NEI Nuclear Notes

The electoral college will soon confirm a surprise election result, Donald Trump. However, in the electricity world, there are fewer surprises – physics and economics will continue to apply, and Republicans and Democrats are going to find a lot to like about nuclear energy over the next four years. In a Trump administration, the carbon conversation is going to be less prominent. But the nuclear value proposition is still there. We bring steady jobs to rural areas, including in the Rust Belt, which put Donald Trump in office . Nuclear plants keep the surrounding communities vibrant. We hold down electricity costs for the whole economy . We provide energy diversity , reducing the risk of disruption. We are a critical part of America’s industrial infrastructure, and the importance of infrastructure is something that President-Elect Trump has stressed . One of our infrastructure challenges is natural gas pipelines, which have gotten more congested as extremely low gas prices h...

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 . A Federal appeals court recently ruled against companies that make commercial refrigerators in a case involving energy efficiency standards. What does this have to do with nuclear power? Potentially, a lot. The Federal government’s goal is to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, which the Intergovernmental Climate on Climate Change and the Environmental Protection Agency have found are destabilizing the climate. But the United States does not have a tax on carbon, or even an overall limit on emissions. This gap in regulations is one reason that nuclear power plants usually do not get credit for the fact that their production is carbon-free. But the government does have an emerging tool, called the "Social Cost of Carbon." That cost, determined jointly by several federal agencies , puts a dollar number on th...

Here at NEI, it seems as if the first five months of the year has gone by in a blur. January featured Third Way's Advanced Nuclear Summit and Showcase . February was our annual Wall Street Briefing . March saw us participating in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory's Commission's Regulatory Information Conference . The Nuclear Industry Summit straddled March and April. And then the last two weeks of May rocketed past as we participated in a Department of Energy summit on preserving at-risk nuclear reactors , and then, just two days later, headed south to Miami for the 2016 Nuclear Energy Assembly . PREACH IT DON! #NEA16 #actfornuclear #climate pic.twitter.com/kbBWVSzTLZ — Nuclear Energy Inst. (@NEI) May 24, 2016 Not that we're complaining. Our industry is facing some strong headwinds , and while the future is bright with prospects for a number of advanced reactor designs , we need to #ActForNuclear now in order to preserve the current fleet and the benefits it contribu...

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. Joseph J. Romm , a former assistant secretary of energy for efficiency and renewables, and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress , has recently gone after James Hansen , the climatologist who issued the clarion call warning about global warming way back in 1988. Romm says that Hansen puts too much emphasis on nuclear power as a tool to reduce the carbon-loading of our atmosphere. For people worried about climate (including me) it's distressing to see the attack, because the two men agree on the fundamental point, that we need a vigorous global campaign to prevent an awful destabilization of the climate. It's a shame to see supporters of that idea falling out with each other when their key point is not yet a universally-held view. But Romm has never liked nuclear power , and perhaps we should feel...

Matt Wald The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior director of policy analysis and strategic planning at NEI. It’s so obvious that it shouldn’t bear repeating, but it does: If you’re worried about climate change, one early, easy remedy is to preserve nuclear power plants that are already running. If you are facing limits on carbon emissions, don’t shut down perfectly serviceable merchant nuclear plants, just because cheap natural gas has left them, for now, a few bucks out of the money in the competitive electricity markets. Last Thursday the National Association of Clean Air Agencies , a group made up of officials from 42 states and the District of Columbia, plus 116 metropolitan areas, released its 465-page “ Menu of Options ” for complying with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan  ( Section 111 (d) of the Clean Air Act). We could quibble with some details, like describing nuclear technology as “mature.” It is highly developed, but it ha...

Dan Lipman Dan Lipman is NEI’s Vice President for Suppliers and International Programs. Before joining NEI in 2012, he spent 31 years at Westinghouse Electric Corp. In 1985, China had only recently begun its transformation into an economic powerhouse, and had just begun construction of its first nuclear power plant. It was also the year that the United States and China agreed to cooperate in commercial nuclear energy technology . Thirty years later, China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest economy and it is the world’s largest market for nuclear power plants, equipment and technology. Consider: 23 reactors are now in operation, another 26 are under construction , and even more are preparing to break ground. Consider further: China’s nuclear generating capacity, which is about 19 gigawatts today, is expected to increase three-fold to 58 gigawatts by 2020 and to some 150 gigawatts by 2030. In short, for any company that is a global player in nuclear energy t...

