The Governors and Energy: Chris Christie

As opposed to Bob McDonnell below, governor-elect Chris Christie of New Jersey tilts rather away from the national Republican party on energy issues. Might not mean anything: It may just be that he has a genuine desire to move New Jersey to solar energy and will clear away hurdles to make it happen.

Why the push for solar? Well, the Garden State has an image problem, though one not actually confirmed by the data: while most of the state justifies its nickname handily, what travelers though New Jersey see – driving up I-95 or taking Amtrak to New York – are monstrous-looking industrial plants that spew – something – into the air, making the night sky a sickly bright orange. It’s like one of Dante’s lower circles of Hell.

Yet nuclear energy supplies 50% of the electricity in New Jersey – see here for the EIA stats for the state – so Christie’s plan has the effect of working with the other 50%. (Natural gas is the number two generator, at 30% or so. It’s really not a massively polluting state, though it often gets wrongly tarred as such.)

We don’t expect those plants along the freeway to go anywhere soon, but Christie’s tilt is notably green and very notably solar:

As part of the New Jersey Partnership for Action, "Renew NJ" will focus exclusively on the promotion of New Jersey resources and the development of renewable energy manufacturing.

The Christie Plan will move all economic development efforts related to renewable energy from the Board of Public Utilities, which is not in the business of growing jobs, to "Renew NJ."

And:

New Jersey will create higher-paying clean energy production jobs in the first four years of the Christie Administration. While many renewable energy efforts focus mainly on the creation of lower paying, efficiency jobs, such as solar panel installers, the Christie Plan is committed to a 5/1 ratio of production jobs.

Okay. Here comes solar energy:

Considering there are currently over 800 active and closed landfills covering over 10,500 acres in our state, what better way to utilize this space more effectively than with solar farms. The Christie Plan requires that all New Jersey landfills regulated by the New Jersey Department of Environment Protection install solar farms as part of their closure plans and on-going maintenance permits.

Hmm! We’re not sure solar farms are the best use of the landfills, since they will raise issues of reliability vs. cost and will require a build out of transmission lines and stations – landfills not having direct access to the grid. It could get pretty expensive for a less than ideal electricity return. We’ll have to see where this one goes.

But Christie really likes solar power:

Solar applications should not have to seek use variances or zone changes. A Christie Administration will make it easier for prospective solar developers to site and build these facilities.
Removing the uncertainty and delays inherent in local land use approvals would greatly incentivize landowners and potential solar developers.

And:

Keeping with New Jersey's commitment to preserve and protect our natural resources, the Christie Plan will allow Permanently Preserved Farmland to use up to 20% for solar panel installation.

He doesn’t mention any other energy source in his campaign materials. We poked around a bit to see if nuclear sprang up in the debates, but no.

Governor-elect Chris Christie.

The first movie studio was in West Orange, New Jersey. Called the Black Maria, because it was as stuffy and cramped as a police paddy wagon, also called Black Marias, it was built by Thomas Edison in 1893. It had a retractable glass ceiling, to allow sunlight to provide a light source, and was used primarily to create the 10-30 second films of the day – often vaudeville acts visiting New York. When Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show paid a visit in 1894, poor Annie Oakley didn’t have enough space in the studio to perform her skeet act successfully (film here.) Edison tore down the studio in 1903, though a reconstruction is now in West Orange.

Edison set up his laboratory in Raritan, NJ, in a failed real estate tract that would have been called Menlo Park (hence, The Wizard of Menlo Park). In 1954, the citizens of Raritan voted to change the town name to Edison.

Here's a film of Edison having a little fun on his 84th birthday (in 1931).

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

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