By Dr. John Happs
Imagine a company that claimed to have a battery-powered airliner that would carry 200 passengers over a distance of several thousand kilometres. Imagine also that the government funnelled a few million taxpayer dollars into the development of such an aircraft, politicians and the public would demand a demonstration of its capabilities and safety before anyone boarded for a flight.
By the same token, if anyone makes the claim that a constant, reliable, zero emissions electricity supply, based on wind and solar, is achievable, surely it’s essential that we verify this claim before rushing into such an expensive, untested nation-wide scheme.
The claim was made in the 1950’s that nuclear energy was a viable source of reliable energy and a demonstration was quickly and successfully provided in Arco, Idaho when the city was powered by nuclear energy on July 17th, 1955. The Borax III reactor supplied the small town of Arco with nuclear power.
The Arco success was followed by another nuclear power demonstration at Shippingport, near Pittsburgh, in 1957 when the plant was completed in just over 2 years. It was reported:
“So, on December 18, 1957, after having operated the reactor and the plant’s steam systems on and off for about two weeks, it came to pass that the first full-scale atomic power station to be built in the United States was synchronized with and connected to the grid. At first, the plant was operated at just low power levels. It didn’t take long to complete some tests and reach full rated power on December 23, 1957, with the plant putting its full rated 60,000 kilowatts onto Duquesne’s commercial grid.”
https://www.ans.org/news/article-2093/atoms-on-the-grid-shippingport-1957/
Continue reading: https://papundits.wordpress.com/2024/09/02/politicians-if-net-zero-is-achievable-why-not-give-us-a-small-scale-demonstration/