Though Mr. McKibben has long been one of my few heroes, I'm deeply dismayed and disappointed by his embrace of nuclear power. It is by no means eco-friendly! Despite its lack of carbon emissions during operation, there's plenty of carbon emitted during the mining, shipping and processing of the raw materials required. Far worse is the fact that, despite decades of research, there is still NO way to guarantee safe isolation of the toxic wastes from the biosphere for the 10s of thousands of years it takes to break down - and there probably never will be a solution if we haven't found one yet. It's beyond our human capacity to control. Anyway, no civilization has ever lasted nearly that long, so there's no counting on the existence of an advanced technological society extending into the far future. On the contrary: with the natural world already rebelling against us, such a future society is ever less likely to exist. I can't believe Mr. McKibben assumes the attitude of "apres moi, le deluge" towards the long-term dangers of inadequate waste storage. Having seen him speak in public a number of times, I believe he is too good a person to harbor any such notion. But he knows full well that nuclear is insanely dangerous, not to mention more expensive than every other means of generating electricity. As energy expert Amory Lovins wrote decades ago: "Using nuclear power to boil water is like using a chain saw to cut butter." It. Makes. No. Sense. I can't account for Mr. McKibben's blind spot except to assume he's so fixated on carbon emissions, he's willfully blinded himself to other ecological dangers. He had much better stick with emphasizing the far more more benign power sources: solar, wind, geothermal and hydro - not to mention greater efficiency and conservation measures. We do not need to power the lavishly indulgent consumerist lifestyle of the West - the maintenance of which is, I assume, the real argument for nuclear. It's a Faustian bargain that's even now backfiring in the form of climate collapse, and ongoing collapse will only get worse the longer we insist on such delusional ways.
There are many studies (see the NREL website for a summary) showing that the carbon footprint of nuclear power generation is the same as windpower and that both are lower than solar. As for waste, which problem would you rather deal with: storage of nuclear waste or runaway global warming? No one has ever been injured by nuclear power waste and about six million people die prematurely every year from fossil fuel burning.
Very well put Barbara and you make really excellent points. There is no guarantee that we can continue to kick cans down the road indefinitely or that we won't make the same mistakes in the future that we made in the past. We are clever as individuals but not as clever as we think ourselves and collectively we are rather dim. There are far too many of us and that overpopulation is the ur-problem. There would be no need for massive power generation if there were not massive numbers of over-consuming people to supply with the perquisites they have been trained since childhood to think they need.
Bill is NOT advocating new nuclear reactor deplomyent -- he makes a very strong argument that available funds would far better be invested in renewable energy.
But it is not unreasonable to say that shutting down fossil fueled power plants is more urgent than shutting down existing nuclear plants before the end of their design life.
I offer this criticism of your solar vs nuclear analysis from the perspective of a retired R&D mechanical engineer and a Viet Nam era instructor at the US Navy Nuclear Power School. Our NH home has been powered by fixed PV arrays for more than a decade and is heated by heat pumps, our sole vehicle is an EV, I hold a US patent on a self-pumped solar water heating system, and I just replaced my last remaining gas-powered device - a snow blower - with a battery machine (although our changing winters make its future utility questionable).
Your analysis infers equivalence between global daily installation of 1 gigawatt of solar power and construction of a 1 gigawatt nuclear power plant. In each case, the power rating indicates the maximum instantaneous power the facility can deliver - at high noon on a sunny day for the solar case. Because our turning earth whisks the solar site past the sun's rays, the array captures only about 4 gigawatt-hours of useful energy each day, whether that energy is used immediately or time shifted with battery storage to meet energy demand as it occurs. The nuclear plant meanwhile can perk along at 1 gigawatt of power output all day long, delivering 24 gigawatt-hours of energy, 6 times the useful output of the "equivalent" solar installation. Discussing and comparing technologies in terms of peak power ratings is deceptive when their true utility lies in the energy they can deliver each day. It takes roughly 6 gigawatts of solar plant (plus batteries) to functionally replace a 1 gigawatt nuclear plant. Talking power rather than energy misrepresents the issues.
