Editorial Round-Up

Editorial boards around the country continue to ruminate about nuclear energy in this country in the wake of event in Japan.

From the Amarillo Globe-News:

But is this tragic event reason to throw the nuclear power strategy onto the trash heap? No.

Well, that’s direct. Part of the response is informed by industry around Amarillo:

The Panhandle of Texas has its share of natural gas and oil production and, thus, residents here are exposed to potential danger all the time.

Do we toss aside those energy sources because of accidents? Again, no.

So:

But it must be noted that the Fukushima plant that's been all but destroyed by Mother Nature is an old plant. Newer installations would have far superior technology to guard against the kind of disaster that's occurring in Japan.

I’m not sure that argument holds true. Fukushima and all older plants are held to the standards of the present day, but it’s all right. Newer plants have redundant safeguards that do aid in staving off nature’s fury. In all, an interesting approach. Amarillans clearly know the dangers of energy production, so they know equally what can happen and what’s necessary to maintain safety.

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From mLive in Michigan:

As the U.S. continues to offer help, compassion and prayers to Japan, those questions should be confronted and addressed, with an eye toward keeping nuclear energy as one important component in a mix of power sources. Nuclear does not produce the emissions of other types of electricity generation, especially coal. The United States should sensibly manage the risks involved, but not back away from them.

Notably, a lot of editorial boards are just not backing away – I can’t confirm this, but I don’t believe off shore drilling received quite such a warm reception after the BP spill last year. If so, it is the emission free nature of nuclear energy that causes it to get a stronger second look. at which point its other strengths begin to weigh in more heavily.

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I’ve been on the hunt for some more dire editorials, but they aren’t really crossing my radar. I thought I could find a sure thing over at the Guardian, but even it hesitates:

Nuclear power will doubtless remain part of a diverse portfolio of energy sources, but the solution to the problem of low-carbon power must ultimately lie in renewables. In the UK, that points to tidal and wave power, to which we are geographically well-suited, alongside carbon capture and storage technology. Britain is currently a leading centre for the innovation of these processes. Their successful development could create huge economic advantages in manufacturing and exports of the technology, alongside the strategic benefits of energy self-sufficiency.

Very Guardian-like, but also fairly dim on the prospect of flipping the switch on nuclear energy:

But around 13% of the world's electricity is produced by nuclear plants. It is unrealistic to expect that capacity to be dismantled or quickly replaced. The threat to human safety, while real, is not unfathomably vast, nor beyond management. Radiation is harmful, but not apocalyptically deadly. It was the Earth's crust, not a manmade power station that caused tragedy in Japan.

It’s like watching a conversation between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, isn’t it?

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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