Mark Nelson Profile picture
All energy all the time. Saving nuclear plants: Radiant Energy Fund. Energy & strategy: @RadiantEnergyG. Prev: @envprogress @cambridge_eng @run4okstate
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Apr 17 4 tweets 2 min read
First night of Germany's grid without nuclear: it's bad.

It's night. No sun. Wind has dropped to almost nothing.

Most of German "renewables" right now is richly-subsidized bioenergy with half the net CO2 emissions of an efficient gas power plant.

Importing nuclear from France. Snapshot of European electr...Screenshot from Electricity... It's hard to express how insane this situation is.

Highlighting just wind production now, Germany's 66.5 GW of installed wind is only producing as much as the 3 reactors that turned off last night used to produce.

400% expansion of wind would only provide half present need! Image
Apr 14 4 tweets 5 min read
NOBEL LAUREATES, CLIMATE SCIENTISTS CALL ON GERMAN CHANCELLOR TO SAVE NUCLEAR PLANTS

In an open letter, Nobel Physics winners Klaus von Klitzing and Stephen Chu, plus dozens more scientists and economists, call on Schulz to reverse course.

German press *heavily* covering this. German Nobel Physics Laurea...American Nobel Physics Laur... The letter explains nuclear's crucial role in energy security and climate protection.

Text and signatories were released this morning by international environmental NGO @letsreplanet a day before scheduled nuclear phaseout in Germany.

English version:

replanet.ngo/post/open-lett… Text of letter:  Dear Chanc...The Emsland, Isar II and Ne...For these reasons, in the i...
Mar 1 4 tweets 2 min read
I talk to people about energy around the world

Nuclear is very "lumpy"

What happens to a reactor in Japan exerts a powerful force on what people think about ALL nuclear

"Illegal wind turbines on indigenous land" is not something city folk realized is happening

Now, they will. I'm from a part of the USA where reversing wind industry abuses is a legal issue for native tribes

I can assure you the vast majority of people supporting the massive expansion of wind energy are unaware of this

Due to Greta, they are about to learn more about their own country
Feb 28 4 tweets 2 min read
Germany: we must turn off our reactors because of the meltdowns in Japan of reactors unlike those we operate induced by geology we don't have

Japan: alright ten years moping is enough let's get back to nuclear to lower those power bills

Something's rotten in German leadership. I say something's rotten in German leadership because both Germany and Japan now have majorities in favor of continuing nuclear power.

Both nations have severe domestic energy supply deficits made up by massive imports.

I guess Germany has vast lignite mines unlike Japan?
Feb 26 4 tweets 2 min read
EU "NUCLEAR ALLIANCE" BEING PREPARED:

France is now fully defecting from Germany's suicidal energy policies. Remarkable turnaround after 2 decades of self-sabotaging energy appeasement.

Energy ministers from 12 EU countries reliant on nuclear energy will discuss forming a bloc! The 12: Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden

Very interesting to see Italy and Croatia, two countries that import nuclear electricity and may be signaling interest in building their own
Jan 15 12 tweets 7 min read
In 1985, the world's leading nuclear energy company, Westinghouse, completed a nuclear plant for a growing country that desperately needed the electricity.

The plant has yet to be run.

Welcome to the maddening, but hopeful, story of the Philippines's Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. A few months ago I was invited by Philippine Congressman @markcojuangco to see something few have ever seen: a nuclear plant frozen in time, completed including a trained operating staff, but never turned on.

I couldn't say yes fast enough. Here are some pictures, with captions. Congressman Mark Cojuangco leads a tour of interested localsInside the turbine hall at Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.The USA was once capable of manufacturing all the componentsStanding in the control room of Bataan Nuclear Power Plant w
Jan 8 5 tweets 1 min read
SOURCES: DEAL REACHED TO KEEP REACTORS AT BOTH TIHANGE AND DOEL NUCLEAR PLANTS ONLINE FOR TEN MORE YEARS

The Belgian government has been negotiating with French gas-focused energy provider Engie to keep 2 of 7 reactors on, one at each plant.

Negotiations have been tough.

Cont: Belgium's now executing the end stages of
perhaps the rich world's most disastrous energy policy, closing half of its electricity by 2025. Which half? The cheap secure low-carbon half.

But energy crisis and war has forced a softening

Even as another 1000MW is closing in 3 weeks
Oct 11, 2022 7 tweets 4 min read
YOUR CHANCE TO SAVE GERMANY'S REACTORS

A petition was written by 19 active German professors to repeal the nuclear phaseout.

If it gets 50,000 legit signatures from anywhere in the world in the next 3 days, parliament MUST respond.

How to help? Read on!
epetitionen.bundestag.de/content/petiti… FIRST: you need to register to sign German government petitions.

It's fast and easy. You have to love how much Germany values global input on its actions. In this case, lucky for them, and lucky for all of us!

Click below, fill, submit, check your email
epetitionen.bundestag.de/epet/registrie…
Sep 26, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
It gets worse.

The UK has only 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas storage.

That's 2% of its annual consumption.

The UK produced just 43% of its own gas last year, down from 99% in 2004.

The rest? Has to be bought. From abroad. By selling pounds. £15-50B/yr going forward. Whipped up this lil chart to show you how the UK played itself.

In a catastrophic blunder, during the brief period of gas self-sufficiency, UK invented "electricity markets" that "chose" to build gas turbines, then failed to build nuclear plants as domestic gas supplies crashed. A chart showing UK natural ...
Aug 16, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
BREAKING: GERMANY TO POSTPONE NUCLEAR CLOSURES

From @bopanc at the Wall Street Journal.

"Temporary" move that is easy because reactors are ready to roll with no modifications or upgrades or even new fuel at the moment.

Expect extensions beyond this.

wsj.com/articles/germa… This has been building since the start of the invasion in February.

Germany's political establishment suddenly woke from a decades-long trance.

Sensing the mood, nuclear operators finally spoke up truthfully about their reactors being in top condition.

Jul 30, 2022 7 tweets 2 min read
BREAKING: Extraordinary, powerful new interview.

Joachim Bühler, CEO of safety inspection association TÜV, says Germany's working nuclear plants, plus 3 plants closed in December, can operate safely now and long term.

The German government does not want the public to know this. Key facts shared by TÜV's Bühler:

Minister Habeck said everything was on the table, so TÜV assessed closed reactors too.

TÜV's inspectors are in the plants every day.

The plants are in great shape.

Unlike in France, German safety inspections happen during reactor operation.
Jul 24, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
GERMANY ANTINUCLEAR RESOLVE CRACKING UNDER PRESSURE FROM ALLIES

EU makes Germany a deal it can't refuse?

"BREAKING: In order to secure an agreement on the EU emergency plan, federal government has signaled its willingness to extend the life of the 3 German nuclear power plants" They're kicking and screaming all the way. Look at this catty backbiting:

"@fbrantner: “In the stress test...we will also take into account the difficult situation in France...because there are very many nuclear power plants that are not in operation"

Jul 22, 2022 6 tweets 3 min read
BELGIAN PRIME MINISTER: FRAMEWORK SET FOR REVERSING NUCLEAR PHASEOUT

De Croo & Green Party Energy Minister announce progress in negotiations w/ nuclear operator Engie to save reactors at both plants.

We've been fighting to hear this news for years.

premier.be/fr/declaration… Belgium gets half its electricity from nuclear power, from seven reactors at two plants.

Successive Belgian governments have announced and then postponed nuclear closures for two decades.

There is no replacing this power except by imported gas.

Reactors start closing in weeks.
Jul 14, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
Lots of folks are about to discover, to their shock, that wind and solar power does not come from nature.

It comes from mining, human labor, supply chains, and engineering.

The wind and the sun did not get more expensive last year.

Fossil fuels, minerals, and people did. Wind and solar achieved extraordinary cost declines for many years.

Some of these cost declines are turning out to have been too good to be true.

The more severe problem is that as wind & solar usage rises, the *value* of wind & solar electricity drops.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Jul 14, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
Germany: how about we burn trees while begging and praying that Moscow sends us some gas

Japan: MAXIMUM POWER Note: the English language headlines going around are a distortion of what PM Kishida actually said.

Although he has indeed asked for the maximum available nuclear capacity to be online throughout winter, most of these reactors have already been in operation off & on since 3/11
May 20, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
Palisades was licensed to operate until 2031.

Its owner @Entergy accepted an early buyout of the plant's power purchase agreement; Michigan citizens are now going to pay money for power they won't get in addition to extremely high replacement power costs.

WHAT'S NEXT: The plant will be handed off to the undertaker of the US nuclear industry, Holtec.

Michigan Public Service Commission, and the Governor of Michigan, and the Secretary of Energy, and the Whitehouse all want to save the plant.

Is it possible? Physically, yes. But tough.
Apr 28, 2022 6 tweets 2 min read
Yo, Germany, can we discuss saving your goddamn nuclear plants now
markets.businessinsider.com/news/commoditi… This is absolutely ridiculous.

Every single unit of energy matters right now.

Several million people's electricity is being thrown away for nothing. German Greens literally think nuclear plants explode like nuclear bombs. That is what this is about. Insanity.
Mar 30, 2022 8 tweets 4 min read
Hey everybody, here we go again.

This story will almost certainly turn out to be bullshit.

When Reactor 4 blew up & burned in 1986, only 134 people got acute radiation sickness.

There is no way to get it now from the landscape or around containment.

Always: wait for @iaeaorg On the first days of the war, elevated radiation readings were briefly recorded at Chernobyl.

It is likely this was from heavy vehicles traversing, kicking up trace isotopes.

Dose readings then were very approximately 10,000 times too low to cause ARS.

Mar 21, 2022 13 tweets 3 min read
GERMAN MINISTERS PUSH QATARI GAS WHILE LYING ABOUT ENERGY

Yesterday ministries controlled by the Green party double down on their Big Lie: that extending their biggest, cheapest carbon-free power plants can't help with energy.

False: it's worth *65 LNG supertankers* every year Numbers:

Six reactors, 60 TWh per year. Would take 100 TWh of natural gas heat to replace this electricity, unless done entirely with coal (but then coal elec couldn't replace gas).

100TWh = 17,900,000m3 LNG

266,000m3 = capacity of 1 Qatari "Qmax" LNG tanker

67 Supertankers
Mar 19, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
German Green and Social Democratic ministers would rather sacrifice the economy, European security, and climate goals to avoid the ideological defeat of delaying nuclear phaseout.

~€20b / year on fossil fuels
Slower stop to Russian imports
20-50 million tonnes of CO2 / year In order to defend the indefensible, Green ministers spam out Twitter-hot-take arguments against extending/reviving nuclear plants rather than consulting their technical experts & European nuclear fuel supply companies.

Oddly, some in the nuclear community get taken in by them.
Mar 9, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
From the guy who falsely claimed that Zaporizhzhia pressurized water reactors could "blow up" like "10x Chernobyl," we have our next global panic started.

Respect to Ukraine for its brave, righteous defense.

But these statements are an attack on the global public. Incorrect statements in above tweet: with cooling systems stopped, leaks are NOT imminent.

Further, leaks CANNOT put "entire Europe in danger" except through panic.

The fear is the weapon here. Deny it its power.