If you live in a relatively rich country (other than the United States), how often have you heard someone bemoaning government policies to cut carbon emissions say something like – “since we only emit about 1% of global CO2, we could cut our emissions to zero, and it would make Read more…
In the early 1990s, deregulating electricity generation seemed like a good idea. Led by the UK, many markets rushed to dismantle their vertically integrated electric utilities with the goal of creating competition to benefit their customers, the electricity using public. The view was that utilities had become fat and lazy Read more…
In December we wrote about the world’s drive to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. A laudable goal, the World Energy Outlook (WEO) 2020 illustrates a possible path to getting there. This would be achieved through electrification (using clean electricity sources), efficiency gains and behaviour changes. The first two Read more…
The world is burning – or it’s about to – so says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its special report considering the benefit to the planet if we manage to keep the increase in temperature to 1.5 C rather than the target most often discussed of 2 Read more…
Of the many challenges to expanding the use of nuclear power, economic competitiveness is essential for future success. Nuclear projects are large complex projects that have frequently experienced delays and overruns. Earlier this year, we wrote about the need to build nuclear plants on time and on budget as the Read more…
There are more nuclear plants in the European (EU) than anywhere else. Yet a broad range of nuclear policies across the European nations is having a large impact on its future. Currently there are 127 nuclear plants in operation in the EU (plus another 5 in Switzerland). Of the 14 Read more…
Over the years, when talking about the pros and cons of various generating assets, we have talked about economics, environment and reliability – but more recently a new word has entered the energy lexicon – Resilience. As defined by Oxford, “resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness, Read more…
When thinking about 2017, it is easy to see the bankruptcy of Westinghouse and the subsequent cancellation of its Summer project in South Carolina as this year’s big issue. But as the year has drawn to a close, the continuation of its AP1000 project at Plant Vogtle in Georgia has Read more…
People are dying – lots of people, each and every day. As stated in a study published by Lancet on October 19,” Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world today. Diseases caused by pollution were responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths Read more…
Over the last few years, we have written extensively about the strength of peoples’ beliefs and how difficult it is to change them. In spite of this, I thought we were making progress with a push to more evidence-based decision making. For something as polarizing as nuclear power, facts-based decision Read more…
More than a decade since then Prime Minister Tony Blair launched a review into UK energy policy, a positive decision has been taken to approve the construction of the first new nuclear station in the UK in a generation, Hinkley Point C. Finally, after more twists and turns than a Read more…
A huge milestone has been achieved in the United States as Watts Bar Unit 2 produced its first electricity; becoming the first new nuclear plant in the US to start up in 20 years since Watts Bar Unit 1 came into service in 1996. Unfortunately, this good news was overshadowed Read more…
This month in the United States, the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act was passed to support federal research and development and stimulate private investment in advanced nuclear reactor technologies. All this good news about investment in the future made me think about how we use the words advanced and innovation Read more…
Last month, we wrote about the ongoing push by the United Nations to combat climate change and its underwhelming support for nuclear power as an important part of the solution. To no one’s surprise, the final volume of the current IPCC report on climate change issued November 1 is no 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…
Last month I talked about innovation in the nuclear industry focusing on the perception that nuclear is not innovative. Since then I attended the Canadian Nuclear Association annual conference. Its theme this year was “Developing the next generation” which in this case focused on developing the workforce of the future. Read more…
As we come to the end of another year, it is not a nuclear issue that I want to discuss but rather the broader issue of our need for reliable electricity. Last month I started with a quote from the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2013 highlighting how important energy has Read more…
As I started to read this year’s World Energy Outlook (WEO 2013) from the International Energy Agency (IEA), it was the very first line in the executive summary that caught my interest. The report starts out with “Many of the long–held tenets of the energy sector are being rewritten.” It Read more…
As I was thinking about what to write this month, I was invited by my dry cleaner to attend a protest in a nearby park against genetically modified food. This somewhat infuriated me as I know without doubt that GMO has helped millions around the world and had never killed 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…