NEI Nuclear Notes

Well, except for CBS News, which senses potential viewers for weather freak out news and is willing to turn “cold weather” into a brand – the way the Weather Channel has attempted to name snow storms despite no pressing need to do so. It's the return of the polar vortex that brought misery a year ago. A mass of whirling cold air will dip southward this weekend, sending the mercury plunging. But here’s the problem: the polar vortex is right where it should be. And that’s important, because the actual polar vortex has implications for the energy sphere which risks getting muddled if every cold blast is called a polar vortex. The actual polar vortex sent temperatures plummeting so fast last January that it froze natural gas lines and coal piles. During that time, when the prices of natural gas skyrocketed and coal facilities had to shut down, wind and especially nuclear energy kept the lights on. The event basically demonstrated the value of energy diversity, where one ...

60 Minutes will air a report on Fukushima Daiichi during its broadcast this Sunday, April 6 at 7:00 p.m. U.S. EDT. If you're watching on Sunday, we have a number of online resources you can consult for additional information about the accident , the clean up of the site and how the U.S. nuclear industry is applying lessons learned from Fukushima to improve safety at its own plant sites. Over the past three years, we've shared much of this coverage here at NEI Nuclear Notes: Earlier this week, NEI's Scott Peterson outlined how U.S. plants are applying the Fukushima experience to protecting nuclear plants from earthquakes ;  Just a few weeks ago, NEI's Senior Technical Advisor, Steven Kraft, shared his personal reflections on the 3rd anniversary of the accident ;  In October 2013, NEI's Tom Kauffman outlined the myriad ways that the U.S. industry differs from Japan when it comes to the way plants are operated and regulated ;  Last September, a de...

While I enjoy a little alarmism as much as the next person, an article at CBS really ups the ante in the Mad Max sweepstake: The world faces an array of intractable energy problems that, if anything, have only worsened in recent weeks.  These problems are multiplying on either side of energy’s key geological divide: below ground , once-abundant reserves of easy-to-get “conventional” oil, natural gas, and coal are drying up; above ground , human miscalculation and geopolitics are limiting the production and availability of specific energy supplies. Nuclear energy plays into the above ground scenario and author Michael Klare sees one country after another abandoning nuclear energy. After surveying Germany and Japan, he continues: China also acted swiftly, announcing on March 16th that it would stop awarding permits for the construction of new reactors pending a review of safety procedures, though it did not rule out such investments altogether.  Other countries, ...

Check out this short clip aired on March 16.