Nuclear Power - a two-fer

First - from Texas' The Dallas Morning News:

Lockheed goes global to build its nuclear business
In a nondescript strip mall across town from the heavy security of its fighter jet operations, defense contractor Lockheed Martin opens its doors each day to a rotating crew of Chinese engineers.

While the U.S. and Chinese governments spar over the theft of classified military data, Lockheed has entered into a deal with China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. to help build that country’s next generation of nuclear plants.

The only hitch is that the Chinese want their own engineers working on the project. As a military contractor, Lockheed has to be sensitive about employing foreign nationals anywhere where classified military technology is being developed. So it found alternative digs near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Nowhere is the outlook for nuclear power brighter than in China, where the government is on a campaign to clean up the country’s air. Most of China’s electricity is generated by burning coal, which casts a lung-wrenching haze over its major cities. One of China’s goals is to add to its existing fleet of around 15 nuclear power plants. Analysts believe China will build between 60 and 100 more nuclear plants over the next four decades.

Right now Lockheed has a contract to engineer its reactor control system for China through 2017. But Michael Syring, director of nuclear systems for Lockheed, says the company believes the project will lead to a longer-term relationship helping China develop its nuclear sector.

Good news - bring some jobs to America and when the American Renaissance happens, we will have the necessary skill-set here at home. Lockheed's nuclear history?

Lockheed has more than a 50-year history of building nuclear power systems for U.S. Navy submarines and aircraft carriers. The company took a stab at applying its technical know-how to commercial power plants in the 1970s. But after the partial meltdown of a reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979, much of the U.S. nuclear engineering industry shut down.

Second - from the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Will California Go Green or Go Gas?
When one of California’s two nuclear plants–the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS)–unexpectedly closed last year because of damage to its steam tubes, many clean energy advocates including UCS hoped that the state would replace much of that electricity with generation from renewable resources, as well as increased investments in other carbon-free energy resources, such as energy efficiency, demand response, and energy storage devices. Unfortunately, plans are now in the works to replace most of the SONGS electricity with a new natural gas plant, without a process that gives clean energy resources a chance to compete.

San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) recently filed a plan with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) that contained details on how they would replace the SONGS power. The plan needed to conform to the guidelines set forth by the CPUC (details start on page 141 of the Commission’s decision), which allowed SDG&E to procure up to 800 MW of electrical capacity. At least 200 MW of this must come from “preferred” (aka carbon-free) resources like renewables, energy efficiency, and storage, and the remaining 600 MW could be chosen through a competitive bidding process, although the CPUC said some of this energy could also be picked through a bilateral contract, which means a contract with one project, no competitive bidding.

Heh - suck it up hippies, alt.energy is a bottomless rathole for effort, money and time. It has a place in remote areas and there is zero reason why research should not be continued - breakthroughs happen. But for now, nuke and gas are the two best solutions to our energy needs and we need to pursue these two aggressively. They are stable and mature technologies with millions of trouble-free hours of operation.

October 2022

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31          

Environment and Climate
AccuWeather
Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Climate Depot
Ice Age Now
ICECAP
Jennifer Marohasy
Solar Cycle 24
Space Weather
Watts Up With That?


Science and Medicine
Junk Science
Life in the Fast Lane
Luboš Motl
Medgadget
Next Big Future
PhysOrg.com


Geek Stuff
Ars Technica
Boing Boing
Don Lancaster's Guru's Lair
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
FAIL Blog
Hack a Day
Kevin Kelly - Cool Tools
Neatorama
Slashdot: News for nerds
The Register
The Daily WTF


Comics
Achewood
The Argyle Sweater
Chip Bok
Broadside Cartoons
Day by Day
Dilbert
Medium Large
Michael Ramirez
Prickly City
Tundra
User Friendly
Vexarr
What The Duck
Wondermark
xkcd


NO WAI! WTF?¿?¿
Awkward Family Photos
Cake Wrecks
Not Always Right
Sober in a Nightclub
You Drive What?


Business and Economics
The Austrian Economists
Carpe Diem
Coyote Blog


Photography and Art
Digital Photography Review
DIYPhotography
James Gurney
Joe McNally's Blog
PetaPixel
photo.net
Shorpy
Strobist
The Online Photographer


Blogrolling
A Western Heart
AMCGLTD.COM
American Digest
The AnarchAngel
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Babalu Blog
Belmont Club
Bayou Renaissance Man
Classical Values
Cobb
Cold Fury
David Limbaugh
Defense Technology
Doug Ross @ Journal
Grouchy Old Cripple
Instapundit
iowahawk
Irons in the Fire
James Lileks
Lowering the Bar
Maggie's Farm
Marginal Revolution
Michael J. Totten
Mostly Cajun
Neanderpundit
neo-neocon
Power Line
ProfessorBainbridge.com
Questions and Observations
Rachel Lucas
Roger L. Simon
Samizdata.net
Sense of Events
Sound Politics
The Strata-Sphere
The Smallest Minority
The Volokh Conspiracy
Tim Blair
Velociworld
Weasel Zippers
WILLisms.com
Wizbang


Gone but not Forgotten...
A Coyote at the Dog Show
Bad Eagle
Steven DenBeste
democrats give conservatives indigestion
Allah
BigPictureSmallOffice
Cox and Forkum
The Diplomad
Priorities & Frivolities
Gut Rumbles
Mean Mr. Mustard 2.0
MegaPundit
Masamune
Neptunus Lex
Other Side of Kim
Publicola
Ramblings' Journal
Sgt. Stryker
shining full plate and a good broadsword
A Physicist's Perspective
The Daily Demarche
Wayne's Online Newsletter

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by DaveH published on August 5, 2014 2:43 PM.

A law I agree with - laser pointers was the previous entry in this blog.

Cool website for conversions is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Monthly Archives

Pages

OpenID accepted here Learn more about OpenID
Powered by Movable Type 5.2.9