Every last gamma ray

In these post-Fuku-me days, it takes a
bald-faced cheeky oligarchy to push for more Nukes.
Thatcher went for it because while it looked like
private investment, everybody knows that nukes
are so heavily subsidised that they're worse than
if it were a public enterprise. But we gotta give
cushy jobs to lazy friends.
Well, more of the same these days.

It is telling of the racial differences between the UK
and Japan and Germany.

After Fukushima, once the dust settled, the Japanese
stopped all their isotope-shacks, and the Germans
put forward the plans to stop their plants as soon as
is practicable. NO OTHER NATIONS even
considered changing their tack. Tell you something?
I would rather be led by those kinds of people.

Then there's the whole why-not-thorium nukes?
the benefits are amazingly obvious, except that thorium
doesn't go BOOM. Therefore, no Western governments
want it. Neither does Iran, but that move may cost the
Persians.

Anyway, here's  story of how French power-brokers
have somehow paid off the UK's box tickers:

checkit: slog
How Britain’s energy future is dangerously compromised

EDF is foisting second-rate nuclear technology onto Britain, and we can’t stop them

Slog exposé of Britain’s woefully hands-off ‘secure energy’ policy is a tale of clever government omission in what it puts out about energy. A brief history of the inane reasons behind the UK’s choice of nuclear reactor type. A classic example of having no control over our own national destiny any more. The continuing story of the unaccountable obviating their responsibilities. And the obsession of governments throughout the world with nuclear development in terms of weaponry. this means "We dicked about with the energy football under New Labour, but now we need to get on with it, even though we can’t afford it. So over to you, EDF The Coalition Government which took power in May 2010 has backed the plans for new nuclear,and progress to new build remains on track. Uranium is the 92nd element in the periodic elements table that baffled us all at school; but the 90th place element in that table is Thorium. Never heard of it? Probably not, but Western scientists estimate that the nuclear energy available in thorium is greater than that available from all of the world’s oil, coal and uranium combined.

Thorium is approximately three times as abundant as uranium in the earth’s crust. In addition, thorium is present in higher concentrations (2-10%) by weight than uranium (0.1-1%) in their respective ores, making thorium retrieval much less expensive and less environmentally damaging per unit of energy extracted. Countries with significant thorium mineral deposits include: Australia, India, Brazil, USA, Canada, China, Russia, Norway, Turkey, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, South Africa, and Malaysia. Its availability is both broader and deeper than uranium, and it produces a fraction of the nuclear waste left after using uranium for electricity generation.

But it is a minority choice for reactors round the  world. A senior researcher explains with refreshing bluntness why:

“Ah, that’s easy. You can’t make bombs out of it. Bombs should, of course, have zero importance in the decision about which material to use for nuclear electricity generation. Thorium is plentiful, easier in terms of disposal, and vastly – hugely – more efficient than uranium. But you can’t make bombs out of it. So nobody uses it. It’s insane”.

A specialist media source tips me off by email as follows:

“I am not a rabid anti-nuclear person – I would not oppose new nuclear plants on condition they were based on thorium technology, which is (potentially at least) vastly superior to current uranium technology in terms of safety, clean-up costs, waste storage and nuclear proliferation risks. But we are not being offered thorium, and nobody anywhere seems to know or care about the difference between the two….the main difference between uranium and thorium is its thermal efficiency. Uranium’s is pitifully bad, which means there is lots of waste and lots of bad stuff left after the reaction, some of which remains radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Thorium’s thermal efficiency is – if I remember rightly – 97%, which means there is a fraction of the waste, and that waste is non-radioactive within 300 years.”

And finally, this from the US – source must remain vague I’m afraid:

“The major reason why thorium use for energy production has not made more progress over the past decades is that thorium is not nearly as easy to weaponize. The principal reason thorium hasn’t been used more widely to date is that the ore contains no fissile isotope.”

.... [GM BLOCK OF PROGRESS]

But EDF energy remains committed to diversifying the energy it has on hand to sell. Before the Delingpolar one at the Torygraph has an attack of the vapours, let me quickly review the “CETO” wave energy device being developed by Carnegie Wave Energy. It is a joint Australian-British endeavour, and its main plus point is having most of the equipment based on land – which makes it easy to maintain and cheap to run. The technology is also very power-dense, and capable of producing something like five gigawatts of energy per square mile. Astonishingly, it can also be turned into a desalination device when it is not needed for energy generation. No more standpipes for Britain, then. Amazing.

However, the exclusive rights to use the technology in the northern hemisphere have been sold to….EDF....
2

FRENCH NUKES ARE A BIG LOBBY. Testosterone pit
Russia’s Gazprom Tightens Its Stranglehold On Europe, France Falls: The Natural Gas War Gets Dirty Friday, August 31, 2012 at 5:19PM Why would France suddenly prohibit shale gas exploration? Sure, there are environmental issues with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the methods used to extract gas from porous shale deep underground: flammable drinking water, earth quakes, cows that die, radioactive sludge in sewage treatment plants.... But French governments have had, let’s say, an uneasy relationship with environmentalists. Its spy service DGSE, for example, sank Greenpeace’s flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, killing one person. No, there must have been another reason why the government of Nicholas Sarkozy prohibited shale gas exploration in 2011, after having already issued permits in 2010. A mini hullabaloo had broken out, stirred up by the European Ecologists and The Greens (EELV), the fringe on the French left. And Sarkozy caved! Without a fight! Enthusiastically. The government of François Hollande just confirmed the prohibition when Environment Minister Delphine Batho declared: “Hydraulic fracturing remains and will remain prohibited.” The clue: Sarkozy suddenly visited Japan on March 31, 2011, a couple of weeks after the horrific earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent nuclear accident at Fukushima, to declare in front of shell-shocked Japanese that there was “no alternative” to nuclear power. He’d been dispatched by the almighty state-owned nuclear industry to tamp down on the growing anti-nuclear sentiment at home. Owned by the government, nuclear power plants produce 75% of France’s electricity and export some of it. No one who wants to be politically viable is allowed to hamper the industry. If someone strays off the reservation, he or she is dragged back soon. While Hollande campaigned on a vague promise to reduce dependency on nuclear power to 50%, it was understood as one of the bones he had to toss to environmentalists. Nothing would come of it. So when Batho, who wants to add more renewables to the portfolio, toed the party line by saying, “Nuclear power is an industry with future,” then qualified it with a “but,” it caused an outcry even among the Socialists. That’s the power the nuclear industry has over the political machines. But now another powerful entity turned up: Russia’s Gazprom. It’s the world’s largest gas producer, gas exporter, and gas distribution company with nearly 100,000 miles of gas trunk lines and branches. The Russian government owns 50.01% of it. At home, it has to sell gas under cost, one of the Soviet leftovers. It relies on high-profit sales from Europe to make up for it. But Europe is diversifying away from its single most important supplier. Competitors include Russia’s number two, Novatek, and Norway—the second largest natural gas exporter in the world. So, in April, Gazprom had to lower its European sales guidance for 2012. Its market share in Europe was 27% last year, and it’s shooting for 30% by 2020, but if the US shale-gas boom ever infects Europe, those plans would become a pipedream—and if the high-profit sales from Europe tapered off further, it would have to raise prices at home, a political nightmare. Hence its fight by hook or crook against shale gas in France. Gazprom’s “underhanded tactics” and “scaremongering about a new technology” have Moscow’s nod of approval and are designed to dissuade governments from developing their own shale-gas reserves, according to a report by Platts, a global provider of information on energy, petrochemicals, and metals. Efforts include all manner of operations, online and through encouraging demonstrations, but also paying public relation firms to spread “myths and misconceptions,” said Aviezer Tucker, assistant director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas. A “European Union-wide ban” on shale-gas production, he said, would be the “holy grail.” With France already knocked off, Sergei Komlev of Gazprom Export has been bouncing around the world in his fight against European shale gas. At a meeting in Qatar, according to Platts’ report, he gave a presentation. “Multiple Handicaps Will Retard Shale Gas Development Outside US” was the title of one of his slides. “Fortunately, it claimed, “European shale gas development faces numerous economic, regulatory, and political barriers before there are significant amounts of shale gas production, not sooner than in ten or more years.” Breathing room for Gazprom in the natural gas wars. In the US, natural gas may be the most mispriced commodity these days. Its price has been below the cost of production for so long that the industry is suffering billions in losses. But demand for natural gas by power producers has been booming—and it’s killing coal, one powerplant at a time. Read.... Natural Gas Is Pushing Coal Over The Cliff.