Tomorrow is the 45th anniversary of Earth Day . Last year, we discussed how the U.S. electric grid had evolved since the founding of Earth Day in 1970. The updated chart below tells the story of how nuclear energy grew to produce 19 percent of America's electricity. Though it might be hard to believe, oil produced more than 10 percent of the nation's electricity on that first Earth Day. That it doesn't any longer is in large part attributable to the growth of nuclear energy and other low carbon sources of electricity on the grid. Nuclear energy's growth over the past four and a half decades should not be taken for granted. One of the greatest environmental challenges we face today is reducing carbon emissions while maintaining modern living standards. The electricity sector is the largest contributor of carbon emissions (one-third) in the United States, and nuclear is the only source that includes 24/7, large-scale production, industry-leading efficiency and ...

We haven’t written much about FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, because, though it is important to energy markets and electricity transmission, it’s work, by and large, is not specific to any specific source. What it does impacts all energy generators – well, perhaps not equally, as we’ll see, but let’s say so for convenience. Let’s say it’s generator-neutral, at least when it comes to transmission. Here’s the commission’s description of itself : The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, is an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil. FERC also reviews proposals to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and interstate natural gas pipelines as well as licensing hydropower projects. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave FERC additional responsibilities as outlined and updated Strategic Plan .  There’s a lot more at the link – FERC’s mandate is pretty broad - and I guess...

Tony Pietrangelo Later today, Tony Pietrangelo, NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer, will testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee concerning " NRC’s Implementation of the Fukushima Near-Term Task Force Recommendations and other Actions to Enhance and Maintain Nuclear Safety (click 'Live Hearing' at link beginning at 9:00 a.m. U.S. EST to watch webcast).”  The first panel will be comprised of the five current members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, including outgoing Chairman Allison Macfarlane. Pietrangelo will appear in the second panel in the afternoon, along with Daniel Hirsch of UC-Santa Cruz and Sam Blakeslee, a former California state senator who was once a member of the state's Seismic Safety Commission. A preview of Pietrangelo's oral testimony follows. America’s 100 nuclear power plants provide approximately 20 percent of our electricity and nearly two-thirds of our carbon-free electricity. They produce that electric...

What becomes a nuclear facility most? These days, it may be its emission-free quality – its production of nothing, in other words, at least in terms of the greenhouse gases that have concerned policymakers and the public in recent years. In NEI’s third article on the closing of Vermont Yankee, we look at the implications of closing not only the source of 72.3 percent of Vermont’s electricity, but the implications of losing all that nothing – those gases that it doesn’t produce . The loss of 604 megawatts of carbon-free generation will hinder efforts to reduce emissions in the region. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s draft plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants includes an initial estimate of how much each state will need to reduce emissions by 2030.  The proposed reduction targets show the difference that energy mix makes from state to state. And not only does it impact the region’s proposed EPA target, but it could make a mess of a more local conc...

Matthew L. Wald In an October 7, 2014 article , New York Times reporter Matthew Wald aptly describes the market forces, technological changes, and policy choices challenging electricity providers today. He artfully distinguishes two aspects of electric generation that are important to understand the value of diverse sources of electricity. One is the energy contributed by a generator, the other is the power it provides. Wind and solar contribute energy (i.e., electric current flowing when the wind blows or sun shines). Nuclear, coal, and gas-fired generators contribute both energy and dependable power (i.e., current flowing when and in the quantities needed by the grid). Mr. Wald's article nicely complements two recent posts on this blog by our NEI colleague Mark Flanagan on October 1 and September 29 . It is also gratifying to note that Mr. Wald refers to nuclear power as "zero-carbon", a frequent subject of this  blog . For a more quantita...

