Nuclear Energy Industry Transitions

John Kane retired last week as NEI’s senior vice president of governmental affairs. Alex Flint has replaced Kane, who had been with NEI since 1997. Flint previously was staff director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Jim Davis also retired from NEI last week. Davis, director of operations, had been with NEI since 1996.

Jay Thayer, site vice president at Entergy Nuclear’s Vermont Yankee plant, has been named operations vice president liaison. In this new position, Thayer will represent Entergy to NEI. Ted Sullivan will replace Thayer at Vermont Yankee, effective May 1. He currently is site vice president at the Fitzpatrick nuclear plant in New York.

Exelon Nuclear has announced several changes to its senior leadership team:
• Bryan Hanson, vice president of operations support, has been promoted to work on a special project that focuses on trends related to programmatic barriers to Exelon Nuclear’s successful fleetwide performance.
• Dave Hoots has been promoted from Byron plant manager to site vice president.
• Bob Hovey, senior vice president of operations support, will be responsible for Exelon’s nuclear oversight organization.
• Stephen Kuczynski has been promoted from Byron site vice president to senior vice president of operations support.
• Jim Meister has been promoted from vice president of nuclear services to vice president of operations support.
• Amir Shahkarami has been promoted from vice president of engineering to senior vice president of engineering and technical services.
• Marseyne Snow has been promoted from director of work control to Byron plant manager.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has appointed Brian Sheron director of the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, effective May 1. He succeeds Carl Papariello, who is retiring. Sheron has been with the NRC since 1976, most recently as associate director for engineering and safety systems.

Ronaldo Szilard has been named director of nuclear science and engineering under nuclear programs at Idaho National Laboratory. Szilard joins the laboratory from Global Nuclear Fuel and GE Nuclear Energy.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) has named Preston Swafford senior vice president of nuclear support, effective May 1. Swafford joins TVA Nuclear from Exelon Energy Delivery Technical Services, where he was senior vice president.

Electricité de France has announced several changes to its management team. The executive committee now comprises:
• Jean-Pierre Benque, senior executive vice president, customers
• Daniel Camus, chief financial officer
• Utz Claassen, chief executive officer, EnBW
• Bernard Dupraz, senior executive vice president, generation
• Michel Francony, senior executive vice president, regulated operations in France
• Pierre Gadonneix, chairman and chief executive officer
• Dominique LaGarde, senior executive vice president, strategy and coordination
• Yann Laroche, chief human resources and communications officer
• Bruno Lescouer, senior executive vice president, international industrial and public affairs
• Jean-Louis Mathias, chief operating officer, integration and deregulated operations in France
• Umberto Quadrino, chief executive officer, Edison
• Vincent de Rivaz, chief executive officer, EDF Energy
• Gérard Wolf, senior executive vice president, international operations

Santiago San Antonio has been named the next director-general of Foratom and secretary-general of the European Nuclear Society, effective July 1. He will succeed Peter Haug, who is retiring. San Antonio currently is the secretary-general of the Spanish Nuclear Industry Forum.

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

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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