Small Coalition Takes to Task Flawed Report from the Vermont Public Interest “Research” Group

Even though VPIRG is considered a research group, based on the coalition’s critique of their report, looks like much research wasn’t done at all on how to supposedly power VT without VY. Meredith Angwin from Yes Vermont Yankee sums it up:

I belong to a group, Coalition for Energy Solutions. We are all local energy professionals: one physicist, one chemist (me), and four engineers. Some of us have active careers and companies, some are semi-retired. At any rate, we felt that this VPIRG report [pdf] overstated the ease of replacing Vermont Yankee with renewables, and understated the costs. (Actually, they didn't state the costs.) We began doing research for a report on the costs and engineering feasibility of their recommendations.

It has been a long road, in which we evaluated the capacity factors of wind farms in Maine, called foresters to assess the sustainable yield of our northern forests, and tried to assess the costs and reliability of cow power. And of course, we argued with each other, and improved our estimates, and argued and improved some more. All six of us seem to be from Missouri...Show Me! We finally finished the report: well-documented, a little geeky, low on graphics, but we backed up every straight-forward number, and argued out every estimated factor. Let's put it this way: I think it's the best report out there on renewables for Vermont, and I'm not just saying that because I am one of the authors.

Here are a few nuggets from the coalition's report (pdf):

We believe that the [VPIRG] Report has not provided all the impacts, numbers, and assumptions on which its conclusions are based. There is no way to understand how its results were obtained. Therefore, there is no way to judge whether the results are realistic. – p. 8

…

The Report does wind power no service by overestimating available wind energy that is feasible to use. – p. 15

…

It is good and prudent planning to ask what will happen if the Report’s projections do not come true. What if building wind turbines on the ridges is stalled by intervenors? What if Vermont runs out of money and stops subsidizing home solar and home wind turbines? What if nearly doubling the output of Vermont’s forests is analyzed and found to be a poor forest-management choice for sustainability? - p. 24

…

Throughout the Report there are many examples of hoping for good things. It speaks of “aggressive goals” “smart energy storage technology” – whatever that is, “optimal charging pattern” and “emerging technologies.” All of us want the best for Vermont, our country and the world. It is reasonable to expect that technologies will improve and prices will fall, because that is our experience. However when it comes to planning for the future, it is not prudent to plan on technology improvements and price decreases on a schedule. Plans should include contingencies for “what if it doesn’t come true.” It is better to be cautious and have a backup plan and be pleasantly surprised than to have a rude awakening. For Vermont’s electric power future the “rude awakening” would come in the form of very high prices due to purchasing large amounts of energy from the New England grid. – p. 26

Well done on the research, this critique should hopefully get Vermonters thinking more realistically about their energy choices.

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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