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+ - Solar Energy Was America's Sole New Power Source in October->

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes ""In October, power plants generating 530 megawatts of electricity came online in the United States. And every single electron put on the grid came from the sun, according to a report released today.

It’s possible to make too much of the fact that solar energy was the sole source of new electricity capacity in US that month. After all, the completion dates of power plants can be random. That’s particularly true for complex, multibillion-dollar, fossil fuel power stations that can take years to build and are subject to oversight by state regulators.

However, it is also possible to be too dismissive of this energy shift and the fact that solar supplanted coal and natural gas in October. It’s not a huge amount of power – at peak output 530 megawatts is what a medium-sized natural gas-fired power plant would generate. But it’s a clear sign that solar is no longer a niche play – especially when you consider that the October’s numbers don’t include the installation of roof photovoltaic panels on homes and businesses. In California alone, for instance, 19.5 megawatts of rooftop solar was installed in the territories of the state’s three big utilities just in October.""
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Comment: Re:Solar causing power problems to come (Score 1) 2

by mdsolar (#45524993) Attached to: The US has 43 nuclear power plants' worth of solar energy in the pipeline
I was wondering if it is technically true. There are a few days when the US is nearly cloudless, but it does have four time zones. Would the peak (as a system) end up around 35 GW? The six million home number should be OK though. You might want to read the article. It is partly about the planned phase out of subsidies for solar. There does not seem to be such a plan for nuclear or gas. For nuclear, there is a new free ride on waste disposal so subsidies are going up there.

+ - The US has 43 nuclear power plants' worth of solar energy in the pipeline-> 2

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes "The boom in solar energy in the US in recent years? You haven’t seen anything yet. The pipeline of photovoltaic projects has grown 7% over the past 12 months and now stands at 2,400 solar installations that would generate 43,000 megawatts (MW), according to a report released today by market research firm NPD Solarbuzz. If all these projects are built, their peak electricity output would be equivalent to that of 43 big nuclear power plants, and enough to keep the lights on in six million American homes."
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+ - What a Difference a Light Bulb Makes->

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes "There’s a simple technology that transforms our lives every day, and yet we rarely give a passing thought to its existence (unless of course it flares out at an inopportune moment): the light bulb. And yet for more than a billion people in the developing world who lack access to electricity, this simple device can make an unimaginable difference....a family with a light bulb is a family with opportunities. Women can set up small shops in their homes, for instance, to sew or cook for extra money. Kids can study for school: A light may keep a girl or boy from dropping out. Families read, or may use the light to set up classes to teach others to read. A shop owner keeps his or her store open longer, earns more money, sends more kids to school—and those kids can then use the glow to read in the evenings. That’s why there are dozens of organizations around the world dedicated to nothing more than making sure that people have access to light.... [N]early unbreakable LEDs are easily paired with solar power, and so in poor communities, what seems excessive to us becomes a long-lasting investment that bypasses both inefficient incandescents and the lumbering power grid."
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+ - A War Over Solar Power Is Raging Within the GOP->

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes ""These days Barry Goldwater, Jr. is on an unlikely crusade. In March, the former California Republican congressman founded Tell Utilities Solar Won’t Be Killed, or TUSK, after Arizona’s largest electric utility proposed a hefty new fee on solar customers and a plan to lower net metering rates, which dictate how much electric utilities pay solar customers for excess energy sold back to the grid. "Republicans want the freedom to make the best choice," Goldwater said in a statement on TUSK's website. So he cobbled together a ragtag coalition of libertarian-minded conservatives, solar industry advocates, and business groups to wage a colorful guerrilla campaign. In the past few months, TUSK has run ads attacking the electric utility on conservative talk radio and the Drudge Report. They’ve posted clever YouTube videos, including a song parody sung to the tune of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” “They Totally Think We're Not Smart.”

It’s a strange campaign not least because it seemed at first like the electric utility’s proposal would be a lay-up. Arguing that customers were not paying enough to cover the cost of maintaining the grid infrastructure they use whenever the sun is not shining, the electricity provider—Arizona Public Service, or APS—only needed approval from the state’s utility commission, which is 100 percent Republican. And the company generally enjoys strong support among Arizona Republicans. It donated $25,000 to the Republican Victory Fund in 2012, according to Arizona campaign filings...."

