Studies, Studies and Mo' Studies with Nuclear

Actually, there are only just three recent studies/reports I'd like to bring to your attention. The first comes from Ted Rockwell (pdf) at Learning About Energy.

Colleagues:
Attached is a list of purported facts about the use of nuclear energy for generating electricity, and purported facts about the principal, post-fossil alternatives: wind, solar and biofuels. There are no conclusions or recommendations here, just facts. Just real-world facts, no predictions or estimates or opinions. I don’t know of any other document that performs this function.

In it, there are some interesting safety stats on wind (p. 8) that I was unaware of and Mr. Rockwell includes some commentary on Amory Lovins' way of life that makes for some good reading. Definitely will be a useful document.

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Next study to check out comes from the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency. Earlier this week, NEA released a document on the perspective of nuclear energy and how it can address climate change (pdf).

Scenarios for future electricity supply prepared by the International Energy Agency, based on a reduction of CO2 emissions to around half of 2005 levels by 2050, show that nuclear power has a vital role to play, alongside improved energy end-use efficiency, a major expansion of renewable, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) from fossil fuel burning. These scenarios envisage a nuclear capacity of around 1,250 GWe by 2050, compared with 370 GWe today – an expansion of over 300%. This would require the completion of around 20 large nuclear plants (of 1.5 GWe each) per year during the 2020s, rising to 25 to 30 plants per year in the 2040s. In its Nuclear Energy Outlook (2008), the NEA found that nuclear capacity could reach 1,400 GWe by 2050 under its high scenario, through an even stronger expansion in the 2040s.

Oy, quite a task ahead.

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And the last recommended study comes from the Energy Information Administration. On Monday, they released their preliminary numbers in their AEO 2010 on what the energy and electricity trends look like for the US out to 2035. There isn't too much love for nuclear, i.e. they only project 8,400 MW of new capacity will be built by 2030. But EIA does project that no nuclear plants will retire by 2035 (this assumes that 41 nuclear units (32,000 MW) will operate beyond 60 years). Below is a table we put together from EIA's data tables that shows what is projected to be built by each electric source and their different fuel shares based on existing laws and regulations:

Interesting how gas is projected to build the most capacity yet its fuel share remains practically the same...

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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