Nuclear and renewable technologies are crucial parts of the United States’ energy system, providing clean, secure, abundant power.

William Tucker at RealClearEnergy.org makes a good argument of not worrying about doomsday scenarios. In his column Dealing with abundance, he tells a good story about the Club of Rome’s 1970s computer simulation that predicted the world would soon run out of energy and other resources. The author’s analysis is that the future looked bleak…

Good news for the wind industry: the House of Representative late last month voted 23 to 3 to extend a series of tax credits that had expired. The Production Tax Credit was among them. The bill must yet pass the Senate but if most on the House Finance Committee can have their heads in the…

Six tanks at the Hanford nuclear site in Washington State are leaking their toxic contents, says the headline with only slightly muffled horror. (One version here: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57570857/6-tanks-at-hanford-nuclear-site-in-wash-leaking/). As if you did not expect it, the cleanup will cost billions of tax payer dollars. The article says Washington governor Jay Inslee has assured the public the…

It’s almost common knowledge that power companies need a solid baseline of power production from conventional fuels. So you have to be greatly encouraged to hear another nuclear plant would be online soon, if 2015 qualifies as soon. The 1,100-MW Watts Bar 2 has been in an on-again, off-again status for…35 years! The Tennessee Valley…

Since its inception more than 50 years ago, the U.S. nuclear power industry has been propped up by a generous array of government subsidies that have supported its development and operations. Subsidies are enugh to cut $0.07/kWh off power costs. Most conventional power costs $0.05 to $0.06/kWh to produce. Despite the support, the industry is…

The same combination of forces that brought down Constellation Energy’s Calvert Cliffs-3 nuclear reactor may undermine two major remaining federal-loan-guarantee applicants: the South Texas Project and the V.C. Summer reactor project in South Carolina, according to experts who spoke at a recent news conference. The conference was sponsored by the nonprofit and independent Nuclear Information…

The industry that promised that nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter” is now touting another supposed cure-all for America’s power needs: the small modular reactor (SMR). The problem is that SMRs are unlikely to live up to the hype and may well aggravate cost, safety, and environmental problems, according to a new fact…