Env. & Nat. Res. Lawyer. Nuclear Power = the best solution for humanity's geopolitical, economic, & environmental problems. https://xitter.cf/t.co/oXEtb4JMgA

USA
Joined March 2022
If you want to know who I am and the great cause of Civilization that I support, start👇. Subscribe to my Substack. And join the cause. Humanity and Mother Earth, whose riches we share, need us to make better decisions. open.substack.com/pub/bfrand…
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PSA: Grid-scale solar and wind are a scam. Educate yourself. Not clean. Not green. Not renewable. And grid-scale batteries are a fairy tale.
Tyska soljätten Enerparc har ansökt om insolvens i Tyskland. Bolaget äger och driver mer än 500 solcellsanläggningar. Kvar står ett skuldberg på 33 miljarder kronor: affarsvarlden.se/kronika/tys…
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
Can we finally stop pretending nuclear is "unreliable" because of droughts and heatwaves? New study: across 500+ reactor-years in Europe, heat & drought reduced output by just 0.6% (max 1.3% in any country). That's peanuts. Solar and wind are FAR more weather-dependent and thus less reliable year-round, even during droughts. Heatwaves often bring still air, so low wind is common exactly when it's hottest. Nuclear's capacity factor is ~90.9%, way steadier. And the fixes work: French river-fleet heat losses dropped 91% (5.5→0.5 TWh) since 2003 through cooling upgrades. (Voor @MelissaDepr, dat is precies het punt dat ik eerder maakte.) sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
New Onward report “Firm Foundations” challenges the Net Zero orthodoxy and proposes firm power (gas + nuclear) instead of more intermittent wind & solar. Supported by Claire Coutinho. A welcome first step – but not nearly enough to reduce electricity prices. A thread 🧵 (1/10)
🤖 Made with AI
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
Friendly reminder that the trace amounts of uranium and thorium in coal contain more energy than the coal itself.
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
The Energy Department has selected 5 states to host potential Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses — securing the domestic nuclear fuel cycle. These campuses will generate billions of dollars in economic activity, expand domestic manufacturing, and create thousands of jobs.
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
When EBR-II scientists reflected on shutting it down, they cried. They had demonstrated a reactor with "walk away" safety, the ability to use nuclear waste as fuel, and just how economical sodium cooled reactors could be. But they had to shut it down. The story in videos: 🧵
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
Electricity is only 20% of global energy demand. The rest is primary for travel or heating / cooling, etc. We aren’t anywhere close to an “energy transition.” The full data tell a very different story.
The jaws of the energy transition are closing. In 2005 fossil fuels made two-thirds of global electricity. Today it's 57.4%, with clean power (renewables + nuclear) at 42.6%. Fossil share peaked around 2012 and keeps falling. More in Sunday's Substack: janrosenow.substack.com/
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This is what 45 years of spent nuclear fuel looks like safely stored at Dominion Energy’s North Anna nuclear power plant. Each cask generated around 5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity — enough to power nearly half a million homes each year.
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“Nuclear power takes too long” 👇
In the 1980s, the world added ~230 GW of nuclear capacity. (in 10 years). A new reactor connected to the grid every 17 days on average. Insane.
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
You cannot buy a new gas turbine until 2030. Order books at GE, Siemens, and Mitsubishi stretch to 2029. Turbine prices have nearly tripled since 2019. Every AI data center needs power and every gas plant needs a turbine. And every turbine has one part that bottlenecks the entire industry: The blade. It has to survive in gas 500°C above the melting point of the metal it's made from and spin at up to 20,000 RPM under 10,000 g of centrifugal force. Each blade is grown as a single crystal of nickel superalloy, pulled through a vacuum furnace at 3 mm per minute. A set of blades costs $600,000 and takes 90 weeks to grow. The same metallurgy powers modern jet engines. Only 3 companies on Earth can build one. China spent $42 billion trying to catch up. They bought a Russian fighter engine, took it apart, and copied every part. Their copy ran 30 hours between overhauls versus 400 for the original. Modern Western engines run 4,000. You can reverse engineer the shape of a turbine blade. You cannot reverse engineer 60 years of metallurgy.
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
There's a lot of misinformation coming from the BBC, ITV and others claiming renewables are cheap. This short video shows that renewables are much more expensive than gas. Please share widely.
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
Holtec plans to build 4 GW of SMR capacity in the 2030s, with much of it being in Utah and Wyoming. They also agreed to build a permanent training facility in Utah by 2028. The prefer Utah as the site for SMR fabrication facilities. Article link in reply. Utah has expressed strong support for nuclear, and has recently passed several pro-nuclear bills.
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
"Wind and solar are the cheapest source of energy" update.
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When Rube Goldberg is your Systems Engineer👇
Before the outage hit, Spain was running its grid with very little dispatchable spinning generation, and therefore no much inertia. Solar PV/thermal + wind: ~78% Nuclear: 11.5% Co-generation: 5% Gas-fired: ~3% (less than 1GW) Snapshot at 12.30pm local time (outage was 12.35pm)
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Word👇Used fuel is not waste. It’s a resource we can use profitably including creating safe perpetual heat batteries.
oh the irony... Swiss and German scientists may have found a PROFITABLE! way of disposing nuclear waste by transmutating it into Uranium, Ruthenium, Rhodium, Xenon and Krypton, among others. @VeroWendland @energybants @ChristophCanne @MoormannRainer
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B.F. Randall ⚛ ⛏ ⚡ retweeted
TN's ambition to lead in nuclear innovation is much bigger than just competing with other states - it's about securing America's future. Our nuclear strategy includes $10M for the Nuclear Energy Fund & $50M for SMR development on the Clinch River.
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Now that’s a battery👇
⚡ Innovative Energy Storage, Powered by the Natrium® Reactor⚡ TerraPower’s patented molten salt energy storage sets the Natrium® technology apart. As the first advanced nuclear technology to be deployed in the U.S., Natrium features: 🔹 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor 🔹 500 MW peak output when demand surges 🔹 Customizable storage to match site needs 🔹 Reliable, flexible power—perfect for data centers and beyond This unique storage system ensures steady energy supply and rapid ramp-up when needed, making Natrium the only reactor with this capability. 🔗 Learn more: terrapower.com/natrium/ #Natrium #EnergyStorage #NuclearInnovation #GridReliability #TerraPower
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Americans invented nuclear power. Americans dominated nuclear power. But we lost our edge. Time to dominate again. Great piece on how by retired engineer Joseph Somsel.
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Economics of BWRX-300 to best of our knowledge of early 2025.
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Real value of nuclear power plant over lifetime, compared to cost of construction. 1:12 ratio of return even considering opex over 80y of 7bn eur.
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