Though the US is not the only country still holding on to nuclear power even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it’s neither cheap nor safe. Just this week, French Nicolas Sarkozy spoke out against shutting down the more than thirty year old nuclear power station at Fessenheim in the Alsace region. From a German POV, the refusal to shut down the aging nuclear power plant in Fessenheim is more troubling than whatever the Americans are doing in Georgia, because Fessenheim is very close to the German border and radiation has the unpleasant habit of not giving a shit about national borders.

Finally some potentially good news: British scientists from the University of Bristol have developed a magnetic soap that could help to clean up oil spills.

Meanwhile the phaseout of nuclear and fossil power is continuing elsewhere in the world. For example, Scotland is aiming for 100 percent renewable energy by 2020, supplied mainly by on and offshore windfarms as well as tidal and wave power.

Germany is also well on the way to phase out nuclear power. The share of renewable energy is currently at twenty percent and growing. More importantly, 51 percent of all renewable energy in Germany is generated not by power companies but by private citizens and farmers, i.e. people like us. Indeed, the decentralization of energy generation is another great advantage of the switch to renewable energy, albeit one that’s rarely mentioned.

First of all, a recent report revealed that the French nuclear reactors are not nearly as safe as believed and that massive and expensive safety upgrades are required. I hope they make the upgrades as soon as possible, since France is a lot closer than Ukraine and we did get the Chernobyl fallout back in the day. Particularly, since the French nuclear power company AREVA is also reporting record losses of more than a billion euros due to the drastically decreased support for nuclear power and the drastically increased safety demands post Fukushima. However, I also wonder whether the knowledge that the French reactors are less safe than believed will lower the still considerable support for nuclear power in France.

According to a recent report by a panel instigated by the Japanese government, the response to the Fukushima disaster was severely lacking. Of course, the report is only confirming what everybody already guessed anyway.

More fallout from the Fukushima disaster: In Canada, there are increasing worries about radioactive contaminated fish being imported from Japan and Pacific. After Chernobyl it was mushrooms, now it’s fish. Why does radiation always has to affect the foods I actually like?

What is more, even in Japan experts are beginning to ask whether the world can phase out nuclear power completely, at least according to this article from the Oman Observer. Of course, it must be remembered that as an oil-producing country, Oman is not exactly unbiased with regards to this question.

Though the Oman Observer also reports on alternatives to both nuclear power and fossil fuels, such as this article about the Sultanate of Oman planning to increase its investments in solar power in cooperation with German and Swiss solar power companies. Solar power seems like a very good solution for the Arab peninsula, since the region gets a lot of sun and has a lot of land that has no agricultural or other use.

As alternative methods of energy generation go, this is one of the crazier (and potentially very risky) schemes: US developers are planning to pump 90 million liters of water into a dormant volcano in Oregon to demonstrate their new geothermal energy technology. Somehow I doubt that pumping water into volcanoes will be the future of energy generation. Never mind the dangers to human life, property and the environment, if the volcano turns out to be not quite as dormant as everybody thought.

Thanks to Jay Lake for the volcano and radioactive fish links.

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Wir wünschen all unseren Kunden und Geschäftspartnern fröhliche Festtage and ein erfolgreiches neues Jahr 2012!

However, the US is not only still adhering to its old nuclear reactors, some of which are not considered safe, they are also planning to build new nuclear reactors. Indeed, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission just approved the design of a new nuclear reactor developed by Westinghouse Electric, even though 64 percent of Americans oppose the construction of new nuclear power plants according to a poll carried out earlier this year.

What is more, the Westinghouse CEO claims that their new reactor design is not just safer than the existing designs, but that their reactor could have survived the earthquake and tsunami that caused the Fukushima Daiichi plant to go into meltdown.

We can only hope he’s right.

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In Deutschland hat die Fukushima Katastrophe den letzten Anstoss zum endgültigen Ausstieg aus der Atomkraft gegeben. Die Entscheidung wird von der überwiegenden Mehrheit der Bevölkerung unterstützt.

In den USA setzt man allerdings nicht nur nach wie vor auf Atomkraft, obwohl einige der existierenden US Atomkraftwerke als nicht sicher gelten, man plant sogar den Bau neuer Atomkraftwerke. So hat die US Atomregulierungsbehörde gerade das Design eines neuen Atomreaktors, welcher von Westinghouse Electric entwickelt wurde, genehmigt, obwohl auch in den USA 64 Prozent der Bevölkerung laut einer neuen Umfrage gegen den Bau neuer Atomkraftwerke sind.

