Switzerland overtakes nuclear-needy European neighbors Though Austria banned nuclear power plants in 1998, and Germany is phasing them out by 2022, Switzerland leads the way in its comprehensive, progressive, voter-mandated energy plan. The vote on Sunday saw Swiss citizens pass the law called Energy Strategy 2050. If you’ll pardon a digression: Yes, the Swiss vote […]
Coincidence? All the world’s energy sources are in a state of flux—and it couldn’t come at a better time. Well, perhaps two decades ago would have been better, considering we’re so far behind on renewables to help abate global warming from fossil fuels. But, something is better than nothing, and late is better than never. […]
Bordering countries had recently expressed firm concerns over aging French facilities Tangled up in bureaucracy and mired in controversy, Électricité de France (EDF) has been unable to resolve major hazard issues over several years, and now it has blown up in its face—literally, with respect to the poor souls injured in Thursday’s blast at the […]
On December 21, 2016, The New York Times ran an op-ed piece written by two U.S. senators. A Republican from Tennessee and a Democrat from Rhode Island teamed up to opine on the need to strengthen the nuclear power sector in America. Their pitch centered on the possibility that—as aging nuclear plants close—American’s will have […]
How does a worldwide supplier of reactor parts to nuclear plants decide to cheat on quality? In a previous article here on my ULTIMATE ERROR blog, I wrote about a nearly unfathomable situation in France’s nuclear power program. Critical components purchased by the French from a forge called Le Creusot were found to contain excess […]
Recent tests on components of at least 18 live reactors found risks of major accidents The stalwart environmental defense group Greenpeace probably feels pretty good about itself right now. Specifically, Greenpeace France, which called for investigations of nuclear power plants across the nation – investigations which turned up some harrowing problems. France’s nuclear security agency, […]
The answers – or lack thereof – might surprise you Protecting nuclear power plants from attack or sabotage: “It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it,” right? Anything “nuclear” has little margin for error, though, so is “somebody” a good enough answer to the question, “Who’s responsible for security at that nuclear power […]
Most of us are old enough to remember the predictions, peaking in 1999, of a “Y2K” catastrophe. A computer-dependent world would see everything from home computers crashing because of the bug to food running out due to interruptions in the computer-run supply chain, some said. Of course, we all know what happened: nearly nothing that […]
Study finds the unthinkable, yet predictable: South Florida nuclear plant has been leaking radioactive wastewater into natural habitats Interesting news out of Miami, where the utility Florida Power & Light built and operates a nuclear power plant. The Miami Herald, has been closely following reports of wastewater leakage from the Turkey Point facility into the […]