I'm OK with nuclear power, if it's sited intelligently, built safely, and run by competent people. I suggest we don't hire the Russians. Yes, there's a disposal issue, but it's small and largely political (not in MY state under MY favorite mountain). Yes, we also need to reduce our addiction to electricity, and fast (for example, constraining the largely lamprey-like blockchain industry). But the vast majority of nukes have operated like quiet, innocuous neighbors (except for superheating the water they discharge). The rare accidents were foreseeable and preventable, except perhaps the Japanese disaster (don't site a nuke near an active fracture zone). Using nuclear energy is the fastest, smartest, safest way to help renewable energy displace our fatal hunger for fossil fuels. Like cigarettes, we didn't know how dangerous that was until it became all too clear.
" Using nuclear energy is the fastest, smartest, safest way to help renewable energy displace our fatal hunger for fossil fuels"
WRONG. Nuclear is s...l...o...w to deploy compared to renewable energy, end use efficiency, and energy storage to balance supply with demand, and far more expensive than those cleaner options, because of the need for very strict containment of its inherently hazardous, lethally radioactive fission products for decades, and plutonium for hundreds of millenia.
Also, the proliferation of nuclear power prolferates the technology and materials to make nuclear weapons around the world, increasing the danger of nuclear war in a world disrupted by increasing climate disasters.
Nuclear cannot be built without MASSIVE subsidies and liablility exclusions.
Solar electricity, as Bill said, is far, far less expensive than nuclear, and so it will always be. And the US is now installing 1,000 megawatts of solar EVERY DAY--equivalent to one of the 120-odd nuclear plants we had in our country in that technology's heyday, as Bill said above. There is simply no need for nuclear power, although I don't think Germany was sensible in dismantling its nukes when they did.
They are many times more expensive than solar electricity. We're now installing the equivalent in solar electricity of one nuclear plant every day! It takes years to build a new nuclear plant. It doesn't make sense to take down the nukes we have before they come to the end of their lives, but it's counterproductive to build more of them.
Contrary to your comment, installing nuclear energy is a slow, expensive, way to displace fossil fuels, although it might have a role in replacing FF for baseload electricity production. Besides, it's not going to displace fossil fuels in transportation (including shipping, and flying) which amounts to around 30% of our energy use.
The "Japanese disaster" to which you refer was a natural disaster, a massive earthquake and tsunami. The Fukushima nuclear plant proved the inherent safety of nuclear power when it shutdown with no loss of life from radiation even after some of the reactors suffered meltdown. It is easy to say, with hindsight, that it should not have been built in that location but the fear mongering and unnecessary evacuation was the real "nuclear disaster".
To give you an idea of what solar plus batteries really cost, consider the case of the Red Sea resort under construction in Saudi Arabia. This will be run off the grid and features 400 MW (nameplate) solar and 1.3 GWh of battery storage. The combination will Produce 1 TWh of electrical energy at a cost of about 1.3 billion. The nuclear reactors recently commissioned in the UAE provide energy at about half this cost. Now this is in SA which is one of the better locations on earth for solar power. Move to northern Europe or the northern US and you need much more storage to account for seasonal and short term variations in solar output. Nuclear wins hands down - at least an order of magnitude.
AGAIN: feedback loops (vicious cycles) are now mostly driving global warming: boreal and rain forests drying up and burning, ice everywhere melting, major changes in cloud patterns and of the earth's albedo, etc. Global warming is not like an incurable patient needing palliative care; the earth is sick because of our toxic economy. Our government must halt consumerism, most steel and concrete production, our 'animal husbandry,' etc. We need plant-based diets, build mostly with wood, use extreme white cooling paint instead of more air conditioning, plant trees, bamboo, kelp and other fast-growing plants, prevent the decomposing and burning of organic material (mostly by keeping it in ground that is soaked in stagnant, anoxic water), etc.. To save our civilizations and the world as we know it, we must bring CO2 and methane levels down to 19th century levels. Heinz Aeschbach, MD humanecivilization.org
Bill -- I was surprised to hear you say that you have no problem "with these nuclear plans." Really?!!! Does anyone know what to do with the nuclear waste from these plants? They've been working on that for decades with no solution, so it seems unlikely that a solution will now appear. Of course, the nuclear plants are far more expensive than other better solutions, so the costs will make building them prohibitive. But the expectation is that the government will subsidize most of the cost. So isn't it OUR job to object to these subsidies and derail the nuclear train?
No nukes. Bill you are writing your own epitaph here. Once you let nukes in the door, you can kiss investment in solar and wind Good Bye. Nuke is the very definition of the lust for power. Future generations saddled with our nuke waste will curse us. And the more mini nukes, the more avenues for nuclear proliferation. Can you spell, dirty bomb?
Big tech needs to use their obscene profits to buy their own solar, wind and battery infrastructures. You know, something that actually works, is inexpensive and can be installed today.
What is your plan when the sun doesn’t shine? We need batteries nuclear tides and/or wind. I’m sorry if I haven’t seen you address this issue. You seem to po po small nuclear and don’t discuss other options. And I’m a believer in nonsustainable activities.
These words hold the key to what we need to be doing, and point the way to how we can be doing it.
COP28 tells us that we need to be “transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner”.
Order requires a plan. Justice requires a plan that is fair.
We need a master planner to plan for orderly fairness.
Transitioning away requires a simultaneous transitioning towards. Otherwise, the lights will go out, and the stoves will grow cold.
We need a plan for rapidly redesigning and reconstructing our global energy supply ecosystem to be purpose-rebuilt for energy sufficiency complete with habitat longevity and social equity on a planetary scale in the 21st Century, and beyond.
We need a planetary master plan. That requires a planetary master planner, who also has the power to control the execution of that plan down to the local level.
The energy that master planner needs is money to pay everybody for doing the work according to the plan.
Where are we going to get that money?
Pensions trusts have it. Let’s use their money to control the transition.
To Tom Perrett -- what would you say -- as a science writer - that an electric power supply discovered, and US Patented by Nikola Tesla - has been electrically operating over-unity -- for over 124 years -- but Classic Physics has yet to recognize it.
It's called a parallel / resonating / tank circuit - and it is the "radio station to radio station 'tuning circuit' found in every AM or FM radio manufactured since Tesla invented it in 1900.
When Classic Physics stated, long before Tesla began his seminal work on AC power in 1882; -- that "...no power supply could produce more output power than input power... inferring that "over-unity power production was impossible..." -- they got the "substance" of the position correct - but chose incorrect verbiage -- which is what the world "hung it's hat on" as far as thinking / believing was correct...
Wrong.
Had Classic Physics stated that "...no power supply can develop more power than it is physically and electrically capable of developing..." -- both the position and the statement would have been correct.
But Classic Physics didn't -- and that - along with a huge concerted "commercial profits oriented" push to keep on burning fossil-based fuels for producing electricity and power vehicles - we now have the Global Warming / Climate Change disaster we've created for the planet.
A resonating tank circuit -- which is an "inductor" (coil of wire) and a "capacitor" connected in parallel; --- ALWAYS "electrically reduces" the input power level "connected to it"::
--- to a power level below the power level being developed "in the tank circuit itself" -- every time.
IF you get the college-level textbook "Electricity One-Seven" / edited by Harry Mileaf - copyrighted in 1966 -- you will find 5 pages of text / spreadsheets / and visual graphs - from the 55 page chapter on Resonance.
In today's syllabus - you might find a couple of sentences - or less on resonance -- because it is treated as a nuisance - to be avoided -- when back when I went through first the US Navy Class "A" "ET" / Electronics School and then the Class "A" Radar School in the early 1960s - where Tesla's work and research was part of the curriculum -- we worked with "resonance" --because everything "electronics" was powered by vacuum power tubes - which, when run at full power resonance - if not controlled using "negative feedback circuitry - they could go into "resonance over-drive" (my term) and self-destruct - sometimes rather spectacularly.
Check out US Patent 5,146,395 / A POWER SUPPLY INCLUDING TWO TANK CIRCUITS / with "regenerative feedback" - where "over-unity was specifically not claimed -as it was known that either the US/DOE or US/DOD would have the application rejected.
However--- careful reading of the Patent ABSTRACT clearly describes a small portion of the "electronically developed" output power being routed "back to the source" as "regenerative feedback" -- which causes two simultaneous circuitry operational changes:
1.) the on-board "start-up" power source - is "electrically" shut-off - and
2.) the "regenerative feedback" power continuous to power the circuitry while it continuous to "electronically develop" it's "over-unity" electric power output to it's dedicated load - which is up to and including:
--- 480 VDC or VAC / 480 Amps --which is
--- 230,400 Watts; 230.4 kW; or .2304 MW per unit:
in a:
--- solid-state / 2.5 c. ft. / 30 lb. /less than $2000 per unit / modular / stand-alone - does not need "recharging" or external power source connection at any time / can have multiples of units connected together to produce a higher output power level -- just like batteries - package.
