Now Europe’s Nuclear Reactors Fall Victim of the Heat

Now Europe’s Nuclear Reactors Fall Victim of the Heat

For the last decade the nuclear industry has been telling us it is the solution to climate change. But if their reactors can’t work in our rapidly warming world, are we just building a whole new generation of expensive white elephants?

The Iran nuclear deal, oil production and climate equity

The Iran nuclear deal, oil production and climate equity

This morning in Vienna, Iran finally reached a deal on its nuclear programme with the P5+1, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. The deal is big news for energy markets. Iran holds 9% of the world’s oil reserves and 18% of its natural gas, but its production has been held back by … Read More

The “Corporate Killer” that is Nuclear Power

At the end of the day energy comes down to economics. Drilling oil out of the deserts of the Middle East is inherently more profitable than boiling them out of Canadian boreal forest. Any deal at Copenhagen will hinge on how much the rich are prepared to pay the poor. There will be no clean … Read More

A Nuclear-Tainted and Oil-Soaked Renewable Energy Agency?

So the United Arab Emirates has won the race to host the new International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) beating off competition from Bonn and Vienna. Never mind that the UAE has the highest per capita carbon footprint in the world, a fact that had attracted strong opposition from other countries. Never mind that the UAE … Read More

Nuclear Spin Doctors Win As Greens Go Pro-Nukes

Earlier this month, the crème of the nuclear industry spin doctors gathered in Edinburgh in Scotland at the posh Sheraton Hotel. The event, known as PIME 2009, is where they outline their public relations techniques as to how to try and sell a dangerous, expensive and dirty fuel as green, clean and climate friendly.

1,000 Nuclear Plants Needed to Break Oil Addiction

Out of the frying pan into the fire. In a bid to end the global “addiction to oil”, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has signalled he wants the UK to play a major role in the race to build an extra 1,000 nuclear power stations across the world. Brown, who is flying to Saudia Arabia … Read More

Nuclear’s CO2 Cost “Will Climb”

It’s the myth on which the ongoing nuclear renaissance is built: that nuclear power is one of the solutions to climate change. But now the case for nuclear power as a low carbon energy source to replace fossil fuels has been challenged in a new report by Australian academics. It suggests greenhouse emissions from the … Read More

“Nuclear is UK’s new North Sea oil”

Isn’t the definition of insanity knowing what you are about to do is wrong but doing it anyway. And then doing it again. And Again. If this is so, this gets pretty close. Britain’s Business Secretary, John Hutton, will call today for a huge expansion of Britain’s nuclear power in what he predicts could be … Read More

UK Plans “Significant” Increase in Nuclear Power

The UK’s reliance on nuclear power will increase “significantly” over the next two decades, the business secretary, John Hutton, has admitted. Hutton says he expects a new generation of nuclear power stations to be built to supply much more of the country’s electricity than the 19 per cent the existing ones deliver. He also said … Read More