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Is nuclear power really expensive? or is it just better?
[This is Part I in a series of posts on nuclear costs, they are companions to the post on nuclear construction times. Some of it is...

Geoff Russell
Aug 26, 202210 min read


Postscript: On glacial renewable construction rates
There were some tweeted objections to my build post that I wanted to respond to in more detail than Twitter allows. I won’t name names,...

Geoff Russell
Aug 17, 20225 min read


Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant; a potential disaster? Or an actual one?
[Further update: 26th August 2022 ... New York Times reporting the reactors are back on the grid. Wonderful news! Still reporting just 2...

Geoff Russell
Aug 12, 202212 min read


Nuclear may (or may not) be expensive, but it's much faster to build than renewables!
This is the first of two posts, and deals with the speed of building nuclear reactors. The next post will deal with costs. Build speeds...

Geoff Russell
Aug 6, 20227 min read


Mining Australia for meat
I don't remember the year, but it was shortly after the 2005 release of Jared Diamond's "Collapse: How societies choose to fail or...

Geoff Russell
Aug 1, 20225 min read


Renewable gas
[N.B. Longer article on Grid Capacity, promised last week, has been delayed a little ... but is still coming] I keep seeing news reports...

Geoff Russell
Jul 27, 20228 min read


Grid capacity and keeping the lights on (prelude)
[ This is just a taste of a longer post to appear later this week ]. How do you climb a mountain? Do you look just 50 metres in front of...

Geoff Russell
Jul 20, 20224 min read


Stop Press: Germany's nuclear plants
Finally, the pounding of rationality has opened the great oak door of German energy policy by a centimetre or so. Germany may look at...

Geoff Russell
Jul 19, 20223 min read


EU Sustainability Taxonomy ... why allow solar PV?
The EU sustainable development rules are in the news again. I wrote about them back in January, but there have been some developments. ...

Geoff Russell
Jul 14, 202213 min read


Readfearn and Australia's electricity "plan"
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has drawn up a detailed Integrated System Plan (ISP) for the eastern Australian grid (the...

Geoff Russell
Jul 7, 202210 min read


A plea for professionalism in climate journalism in Australia
The IPCC Assessment Report 6, Working Group III devotes considerable attention to dietary change as a necessary part of tackling climate...

Geoff Russell
Jun 29, 202215 min read


Blackout: tomorrow is too late
"Blackouts" seem to be the new black. SBS On Demand is running a couple of mini-series on them at the moment. There's a 2020 Belgian 10...

Geoff Russell
Jun 22, 202221 min read


Blackout tales
Once upon a time, a fat red-faced businessman called Bill Watts built a power station. It cost him a billion dollars and was soon...

Geoff Russell
Jun 15, 20224 min read


Washing on the "green hydrogen" spin cycle
The Economist recently interviewed the German Europe and climate Minister, Anna Luhrmann, about Germany's will and capacity to wean...

Geoff Russell
Jun 8, 20227 min read


Modelling grids and telling fibs
Claims that we can move to 100 percent renewable electricity are based on mathematical models; as is climate science. But you can test...

Geoff Russell
Jun 1, 202216 min read


The teal climate alternative
An analysis of what the Teal vote in Australia's General Election means for climate action.

Geoff Russell
May 25, 202212 min read


How emission targets dug us deeper into a climate hole
What's the image all about? ... see the appendix at the end of the article. We desperately need a global plan to get to net-zero (or...

Geoff Russell
May 17, 202213 min read


CSIRO; still denying climate science and working to screw the planet
Page 2055 of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 3 report (what a mouthful!) contains a remarkable...

Geoff Russell
Apr 24, 20225 min read


There is a nuclear waste problem; but it's not what you think
When did the word "logistics" start appearing on trucks? It's become quite the fashionable tag for all manner of companies; waste...

Geoff Russell
Apr 14, 202211 min read


European word games
The EU is inching toward classifying nuclear power and methane as 'sustainable' for the purposes of getting onto a magic list that...

Geoff Russell
Jan 6, 202210 min read
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