Kathleen Barrón, Exelon ’s senior vice president of federal regulatory affairs and wholesale market policy, had some strong words at a policy summit held by the Illinois Commerce Commission . “If the units at risk of closing today -- representing 43 percent of the state’s nuclear generation -- retire, they cannot be mothballed and later brought back online,” she said. “Together they represent more than 30 million metric tons of avoided carbon emissions, given that they will need to be replaced with fossil generation to provide the around-the-clock electricity needed to serve customers in the state.” That’s true. Nuclear energy is not really properly valued for its presence in the proposed EPA climate change rule (which of course could change before it is finalized), and one consequence of that would be that shuttered nuclear plants would lead to higher carbon emissions – and cause states to miss their targets. If you consider climate change an existential issue, it doesn’t g...

Scott Peterson The following is a guest post from Scott Peterson, NEI's Senior Vice President of Communications. The New York Times , in an April editorial, wrote that “given new regulations on power-plant emissions of mercury and other pollutants, and the urgent need to reduce global warming emissions, the future clearly lies with renewable energy.” (The Times also supports the use of nuclear energy in a low-carbon energy portfolio.) A new report by IHS CERA on the value of diversity of sources in the electric sector demonstrates why we cannot pin the future of America’s energy on any single fuel or technology. As with many things in life, diversity is vital and all no- or low-carbon power sources are essential as we move into a carbon-constrained energy future. The U.S. Department of Energy projects that U.S. electricity demand will rise 28 percent by 2040. That means our nation will need hundreds of new power plants to provide electricity for our homes and continued ...

Tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 P.M., Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, Co-Chair of the CASEnergy Coalition , will be participating in a live Twitter chat concerning nuclear energy's role in helping states comply with EPA's new carbon regulations. To follow the chat in real time, click here to see all of the questions and answers. If you’d like to submit a question to Gov. Whitman, you can do so via Twitter beginning right now. Be sure to add the #AskGovCTW hashtag in order to make sure that the folks at CASEnergy see the question. Topic : Nuclear Energy’s Role in New EPA Carbon Regulations Host : CASEnergy Coalition Co-Chair Governor Christine Todd Whitman, former EPA Administrator Handle : @CASEnergy Hashtag : #AskGovCTW Date/Time : Thursday, June 26 from 1-1:30 P.M. (accepting questions now)

The Supreme Court ruled today that the EPA cannot rewrite law (in this case The Clean Air Act) to accommodate new information without Congressional approval. In this instance, EPA added carbon dioxide to its list of pollutants and most lawsuits raised to challenge this were dismissed. But one made it through and The Supreme Court took it up. This is a good explanation of the issue: The CAA’s [Clean Air Act] Prevention of Significant Deterioration (“PSD”) permitting program was designed to prevent the significant deterioration of air quality in areas that were already complying with the national ambient air quality standards for at least one criteria pollutant. Taking up its charge following the Court's ruling in Mass. v. EPA , EPA introduced new regulations covering greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.  EPA then extended the PSD permitting program to cover large stationary sources of greenhouse gas, as required by the plain text of the CAA and a three-decades-old interp...

Southern Co. and its partners are building two new reactors at Georgia’s Plant Vogtle (and SCANA is building two at South Carolina’s V.C. Summer and TVA is finishing a reactor at Tennessee’s Watts Bar). We all know this. But it would be interesting to know the relationship, if any, between the decision to build these reactors and the EPA’s carbon emission rules released Monday. After all, the rules have been coming since at least 2008, so it could be figured into the thinking. Was it? Kyle Leach, Georgia Power’s planning and policy director, has given us a least a small peek at his company’s view of this: "We have contemplated carbon in our analysis," he said. "... We anticipated that at some time we would be in a carbon-constrained world." With the completion of Vogtle's addition, the company will have 30 percent more generating capacity than it needs on the hottest summer day when air conditioning units are blowing full force across the state. Tha...

By now, most of our readers have seen the coverage coming out of Monday's announcement of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new carbon emission regulations . According to the Washington Post , the new rules will require states to cut carbon emissions from the electric sector by as much as 30% by 2030 - something that will be impossible to achieve without preserving and perhaps expanding the nation's fleet of nuclear power plants. So where can you find the nuclear references in the new rules, known better as 40 CFR Part 62 ? NEI's own Scott Mantsch went to the trouble earlier this week of doing the hard work for us. Please note that we've added paragraph breaks to aid with readability in this format. Page 39: States may also identify technologies or strategies that are not explicitly mentioned in any of the four building blocks and may use those technologies or strategies as part of their overall plans (e.g., market-based trading programs or const...