Rod Adams Takes On NIRS' Scorecard on the Nuclear Industry's Recent Failures

Last week, the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) issued a myopic press release dismissing the recent successes of the nuclear industry based only on how many states overturned their ban on building new nuclear plants. From Rod:

According to NIRS, there have been six attempts in 2009 by the nuclear industry to overturn existing state laws that effectively ban projects to build new nuclear power plants or the collection of construction work in progress payments (CWIP) before beginning to operate plants in rate regulated states. NIRS has claimed that each of these attempts has failed. The six states listed on the NIRS score card are Kentucky, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Hawaii.

Funny enough, Rod found this fact about one of the states that NIRS counted:

I learned something by listening to the conference call and the question and answer session on streaming audio that people who read the press release will not learn - Wisconsin has not even had their legislative session in 2009, so its vote has not yet been taken and certainly should not be counted in the loss column yet.

I guess NIRS' math is different than everybody else's. So is the nuclear industry having a bad year? Here's Rod's tally:

Here is the list so far - I would love to hear from you if I neglected any confirmed victories. (Unlike NIRS, I know that there are still many contests in progress and that this is going to be a long season with some highs and some lows.)
Areva and Northrop-Grumman broke ground on a 330,000 square foot nuclear components factory in Newport News, VA

The NRC issued Southern Company an Early Site Permit and Limited Work Authorization for a two unit nuclear plant project at Vogtle

Westinghouse opened new training centers for nuclear professionals

Southern Legislative Conference of The Council of State Governments, representing 16 states, unanimously adopted a proposal urging Congress and the administration to support an increase in the Title XVII Loan Guarantee Program by $25 billion and to create a Clean Energy Deployment Administration that includes nuclear energy as an eligible technology

B&W announces the mPower^TM modular nuclear plant that can be manufactured in their existing N-stamp holding US production facilities.

Florida approves Progress Energy's Site Certification Application (SCA) for a two reactor project in Levy County.

I would also like to add that both the Environmental Protection Agency (pdf) and the Energy Information Administration analyzed the impacts of the Waxman-Markey bill on climate change that passed the House earlier this year and found that nuclear energy will increase substantially in decades to come to help reduce CO2 emissions. Be sure to stop by Rod's post, Mr. Dave Kraft who was quoted in NIRS' press release joined the comments and has definitely added fuel to the debate.

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin

NEI Nuclear Notes

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