NEI Nuclear Notes

Neil Wilmshurst This week is the fifth anniversary of the accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant . To mark the event, we'll be sharing observations from leaders around the nuclear energy industry all week long on how the U.S. has absorbed lessons learned from the accident to make safe nuclear plants even safer . Today's contribution comes from Neil Wilmshurst, Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Even as the events at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were unfolding, the U.S. industry began analyzing the situation and compiling data that would inform the industry’s lessons learned. The Electric Power Research Institute’s Modular Accident Analysis Program (MAAP) software analyzes the progression of events during an accident. It captures many possible outcomes in a short timeframe. Unlike other codes, MAAP runs faster than accidents progress so it can actually guide emergency responders. Now in its fi...

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. The hot new idea in energy and real estate is the “zero net energy building.” It usually means a building with enough solar panels on the roof so that over the course of a year, it produces as much energy as it consumes. And that means the building poses no burden on the grid, right? Well, no. In fact, the grid’s work may get harder when a zero net energy building is connected . And it means that in real life, the building still has a carbon footprint. That’s not a fatal flaw for “zero” buildings or for solar on the roof. In fact, many aspects of a zero net energy building are unambiguously good and ought to be incorporated into a lot of structures – good insulation, high efficiency lighting and other devices, and placement of the building to make optimum use of the sun, for example. And there’s a certain attracti...

The Electric Power Research Institute has a report out that compares the costs of fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables. The Integrated Generation Technology Options report provides an executive-level overview of near-term (5 – 10 years) as well as longer term (2025) electricity generation technology costs and performance. The purpose of this document is to provide a public domain reference for industry executives, policy makers, and other stakeholders. This report is based on 2010 EPRI research results and updates the Integrated Generation Technology Options report  published in November 2009. The key numbers can be found in the two tables pasted below which are on pages 1-11 and 1-12. The first table shows the estimated costs of each technology in 2015, the second table shows the estimated costs in 2025. All dollars are inflated to the year 2010. The important numbers to look at are the LCOE in the right column which stands for Levelized Cost of Electricity. The LCOE includes the...

The Japanese government has released its report on the Fukushima accident, with the start of a timeline of events, a categorization and presentation of lessons learned, and, I thought, a proposed transformation of its regulatory structure to something far more rigorous (and a lot more like that in this country.) But there’s a lot to absorb here. Take a read and we’ll return to it in the days ahead. The report will be presented at IAEA’s Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety on June 20. --- The US House Science Committee in a report on Wednesday blasted the Obama administration for terminating the long-planned Yucca Mountain national nuclear-waste repository with no scientific or technical justification. The criticism is the latest to come from the Republican-led House, and is largely a reiteration of complaints heard from a House energy oversight committee last week. That’s from Platts and they’re right – Congress has had a lot to say about Yucca Mountain lately. H...

Mr. Elliott Negin, media director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, published the same jaded piece at Seeking Alpha and Greentech Media on how nuclear power is “Too Costly to Revive.” He begins by painting a somewhat rosy picture of the nuclear industry but then begins to dish it out by discussing the “industry’s Achilles’ heel” (cost of construction). The nuclear industry likes to point out that it has low production costs, which it does. What it doesn't mention, however, are its rapidly escalating capital costs, those associated with paying the cost of plant construction, including financing. Well, we like to tout the good cost numbers of nuclear and of course our critics like to point out the not-so-good numbers. So which is it? According to EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2010 released last month, nuclear’s estimated costs are definitely competitive with other technologies . If you look at the total levelized unsubsidized costs of the emission-free technologie...

The third part of our series that debunks Amory Lovins’ study which criticizes Stewart Brand’s nuclear chapter discusses the need for all emission-free technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The “portfolio myth” On page 82, Brand states that : climate change is so serious a matter, we have to do everything simultaneously to head it off as much as we can . Stewart Brand backs up his statement by citing Princeton’s wedge concept which proposes that a number of different technologies will be needed to avoid CO2 emissions. Lovins, of course, doesn’t buy this (pdf, p. 17): There is no analytic basis for Brand’s assumption that all energy options are necessary, nor is it sensible. Lovins goes on to criticize Brand for misinterpreting parts of the Princeton study. As well, Lovins dings Brand for offering only one piece of evidence to back up the concept of a portfolio approach. Well, there isn’t just one piece of evidence that says we need a portfolio of technologies. The Elect...

