Photos From NEA 2012

As promised, we've got additional content from NEA 2012 that I wanted to share with you before we started the Holiday weekend. NEI's Anna Gomez was our go to person behind the lens for the entire show, and we're in the midst of compiling photos and writing cutlines for our NEA 2012 Flickr Album even as I type this entry.

Please feel free to visit to take a look at the album, filled with images of conference participants, especially the many award winners who were able to join us this week in Charlotte. One of my favorite moments was getting to see Dr. Aris Candris, formerly of Westinghouse, receive the Henry DeWolf Smyth Nuclear Statesman Award. Here's a shot of Dr. Candris as he addresses the conference just moments after receiving the award.

More soon.

Comments

jimwg said…

I regret that the Assembly shied from even a token mention regarding handling anti-nuclear groups and activists and their influence on politicians and public. The conference almost reads like everything is almost honky-dory regarding public acceptance of nuclear energy, as though we aren't fighting tooth and nail just to keep plants open much less built. This willful neglect of the anti-nuclear clan and the lack of nuclear public education nearly killed off nuclear energy here from TMI and the same neglect is occurring post-Fukushima. The nuclear industry shouldn't assume front-line pro-nuclear blogs will take up the public education and PR slack for them. Anti-nukers are treating this as a PR War for the fear and minds of the public and the industry is long due to get in the game to save their own skins. The awards given out won't mean squat if Arnie & Co, scare enough of the public and pols to switch off more plants.

Good luck Vt Yankee!

James Greenidge
Queens NY

May 28, 2012 at 7:56 PM

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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