shaping up to be a big year in moving forward with the nuclear renaissance. For the Chinese, this is the year of the dragon. This is, in fact, the major symbol of good fortune in Chinese Astrology. Of the Read more…
The good news is that as 2011 comes to a close, Fukushima has achieved cold shutdown and the recovery is moving to the next stage. The emphasis is now on decontamination and getting the dislocated people back into their homes as soon as possible. Does this mean that nuclear will Read more…
Has it been that long since my last blog entry? Been extremely busy this winter and of course, busy is good! But on the other hand, I have a set of topics piling up that I would like to write about. Earlier, I blogged when I read Jeff Rubin’s book Read more…
Late in November I blogged about a recent phenomenon being experienced in some systems – Surplus Baseload Generation (SBG). This is being experienced in Ontario, Canada due to falling electricity demand and the increased use of variable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. At that time, I started Read more…
Just finished reading “Free – The future of a radical price” by Chris Anderson. It was interesting reading and builds on many of the themes from Jeff Jarvis’ book “What would Google do?” that inspired me to start this blog earlier this year. This book is well written and makes Read more…
System operators have recently seen something rather new – SBG – or “Surplus Baseload Generation”. This is due to falling demand related to the current economic situation and a newer phenomenon; the displacement of base load by variable load renewable generation. With governments everywhere and the public strongly supporting new Read more…
Last month, the supply of uranium was severely interrupted when BHP declared force majeure on its deliveries of uranium as the main haulage system failed at Olympic Dam. Production has been reduced to about 20% of nominal and it is expected to take a number of months to repair and Read more…
I just finished reading Jeff Rubin’s book “Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization“. Was a good thought provoking read. In summary, Rubin is stating that the world has reached peak oil production and that ultimately prices will continue to Read more…