“But we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch. Hydrogen problems are real. It is so light it is difficult, meaning expensive, to store. That’s a problem for transportation uses.”
Hydrogen, 1H, the primary and most common element in the universe, consists of one proton, one electron, and no neutrons. It’s in first place on the periodic chart of the elements. In common, gaseous form, H2, it is colorless, odorless, and highly combustible. It is the fuel of the sun.
For many years, some energy mavens have touted hydrogen, an energy carrier, as the perfect fuel form for a greener earth. When combusted in pure oxygen, it produces only water and a lot of energy. When burned in air, it emits only small amounts of oxides of nitrogen.…
The DOE move to prop up the nuclear big iron also prompts a recollection of the words of the great American philosopher Lawrence “Yogi” Berra: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Alternatively, “Been there. Done that. Didn’t work.” Some 20 years ago, facing a 30-year decline in the U.S. nuclear power business (no reactor ordered after 1974 got built), the George W. Bush administration threw $8 billion in 2005 dollars each to two, two-unit AP-1000 reactor projects.
The Trump administration and its Department of Energy have made Canada–who many Americans other than Donald Trump consider our closest ally and good friend–happy. Recently (June 23, 2026), DOE’s loan office (grandiosity renamed the Office of Energy Dominance Financing) announced a $17.5 billion dollar loan program to subsidize building five as yet unidentified, two-unit 1,000-MW, nuclear power plant stations.…
“All the recent flurry of fusion fascination prompted one long-time observer of the story to quip, anonymously, ‘The folks who brought us the most expensive way in the world to boil water, fission, now want to double down with fusion.'”
Fusion energy — yielding enormous amounts of heat from the violent combination of elements — has long been touted as the holy grail of energy future. That’s wrong, according to a new article in the prestigious Nature Energy.
“While nuclear fusion power is often hailed as a future source of abundant, clean energy, current dominant fusion designs, magnetic and laser inertial, are unlikely to become competitive due to their expected low experience rates,” concludes the article by a team of researchers led by Lingxi Tang of the Energy and Technology Policy Group, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.…