Nuclear Energy Industry Transitions

American Electric Power has elected Ralph Crosby Jr. to its board of directors. Crosby is chairman and chief executive officer of EADS North America.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has named Bruce Evans its new staff director. After a transition period, Evans will replace Alex Flint, who will become NEI vice president of governmental affairs when John Kane retires in April. Evans currently serves as the clerk for the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies. He has worked on Capitol Hill since 1989.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has appointed Robert Solomon as its new solicitor, responsible for representing the commission before the U.S. Court of Appeals and Supreme Court. Solomon has been acting solicitor since November 2005, and served as deputy solicitor since 2001.

Nuclear Electric Insurance Ltd. (NEIL) has appointed Greg Wilks as its vice president of insurance, effective immediately. Wilks had been NEIL’s vice president of loss control for 17 years.

Constellation Energy’s subsidiary, Constellation NewEnergy, has named Joseph Zarella managing director of operations. Zarella joins Constellation NewEnergy from XO Communications, where he was vice president of revenue operations for six years.

Ellen Wolf, senior vice president and chief financial officer of USEC Inc., will leave the company in late February for a similar position with American Water Inc. John Barpoulis, USEC treasurer vice president of finance, will serve as interim chief financial officer.

Southern Co. has named Earl Parsons to the newly created position of vice president-system contracts officer and associate general counsel. The company also named Jeff Wallace its new vice president of fuel services. Parsons has been with Southern Co. since 1991, and Wallace since 1978.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics

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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...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

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