NEI Nuclear Notes

The difficulties of identifying and exploiting a market – whether to provide nuclear energy or to market a new food product – is never easy and, for a start-up, notably difficult. To wit: A company called Alternate Energy Holdings has a pretty good idea : A small company that's pushing a billion-dollar nuclear power plant in Idaho now says it wants to build another one at a different location. Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. says it's asking Payette County to amend a plan that governs land use, so it can build a nuclear power plant on approximately 5,100 acres in western Idaho. This is presumably on land where MidAmerican Nuclear Energy decided last year not to build a plant, so some of the work has been done. And why do they want to do this? Don Gillispie, Alternate Energy's chief executive, says his projects will bring benefits to rural communities. Well, we can’t argue with that, though the AP story is so short as to be barren on details. So we visited AEHI’s Web ...

Don Gillispie, President and CEO of Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. , wrote an opinion piece at ArbiterOnline which is Boise State's Independent Student Newspaper : Nuclear power, on the other hand, needs little area to produce massive amounts of energy and does it with 90 percent reliability, zero greenhouse gasses, very little waste (all of it low-level and recyclable) and all for about three cents per kilowatt hour. The American nuclear industry's stellar safety record over 50 years is one of the reasons why, according to a recent poll, 70 percent of Americans and an increasing number of mainstream environmentalists are supporting it. ... Oddly, some people claim the recent decision by MidAmerican to end plans for a nuclear plant in Payette County really means the entire industry is doomed. Warren Buffet ultimately made the decision and who are mere mortals to question his business savvy? While nuclear plants are quite profitable when operating, the overwhelming commitment t...

From the Houston Chronicle : Exelon Nuclear has picked two possible sites for for a proposed nuclear plant both located southwest of the Houston area. Illinois-based Exelon, which operates the largest number of nuclear plants in the country, is considering building a plant in Matagorda County or Victoria County. If it goes forward the primary site is a 1,250-acre tract about 10 miles south of Collegeport in Matagorda County. The secondary site covers 11,500 acres about 20 miles south of Victoria in Victoria County. Matagorda County is already home to the The South Texas Project, near Bay City. The owners of that plant is seeking to build two new reactors. The proposed sites are needed to seek a permit allowing the company to build and operate a plant, should it go decide to build one. Exelon said it expects to submit the application to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission in November of 2008. UPDATE : Our friends at Exelon have shared a map of the designated sites with us. Click ...

From Reuters : Most people in the United States only think about where electricity comes from when the lights go out suddenly. But unless the antiquated transmission grid is fixed, expensive blackouts that bring modern life to a grinding halt will become ever more common, according to "Lights Out" (Wiley, $27.95), a new book by Jason Makansi. Then again ... The average US electricity customer loses power for more than three hours annually – outages that cost the US economy about $80 billion. That may be about to change. America's power grid has a new cop on the beat, ready to slap stiff fines on power companies that don't meet new national standards for grid reliability. The standards become mandatory on Monday. Reliance on voluntary guidelines and collegial cooperation among power companies is out. Fines of as much as $1 million a day are in – levied by the North American Reliability Corp. (NERC), which is freshly armed with a federal mandate.

Just off the wire : Duke Energy announced today that, subject to board approval, it intends to purchase Southern Company’s 500-megawatt interest in the proposed William States Lee III nuclear power project, making the plant’s total output available to electric customers in the Carolinas. Demand in Duke Energy Carolinas’ service area is projected to grow by more than 6,000 megawatts by 2021. The two-unit Lee Nuclear plant proposed for Cherokee County, S.C., could come into service by 2016 with a capacity of more than 2,200 megawatts. Under a joint ownership agreement signed with Southern Company last March, the Atlanta-based company would have been entitled to 500 megawatts of the plant’s output. Southern Company said it is withdrawing from the Lee Nuclear project to explore and focus on energy options within its service territory, including the two proposed new nuclear units at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Ga. Duke Energy management will recommend to the company’s board of directors a...

It's been 21 years since the accident at Chernobyl. For a variety of information sources on what happened that day, click here for a document NEI compiled a year ago. Most importantly, you should read the fact sheet about the incident in order to understand exactly what happened on that terrible day, and what the global nuclear industry learned from it.

Here are some hearings scheduled for next week in Washington to keep an eye on: House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing, “Global Climate Change,” focusing on state and local perspectives. The hearing will be held March 15, 11 a.m. (2123 Rayburn Building). House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing, “Climate Change: Perspectives of Utility CEOs.” Invited witnesses include Mike Morris (American Electric Power), Gary Rainwater (Ameren), Jim Rogers (Duke), David Sokol (MidAmerican) and Jeff Sterba (PNM). The hearing will be held March 20, 9:30 a.m. (2123 Rayburn Building). House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing, “Fiscal 2008 Budget: Energy Department,” concerning the department’s atomic energy defense activities. Invited witnesses include Thomas D’Agostino, acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration; James Rispoli, assistant secretary of energy for environmental management; and G...

Details from the Bedford Bulletin .