A longer article which goes on to claim that Goldwater won in Arizona."
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Comment: Water towers (Score 2) 190

by mdsolar (#45491877) Attached to: Elevation Plays a Role In Memory Error Rates
It seems to me that an unexploited structure for a low radiation environment is the bottom side of a water tower. Steel has most radionuclides slagged off when it is produced while drinking water standards ensure the water in the tower will have low radioactivity. A meter or two of water forms a nice shield for cosmic rays from above while the air below the tower shields against lower energy ground radiation. And, you get a nice heat sink in the water for cooling electronic.

+ - NRC Suspected in San Onofre Coverup->

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes ""California Sen. Barbara Boxer said Thursday that federal regulators might be improperly concealing documents on a long-running investigation at the now-closed San Onofre nuclear power plant.

In a letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Allison Macfarlane, Boxer said she made several requests for documents related to the ongoing probe at the seaside plant, as far back as May 2012. But certain records "may have been removed" before boxes of NRC documents were delivered to her office in June, Boxer said.

The Democrat heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

"Any effort to obstruct or impede my oversight activities is unacceptable," Boxer wrote.

The NRC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The agency has disclosed previously that its Office of Investigations and Office of the Inspector General are conducting probes into "allegations of willful wrongdoing" at San Onofre, but provided no details.""
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+ - Nuclear Power's $750 Million Reprieve Doesn't End Dilemma->

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes ""Nuclear power plant operators won a significant victory yesterday when a federal appeals court said the U.S. should stop collecting $750 million a year for a spent-fuel repository it has never built.

Left unsettled is an issue that has vexed the industry and political leaders for decades: where to dispose of 70,000 metric tons of atomic waste now in temporary storage at power plants across the country.

“There’s nothing in this opinion that’s going to move a single fuel rod a single foot from where it’s sitting now,” Peter Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member and professor at Vermont Law School, said in a phone interview. ""
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+ - 'Magic numbers' disappear and expand area of nuclear deformation->

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes "A team of researchers from the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science in Japan has demonstrated that the magic numbers 20 and 28 disappear from all neutron-rich magnesium isotopes, thereby establishing a new, larger area of nuclear deformation in the nuclear chart.

The Japanese study, published today in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters, was made possible by the intense beam at the Radioactive Beam Factory (RIBF) at RIKEN, which produces the most intense radioactive isotope beams in the world.

Inside the atomic nucleus, protons and neutrons are organized in shell structures similar to the electron shell around an atom. When proton or neutron shells are filled with 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82, or 126 nucleons, these numbers are called "magic" and nuclei assume spherical shapes. In contrast, nuclei lose their spherical shape and become "deformed" when the number of nucleons is not a magic number.

Recent experimental data on neutron-rich, radioactive isotopes has challenged the assumption that magic numbers are the same for all nuclei. The neutron-rich isotope 32Mg, which is composed of 12 protons and 20 neutrons, has been shown to be deformed by the disappearance of the neutron magic number 20, for example. In addition, 42Si, with 14 protons and 28 neutrons, is also deformed.

The "Island of Deformation" is the region in the nuclear chart comprising elements known to lose their neutron magic number 20. This region was previously thought to be composed of only a few nuclei around 32Mg. In the current study, the team led by Dr Pieter Doornenbal and Dr Hiroyoshi Sakurai, sought to understand whether the regions around 32Mg and 42Si are two isolated islands of deformation, or belong to the same, larger, connected area of deformation.

To carry out their experiment, the team accelerated a beam of stable 48Ca up to 70% of the speed of light and projected it onto a beryllium target. The resulting radioactive 39Al and 40Si were selected and purified into beams that were shot at 60 % of the speed of light onto a carbon target. This second step produced neutron-rich, radioactive magnesium isotopes 34,36,38Mg. By measuring the energy levels of the gamma rays emitted by the first excited states of these isotopes, the team could conclude that they all displayed a very deformed shape, and had lost their magic numbers 20 and 28."
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