Nuclear Energy Industry Transitions

John Swailes is the new vice president and plant manager at Louisiana Energy Services’ (LES) National Enrichment Facility outside Eunice, N.M. LES will begin construction on the uranium enrichment facility in the fall if it receives an operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which it expects to do this spring.

Arthur Lembo is the new president of SGT LLC, a joint venture between Washington Group International and AREVA’s Framatome ANP to provide services for large compenent replacement projects at nuclear power plants. Lembo formerly was Washington Group’s vice president of power maintenance and modification services.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has appointed Otto Maynard to its Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. Maynard currently is a consultant to the nuclear and aviation sectors and also is a member of the Safety Review and Audit Board for Cooper Nuclear Station.

The NRC also has named George Malone the new senior resident inspector at the Hope Creek nuclear power plant in Hancocks Bridge, N.J. Replacing him as resident inspector at the Salem nuclear power plant, also in Hancocks Bridge, is Harry Balian. In addition, the NRC named Ted Wingfield the new resident inspector at Hope Creek. Ryan Treadway is the new resident inspector at Oyster Creek in Lacey Township, N.J.

Bill Fehrman will resign as president and CEO of Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) to become senior vice president of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., effective April 1, 2006. Fehrman had been with NPPD since 1981 and served as CEO since 2003.

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

Comments

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...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog