Skip to main content

Leveling the Board for Nuclear Trade

A letter in the Baltimore Sun suggests the paper  had featured an interesting op-ed recently. First, the letter:

Dan Ervin's commentary on lifting restrictions on U.S. companies supplying nuclear power equipment abroad is completely misleading ("A nuclear opportunity," May 6).

Nuclear energy is not, as Mr. Ervin says, pollutant free or carbon free. Government regulations allow nuclear power plants to deliberately' and routinely emit hundreds of thousands of curies of radioactive gases and other radioactive elements into the environment every day. Radiation cannot be seen, felt or tasted, so I'm wondering if this is why Mr. Ervin feels he can credibly say that nuclear power is pollution free.

Hundreds of thousands – every day? Radiation as pollution? Well, they write letters, don’t they?

But what about Ervin’s editorial?

Companies supplying components for the nuclear power industry are located throughout the United States, including a number in Maryland. These manufacturing firms have developed businesses providing components and equipment required for the maintenance and upkeep of the 104 operating reactors in the U.S. Unfortunately for them, the domestic market is expanding at a very low rate. Currently in the U.S., ground has been broken for five new reactors.

These supplying firms would benefit if allowed to participate in the growing international market. However, presently they have difficulty engaging in the growing international market for nuclear power — and part of the problem lies within our own government.

This really is a topic that has engaged the industry, particularly the segment of it that manufactures parts. Nationalized or semi-nationalized nuclear energy industries – France and Russia are examples - can move quickly to secure contracts to build reactors and supply parts and services. The United States, meanwhile, is hamstrung by the welter of agencies that have to sign off on any attempt by private industry to do so.

It’s not just nationalized industries that get this leg up. For example, South Korea has had considerable success exporting its technology, building the Barakah facility in UAE.

U.S. nuclear export licensing procedures can be needlessly difficult. They are increasingly complex, restrictive and time-consuming for companies to navigate. The U.S. process for getting the appropriate export licenses is divided among three departments (State, Commerce and Energy). Furthermore, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission administers four different sets of associated regulations. By contrast, comparable export licensing in most other countries is handled by one agency.

One runs the risk of sounding like a poor loser, because it sounds as though the nuclear industry is trying to tilt the board to its advantage. But you have to get the board level before you can tilt it – there’s little question that America can be competitive in terms of technology. In terms of all the other elements that make up trade, well, who knows? It would be nice to find out.

Ervin’s conclusion is pretty close to NEI’s.

A faster, straightforward licensing process would give American nuclear companies a chance to compete for this rapidly growing international business. It is not too late to make a change, but something needs to be done now. The potential reward (in economic value, job creation and protection, and tax revenue) makes the international nuclear power business too important to U.S. vital interests to neglect.

Terrific op-ed on a somewhat inside nuclear baseball topic. It inspired a reader to complain, after all.

NEI has some pages that go into more detail on nuclear trade. Go here to get started.

Comments

SteveK9 said…
Wonder if this will help:

Westinghouse, China's SNPTC Form AP1000 Supplier Certification Joint Venture

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin