Newsom tells L.A. Times editors that he’s reconsidering the Diablo Canyon closure

Governor Gavin Newsom, a consumate politician, finally is willing to declare his support for Diablo Canyon, something he has long refused to do. As the L.A. Times reports in an article titled California promised to close its last nuclear plant. Now Newsom is reconsidering, Newsom has chosen to come out publicly with support for saving Diablo Canyon. It is doubtful that Newsom has suddenly "seen the light" about nuclear. More likely, he's seen recent polling showing that a majority of Democrats and Republican understand the importance of nuclear power for addressing the goal of reliable clean energy in the absence of fossil fuels.

It appears that Governor Newsom is now working to delay the closure of Diablo Canyon. While this will disappoint his fossil fuel donors and those touting renewables (which is a majority of environmental organizations of all stripes), it is definitely the right thing to do.

There are numerous reasons for Newsom having finally found the political will to disrupt what many in California consider a settled matter. As the article mentions, the reality is that shutting Diablo would cause the forthcoming energy shortages that are already projected to be far worse. Back in August 2020, hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses lost power during some of the hotest and smokiest days of the year, and the state narrowly avoided even worse blackouts a few weeks later. Now CALISO is projecting increased grid fragility going forward, even without shuttering Diablo Canyon, given increasing heat waves, more aggressive forest fires and reduced hydropower supply, as a result of California's extended drought.

Additionally, the DOE recently announced their Civil Nuclear Credit program and are now dangling some $6 billion that is earmarked for at-risk nuclear power plants. Gavin recognizes that such funds could help underwrite some face-saving upgrades to the plant, possibly even to the once-through-cooling (OTC) system, the imposed costs of which by the State Water Resources Board were ostensibly the basis for PG&E finally giving up on their plan to re-license the plant.

Then there the small matter of the upcoming election and a Democratic primary where the leading contenders for Gavin's place on the ticket were nearly all expressing strong pronuclear positions and calling Gavin out for his apparent retrograde or donor-induced political ignorance of climate science.

Needless to say, that the joint Stanford/MIT report providing evidence that closing Diablo Canyon would cost the state $21 billion, which was followed by a pronuclear rally in San Luis Obispo, itself followed by the very public letter from 79 high-level scientists, academics and business leader urging Governor Newsom to protect this existing (and paid for) asset, was a triple punch that probably alarmed everyone that he was being seen as being on the wrong side of science.

While the article suggests that Newsom is simply in process of "reconsidering," in fact the word on the street is that a deal has been done to preserve Diablo Canyon, although what that is remains unknown, as no information has yet been officially issued. Needless to say, these are very encouraging signs. Nucleation Capital supports protecting Diablo Canyon, Michigan's Palisades plant and other at-risk plants.

Read the L.A. Times article, California promised to close its last nuclear plant. Now Newsom is reconsidering, by Sammy Roth, April 29, 2022 here. To learn more about what you can do to support Diablo Canyon, see the Save Diablo Canyon campaign at Climate Coalition.

Published by Grant Mills in Carbon emissions, Climate change, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, Government support, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear-inclusive energy policy, Politicians supporting nuclear, Reduced ecosystem impacts, Regulatory reform, Scientific debate, Solving climate, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

June 3, 2021

Wyoming explores replacing coal with advanced nuclear

Wyoming Governor, Mark Gordon, together with a broad coalition of high-ranking federal, state and industry partners, announced that Bill Gates' advanced nuclear venture, TerraPower, selected Wyoming to be the state in which they will build and operate their advanced nuclear Natrium™ reactor, replacing a coal-fired plant at a yet-to-be-selected Rocky Mountain Power facility.

The project, with a combination of private and federal funding and supported by Wyoming's legislature, which passed HB 74, will allow the development of a first-of-a-kind, fully functioning advanced nuclear power plant that is expected to validate the design, construction and operational features of the Natrium technology and enable Wyoming, which leads the country in coal exports, to remain a leader in a form of energy best suited to replace coal.

The Governor, in his remarks, clearly sought to straddle the complexity of competing interests in Wyoming, which is home to some of the largest fossil fuel companies in the country, while announcing this "game-changing and monumental" news.

“Earlier this year, I set a goal for Wyoming to be a carbon negative state, and continue to use fossil fuels. I am not going to abandon any of our fossil fuel industry, it is absolutely essential to our state and we believe very strongly is our fastest and clearest course to being carbon negative.

I do want to say, that it is the bedrock of our economy, in many ways, and as that, it has provided us with enormous amounts of capital and money to be able to do great things with wildlife, our landscape and our environment.

But this historic announcement helps Wyoming meet the first part of that objective. Nuclear power is clearly a part of my "all of the above" strategy, for energy in Wyoming, it will be the first of a new generation of nuclear plants that are smaller, modular in design and are equipped with enhanced safety measures. This facility will also result in an overall reduction of CO2 being released in Wyoming.

You may access the Wyoming PBS video of this announcement by clicking the image below.

https://youtu.be/hHzwwtSTbxY

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), awarded TerraPower $80 million in initial funding from the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to demonstrate the Natrium technology in October 2020. TerraPower signed the cooperative agreement with DOE in May 2021.