How do I know about the Patent -- I wrote it.
How do I know about the power supply -- I built it and Patented it in 1992.
Why isn't it available here in the US?
Because no one seems to be interested in writing about it - to bringing it to the attention of both the general pubic and the "financial powers that be" - that are presently very happy "feeding at the Federal IRA funding trough":
--- and don't want the competition -- because it makes everything being used to produce electricity and power vehicles -- redundant.
Also -- US/DOE-IPO Title 17 - prohibits the US Federal Government from funding any power source that is not "commercialized" (undefined) and / "or accepted" (also undefined) -- so----- it's going to Europe - with funding being finalized in Europe and the Middle East -- turning the US into a "customer".
The unit can be installed either:
--- "at" any "stationary" site, or "in" any "movable vehicle;
--- constantly "electronically developing" all of the clean electricity required "for" that site or vehicle;
--- for as long as is required "by" that site or vehicle -- making available:
--- unlimited range and / or time of travel.
Who needs "Nukes" -- apparently people still think that we do.
Thanks Bill for scouting out these potential threats, such as tree burners moving west. I wrote to the authors you linked this response: "Similarly, out here in Hawaii, the politicians and courts got a last ditch education on this harmful industry to put off a proposed project on the Big Island that would cut and burn large areas of forest cover (mostly non-native) for electricity, all the while claiming carbon credits. A total scam that we are still vigilantly monitoring. Communities need to be on guard."
The article ignores the fact that solar plus batteries can be competitive with nuclear in some locations (mostly clear skies, close to the equator) and uncompetitive in others (cloudy, high latitude).
Though Mr. McKibben has long been one of my few heroes, I'm deeply dismayed and disappointed by his embrace of nuclear power. It is by no means eco-friendly! Despite its lack of carbon emissions during operation, there's plenty of carbon emitted during the mining, shipping and processing of the raw materials required. Far worse is the fact that, despite decades of research, there is still NO way to guarantee safe isolation of the toxic wastes from the biosphere for the 10s of thousands of years it takes to break down - and there probably never will be a solution if we haven't found one yet. It's beyond our human capacity to control. Anyway, no civilization has ever lasted nearly that long, so there's no counting on the existence of an advanced technological society extending into the far future. On the contrary: with the natural world already rebelling against us, such a future society is ever less likely to exist. I can't believe Mr. McKibben assumes the attitude of "apres moi, le deluge" towards the long-term dangers of inadequate waste storage. Having seen him speak in public a number of times, I believe he is too good a person to harbor any such notion. But he knows full well that nuclear is insanely dangerous, not to mention more expensive than every other means of generating electricity. As energy expert Amory Lovins wrote decades ago: "Using nuclear power to boil water is like using a chain saw to cut butter." It. Makes. No. Sense. I can't account for Mr. McKibben's blind spot except to assume he's so fixated on carbon emissions, he's willfully blinded himself to other ecological dangers. He had much better stick with emphasizing the far more more benign power sources: solar, wind, geothermal and hydro - not to mention greater efficiency and conservation measures. We do not need to power the lavishly indulgent consumerist lifestyle of the West - the maintenance of which is, I assume, the real argument for nuclear. It's a Faustian bargain that's even now backfiring in the form of climate collapse, and ongoing collapse will only get worse the longer we insist on such delusional ways.
There are many studies (see the NREL website for a summary) showing that the carbon footprint of nuclear power generation is the same as windpower and that both are lower than solar. As for waste, which problem would you rather deal with: storage of nuclear waste or runaway global warming? No one has ever been injured by nuclear power waste and about six million people die prematurely every year from fossil fuel burning.
Very well put Barbara and you make really excellent points. There is no guarantee that we can continue to kick cans down the road indefinitely or that we won't make the same mistakes in the future that we made in the past. We are clever as individuals but not as clever as we think ourselves and collectively we are rather dim. There are far too many of us and that overpopulation is the ur-problem. There would be no need for massive power generation if there were not massive numbers of over-consuming people to supply with the perquisites they have been trained since childhood to think they need.
