The last new nuclear power plant came online in the U.S. in 1996 and the next one may be ready as early as 2012, but after that, it’s hard to say when the next nuclear reactor might begin generating electricity in the United States. And though touted as an important source of low-carbon electricity in an energy-hungry world, nuclear power (more…)

President Barack Obama’s chief science advisor, Professor John Holdren has stated that it is unlikely that congress will pass a bill that will put a tax on carbon emissions.

Speaking at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Holdren admitted that President Obama would have to focus his efforts on improving energy efficiency, increasing (more…)

Sometimes when one gets so focused on the daily tasks at hand, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture around us. But when you take a step back, it is an impressive canvass. Thanks to the hard work of everyone at the Department of Energy over the past year, we’ve made remarkable progress in laying the foundation for a new energy future, advancing groundbreaking (more…)

At the North American International Auto Show yesterday, Ford sponsored a discussion with Stewart Brand, author of the Whole Earth Catalog. In his discussion, he highlighted the dramatic shift in population from rural areas to urban areas in developed nations thus increasing overall energy usage. (more…)

The Scottish first minister said his country wants to be completely powered with renewable energy by 2025.

Alex Salmond was speaking ahead of a renewable energy conference. He said he would like his country to become a net exporter of clean energy as the country has “unrivalled green energy resources”. (more…)

The oil industry’s decommissioning costs will dwarf those of nuclear power. The money being made now should be put aside to meet them.

Has BP ever made a profit? The question looks daft. The oil company posted profits of $26 billion last year. There’s no doubt that BP has been pumping money into the pockets of its shareholders. The question is whether this money is what the company says it is. BP calls it profit. I call it the provision the firm should be making against future liabilities. (more…)

Just days after it received a new 20-year license extension from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey was found to be leaking radioactive tritium .

Located about 60 miles east of Philadelphia in Lacey Township, New Jersey, the Oyster Creek plant is the oldest in the United States, and the tritium leak from underground pipes that was discovered on April 9, 2009 may have spread further than officials previously thought.

New Jersey environmental officials now say that radioactive tritium has leached into the nearby water aquifer and that the plant’s owners need to install new monitoring wells to keep tabs on the spread of the chemical. Commissioner Bob Martin is worried about the tritium — currently being found at concentrations 50 times higher than those allowed by law — which has been slowly spreading underground at one to three feet a day. (more…)

(Reuters) – The lack of a permanent home for the nation’s radioactive waste is dampening prospects for a resurgence of the U.S. nuclear industry, federal commissioners said at their first public hearing on the subject.

The Energy Department set up the panel of former Congressmen, academics, and business leaders after deciding to scrap the long delayed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada.

Commissioners said nuclear waste does not pose an immediate threat to the nation, but a plan on its disposal must be hatched to address the concerns average Americans have about expanding nuclear power.

“This is a major impediment to the development of new nuclear sites,” said commissioner John Rowe, chief executive officer of power company Exelon Corp. “While we don’t have to do anything quickly to keep the public safe, we do have to do something decisive to have public credibility.” (more…)

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Friday that the United States needs to come up with a better system for storing or disposing of radioactive nuclear waste than a planned repository near Las Vegas.

“The president has made it very clear that we are going to go beyond Yucca mountain. You should go beyond Yucca mountain,” Chu said. “But instead of wringing my hands, let’s go forward and do something better.”

The Obama administration, in January, announced it was stopping the license application for a long-planned multi-billion dollar nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas, which is opposed by environmental groups. (more…)

There is an often-vicious debate occurring within the environmental community about nuclear energy. While there are those like Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, who are arguing in support of nuclear power, there are still many others against it.

Gwyneth Cravens is one environmentalist participating in this debate who supports nuclear energy and wrote Power to Save the World in favor of this energy source. Cravens wasn’t always a nuclear energy supporter. In fact, she once helped support initiatives that prevented a nuclear power plant from being completed in Long Island, where she currently lives.

However, this book shows how she went from being firmly anti-nuclear to believing that nuclear energy is actually environmentally friendly while at the same time following the life cycle of nuclear fuel from extraction to use to storage.

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