As the World Turns

The world just goes about its business:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said on Thursday it was seeking public comment on the proposed certification of General Electric-Hitachi Nuclear Energy's Economic Simplified Boiling-Water Reactor (ESBWR) design for use in the United States.

And that’s fine.

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And the world may want to stop and see what’s happened and why:

The report, submitted to member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) shortly before Japan's nuclear crisis erupted this month, said the global nuclear sector maintained a high level of safety performance in 2010.

But, it warned, "in some cases, plans for nuclear power program development moved faster than the establishment of the necessary regulatory and safety infrastructure and capacity."

The report, in this case, was generated by the IAEA, presumably to see if member countries agreed with its premise. There’ll be more to say about this, but for now, it’s just a reporter looking for an angle. The article does include, further down:

The report, obtained by Reuters Thursday, did not name any countries [ie, Japan]. It invited comment from the IAEA's 151 member states by mid-April, before a final version would be issued.

And probably wouldn’t have included Japan if it did name countries, as the country has a substantial regulatory infrastructure.

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But the events in Japan continue. The world should not move on quite yet:

Tokyo Electric Power said on Thursday the overall situation was stabilizing at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Engineers are trying to stabilize the six-reactor plant 250 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo nearly two weeks after an earthquake and tsunami battered the plant and devastated northeast Japan, leaving nearly 26,000 people dead or missing.

See Evening Report, above this post, for more.

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How Nanomaterials Can Make Nuclear Reactors Safer and More Efficient

The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior communications advisor at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald.

From the batteries in our cell phones to the clothes on our backs, "nanomaterials" that are designed molecule by molecule are working their way into our economy and our lives. Now there’s some promising work on new materials for nuclear reactors.

Reactors are a tough environment. The sub atomic particles that sustain the chain reaction, neutrons, are great for splitting additional uranium atoms, but not all of them hit a uranium atom; some of them end up in various metal components of the reactor. The metal is usually a crystalline structure, meaning it is as orderly as a ladder or a sheet of graph paper, but the neutrons rearrange the atoms, leaving some infinitesimal voids in the structure and some areas of extra density. The components literally grow, getting longer and thicker. The phenomenon is well understood and designers compensate for it with a …

Missing the Point about Pennsylvania’s Nuclear Plants

A group that includes oil and gas companies in Pennsylvania released a study on Monday that argues that twenty years ago, planners underestimated the value of nuclear plants in the electricity market. According to the group, that means the state should now let the plants close.

Huh?

The question confronting the state now isn’t what the companies that owned the reactors at the time of de-regulation got or didn’t get. It’s not a question of whether they were profitable in the '80s, '90s and '00s. It’s about now. Business works by looking at the present and making projections about the future.

Is losing the nuclear plants what’s best for the state going forward?

Pennsylvania needs clean air. It needs jobs. And it needs protection against over-reliance on a single fuel source.

What the reactors need is recognition of all the value they provide. The electricity market is depressed, and if electricity is treated as a simple commodity, with no regard for its benefit to clean air o…

Why Nuclear Plant Closures Are a Crisis for Small Town USA

Nuclear plants occupy an unusual spot in the towns where they operate: integral but so much in the background that they may seem almost invisible. But when they close, it can be like the earth shifting underfoot.

Lohud.com, the Gannett newspaper that covers the Lower Hudson Valley in New York, took a look around at the experience of towns where reactors have closed, because the Indian Point reactors in Buchanan are scheduled to be shut down under an agreement with Gov. Mario Cuomo.

From sea to shining sea, it was dismal. It wasn’t just the plant employees who were hurt. The losses of hundreds of jobs, tens of millions of dollars in payrolls and millions in property taxes depressed whole towns and surrounding areas. For example:

Vernon, Vermont, home to Vermont Yankee for more than 40 years, had to cut its municipal budget in half. The town closed its police department and let the county take over; the youth sports teams lost their volunteer coaches, and Vernon Elementary School lost th…

NEI Nuclear Notes

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