Bill is NOT advocating new nuclear reactor deplomyent -- he makes a very strong argument that available funds would far better be invested in renewable energy.
But it is not unreasonable to say that shutting down fossil fueled power plants is more urgent than shutting down existing nuclear plants before the end of their design life.
He reminds me of the Mose Allison lyric “ I know so much, I’ve lost my mind “ Quite sad, actually.
Mr. McKibben,
I offer this criticism of your solar vs nuclear analysis from the perspective of a retired R&D mechanical engineer and a Viet Nam era instructor at the US Navy Nuclear Power School. Our NH home has been powered by fixed PV arrays for more than a decade and is heated by heat pumps, our sole vehicle is an EV, I hold a US patent on a self-pumped solar water heating system, and I just replaced my last remaining gas-powered device - a snow blower - with a battery machine (although our changing winters make its future utility questionable).
Your analysis infers equivalence between global daily installation of 1 gigawatt of solar power and construction of a 1 gigawatt nuclear power plant. In each case, the power rating indicates the maximum instantaneous power the facility can deliver - at high noon on a sunny day for the solar case. Because our turning earth whisks the solar site past the sun's rays, the array captures only about 4 gigawatt-hours of useful energy each day, whether that energy is used immediately or time shifted with battery storage to meet energy demand as it occurs. The nuclear plant meanwhile can perk along at 1 gigawatt of power output all day long, delivering 24 gigawatt-hours of energy, 6 times the useful output of the "equivalent" solar installation. Discussing and comparing technologies in terms of peak power ratings is deceptive when their true utility lies in the energy they can deliver each day. It takes roughly 6 gigawatts of solar plant (plus batteries) to functionally replace a 1 gigawatt nuclear plant. Talking power rather than energy misrepresents the issues.
Very astute comment. Engineers think very clearly.
Killing the planet with unbridled consumerism, entitlement, greed, shortsighted selfishness, and on and on it goes.
I'm OK with nuclear power, if it's sited intelligently, built safely, and run by competent people. I suggest we don't hire the Russians. Yes, there's a disposal issue, but it's small and largely political (not in MY state under MY favorite mountain). Yes, we also need to reduce our addiction to electricity, and fast (for example, constraining the largely lamprey-like blockchain industry). But the vast majority of nukes have operated like quiet, innocuous neighbors (except for superheating the water they discharge). The rare accidents were foreseeable and preventable, except perhaps the Japanese disaster (don't site a nuke near an active fracture zone). Using nuclear energy is the fastest, smartest, safest way to help renewable energy displace our fatal hunger for fossil fuels. Like cigarettes, we didn't know how dangerous that was until it became all too clear.
" Using nuclear energy is the fastest, smartest, safest way to help renewable energy displace our fatal hunger for fossil fuels"
WRONG. Nuclear is s...l...o...w to deploy compared to renewable energy, end use efficiency, and energy storage to balance supply with demand, and far more expensive than those cleaner options, because of the need for very strict containment of its inherently hazardous, lethally radioactive fission products for decades, and plutonium for hundreds of millenia.
Also, the proliferation of nuclear power prolferates the technology and materials to make nuclear weapons around the world, increasing the danger of nuclear war in a world disrupted by increasing climate disasters.
Nuclear cannot be built without MASSIVE subsidies and liablility exclusions.
Solar electricity, as Bill said, is far, far less expensive than nuclear, and so it will always be. And the US is now installing 1,000 megawatts of solar EVERY DAY--equivalent to one of the 120-odd nuclear plants we had in our country in that technology's heyday, as Bill said above. There is simply no need for nuclear power, although I don't think Germany was sensible in dismantling its nukes when they did.
Or next to a munitions depot as in NC!Dumb move!!
They are many times more expensive than solar electricity. We're now installing the equivalent in solar electricity of one nuclear plant every day! It takes years to build a new nuclear plant. It doesn't make sense to take down the nukes we have before they come to the end of their lives, but it's counterproductive to build more of them.
Contrary to your comment, installing nuclear energy is a slow, expensive, way to displace fossil fuels, although it might have a role in replacing FF for baseload electricity production. Besides, it's not going to displace fossil fuels in transportation (including shipping, and flying) which amounts to around 30% of our energy use.
