Skip to main content

What is NEI, and Why Do We Have a Blog?

Welcome to NEI Nuclear Notes, a new spot in the Blogsphere owned by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Washington-based policy organization that represents the American nuclear industry. To keep things simple to start, here's our mission statement:

The Nuclear Energy Institute is the policy organization of the nuclear energy and technologies industry and participates in both the national and global policy-making process. NEI’s objective is to ensure the formation of policies that promote the beneficial uses of nuclear energy and technologies in the United States and around the world.


For those of you who might be wondering, I'm the same Eric McErlain who is responsible for Off Wing Opinion. Let's just say that after four years of sports blogging I thought it was time to take what I've learned, and apply it to weightier pursuits. And when I go to work at NEI, I feel like I get to contribute to a lot of worthwhile endeavors like energy security, environmental protection and economic growth.

Nuclear energy contributes to all of those goals, and we've got a positive story to tell that doesn't always get heard. Keep coming back, and my colleagues and I will show you.

As for me, I'll be limiting my posts to my specific line of work. For the past couple of months I've been distributing an e-mail newsletter to my colleagues in the industry, and I'll be migrating that content to NEI Nuclear Notes. You can also count on me to post links to breaking news when appropriate, but my most important task will probably be helping my colleagues at NEI dip their toes into the water when it comes to blogging.

And it's that prospect that folks ought to be excited about. Sure, during my tenure at NEI, I've slowly been turned into something of a policy wonk. But at the end of the day I'm still just a writer -- not a physicist, not an engineer and not an economist.

But we have all of those experts at NEI, and many, many more. Over the next few weeks and months, you'll start seeing posts from them, just the sort of people who have the specialized knowledge that can really make a blog come to life.

Now, I'm sure more than a few commercial nuclear energy veterans might be wondering how we're going to handle all of the myriad issues inside our industry with just one Blog. The answer is we can't, and we won't try. There are any number of issues in our business -- Yucca Mountain just for starters -- that could occupy a massive Blog on all their own.

So think of NEI Nuclear Notes as a test bed where we'll find out just who inside our organization, and perhaps eventually inside our member companies, works best in this new medium.

Thanks to Skip Bowman, our President and CEO and Scott Peterson, our Vice President of Communications, for giving us the green light for this project.

So come back soon. We've got some interesting things to talk about.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...