“Nuclear will have such a significant role…”

The International Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency suggest in a report released Thursday that nuclear will have such a significant role to play in climate strategy that nuclear power generation capacity will have to double by 2050 in order for the world to meet the international 2°C (3.6°F) warming goal.

You’d expect that from NEA, but the IEA? That’s something. The SciAm story gives a good rundown of the report, but obviously, nothing beats the report itself. After noting the slowdown following the Fukushima Daiichi accident, the report notes, as we have done, that global progress continues apace:

However, in the medium to long term, prospects for nuclear energy remain positive. A total of 72 reactors were under construction at the beginning of 2014, the highest number in 25 years. According to the 2D scenario, China would account for the largest increase in nuclear capacity additions from 17 GW in 2014 to 250GW in 2050 and, by 2050, would represent 27% of global nuclear capacity and nuclear power generation. Other growing nuclear energy markets include India, the Middle East and the Russian Federation.

And this probably says something about former NRC Commissioner William Magwood being chief at the NEA:

Nuclear safety remains the highest priority for the nuclear sector. Although the primary responsibility for nuclear safety lies with the operators, regulators have a major role to play to ensure that all operations are carried out with the highest levels of safety.

You can take the regulator out of the agency, but … (joking aside, it’s a good point).
And this seems targeted directly at the U.S., though that may be my own provincialism showing:

Governments that have not yet finalized their strategies for managing nuclear waste, should do so without delay. For high-level waste, deep geological disposal (DGD) is the recommended solution.

Which sounds a lot like Yucca Mountain, doesn’t it?
Here’s a key takeaway:

Nuclear energy currently contributes to a reduction of CO2 emissions from the power sector of about 1.3 to 2.6 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 every year, assuming it replaces either gas- or coal-fired generation. It is estimated that since 1980 the release of over 60Gt CO2 has been avoided thanks to nuclear power.
The avoided CO2 emissions were calculated by replacing nuclear generation by coal-fired generation. would result in annual CO2 emission reductions of 2.5Gt CO2 in the 2DS compared with the 6DS. Globally, this represents 13% of the emissions reduction needed in the power sector with the contribution in different regions varying from as high as 24% in the Republic of Korea to 23% in the European Union and 13% in China. Nuclear clearly plays an important role in providing reliable, low-carbon electricity in most regions of the world.

The DS refers to the report’s different scenarios – that is, what is needed to achieve a 2 degree reduction by 2050 and 6 degree.
I won’t go through the whole report, but it’s a spectacular offering and worth attending to. You don’t have to cherry pick from it to get interesting data from it; it’s a complete cherry tree.

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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