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...
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NEI's position must be that nuclear power is unequivocally superior to diffuse power, such as wind or solar. Nuclear power has no weakness that wind power can address. Nuclear power is just as safe and environmentally friendly as diffuse power (actually more so), yet emphatically superior in terms of reliability, capacity factor and scalability.
Whenever I hear that wind power and nuclear power can work together, I think of Stacy King. Who is Stacy King? Stacy King was a teammate of Michael Jordan's. One night, MJ dropped 69 points. When asked about MJ's performance, Stacy King said, "I'll always remember this as the night MJ and I combined to score 70 points." So yeah, wind power and nuclear power work together, just like Stacy King and Michael Jordan.
Wind is indeed free. If wind turbines were free, one could make a lot of money selling electricity when the wind blows. In actuality, wind turbines are expensive because it takes a lot of steel and concrete to build a machine that can harvest power from a low-energy density source.
Given the 3 candidates now remaining in the race, we will have carbon controls in place in the next couple of years. As long as we keep the government from mandating energy technology via a national "renewable energy portfolio standard," we will then see how the economics of low-carbon wind, nuclear, and carbon capture and sequestration really compare. Should be interesting.