86th Carnival of Nuclear Energy

Today we have the privilege of hosting the 86th carnival of nuclear blogs in its almost two year history.

To start off the New Year, Gail Marcus at Nuke Power Talk took on the press by criticizing the sensationalist headlines on nuclear issues and the misleading impressions they left in 2011. She blasted several outlets including AP’s blunder analyses and noted that there are plenty more examples that could be cited.

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Dan Yurman with his new look at Idaho Samizdat reviewed a book on the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) written by the two leading engineers at the Argonne National Laboratory -- Dr. Charles E. Till and Dr. Yoon Il Chang.

The IFR was a fast reactor system developed at Argonne National Laboratory in the decade 1984 to 1994. The IFR project developed the technology for a complete system; the reactor, the entire fuel cycle and the waste management technologies were all included in the development program.

The book makes a special point of being accessible to non-specialists and is a landmark in the sustainable energy literature.

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Yurman was also at the ANS Nuclear Cafe and delved into the details of the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill for 2012 which was recently passed by Congress. Nuclear energy research at the Department of Energy was largely spared from major cuts and fared far better than some other high profile DOE programs. Meanwhile, in the UK, nuclear R&D funding is languishing, in the view of the House of Lords, prompting a stern report from the Science Committee.

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Meredith Angwin at Yes Vermont Yankee gave the breakdown on each of the lawsuits involving VY. As many are awaiting on the Judge's ruling on the major lawsuit, Yes Vermont Yankee reviewed all five legal cases that concern the plant. There's the main lawsuit, the operator's lawsuit, the state's lawsuit about the water permit, the Mark 1 contention (now settled), and the bill of attainder law that the state passed (unenforceable). Angwin summarized the issues and even amused about the absurd qualities of many of the contentions.

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Cheryl Rofer at the Nuclear Diner summarized Japan’s interim report on the Fukushima accident. The Investigation Committee, appointed by the Japanese government, issued a report which looked at communications failures and suggested how the reorganized nuclear regulator should operate. The report also contains some information on the accident sequence but the investigation is still incomplete.

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Will Davis at Atomic Power Review has tirelessly chased those who have deliberately misrepresented the facts of the Fukushima accident as well as blasted a few who just did it accidentally. Now, news of an upcoming symposium on the reporting of the accident offers him hope that things could change in the future.

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Rod Adams at Atomic Insights was reminded on his New Years Day of the great benefit of having abundant energy. While he was using fossil fuels to water ski, he noted that they will eventually all be consumed. Studies peg natural gas production in the U.S. drying up in 90 years which, when you look at the big picture, is just a brief period of human history. Other fossil fuels are estimated to deplete sooner. The alternative? A dense source of plentiful energy right in front of us: nuclear (see chart on right from Clean Energy Insight).

Here’s Rod:

We need more low cost power in this world. We have been gifted with an abundance of incredibly energy dense materials along with the knowledge of how to use them for the benefit of mankind. It would be a wonderful way to start a New Year if a growing number of decision makers recognized the incredible opportunities that God (nature if you will) has provided just when we need it the most.

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Last but not least, NEI’s Mark Flanagan detailed how France and the U.S. are upgrading and modifying their nuclear plants to improve safety after the Fukushima accident. Mark also discussed ways the World Association of Nuclear Energy is increasing its power as well as gave a brief mention of natural gas fracking that is causing small earthquakes, oy.

That is all for the week’s carnival, hope you enjoyed and stay tuned for next week’s at the ANS Nuclear Café.

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...

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