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The 2018 Year-End Energy Quiz

Jim Conca

Like every year, energy will be a hot topic in 2019. Do you know which state has the lowest CO2 footprint? What energy source has the biggest deathprint? What activity subjects you to the most radiation? Take this year-end energy quiz to test your knowledge of the most important issue in our lives

Energy 233
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The 2018 Energy Quiz

Jim Conca

Like every year, energy will be a hot topic again in 2018. Do you know which state has the lowest carbon footprint? What energy source has the biggest deathprint? What activity subjects you to the most radiation? Take this energy quiz to test your knowledge of the most important issue in our lives

Energy 172
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Russian Uranium One Deal And Hillary Clinton In The News Again

Jim Conca

Senator Chuck Grassley (R- IA) wants to resurrect the sale of Uranium One to Russia that occurred under Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State, and thinks something fishy is going on with the FBI and one of their former contractors. But this deal never was much of a scandal

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419
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Which Is Safer For Transporting Crude Oil: Rail, Truck, Pipeline Or Boat?

Jim Conca

News of increased crude oil transportation by rail from Canada has raised this question again. The short answer is: truck worse than train worse than pipeline worse than boat. But it depends on your definition of worse - human deaths, property destruction or environmental impact. You choose

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Do Small Amounts Of Radiation Matter?

Jim Conca

We need some radiation to function well since that's how we evolved. A set of genes that deal with radiation defends against radiation and it takes a lot to harm us. It’s why we never saw thousands of deaths predicted from Chernobyl and why nuclear workers have the same cancer rates as everyone else

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381
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The Ten Most Polluted Cities On Earth

Jim Conca

The most polluted cities in the world highlight the fact that pollution kills more people than anything else. Cairo tops the list. Los Angeles is the only US city on the list and comes in tenth. But this pollution also involves noise and light pollution for their role in neurodegenerative diseases

Pollution 375
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Blood Batteries - Cobalt And The Congo

Jim Conca

Cobalt is essential for our new technological world but, like blood diamonds, half of the Co supplies come from inhumane child labor practices, not the image sought after by people surfing the internet for free-range eggs on their iPhones. Vivienne Walt in Fortune outlines the issue

Batteries 358
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Radiation And The Value Of A Human Life

Jim Conca

The 63rd HPS meeting in Cleveland discussed, among other things, how much we are spending trying to adhere to absurdly-low radiation limits fostered upon society by the LNT, trying to save one theoretical life while not saving millions of real lives for the same amount of money

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307
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Can We Make A Nuclear Reactor That Won't Melt Down?

Jim Conca

Yes we can. NuScale Power is on track to build the first small modular nuclear reactor in America, having their first-ever SMR Design Certification Application accepted for full review by the NRC and now getting approval for their walk-away-safe concept. Their reactor just won’t melt down

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321
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NuScale's Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Passes Biggest Hurdle Yet

Jim Conca

NuScale’s small modular nuclear reactor completed the Phase 1 review of their design certification application by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That’s a huge deal because Phase 1 is the most intensive phase of the review, taking more hours and effort than the remaining five phases combined

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301
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Russia Hacks Into U.S. Power Plants, But Nuclear Reactors Should Be Impervious

Jim Conca

While the Russians may be able to disrupt electricity transmission in general, and electricity generation from many power plants like natural gas and wind farms, here's why they can’t hack into nuclear power plant operations

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Natural Gas And The New Deathprint For Energy

Jim Conca

With mounting deaths from natural gas and oil rig explosions, it is good to review the deathprint, or the number of people killed per kWh produced, of our energy sources. It is greatest for coal and least for nuclear, with natural gas having the greatest number of accidental deaths

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Hurricane Florence No Problem For Nuclear Power Plants

Jim Conca

Hurricane Florence makes landfall in the Carolinas, the most powerful storm to hit so far north in the U.S. Isaac and Helene are fast on her heels. Devastation is expected on many fronts, but the nuclear power plants are ready and will weather these storms better than almost anything else

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Nuclear Power Under Attack Again - This Time From The Ballot Box

Jim Conca

Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona, our biggest power plant, is under another political attack that could cause Arizona to lose not only its biggest source of electricity of any type, but its biggest source of low-carbon energy, ten times what all of its renewables are producing

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Nuclear Energy Needs Truth, Not Truthiness

Jim Conca

The distrust of scientists in the U.S. has become a growing ideology used for political purposes, and has become extremely dangerous to our democracy. Nowhere is this more obvious than in nuclear science where truthiness prevails in the news media

Politics 267
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Dennis Kucinich Wants To Bring Regulation Back To Ohio's Electricity Market

Jim Conca

Nuclear power is under attack from the deregulated energy market in Ohio, but Kucinich, a longstanding opponent to nuclear power, seems to understand the problem better than most. He wants to re-regulate the energy market and doesn’t want to close Ohio’s nuclear plants

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Why The Cancer Death Of A Fukushima Worker Was Likely Not Due To Fukushima

Jim Conca

Japan announced for the first time that a worker at the Fukushima nuclear power plant died after suffering radiation exposure, although this is unlikely to be true. The man, who was in his 50s, died from lung cancer that was diagnosed in 2016. There is no evidence it happened because of Fukushima

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How Far Do You Have To Run After A Small Modular Nuclear Meltdown?

