After the Great Tohoku Earthquake and tsunami, and ensuing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011, Japan issued stringent safety regulations and reviews that affected its entire 50-reactor fleet. It meant that as each Japanese nuclear reactor entered its scheduled maintenance and refueling outage, it could not returned to operation until restart

Dr. Kerry Emanuel, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was one speaker in a presentation on the important role nuclear energy must play in addressing climate change. With Senators Cory Booker, Sheldon Whitehouse, and a roomful of Capitol Hill staffers in attendance for the February 4th briefing, Emanuel, whose research interests

Major fossil fuel companies and energy utilities have used their financial power to take control of key renewable energy lobby groups in Europe in an effort to slow the continent’s transition to clean energy, according to industry insiders. Big energy firms such as Total, Iberdrola, E.On and Enel have together adopted a dominant position in

Diablo Canyon Power Plant saves lives. Its safe, prodigious, emission-free power protects the very young and the very old from toxic gas and coal-fired power plants. It saves 50 to 500 lives a year, depending on the fossil fuel displaced. However, there is another way Diablo could save lives in the future. Since the plant

It’s all about diversity. Whether in biology, in culture, in training, or in technology, when conditions change a system survives if there is sufficient diversity to adapt. Otherwise it dies. And things always change. This is no less true for electricity production. Having a diverse energy mix is key to a society surviving changes in