The "Japanese disaster" to which you refer was a natural disaster, a massive earthquake and tsunami. The Fukushima nuclear plant proved the inherent safety of nuclear power when it shutdown with no loss of life from radiation even after some of the reactors suffered meltdown. It is easy to say, with hindsight, that it should not have been built in that location but the fear mongering and unnecessary evacuation was the real "nuclear disaster".
Thank you for your thought leadership and dedication to service 🙏🏻☮️
To give you an idea of what solar plus batteries really cost, consider the case of the Red Sea resort under construction in Saudi Arabia. This will be run off the grid and features 400 MW (nameplate) solar and 1.3 GWh of battery storage. The combination will Produce 1 TWh of electrical energy at a cost of about 1.3 billion. The nuclear reactors recently commissioned in the UAE provide energy at about half this cost. Now this is in SA which is one of the better locations on earth for solar power. Move to northern Europe or the northern US and you need much more storage to account for seasonal and short term variations in solar output. Nuclear wins hands down - at least an order of magnitude.
AGAIN: feedback loops (vicious cycles) are now mostly driving global warming: boreal and rain forests drying up and burning, ice everywhere melting, major changes in cloud patterns and of the earth's albedo, etc. Global warming is not like an incurable patient needing palliative care; the earth is sick because of our toxic economy. Our government must halt consumerism, most steel and concrete production, our 'animal husbandry,' etc. We need plant-based diets, build mostly with wood, use extreme white cooling paint instead of more air conditioning, plant trees, bamboo, kelp and other fast-growing plants, prevent the decomposing and burning of organic material (mostly by keeping it in ground that is soaked in stagnant, anoxic water), etc.. To save our civilizations and the world as we know it, we must bring CO2 and methane levels down to 19th century levels. Heinz Aeschbach, MD humanecivilization.org
Bill -- I was surprised to hear you say that you have no problem "with these nuclear plans." Really?!!! Does anyone know what to do with the nuclear waste from these plants? They've been working on that for decades with no solution, so it seems unlikely that a solution will now appear. Of course, the nuclear plants are far more expensive than other better solutions, so the costs will make building them prohibitive. But the expectation is that the government will subsidize most of the cost. So isn't it OUR job to object to these subsidies and derail the nuclear train?
No nukes. Bill you are writing your own epitaph here. Once you let nukes in the door, you can kiss investment in solar and wind Good Bye. Nuke is the very definition of the lust for power. Future generations saddled with our nuke waste will curse us. And the more mini nukes, the more avenues for nuclear proliferation. Can you spell, dirty bomb?
Big tech needs to use their obscene profits to buy their own solar, wind and battery infrastructures. You know, something that actually works, is inexpensive and can be installed today.
What is your plan when the sun doesn’t shine? We need batteries nuclear tides and/or wind. I’m sorry if I haven’t seen you address this issue. You seem to po po small nuclear and don’t discuss other options. And I’m a believer in nonsustainable activities.
“ the master planner for this solar development”
These words hold the key to what we need to be doing, and point the way to how we can be doing it.
COP28 tells us that we need to be “transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner”.
Order requires a plan. Justice requires a plan that is fair.
We need a master planner to plan for orderly fairness.
Transitioning away requires a simultaneous transitioning towards. Otherwise, the lights will go out, and the stoves will grow cold.
We need a plan for rapidly redesigning and reconstructing our global energy supply ecosystem to be purpose-rebuilt for energy sufficiency complete with habitat longevity and social equity on a planetary scale in the 21st Century, and beyond.
We need a planetary master plan. That requires a planetary master planner, who also has the power to control the execution of that plan down to the local level.
The energy that master planner needs is money to pay everybody for doing the work according to the plan.
Where are we going to get that money?
Pensions trusts have it. Let’s use their money to control the transition.
Love your work Bill. Tx.
Bill Rees says solar, wind don’t have enough energy surplus to replace themselves. You state that they easily do. Comments ?
Respectfully
Jim and Joan Canada
To Tom Perrett -- what would you say -- as a science writer - that an electric power supply discovered, and US Patented by Nikola Tesla - has been electrically operating over-unity -- for over 124 years -- but Classic Physics has yet to recognize it.
It's called a parallel / resonating / tank circuit - and it is the "radio station to radio station 'tuning circuit' found in every AM or FM radio manufactured since Tesla invented it in 1900.
