Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire - Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry. Nuclear Activities
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Monday, April 22, 2024
National Labs Are in Media Spotlight at Next USEA Briefing -
National Labs Are in Media Spotlight at Next USEA Briefing - micheletkearney@gmail.com - Gmail
Llewellyn King writes
Dear Friends,
The National Laboratories — those great repositories of scientific and engineering ability — have shaped the evolution of energy sometimes in apparent ways, as with natural gas and oil recovery, and sometimes as an invisible hand, perfecting, assisting, counseling and filling out the work of others.
The labs have been at the forefront of almost every aspect of the energy world, from nuclear waste to mastering switching and control of rooftop solar; from looking to decrease the electricity demand at data centers to helping with corrosion control on offshore structures and undersea technology.
The next United States Energy Association virtual press briefing will focus on what the labs are doing to help electric utilities and their associated companies in this current transformative period. It is set for Wednesday, May 1, at 11 a.m. EDT.
A panel of leaders from some of the most critically involved national labs have been invited to meet the press for an hour on Zoom.
These are some questions that might come up at the briefing:
What is going to be the impact of artificial intelligence on the grid both as a consumer of electricity and its role in operating the grid? Is vulnerability affected?
What is research into lithium batteries yielding? Will costs fall and discharge duration rise?
What is being learned about the extended operation of the current aging fleet of nuclear power plants?
What is lab involvement in virtual power plants?
What does lab research reveal about the chances of a carbon-free grid and when will that come about?
What is the most exciting national lab project that affects electricity supply, operation and resiliency?
What are the labs working on across the board?
I organize and host these monthly briefings. Mark Menezes, USEA president and CEO, and former deputy secretary of energy, welcomes the panelists and members of the press and the public in the online audience, and lends his expertise when it is helpful.
The USEA, now celebrating its centennial, is a unique Washington-based organization. It was created as the U.S. chapter of the World Energy Congress and is a non-lobbying, nonprofit organization, supporting all forms of energy. “Energy is good for people” might be its motto.
This promises to be one of the most consequential briefings I have organized for the USEA. It is open to all and there is no charge.
Please use this link to register for it -- and do share it:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_cA3K_WMNQfSKifdLyImteQ
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Friday, April 19, 2024
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Dead Last (With an Emphasis on Dead!) - TomDispatch.com
Dead Last (With an Emphasis on Dead!) - TomDispatch.com
Juan Cole, Playing Russian Roulette with Middle Eastern Oil
April 16, 2024
Sometimes it seems as if it just never sinks in. I mean, it shouldn't be that complicated anymore. It's hardly news that 2023 was a year of unnerving heat globally -- the hottest "by far" since records began to be kept -- including month by month, May through December. And should you think that was an anomaly, 2024 has taken up the cudgel (so to speak), with each new month hitting a startling global record. March was the tenth in a row to do so. Worse yet, as should be all too painfully obvious by now, this isn't the end of something but -- given the continued massive burning of fossil fuels on this planet -- just the beginning, with so much worse still to come. And don't forget the dramatic heating of global oceans and seas, where records are now also being broken in an unnerving fashion.
Yes, of course we know why this is happening. It's not exactly a mystery anymore. Humanity's (mis)use of fossil fuels, sending greenhouse gasses soaring into the atmosphere, is all too literally creating a future hell on earth and a potentially unimaginable world for our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. And it's not exactly a secret who's truly responsible for so much of what's now happening. As Thor Benson recently highlighted at the Common Dreams website: "A report released by Carbon Majors on Thursday says that 57 companies were responsible for 80% of the world's CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and cement production between 2016 to 2022."
And anyone who checks out the latest piece by TomDispatch regular Juan Cole, creator of the must-read Informed Comment website, won't be surprised to learn that Saudi Aramco leads that list. Oh, and "in terms of investor-owned companies, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and BP contributed the most to CO2 emissions. ExxonMobil alone was responsible for 3.6 gigatons of CO2 emissions over a seven-year period."
Yet, strangely enough, as I've written elsewhere, we humans continue to fight wars with each other (pouring yet more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere) rather than facing the war on the planet that Big Oil and crew are conducting in a distinctly apocalyptic fashion. (I've long wondered what the CEOs of those companies would say to their kids and grandkids about profiting off the destruction of their world.) Anyway, let Cole take you onto the very planet we're destroying in such a remarkable fashion, with an emphasis on the area in which he's an expert, the distinctly overheating, fossil-fuelizing Middle East. Tom
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