Jim Conca

It turns out you don’t have to run at all. They can’t melt down and NRC just concluded that any possible emergencies won’t even get past the fence. No need to come up with huge evacuation plans for nearby cities or surrounding people - you can just stand at the fence and watch what’s going on

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261
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NuScale's Small Modular Nuclear Reactor -- Reliable, Resilient and Flexible

Jim Conca

NuScale’s SMR is the most resilient and reliable of any energy source, with Black-Start Capability, Island Mode and First Responder Power, not needing external grid connections, capable of withstanding earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, floods, cyberattacks, EMP threats and geomagnetic disturbances

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Nuclear Power Provides A Whole Lot More Than Just Energy

Jim Conca

Like all nuclear power plants, the nuclear plant near Richland, WA provides a significant economic boon to the region, providing over 9 billion kWhs of carbon-free electricity at-cost, $690 million in economic output and supporting 4,000 jobs/year, all while continuing to break production records

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The U.S. Supreme Court Slows Children's Climate Lawsuit -- For Now

Jim Conca

The first climate change lawsuit to engage SCOTUS was halted for the moment by Chief Justice Roberts. The case alleges that the government's affirmative actions helped to causeclimate change, violating the youngest generation's constitutional rights to protect essentialpublic resources

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Should The U.S. Build A Fast Nuclear Test Reactor Or Continue To Be Beholden To Russia?

Jim Conca

INL should build a fast nuclear test reactor called the VITR that will test aspects and materials for a new type reactor that will get ten times the energy of existing reactors and create nuclear waste that is easier to handle and isn’t hot for very long. Without depending on Russia, like we do now

Waste 224
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The Future(s) of Fossil Fuels - 2018

Mr. Sustainability

Source: BP Outlook 2018. References BP Energy Outlook 2018 IRENA, Rethinking Energy 2017 Kurzgesagt, the Human Explosion Explained International Energy Agency Outlook 2017. The main trends in human energy needs are population growth, an economic population shift towards the middle classes and energy efficiency. Population growth will plateau after 2030-2040, causing energy demand to stabilize and decline afterwards.

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How Fracking Led To A Breakthrough In Underground Nuclear Waste Disposal

Jim Conca

Deep Isolation takes advantage of recently developed drilling technologies to place nuclear waste in a series of two-mile-long tunnels, a mile below the Earth’s surface, where they’ll be surrounded by a very tight rock called shale

Waste 225
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It's A Horrible Idea To Privatize The Tennessee Valley Authority And Other Public Energy Assets

Jim Conca

20 million electricity customers served by BPA in the Northwest and TVA in the Southeast get the cheapest most reliable power from these not-for-profit government agencies that exist solely on their sales. Privatizing them would be a huge mistake, although it might make a few new American oligarchs

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Nuclear Plant Continues To Invest In Alternative Energy

Jim Conca

Energy Northwest is building 5MW combined solar/battery storage facility, adding 10 million kWhs of low-C electricity to its already diverse mix of non-fossil fuel generation, producing over 10 billion kWhs, emitting less than 20 gCO2/kWh, all for between 3¢ and 5¢/kWh. Just what the IPCC ordered

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AGNI Energy Claims Nuclear Fusion Isn't As Far Away As You Think

Jim Conca

A new nuclear fusion reactor may have solved the problems of previous designs. It uses both electric and magnetic fields, and a beam of ions focused on a solid target, each containing half of the fuel and taking advantage of aneutronic fusion, reducing the problems with high neutron radiation

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Will Our Youth Force Environmental And Climate Issues Into The Ballot Box?

Jim Conca

Young people voted in record numbers in November and a majority consider themselves climate activists. 77% of people ages 18 to 25 said environmental issues are more importantto them now than they were 2 years ago, and 85%believe we could be doing moreat the federal levelto support clean energy

Energy 200
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This New Year, Can't We Do The Right Thing With Our Nuclear Waste?

