With roughly 93,500 direct and indirect jobs, the American solar industry now employs about 20,000 more workers than the U.S. steel production sector. The American steel industry has historically been a symbol of the country’s industrial might and economic prosperity. But today, the solar industry has the potential to overtake that image as we build a new, clean-energy economy.
via Green jobs are real: U.S. solar employs more people than steel | Grist.
With solar, bigger isn’t necessarily better. Solar can scale economically to meet local requirements.
Blaeloch thinks that large-scale projects will not help meet climate change goals faster. She said that the large-scale projects that have been proposed will face legal challenges going far into the future and believes that in the end it’s the big projects that will take longer to develop than proven, distributed PV.
Lastly, distributed PV also won’t need the giant transmission build-out that will be required to move power from many of the remote CSP project locations – another cost savings.
via Large-scale Solar: How Big Is Too Big? | Renewable Energy News Article.
Shut it down:
Entergy, the second-largest operator of U.S. nuclear power plants after Chicago-based Exelon Corp., is seeking 20-year extensions of licenses that expire in 2013 and 2015 for two reactors at the site. The renewals would be rejected if New Orleans-based Entergy had to submit an evacuation plan that includes residents of Manhattan, 35 miles (56 kilometers) away, said Representative Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat.
via Indian Point Nuclear Evacuation Plan ‘Impossible’ Lawmakers Say – BusinessWeek.
From the U.S. to Japan, it’s illegal to drive a car without sufficient insurance, yet governments have chosen to run the world’s 443 nuclear power plants with hardly any insurance coverage whatsoever.
The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear disaster, which will leave taxpayers with a massive bill, highlights one of the industry’s key weaknesses — that nuclear power is a viable source for cheap energy only if plants go uninsured.
Brought to you by America the Exceptional:
This makes us different than, say, Japan and Germany when it comes to nuclear power. Scarred by fallout, the former has canceled plans to build 14 new nuclear plants and has radically altered its energy agenda, now moving to pursue solar rather than atomic energy. Likewise, according to the Associated Press, the latter reacted to Japan’s plight by “vot[ing] in favor of a ban on nuclear power from 2022 onward.”
By contrast, in the days after the Fukushima disaster, the Obama administration not only reaffirmed its commitment to expanding nuclear power, but, according to ProPublica, also continued the policy of “routinely waiving fire rule violations at nearly half the nation’s 104 commercial reactors, even though fire presents one of the chief hazards at nuclear plants.”
via America’s increasingly oblivious energy policy – Environment – Salon.com.
US solar power will compete on price with conventional generation within three years without subsidy thanks to plummeting costs, industry leaders say.
In a breakthrough for renewable generation that will lessen the dependence on fossil fuels, the cost of solar power in California is near that of gas-fired plants at times of peak demand.
via FT.com / Energy – US solar power nears competing on price.
All 54 of Japan’s nuclear reactors may be shut by next April, adding more than $30 billion a year to the country’s energy costs, if communities object to plant operating plans due to safety concerns, trade ministry officials said on Wednesday.
Since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which triggered a radiation crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant north of Tokyo, concern among local authorities has kept nuclear generators from restarting at least four reactors that had been expected to come online after routine maintenance and inspection.
via Japan may have no nuclear reactors running by next April | Reuters.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says it believes the earthquake-stricken Fukushima plant emitted nearly 800,000 terabecquerels of radioactive material into the air in the days after it was hit by a massive tsunami.
That is more than double the original estimate and is based on new information suggesting the No.1 and No.2 reactors suffered meltdowns much earlier than thought.
via ABC Asia Pacific News:Stories:Japan doubles radiation leak estimate.
[Obama’s] advisers are in the final stages of drawing up new fuel economy and emissions standards for vehicles produced between 2017 and 2025. One advocate of tougher standards, Brendan Bell of the Union of Concerned Scientists, calls it “the biggest decision the president is making this summer that no one knows about.”
Mr. Obama has said he will recommend strong standards, but industry and many in Congress are furiously lobbying for the weakest they can get away with.
Is nuclear power a perpetual disaster machine?
The situation on the ground at the crippled reactors remains precarious and at a minimum it will be years before it can be hoped to be truly contained. In the near term, the reactors remain particularly vulnerable to sizable aftershocks, which still have decent probability of occuring. On top of this is a growing threat of ‘hot particle’ contamination risk to more populated areas as weather patterns shift with the typhoon season and groundwater seepage.
Truth and Traditions 