Building a Light Bridge to Nuclear Value

An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago roused attention because it dinged the American nuclear energy industry as being oppressively overregulated – especially compared to Russia and China. I noted then that a focus on safety regulation risked obscuring the larger problem of the energy marketplace. To quote myself “I’d probably also focus more on markets, a WSJ thing, because reforming them to recognize nuclear energy’s value as a reliable and emission-free energy source would bolster the argument considerably.”

Well, they write letters:

The main problem for nuclear isn’t the NRC, but politics and the way markets are structured. Regulated market structures in South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee have led to the construction of billions of dollars of reactors under way now in each of those states. Deregulated market structures in Vermont and other states where reactors have been closed give no credit to the desirable benefits of safe commercial nuclear power, such as round-the-clock electricity generation (try that with wind or solar), full power during extreme weather, virtually zero air pollution and CO2 emissions and stable electricity prices.

Lightbridge President and CEO Seth Grae responds to the article the old-fashioned way, through a letter to the editor, and he gets the economic issue just so. If one wondered why “overregulated” nuclear energy gets a fuller hearing in the south, this is a strong explanation. I’m not sure the market issues are directly related to emissions – I don’t think they are – but Grae is right that markets that do not recognize them are doing themselves a disservice. If it were properly recognized, it would matter less if the marketplace is regulated or unregulated (in this context, referring to the markets, not safety; it can be a little confusing) – nuclear energy’s value as an emission-free energy source would go a long way to reforming the market on its own account. (The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is looking into new rules that account for diversity and reliability of energy sources – qualities that also enhance nuclear energy’s value proposition.)

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Lightbridge is “a leading provider of nuclear energy consulting services to commercial and governmental entities worldwide, and is developing next generation nuclear fuel technology that will significantly reduce nuclear waste and proliferation,” according to its self-description.

That fuel technology sounds interesting and even has a thorium connection (for all you fans of the element), though it appears it will be an all-uranium assembly.

Lightbridge’s all metal fuel (AMF) assembly is comprised entirely of metallic fuel rods and is capable of providing up to 17% increase in power output in existing PWRs and up to a 30% power uprate in new build PWRs operating on 18-month fuel cycles.

How it does this is a bit – okay, way – over my head, at least on first read-through, but you can start exploring it here. Lightbridge provides a lot of information about this technology.

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Seth Grae contributed a post to the blog almost a year ago about the Ex-Im Bank - and it’s still relevant today! Read it here.

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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