DTE Energy’s Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in Newport is gradually reducing its power level in anticipation of its next refueling outage.
DTE Nuclear Communications Supervisor Stephen Tait said in a statement to the Monroe News that operators “will allow our plant to slowly and safely reduce in power level, an action called a ‘coast down,’ until the start of the refueling outage, which is scheduled for February 2022.”
Fermi 2, which is nearing the end of its 21st operating cycle, operated at 93 percent power Thursday.
We have so many types of green energy available to us, so why the hell do we still rely on fossil fuels when tidal plants like this do the same job without any emissions? Swansea Bay Lagoon has a breakwater approximate lifecycle of at least 120 years, meaning it will last twice as long as a nuclear facility and 5X longer than offshore wind turbines. It’s a no-brainer This is how you fight climate change!
Preconstruct via Vimeo / TidalLagoonSwanseaBay / Good News Network.
A UK company with lofty aspirations around sustainable space travel has test-fired a rocket engine powered in part by plastic waste. Pulsar Fusion’s hybrid rocket engine is part of an ambitious journey that also involves the development of nuclear fusion technology for high-speed propulsion, which could cut travel times to Mars in half.
The idea of incorporating recycled plastic waste into hybrid rocket fuels is something we have seen explored before. Virgin Galactic flirted with the idea back in 2014 through the use of a rocket powered by a fuel based on a class of thermoset plastics, though this was swiftly abandoned after a failed test flight. Scottish company Skyrora is another outfit working on such a technology, having successfully tested out its Ecosene fuel made from converted plastic waste.
If someone told you that the world’s biggest laser was in California that has something to do with space and national defence, you might imagine it was a super-weapon designed to blast enemy satellites out of the sky. But the reality is quite different. The new laser is a unique research tool for scientists, capable of creating the extreme conditions that exist inside stars and nuclear explosions.
The giant laser is located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in Livermore, California, and it goes by the rather cryptic name of the National Ignition Facility (NIF). That’s because, in the context of nuclear science, “ignition” has a very specific meaning according to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It refers to the point at which a fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining – a condition that is found inside the sun and other stars, but is extremely difficult to achieve in an earthbound laboratory. Triggering nuclear fusion requires enormously high temperatures and pressures, and that’s where NIF’s giant laser comes in.
This is the same type of double double DOUBLE down on hyperbolic and aggressive anti expert BS that has pushed a not insignificant portion of the population of the US to throw a violent tantrum against covid19 vaccines and wearing a piece of cloth on their face to keep from DYING. Similarly, ultra environmentalists on the far left have ceased to try to protect the environment FOR future generations. Now they want to protect the environment FROM future generations. They’ve become ANTIHUMAN, often to a disturbingly horrific — if hilariously stupid — extent. LITERALLY. Unless you think we shouldn’t build anything on the sterile, irradiated and dead surface of the moon by polluting it — or any other moon, asteroid, or planet by stepping on it’s surface with our filthy monkey feet. Or throwing trash into the SUN because we’d be…
POLLUTING IT!
There is a reason why experts are experts. It isn’t because they want to eat children on pizza with Hillary Clinton with space lizards, nor because they want an irradiated earth beneath their feet. Nuclear power is clean, cheap, and safe. Until fusion gets here, and with electric vehicles quickly becoming the dominant mode of transportation every minute that ticks by, nuclear power isn’t just preferential, its absolutely REQUIRED if we want to get a handle on global warming while simultaneously maintain or improve the standard and quality of life we are accustomed to, and that developing nations will, already are, and SHOULD be seeking for themselves too. Building nuclear power into the foundation of a developing nations energy generation and distribution infrastructure from day one will PREVENT all the massive amount of damage that will inevitably exponentially accelerate global warming and pollution, lowering the quality of life in that nation which will in turn prompt even GREATER use of fossil fuels to mitigate temporarily. Heat caused by fossil fuel powered global warming is dealt with symptomatically by turning up the air-conditioning. Dangerous spikes in particulates and pollution in the air is symptomatically dealt with by using high energy consuming industrial or home air filtration systems, etc. If all that energy comes from coal or other fossil fuels, that lovely tesla you’ve got plugged in to charge in your garage overnight is doing just as much damage to the environment as that douchebag down the street with his fire eagle painted hummer filling up on gasoline before he goes to a kid Rock show that he’s actually LOOKING FORWARD TO!
《☆This isn’t breaking news exactly, but still relevant. I apologize in advance for its, uh, occasional rantishness and length! ☆》
Helen Caldicott is the world’s most prominent anti-nuclear activist. Helen has been featured on CNN, 60 Minutes, CBC and Democracy Now speaking about the dangers of nuclear power and radiation.
Canada’s first commercial Small Modular Reactor (SMR)
Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has selected the BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) for the Darlington new nuclear site, and will work with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) to deploy the reactor. Canada’s first commercial, grid-scale, SMR could be completed as early as 2028.
OPG and GEH will collaborate on SMR engineering, design, planning, preparing licensing and permitting materials, and site preparation activities. Site preparation will begin in the spring of 2022, pending appropriate approvals, OPG said. It aims to apply to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) for a construction licence by the end of next year.
Darlington is the only site in Canada currently licensed for new nuclear: OPG was granted a site preparation licence by the CNSC in 2012, after completion of an environmental assessment which included public involvement, but reductions in forecast electricity demand led to a decision to defer plans for new build. OPG last year announced it was resuming planning activities for additional nuclear power generation via an SMR at the site, rather than a large conventional reactor, as previously envisaged. The CNSC recently granted a 10-year renewal to the site preparation licence, which had been due to expire in August 2022.
There’s even talk in some quarters that solar could one day fulfil the unrealised promise of nuclear power to generate electricity so abundant that it would be “too cheap to meter”.
So how cheap can solar get? And will you — the energy consumer — still have a power bill?
This future of cheap power is already here — at least sometimes.
A major milestone has been breached in the quest for fusion energy.
For the first time, a fusion reaction has achieved a record 1.3 megajoule energy output – and for the first time, exceeding energy absorbed by the fuel used to trigger it.
Although there’s still some way to go, the result represents a significant improvement on previous yields: eight times greater than experiments conducted just a few months prior, and 25 times greater than experiments conducted in 2018. It’s a huge achievement.
With construction slated to begin in spring 2021, the team predicts it could be built within 3 to 4 years from that. Their goal is to achieve a Q factor of at least 2, basically meaning SPARC will pump out twice the energy needed to power it.
Actually, by the calculations in their papers, SPARC could possibly achieve a Q ratio of 10! But the researchers are cautious about overpromising, and are just focused on achieving the lower figure. It’s still impressive, considering any net gain would be a first for human created controlled fusion.
Assuming it gets built along that predicted 3–4 year timeline and actually gets flipped on, there’s still several steps between SPARC and limitless clean energy.
This is how you fight climate change!
Preconstruct via Vimeo / TidalLagoonSwanseaBay / 
Good News Network.
circa 2019.
POLLUTING IT!
☆》