Außerdem behauptet der Westinghouse CEO, dass ihr neues Reaktordesign nicht nur sicherer als existierende Reaktoren ist, sondern dass ihr Reaktor auch die Erdbeben und Tsunami Katastrophe, welche die Kernschmelze in Fukushima auslöste, problemlos überstanden hätte.

Wir können nur hoffen, dass er Recht hat.

Anyway, here are the solar power yields for November 2011: In November 2011, the photovoltaic solar cell array on our roof generated 294 kilowatt hours of energy. This is actually our best November result ever, but then the month was mostly dry and sunny.

So far autumn seems to be trying to make up for the extremely wet summer of 2011. Though the annual solar power yield is still several percent below the average, because even a record-breaking November cannot make up for a rotten June or July.

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Ich weiß, dass ich diese Blog in letzter Zeit vernachlässigt habe, aber man kann mich immer auf meinem persönlichen Blog sowie auf dem Pegasus Pulp Blog finden.

Außerdem sind hier, etwas verspätet, die Solarenergieertragsdaten für November 2011: Im November 2011 hat die Photovoltaik Anlage auf unserem Dach 294 Kilowattstunden Strom erzeugt. Dies ist tatsächlich unser bisher bestes Novemberergebnis. Allerdings war dieser November auch ungewöhnlich sonnig und trocken.

Es scheint, als ob der Herbst sich bemüht, den extrem nassen and kalten Sommer 2011 etwas auszugleichen. Allerdings liegt der Jahresertrag an Solarenergie einige Prozent unter dem Durchschnitt, da auch ein rekordverdächtiger November leider einen verregneten Sommer nicht aufwiegen kann.

In October 2011, the photovoltaic solar cell array on our roof generated 784 kilowatt hours of energy. This result is very good for October, but then the month was mostly dry and sunny.

It seems as if autumn is trying to make up for the extremely wet summer this year. Though the annual solar power yield is still lower than the average and will remain so, because a good September or October (or November) cannot make up for a rotten June or July.

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Der November ist zwar schon halb vorbei, aber mir ist gerade aufgefallen, dass ich den monatlichen Solarenergieertrag noch gar nicht geposted habe. Also sind hier, mit einiger Verspätung, die Solarenergieertragsdaten für Oktober 2011:

Im Oktober 2011 hat die Photovoltaik Anlage auf unserem Dach 784 Kilowattstunden Strom erzeugt. Dies ist ein sehr gutes Ergebnis für September, da der Monat überweigend trocken and sonnig war.

Es scheint, als ob der Herbst sich bemüht, den extrem nassen and kalten Sommer 2011 etwas auszugleichen. Allerdings ist der Jahresertrag an Solarenergie immer noch unter dem Durchschnitt und wird es wohl auch bleiben, denn ein guter September oder Oktober oder auch November kann leider einen verregneten Sommer nicht aufwiegen..

]]> http://abc-buhlert.com/2011/11/24/solar-power-metrics-for-october-2011-energieertragsdaten-fur-oktober-2011/feed/ 0 http://abc-buhlert.com/2011/10/31/radiation-due-to-fukushima-disaster-higher-than-estimated/ http://abc-buhlert.com/2011/10/31/radiation-due-to-fukushima-disaster-higher-than-estimated/#comments Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:48:25 +0000 ABC http://abc-buhlert.com/?p=319 Continue reading →]]> According to recent reports, the nuclear radiation and particularly the amount of the radioactive isotope Caesium-137 emitted due to the Fukushima disaster in Japan is twice as high as initially estimated. Those who were around for Chernobyl will remember Caesium-137 with its half-life of a little over thirty years as one of the biggest dangers and still the largest source around Chernobyl.

The article, being from an American news source, tries to downplay the extent of the problem, but this is nonetheless alarming. Especially if we remember that the extent of Chernobyl was initially underestimated as well.

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Cora wurde von Alain Gomez auf der Webseite Book Brouhaha zum Thema e-books interviewt.

In September 2011, the photovoltaic solar cell array on our roof generated 1314 kilowatt hours of energy. This result is pretty good for September, because the extremely wet summer has given way to a decent autumn by now.

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Mir ist gerade aufgefallen, dass ich dies hier noch gar nicht geposted habe. Also sind hier, mit einiger Verspätung, die Solarenergieertragsdaten für September 2011:

Im September 2011 hat die Photovoltaik Anlage auf unserem Dach 1314 Kilowattstunden Strom erzeugt. Dies ist ein ziemlich gutes Ergebnis für September, da der extrem nasse and kalte Sommer inzwischen einem recht ordentlichen Herbst Platz gemacht hat.