Jim Conca

The DOE is conducting a three phase test on how to treat and dispose of some Hanford Tank waste the way we do other similar commercial radioactive waste, testing not just the technical stuff, we know that already, but the legal and regulatory stuff, which is a lot harder

Waste 198
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ANS All Energy Forum Brings A Sobering Analysis To Energy And Climate Plans

Jim Conca

The All Energy Forum at the American Nuclear Society’s annual meeting in Philadelphia wrapped up with some good news. But adjusting our energy mix to increase non-fossil fuels in order to combat global warming was not part of the good news. We're still going in the wrong direction

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Martian and Lunar Colonies To Be Powered By Nuclear Energy

Jim Conca

The NASA’s Kilopower project is developing a tiny nuclear reactor that is perfect for powering a colony on Mars or the Moon, fueling a large spacecraft to a distant star, or operating a mining operation in the asteroid belt. No other power source can do it

Energy 219
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The World Is Not Prepared For Global Warming

Jim Conca

The people of the world are not prepared for the global warming that is already upon us. Heat-related deaths are up. Crop yields are down. Wildfires are rampant. Carbon levels are the highest in 800,000 yrs. So why have we been cutting assistance to firefighters and other emergency funding

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Fracking-Induced EarthquakesGenerateAnxiety In The Public

Jim Conca

The connection between fracking and earthquakes has another facet – increasing anxiety of the public. A new Berkeley study used a unique technique to examine the tie between OK earthquakes and statewide anxiety - measuring Google health queries on the subject as a function of time after the quakes

Health 201
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U.S. Natural Gas Goes Global

Jim Conca

As much as alternatives are increasing, gas is increasing more. And will grow faster than all other sources in the United States. But for the industry to really make a profit, we need to connect to the world market. This is opposite to oil which is harmed by being hooked up to the global market

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Will We Actually Get A Place To Store Our Nuclear Waste?

Jim Conca

The NRC accepted Holtec’s license application for its proposed centralized interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.To be located in NM, the facility would store spent nuclear fuel until a final disposal facility is built or until we build our new fast reactors that will burn it

Waste 200
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Recycling News Roundup - June 2018

Living Green Technology

2018 has been a wild year when it comes to recycling and green living news. Keep reading for the latest from these industries. Seattle Times: Some Seattle-area recycling dumped in landfills as China’s restrictions kick in The Seattle Times recently published an article on how China's decision to shut its doors to American recyclables has had a trickle down effect on recycling here in Seattle.

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A Ray Of Sunshine Falls On Puerto Rico

Jim Conca

Still blacked out, Puerto Rico may be getting some of the solar hybrid microgrid technology everyone says it needs to recover from Hurricane Maria, and to withstand the next big one. Louis Berger has installed two prototype systems to support a rural women’s shelter and a rural children’s shelter

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Recycling News Roundup - October 2018

Living Green Technology

Want to learn about the most recent recycling news in Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and the world? We've got you covered! Athol Daily News: Recycling needs to go dual-stream to adapt to changing demand Athol Daily News published a fantastic opinion article that analyzes some of the big changes in the recycling industry, particularly with China becoming stricter about what sort of recyclables it will accept.

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Diversity! Diversity! Diversity! What Bomb Cyclones Teach Us About Our Fuel Sources

Jim Conca

Whether biology, culture or electricity generation, when conditions change you survive if there is sufficient diversity to adapt. Otherwise you die. This proved correct yet again during our run-in with a Bomb Cyclone that forced us to use a maximum diversity of power sources to keep the heat on

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The Global Clean Water Crisis -- PepsiCo Expands Its Safe Water Program

Jim Conca

4 billion people live with severe water scarcity. PepsiCo’s new Sustainability Report outlines their strategic grant programs to conserve, manage, and distribute clean water across the United States, Latin America, China and India with a goal of helping 25 million people by 2025

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Recycling News Roundup: December 2018

Living Green Technology

The New Year is nearly upon us, and we have a new batch of recycling news for you! Recycling Today - Electronics recyclers plead guilty to fraud The ownership of Seattle recyler Total Reclaim , the Pacific Northwest's largest recycler of e-waste, has pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. They collected millions of dollars from the government in exchange for promising to recycle electronics domestically and responsibly.

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A Ten-Step Program For Cooking The Planet

Jim Conca

It’s not hard to cook our planet. All you have to do is stop thinking too hard, and repeat the same mistakes over and over. And don't listen to experts, since you can just Google it. In ten years, the climate will have taken its own path and we won’t have much say about what happens after that

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Richard Rhodes Reveals Human History Through The Light Of Energy

Jim Conca

Energy has always been about power - to drive an engine or to drive a Kingdom. Rhodes’ beautiful prose illustrates how intricately the last 400 years is intertwined with the emergence of dense energy in amounts that could fuel civilizations, in amounts that could compete with Nature itself

Energy 172