Month: April 2019

Washington Post:

Burger King, whose quarter-pound Whopper pushed its competitors a half-century ago to create their own two-fisted hamburgers, now plans to roll out a vegetarian version of its signature sandwich, relying on plant-based patties developed by San Francisco Bay area start-up Impossible Foods. The Impossible Whopper will be introduced this week at Burger King restaurants in the St. Louis area — in the very state that last year banned the use of the term “meat”for any vegetarian or cell-based substitutes for animal-raised meats.

No, this is not an April Fools’ Day joke. In fact, Burger King’s plan could be the impetus that motivates the highly competitive fast-food burger industry to push for more meat alternatives at a time when beef production has raised countless alarm bells for its contributions to methane production and climate change.

A Burger King spokesman told the New York Times that if the Impossible Whopper succeeds in the Show Me State, the company will expand distribution to all 7,200 restaurants nationwide. Such a move would make the chain the undisputed king of the fake-meat burger. White Castle sells an Impossible Slider at its 370-plus locations. Red Robin has just introduced an Impossible Cheeseburger at its 570 locations, and this year Carl’s Jr. rolled out the Beyond Famous Star, a vegetarian version of its signature burger featuring a plant-based patty from Beyond Meat, at more than 1,000 locations.

Continue reading “Everything is Possible: Burger King to Test Meatless Whopper”

Which, depending on how you look at it, is sort of inevitable, or a really frightening development.

Just finished a piece on “new” nuclear and its prospects.

MIT Technology Review (registration required):

Most beautiful wedding photos taken at a nuclear power plant” might just be the strangest competition ever. But by inviting couples to celebrate their nuptials at the Daya Bay plant in Shenzhen and post the pictures online, China General Nuclear Power (CGN), the country’s largest nuclear power operator, got lots of favorable publicity.

A year later, the honeymoon is over.

For years, as other countries have shied away from nuclear power, China has been its strongest advocate. Of the four reactors that started up worldwide in 2017, three were in China and the fourth was built by Beijing-based China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) in Pakistan. China’s domestic nuclear generation capacity grew by 24% in the first 10 months of 2018. 

The country has the capacity to build 10 to 12 nuclear reactors a year. But though reactors begun several years ago are still coming online, the industry has not broken ground on a new plant in China since late 2016, according to a recent World Nuclear Industry Status Report.

Officially China still sees nuclear power as a must-have. But unofficially, the technology is on a death watch. Experts, including some with links to the government, see China’s nuclear sector succumbing to the same problems affecting the West: the technology is too expensive, and the public doesn’t want it.

The 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant shocked Chinese officials and made a strong impression on many Chinese citizens. A government survey in August 2017 found that only 40% of the public supported nuclear power development. 

The bigger problem is financial. Reactors built with extra safety features and more robust cooling systems to avoid a Fukushima-like disaster are expensive, while the costs of wind and solar power continue to plummet: they are now 20% cheaper than electricity from new nuclear plants in China, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Moreover, high construction costs make nuclear a risky investment.