British Heysham 2 nuclear reactor sets the world record for continuous operation. [View all]

[NNadir]

As of 1 August, the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor (AGR) achieved 895 days of continuous operation, having operated non-stop since 18 February 2014. The reactor - also referred to as Heysham 2 unit 8 - is scheduled to continue operating until 16 September, when it will be taken offline for a planned maintenance and inspection outage. Assuming the unit carries on operating until that time, it would have run continuously for 941 days.

The reactor, operated by EDF Energy, has generated 13.495 TWh of electricity so far during this continuous operation, taking its lifetime generation to 115.46 TWh.

Source: British reactor takes record for longest continuous operation

13.495 TWh of electricity corresponds to 0.0485 exajoules of energy, this on a planet where humanity utilizes about 570 exajoules each year.

For a sense of scale, we may compare the output of the Heysham nuclear plant with the total amount of energy generated by utility scale solar energy in the entire United States in 2015.

The figure for utility scale solar generation for the entire United States in 2015 may be found at the EIA website's Electricity Data Page. Scroll down to Net Generation, and click on the "xls" button by the "All Energy Sources" to pull up an informative spreadsheet delineating the electrical output for various forms of energy.

All of the utility scale solar plants in the entire United States, built during a period of wild eyed cheering for them produced 26,473 thousand megawatt hours of electricity, which corresponds to 26.473 TWh.

Thus in a single small building, albeit over a period of roughly two and a half years, the British nuclear plant was able to produce 51% as much energy, albeit in a little under two and a half years, as an entire nation - a large industrial nation with huge enthusiasm for it - could produce using solar electricity in a single year.

The solar industry and the wind industry, neither of which are sustainable, have failed to address climate change at all, despite their inexplicable and increasingly dangerous popularity. After trillions of dollars in "investment" in these failed, expensive technologies, the rate of accumulation of carbon dioxide is at the highest rate ever observed, with 2015 having been the worst year ever observed, at 3.05 ppm over 2015, and with 2016 on a track to make 2015 small time. In 2016 the months of February, March, April, May, and June all represented the worst February, March, April, May, and June ever recorded at the Mauna Loa carbon dioxide observatory at, respectively, 3.76 ppm, 3.31 ppm, 4.16 ppm, 3.76 ppm, and 4.01 ppm over their respective levels in 2015. The 4.16 ppm and 4.01 ppm figures for April and June are the worst figures ever recorded for any month since the Mauna Loa observatory began reporting this data. (The data for January 2016 and July 2016 were "only" respectively, the fourth worst January, and the third worst July ever observed.)

We should never underestimate the power of large groups of people to lie to themselves. We are lying to ourselves not merely in the United States, but on a grand international scale, when we claim that so called "renewable energy" is effective and useful. It is not. It has not worked, it is not working, and it will not work.

The data for the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere however is not a lie, however, it speaks for itself and is irrefutable.

Nuclear power is not perfect, but it need not be perfect to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is. Shoot the messenger if you will, but it was, I think, our last best hope to have left future generations with a safe planet.

We rejected it. History, should history survive, will not forgive us.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.