1. The anti-wind crusade of this blog continues with an article from American Spectator. (Mind you, one article there also positively welcomes global warming.) Apart from the important stuff about the difficulties of actually using the electricity they generate, here's a bit of information that surprised me:
The standard 1.5 MW structure is now 40 stories, taller than the statue of liberty. The 3 MW towers waiting in the wings are as tall as New York's Citicorp Center, the third tallest building in Manhattan.
That is big.
2. This story was in Newsweek in January, but I missed it 'til now:
The Kremlin has set about recasting Russia's once top-secret nuclear industry as the world's leading mass marketer of cheap, reliable reactors. As energy prices soar, nuclear power has been gaining in popularity, and Russia is the market leader in cut-price reactors....
"Our power stations are not a bit worse than anyone else's," says Sergei Shmatko, the president of Atomstroyexport, Russia's atomic-power-station construction company. "My dream," he adds, "is to make the export and construction of our nuclear stations as simple and as fast as putting IKEA furniture together."
3. My favourite underdog in the clean energy stakes, the Pebble Bed Reactor, continues to attract very little attention here, but in South Africa it is definitely going ahead after appeals against development approval were rejected. First demonstration plant due by 2010, and commercial modules may be available by 2013.
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