NEI Nuclear Notes

Matt Wald The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior director of policy analysis and strategic planning at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald . Taking action to slow climate change was a contentious idea before the election, and if the voting on November 8 created a consensus on any issue, it wasn’t this one. President-elect Trump has called for withdrawing from the COP-21 agreement made a year ago in Paris, but as COP-22 got underway Marrakesh, Morocco, more than 300 American companies sent a letter to Mr. Trump affirming their “deep commitment” to adhering to the climate accord. But there is more common ground here than meets the eye. There are reasons why the march toward cleaner energy will continue, advancing some of the goals in Mr. Trump’s campaign platform , including energy independence, an electric system that helps a strong economy, creation or maintenance of good jobs, a sound national infrastructure, and improvement of America’s export potential. ...

French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius  and his on-message gavel How many times is nuclear energy mentioned in the climate change agreement signed by 219 countries this past weekend? None. Wind, solar? None. Coal, natural gas? You guessed it. Renewable –and sustainable - energy do get a mini shout out: “Acknowledging the need to promote universal access to sustainable energy in developing countries, in particular in Africa, through the enhanced deployment of renewable energy…” But that’s it. You get the feeling that the directive-heavy agreement has nothing specific to direct about energy generators. Whether by plane, train or automobile (electric, if possible), its not how you get there that matters, it’s just that you get there. And this is the there: Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial lev...

What has energy Secretary Ernest Moniz been doing at COP21 ? Plenty, we’re sure, plus this : Modular reactors being developed by Fluor Corp.’s Nuscale Power can be a “game-changer” by making nuclear power plants more affordable to build, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said. “The proof will be in the pudding in terms of the economic performance, but it looks very promising and that can be a game-changer,” Moniz told reporters at a round of United Nations climate talks in Paris. “If we have a viable pathway at building nuclear power in smaller bites, the whole financing structure can change and make it much more affordable.” The problems of cost are quite real. While nuclear facilities remain good value for money, the up-front expenditure can be daunting for a relatively constrained market sector. Plant construction goes on - see Vogtle , Summer and Watts Bar for evidence – but it remains a major investment. This is where Moniz sees a role for small reactors. Moni...

Thanksgiving is a time to reflect upon our many blessings. At NEI, we know how fortunate our country is to have reliable, affordable and clean power from nuclear energy. The clean aspect of nuclear is especially important as world leaders meet next week at COP21 to discuss plans to fight climate change. Nuclear energy facilities provide 63 percent of America’s zero-carbon electricity . Globally, nuclear power plants provide one-third of all zero-carbon electricity. One of nuclear’s major advantages relative to other low-carbon energy sources is its unique ability to produce large-scale electricity around-the-clock in extreme weather conditions. Now that's something to give thanks for. Here are the top seven things we are thankful for this Thanksgiving: On behalf of everyone at NEI, Happy Thanksgiving!

Times are bracing. The first fall chill contributes, of course, but it’s bracing, too, that the spotlight has fallen so strongly upon nuclear energy. The White House Nuclear Energy summit two Fridays ago contributed mightily to this sudden attention and so has the COP21 conference in Paris next month.   These two events seem to have spurred exceptional interest in the atom, even when the summit or the upcoming U.N. climate change conference are not explicitly mentioned. From The Los Angeles Times : Nuclear energy's importance in reducing emissions is beyond dispute. In January, the International Energy Agency called nuclear power “a critical element in limiting greenhouse gas emissions.” It calculated that global nuclear generation capacity must more than double by 2050 (to about 750 gigawatts) if there is any hope of limiting temperature increases to the 2 degrees that is widely agreed as acceptable. This story from Power covers the Washington summit: Even some former...

I’m giving a signal boost to One Direction’s fifth album, “Made in the A.M.,” which at the end of the day is just perfect. (Both puns intended – looking at you, Harry.) You may wonder what this band has to do with nuclear energy. Turns out since they launched the Action 1D campaign this past summer, quite a lot.  Louis, Niall, Harry and Liam for Action 1D. I never went through a boy band phase as a teen, never hung the posters, bought the merchandise or cared about individual members. Sure, I listened to Backstreet Boys and NSYNC, but who didn’t? One Direction has been around since 2010, yet I only discovered Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Liam Payne earlier this year. Zayn Malik too, aka the one that got away. How I got into the fandom was probably not how most of their supporters got there. Belonging to the band’s army of devotees, fittingly dubbed Directioners , is like being in a 24/7 glass case of emotion . I have no regrets, however, and I’m happy to ca...

Yesterday, NEI and the Christian Science Monitor sponsored a public meeting to offer a preview of the upcoming COP21 conference. It proved to be exceptionally edifying because the speakers cut straight through the rhetoric surrounding the conference to discuss what is most likely to be accomplished rather than what might be wished for. Let’s set the table for new comers. The COP21 conference intends to bring together as many as 195 world leaders to sign an agreement to reduce carbon dioxide/greenhouse gas emissions consistent with limiting temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius by 2100.  The Paris accord, if it is finalized and the signatory countries hold to their plans, will not accomplish this. According to Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change , the agreement already hammered out limits temperature rise to 2.7 to 3 degrees Celsius. That sounds like a minor difference, but it is not – the impacts on world populati...

The following is a guest post from NEI Senior Vice President of Communications  Scott Peterson, reporting from the  59th General Conference of the IAEA  .  Scott Peterson With the 21st session of Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) just 10 weeks away, one hopes that this week’s United Nations conference in Vienna is setting the stage for negotiations around meeting the 2-degree reduction by 2050. Leaders at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), meeting today in the opening session of its general conference, echoed a resounding statement of support for nuclear energy to increase its share of electricity production globally as one way to meet the carbon reduction challenge. Nearly 440 reactors in 30 countries generate 11 percent of the world’s electricity. “Nuclear power is one of the lowest emitters of carbon dioxide among energy sources when emissions through entire life cycles ...