When Classic Physics stated, long before Tesla began his seminal work on AC power in 1882; -- that "...no power supply could produce more output power than input power... inferring that "over-unity power production was impossible..." -- they got the "substance" of the position correct - but chose incorrect verbiage -- which is what the world "hung it's hat on" as far as thinking / believing was correct...
Wrong.
Had Classic Physics stated that "...no power supply can develop more power than it is physically and electrically capable of developing..." -- both the position and the statement would have been correct.
But Classic Physics didn't -- and that - along with a huge concerted "commercial profits oriented" push to keep on burning fossil-based fuels for producing electricity and power vehicles - we now have the Global Warming / Climate Change disaster we've created for the planet.
A resonating tank circuit -- which is an "inductor" (coil of wire) and a "capacitor" connected in parallel; --- ALWAYS "electrically reduces" the input power level "connected to it"::
--- to a power level below the power level being developed "in the tank circuit itself" -- every time.
IF you get the college-level textbook "Electricity One-Seven" / edited by Harry Mileaf - copyrighted in 1966 -- you will find 5 pages of text / spreadsheets / and visual graphs - from the 55 page chapter on Resonance.
In today's syllabus - you might find a couple of sentences - or less on resonance -- because it is treated as a nuisance - to be avoided -- when back when I went through first the US Navy Class "A" "ET" / Electronics School and then the Class "A" Radar School in the early 1960s - where Tesla's work and research was part of the curriculum -- we worked with "resonance" --because everything "electronics" was powered by vacuum power tubes - which, when run at full power resonance - if not controlled using "negative feedback circuitry - they could go into "resonance over-drive" (my term) and self-destruct - sometimes rather spectacularly.
Check out US Patent 5,146,395 / A POWER SUPPLY INCLUDING TWO TANK CIRCUITS / with "regenerative feedback" - where "over-unity was specifically not claimed -as it was known that either the US/DOE or US/DOD would have the application rejected.
However--- careful reading of the Patent ABSTRACT clearly describes a small portion of the "electronically developed" output power being routed "back to the source" as "regenerative feedback" -- which causes two simultaneous circuitry operational changes:
1.) the on-board "start-up" power source - is "electrically" shut-off - and
2.) the "regenerative feedback" power continuous to power the circuitry while it continuous to "electronically develop" it's "over-unity" electric power output to it's dedicated load - which is up to and including:
--- 480 VDC or VAC / 480 Amps --which is
--- 230,400 Watts; 230.4 kW; or .2304 MW per unit:
in a:
--- solid-state / 2.5 c. ft. / 30 lb. /less than $2000 per unit / modular / stand-alone - does not need "recharging" or external power source connection at any time / can have multiples of units connected together to produce a higher output power level -- just like batteries - package.
How do I know about the Patent -- I wrote it.
How do I know about the power supply -- I built it and Patented it in 1992.
Why isn't it available here in the US?
Because no one seems to be interested in writing about it - to bringing it to the attention of both the general pubic and the "financial powers that be" - that are presently very happy "feeding at the Federal IRA funding trough":
--- and don't want the competition -- because it makes everything being used to produce electricity and power vehicles -- redundant.
Also -- US/DOE-IPO Title 17 - prohibits the US Federal Government from funding any power source that is not "commercialized" (undefined) and / "or accepted" (also undefined) -- so----- it's going to Europe - with funding being finalized in Europe and the Middle East -- turning the US into a "customer".
The unit can be installed either:
--- "at" any "stationary" site, or "in" any "movable vehicle;
--- constantly "electronically developing" all of the clean electricity required "for" that site or vehicle;
--- for as long as is required "by" that site or vehicle -- making available:
--- unlimited range and / or time of travel.
Who needs "Nukes" -- apparently people still think that we do.
Thanks Bill for scouting out these potential threats, such as tree burners moving west. I wrote to the authors you linked this response: "Similarly, out here in Hawaii, the politicians and courts got a last ditch education on this harmful industry to put off a proposed project on the Big Island that would cut and burn large areas of forest cover (mostly non-native) for electricity, all the while claiming carbon credits. A total scam that we are still vigilantly monitoring. Communities need to be on guard."
The article ignores the fact that solar plus batteries can be competitive with nuclear in some locations (mostly clear skies, close to the equator) and uncompetitive in others (cloudy, high latitude).