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...
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Surely, if the NRC spokesman was interested in sharing information about Vermont Yankee's safety and reliable performance, he could have invited Ms. Lyon into the building, given her a cup of coffee and showed her exactly where to look on the web site for the information that she needed.
The more I watched that segment - and I repeated it several times - the more angry I became and the more I suspected that there was a plan being executed.
Here is a link my post on the topic.
http://atomicinsights.com/2012/02/cnns-carefully-timed-attack-on-nuclear-energy-and-nrc-credibility.html
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
I would like to commend Rod Adams, Meredith Angwin, and every single person responsible for the NEI Nuclear Notes blog here for their complete evisceration of the CNN report. A fantastic, and accurate, response to the malarkey they're trying to push nowadays.
When it comes to regulating things nuclear, the NRC does a very good job. NEI also does a good job of commenting on biased media reports.