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via Real Climate Science
September 21, 2024 at 09:01AM
Owen Klinsky
Contributor
A shuttered nuclear power plant with a checkered past will partially be coming back online after Microsoft obtained a deal to purchase energy from one of the plant’s reactors, according to a Friday press release.
The 20-year power purchase agreement, which the tech giant secured with Constellation Energy, would bring back the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania — the site of a 1979 meltdown that resulted in a large-scale evacuation of nearby pregnant women and school-age children. The project aims to provide power for Microsoft data centers as tech companies push to expand electricity production to support their artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud storage needs, the release says. (RELATED: Biden-Harris Admin’s Multi-Billion Dollar Electric School Bus Program Is A Huge Gift To China, House Report Finds)
“Powering industries critical to our nation’s global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centers, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise,” Joe Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation, stated in the release alongside Microsoft. “We look forward to bringing [the Three Mile Island plant] back with a new name and a renewed mission to serve as an economic engine for Pennsylvania.”
The agreement would bring back Unit 1 at Three Mile Island, which was shuttered in 2019 for “economic reasons,” according to Constellation’s statement. Unit 1 is adjacent to the Unit 2 reactor that caused the worst nuclear meltdown in U.S. history on March 28, 1979, which results in 40% of people evacuating the area.
The Three Mile Island power plant will have a capacity of 835 megawatts, enough to power more than 700,000 homes. It is expected to create 3,400 direct and indirect jobs, according to the press release.
The decision to reopen the Three Mile Island reactor comes as tech companies are increasingly looking to nuclear energy to power their AI and data center needs, with Amazon Web Services spending $650 million on a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania earlier this year. The trend could affect power grid reliability and affordability as it provides the businesses with “first dibs” on electricity, Pennsylvania Consumer Advocate Patrick Cicero told the WSJ in July.
Nuclear power has aroused public suspicion, largely due to incidents like Three Mile Island, Fukushima and Chernobyl, in which reactor meltdowns caused radiation to flood areas surrounding nuclear power plants. However, it could be a viable pathway to reducing emissions and accomplishing the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of having the U.S. power sector reach net-zero emissions by 2035.
“This is a valuable opportunity to invest in clean, carbon-free and affordable power — on the heels of the hottest year in Earth’s history,” Pennsylvania state Rep. Tom Mehaffie said in the Constellation press release. “This will transform the local economy and presents a rare opportunity to power our economy with reliable clean energy that we can count on.”
Constellation and Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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via Watts Up With That?
September 21, 2024 at 08:05AM
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Electric cars are up to twice as expensive as petrol or diesel vehicles to run, new figures have suggested.
Running an electric vehicle (EV) can cost more than 24p per mile, while a diesel vehicle is 12.5p.
It costs as much as 80p per kilowatt hour to charge an EV using a rapid or ultra-rapid device on the roadside, according to data from the app ZapMap.
A typical electric car will travel 3.3 miles for every kWh of electricity used, meaning rapid and ultra-rapid chargers currently cost the equivalent of 24.1p per mile, calculations by The Times suggest.
Slower chargers cost 16.4p per mile.
This is about double the average diesel car, which will do 43 miles per gallon, resulting in a cost of 12.5p per mile at current prices. A typical petrol car costs 14.5p per mile, according to the analysis.
A return journey from London to Penzance would cost £148 in an electric car using rapid chargers, The Times said, compared with £77 in a diesel car and £89 using petrol.
It added that at-home charging is much cheaper, at less than a third of the price of the average rapid charger.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/20/electric-cars-cost-double-petrol-diesel-2024/
Once again the Telegraph ignores the issue of fuel duties, which make up nearly a half of the cost of filling up with petrol and diesel.
Sooner or later EV drivers will have to pay tax too. In effect this means that the real running cost of EVs, using public chargers, is four times as expensive.
Even home charging barely works out any cheaper.
But that is not the real issue. The millions of drivers without offstreet parking are going to be paying through the nose. Indeed, this cost, the cost of buying an EV, along with the sheer hassle of queuing up at chargers will probably make owning a car an impossibility for many people.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
September 21, 2024 at 05:37AM
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Norwegian energy giant Equinor has scrapped plans to produce so-called blue hydrogen, citing high costs and insufficient demand.
The move will raise concerns over Equinor’s plans in the UK, where it is heavily involved in a number of hydrogen projects.
It had pledged to generate low-carbon hydrogen from natural gas, known as blue hydrogen, in combination with carbon capture and storage (CCS) in Norway. The hydrogen produced would then be exported to hydrogen-ready power plants in Germany.
The project would have included building the world’s first offshore hydrogen pipeline.
The problem for Equinor’s German project was that it could not find enough customers to buy the hydrogen it proposed to produce.
Mr Eidsvold said Equinor also couldn’t continue maturing the projects without firm long-term commitments from European buyers to import hydrogen.
He said: “We are not able to make this kind of investment when we don’t have long-term agreements and the markets in place.”
It’s the old, vicious circle!
There is no natural market for bulk hydrogen because it is far more expensive than natural gas.
Hence Equinor can only sell it if customers in Germany receive massive govt subsidies to do so.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
September 21, 2024 at 05:26AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 