In December, 2020, Staffan Qvist, Paweł Gładysz, Łukasz Bartela and Anna Sowizdzał published at study that looked at the issue of how best to retrofit coal power plants for decarbonization in Poland. They published their findings in Retrofit Decarbonization of Coal Power Plants—a Case Study for Poland, showing that decarbonization retrofits worked best using high-temperature small modular reactor to replace coal boilers.

Learn more at: GeekWire's Bill Gates’ TerraPower will build its first next-gen nuclear reactor in Wyoming, by Lisa Stiffler, June 3, 2021 and at TerraPower's joint announcement with PacifCorp and Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, June 2, 2021.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Construction costs, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, Government support, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear innovation, Politicians supporting nuclear, Solving climate, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

September 21, 2020

GE exits coal to focus on wind and nuclear

General Electic, opened the first AC coal-fired power plant in the United States in 1902 and spent the following century becoming a leader in manufacturing these plants both in the United States and worldwide. That line of business, however, is coming to an end, as GE announced that they’re leaving coal behind and looking ahead to newer, cheaper, and cleaner methods of electricity generation. After fulfilling their existing obligations in the coal business, it seems that GE will look to bolster its existing nuclear and wind divisions.

Despite efforts from the Trump administration to bolster the coal industry, market forces have pushed utilities to cheaper, cleaner forms of electricity, with many utilities opting to retire coal-fired power plants early. Last year coal production fell to the lowest level since 1978, according to data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“GE’s steam power business will work with customers on existing obligations as it pursues this exit, which may include divestitures, site closings, job impacts and appropriate considerations for publicly held subsidiaries.”

Read more in The Hill: "GE to stop producing coal-fired power plants"

Published by Nucleation Capital in Carbon emissions, Corporate decarbonization, Fossil fuels, History Timeline, History-making, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness

February 20, 2020

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin was a chemist and X-ray crystallographer who is best known for her work on the structure of DNA, RNA, and coal. She also performed cutting-edge research on the molecular structure of viruses that cause plant and human diseases.

Franklin was born in London, England in 1920. She studied physical chemistry at Newnham Women’s College at the University of Cambridge. During World War II, Franklin researched the physical chemistry of coal and carbon under the British Coal Utilisation Research Association. By studying the porosity of coal, she concluded that substances were expelled in order of molecular size as temperature increased. This work was important for accurately classifying and predicting coal performance for fuel and wartime production and served as her Ph.D. thesis.

After the war, Franklin accepted a position as a research fellow at King’s College London. During this time, she investigated DNA samples. She took clear x-ray diffraction photos of DNA and was able to conclude that the forms had two helices. Her work–specifically her image Photo 51–was the foundation of James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery that the structure of DNA was a double-helix polymer, for which she was not cited or credited.

Afterward, she continued working with x-ray diffraction photos of viruses at the J.D. Bernal’s crystallography laboratory at Birkbeck College and collaborated with virus researchers from around the world. She studied RNA of the tobacco mosaic virus and contributed to published works on cucumber virus 4 and turnip yellow mosaic virus.

During her career, she published 19 articles on coal and carbons, 21 on viruses, and 5 on DNA.

Awards & Recognition

1935 – Received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of artificial radioactivity (with Frederic Joliot-Curie)
1940 – Received the Barnard Gold Medal for Meritorious Service to Science (with Frederic Joliot-Curie)
Was an Officer of the Legion of Honour.

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Source: Versant Physics, "The Seven Most Influential Women in Radiation History."

Published by editor in Brilliant thinkers, History-making, Nuclear R&D, Women in Nuclear, WOMEN IN NUCLEAR GRID

November 18, 2014

What it takes to reverse climate change

Ross Koningstein and David Fork, armed with the resources of Google, Inc., set out in an effort that was known as "RE<C" to assess and support the development of renewable energy sources so that they could generate reliable electricity more cheaply than coal. In an subsequent article penned in the IEEE Spectrum entitled What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change: Today's renewable energy technologies won't save us. So what will?, we learn the results of their years of work.

Initially, Google announced that it would help promising technologies mature by investing in start-ups and even engaging in internal R&D. Its goal: to produce a gigawatt of renewable power more cheaply than could a coal-fired plant within a few years, not decades. Unfortunately, within a few years, Google shut down the initiative, when it became clear that exclusively using renewables would not work. Koningstein and Fork then turned their attention to examining the the underlying assumptions and learning from their experience.

Even though there were a few sparse areas that might manage to achieve higher renewables penetration and approach the goal, it was clear that most regions of the world would not be able to power their needs with renewables, if looked at on a time-coincident basis. They determined that the only way to both stop new emissions and reverse the warming trends that had been put into motion by CO2 accumulations was through "radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon."

Ross Koningstein serves as an advisor to Nucleation Capital and we have discussed and benefitted in many ways from his vast experience. Read Ross' own published report at "What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change: Today’s renewable energy technologies won’t save us. So what will?."

Published by Nucleation Capital in 100% Renewables, Advanced Nuclear, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Carbon negative, Climate change, Corporate decarbonization, Corporate purpose, Future of Energy, LINKS, Public companies, Reduced ecosystem impacts, Solving climate