NonA Weekly: CHANGE TO BE 🙌
Image by @LifeGate
Dear readers and friends,
In the history of nuclear power ⚡, there have been few serious incidents. But nuclear power plants ☢️ have the unique potential to permanently displace entire cities in the event of a serious accident 💥.
All power plants 🏭, coal, gas, and nuclear, have a finite life beyond which it is not economically feasible 💰 to operate them. Generally speaking, early nuclear plants were designed for a life of about 30 years, though with refurbishment 🏗️, some have proved capable of continuing well beyond this. Newer plants are designed for a 40 to 60-year operating life. At the end of the life of any power plant, it needs to be decommissioned 🚧 and cleaned up. But what’s next? 🤔
1. THE RISE OF NUCLEAR POWER IN JAPAN 🗾
In March 2011, an explosion 💥 rocked the towns of Futaba and Okuma in Fukushima, Japan, but few were there to hear it. The earth and then the sea 🌊 turned against the towns in twin disasters that leveled homes and businesses, strewed debris across lawns and fields, and tore chasms through the asphalt streets. But it was a human-made disaster at the nearby NUCLEAR power plants that made Fukushima residents flee 🏃♂️.
2. EIGHT POWER PLANTS THAT COMBINE INNOVATIVE ARCHITECTURE AND ENERGY 🔌 SOLUTIONS
Following AL_A’s reveal of the world’s first fusion development plant and rumors that BIG’s CopenHill ski slope ⛷️ would permanently close 🚷, DEZEEN has rounded up eight power plants that are architecturally significant 🏛️.
3. INNOVATION POWERHOUSE IS A CREATIVE HUB IN A FORMER EINDHOVEN 🏭 POWER STATION
The former Philips power plant in Eindhoven has been TRANSFORMED into an innovation 🧠 hub by young architect Janne van Berlo, in a renovation 👷 that celebrates the building’s industrial features.
4. A DESIGN STRATEGY ✍️ FOR TRANSFORMING AN OLD POWER PLANT
In the process of developing different designs 📝 for the Suvilahti power plant, this RESEARCH serves as an experimental model for transforming an industrial architecture into a 🎭 cultural center.
5. NUCLEAR ENERGY, TEN YEARS AFTER FUKUSHIMA 💥
Amid the urgent 🚨 need to decarbonize, the industry that delivers one-tenth of global ELECTRICITY must consult the public on reactor research, design, regulation 📜, location 📍, and waste 🗑️.
6. THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR POWER ☢️
While there has been recent debate over just how green NUCLEAR power is, several nations have already made it a key part of their future energy landscape, with the World Nuclear Association estimating that there are 55 new nuclear reactors under construction around the world.
7. POWER STATIONS COULD MAKE HYDROGEN, HEAT HOMES 🔥 AND DECARBONISE INDUSTRY
Future nuclear reactors will not just be big kettles making steam ♨️ to drive turbines that generate electricity. The heat 🌡️ produced during the nuclear reaction can be diverted to POWER processes that are currently difficult to decarbonise.
