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2018 Related Topics 
Jim Conca
DECEMBER 31, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JANUARY 3, 2018
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
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Jim Conca
DECEMBER 13, 2018
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
Jim Conca
OCTOBER 11, 2018
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
Jim Conca
SEPTEMBER 29, 2018
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
Jim Conca
AUGUST 23, 2018
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
Jim Conca
SEPTEMBER 26, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JULY 23, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JANUARY 24, 2018
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
Jim Conca
MAY 15, 2018
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
Jim Conca
MARCH 16, 2018
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
Jim Conca
SEPTEMBER 13, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JANUARY 25, 2018
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
Jim Conca
APRIL 18, 2018
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
Jim Conca
SEPTEMBER 18, 2018
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
Jim Conca
APRIL 6, 2018
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
Jim Conca
SEPTEMBER 6, 2018
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
Jim Conca
AUGUST 29, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JUNE 22, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JANUARY 16, 2018
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
Jim Conca
OCTOBER 22, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JULY 26, 2018
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
Jim Conca
OCTOBER 28, 2018
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
Jim Conca
MAY 22, 2018
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
Jim Conca
DECEMBER 27, 2018
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
Jim Conca
DECEMBER 6, 2018
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
Jim Conca
MARCH 8, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JUNE 18, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JUNE 27, 2018
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
Living Green Technology
JUNE 10, 2018
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.
Jim Conca
AUGUST 15, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JULY 5, 2018
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
Jim Conca
FEBRUARY 1, 2018
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
Living Green Technology
OCTOBER 22, 2018
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.
Living Green Technology
DECEMBER 2, 2018
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.
Jim Conca
OCTOBER 31, 2018
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
Jim Conca
MARCH 6, 2018
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
Jim Conca
FEBRUARY 8, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JULY 11, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JANUARY 11, 2018
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
Jim Conca
JULY 31, 2018
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
Jim Conca
APRIL 24, 2018
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
Jim Conca
AUGUST 9, 2018
The Tallinn Manual attempts to establish how international law governs cyberwarfare, use of force and responses to cyberattacks, which is especially important as our one-sided cyberwar with Russia escalates
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