Steven Chu's Nuclear Support: Daily Kos, Mother Jones Respond

At the risk of engaging in omphaloskepsis (?!), Daily Kos and Mother Jones (?!) have picked up our post on Steven Chu's confirmation hearing for Secretary of Energy. The posts by Markos Moulitsas and Kevin Drum have led to a spirited debate; eliciting supportive comments in two of the least likely, until now, corners of the blogosphere.

Just one of the many comments, via Drum:

"I should perhaps make it clear that I'm 100% in support of moving to a sustainable economy, and moving our energy production to renewables is absolutely necessary as part of that. That said, we can't yet power our grid entirely from renewables yet, and nuclear energy seems to me better than coal for supplying our needs as we bridge the gap.” Posted by: dob on 01/14/09 at 3:52 PM Respond

If you can, stop by Kos and MoJo and weigh in.

Comments

RightDemocrat said…

I have long argued that pro-nuclear advocates need to do far more outreach to Democrats and progressives. The question of expanding nuclear power isn't a left-right issue. Atomic energy can help save the planet, create a lot of good paying jobs and bring us closer to energy independence. We need to get the message out to the public and ideological divisions will fade away.

January 16, 2009 at 11:20 PM

Anonymous said…

I agree with you, but all I can say is 'good luck with that.' Have you read the posts on the mother jones blog? For self-proclaimed 'progressive' thinkers there sure are alot of closed-minded rabidly opinionated blatherers over there. Witness the frustration experienced by even the coolest pro-nuclear advocates who try and reason with those guys.

January 19, 2009 at 4:10 PM

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