SCGI

The Science Council for Global Initiatives (SCGI) is an international NGO dedicated to uplifting the standards of living of people of all nations while repairing our damaged environment.

Good News!

Well, the good news is twofold:

1) GE finally is applying for a commercial license for the PRISM. I suspect they've been goaded on by the imminent construction start of Korea's fast reactor that will be ready to start building by 2020. Whatever the reason, it looks like we'll get one or two metal-fueled fast reactors built in the first half of the next decade. (I don't take the recent no-nuclear pronouncement by the current ROK president too seriously, as the timeline for such changes exceeds administration lifetimes, and there's just too much planning done for ROK reactors—both domestic and for export—to throw that all away. We've seen these hiccups before [Sweden and France]. I suppose GE might be happy and hoping that such a presidential pronouncement might delay the start of ROK's fast reactor build, giving GE more time to get their commercial license in order to get the jump on them.)

2) Yoon's design work on the commercial-scale pyroprocessing facility at Argonne encompasses recycling both metal fuel and oxide fuel to metal. That facility will be ready to build before the fast reactors are built to use its output (though Russian and Indian fast reactors could use it before that if they want to).

Burden of Proof

Recently a prominent campaigner for nuclear power in Australia, Ben Heard, completed his Ph.D. thesis. His advisor was SCGI’s own Dr. Barry Brook. Ben’s thesis was something that those of us who’d heard about it in its development stage were anxious to see finally made public. I’m delighted to be able to offer Ben’s excellent work, Burden of Proof, to our site's visitors. It examines the various “100% Renewables” scenarios around the world, and whether their arguments hold water. There is also a considerable amount of supplementary material, which is also available to download.

Those of us who advocate for nuclear power know well the arguments against it based on the notion that wind and solar (and other marginal or undeveloped energy systems) will suffice in the absence of both fossil fuels and nuclear power. Ben is allowing us to offer this material to share freely so that those of us who find ourselves in these often frustrating discussions can have some solid data with which to engage in this debate. Please feel free to share this widely. Ben has done a great service in shedding light on the facts.

Download here:  Burden of Proof, Supplementary material

After Trump's Withdrawal from Paris, Nukes Are More Crucial Than Ever

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was withdrawing the United States from the international climate agreement, governors from over a dozen states immediately announced they would take climate action on their own.

There is much that governors and state legislators can do, but study after study finds that keeping existing nuclear plants—our largest and most reliable source of clean energy—operating is one of the most important and cost-effective ways to prevent carbon emissions from increasing.