The Electric Power Research Institute, or EPRI, has updated a report that predicts what the energy mix will be in 2030 given the parameters set for carbon reduction by the energy bill passed by the House. Now, EPRI covers almost all electricity generators and favors none in particular, but its studies still answer to the interests of the electricity business. Since the goal here is to predict the optimum mix of energy sources needed to achieve a specific goal, you could easily decide to amp down some of EPRI’s proscriptions (say, less nuclear) and amp up others (say, more renwables). There is a game-like aspect to this. All that said, here’s the bottom line: The U.S. needs to build 45 nuclear reactors and reduce power consumption by 8 percent by 2030 to meet greenhouse-gas emission reductions called for by Congress, a report funded by the electric industry says. The Electric Power Research Institute , whose members produce and deliver more than 90 percent of U.S. power, issue...

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat beat me to this story so I'm going to copy from him ;-): A new report co-authored by the Electric Power Research Institute ( EPRI ) and the Idaho National Laboratory ( INL ) details how nuclear energy research, development, demonstration and deployment can help reduce U.S. carbon emissions and bolster energy security. The report [pdf], A Strategy for Nuclear Energy Research and Development , outlines the research necessary to create options for the deployment of nuclear energy in the decades ahead. The report also examines nuclear energy’s relevance to nonproliferation and the need for the United States to maintain international leadership in developing nuclear energy. ... The strategic plan defines six goals to expand the safe and economical use of nuclear energy: 1. Maintain today’s nuclear fleet of light water reactors 2. Significantly expand the fleet with advanced light water reactors 3. Develop non-electric applications for high-temperature rea...

Presidential candidate John Edwards was endorsed by Friends of the Earth Action last Sunday primarily because of his stance against nuclear power . Mr. Edwards, accepting the endorsement, said: “I am opposed to the building of new nuclear power plants, which is different from the position taken by Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. FOEA’s president Brent Blackwelder had this to say: “Edwards is razor sharp and clear: we don’t want to go the route of nuclear power plants,” said Mr. Blackwelder, whereas Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton wanted to explore the nuclear option. “We intend to run an independent campaign to educate the voters,” Mr. Blackwelder said. The canvassing, advertisements and seminars will take place mostly in New Hampshire , where the nuclear issue has resonance because of the nuclear power plant at Seabrook, as well as in other states. Educate the voters? I wonder if they’ll include these educational facts on nuclear in New Hampshire ? In 200...

From EPRI : The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) today released a study that shows that the aggressive development and implementation of a full portfolio of advanced electricity technologies could reduce the economic cost of cutting future U.S. CO2 emissions by more than 50 percent while meeting the continuing growth in demand for electricity. “EPRI’s analysis clearly shows that if we can deploy a ‘full technology portfolio,’ we can provide lower-carbon electricity throughout the economy while simultaneously meeting additional demand for electricity due to population growth and economic expansion,” said Steve Specker, EPRI president and chief executive officer. Previous EPRI work has shown that absent investments in advanced technologies, significant reductions in future emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases will result in higher prices for electricity and natural gas, and reduced economic growth. However, by developing and deploying advanced electricity technologies, suc...

From Green Car Congress : Two studies released by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) show that widespread use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in the United States could significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and has the potential to provide small but significant improvements in ambient air quality in most areas of the US. Widespread adoption of PHEVs could reduce GHG emissions from vehicles by more than 450 million metric tons annually in 2050—equivalent to removing 82.5 million passenger cars from the road. Cumulative GHG emissions reductions from 2010 to 2050 could reach 10.3 billion metric tons under the most aggressive scenarios for the development of a lower-carbon electrical infrastructure and PHEV penetration. The analysis is the first to combine models of the US electric system and transportation sector with atmospheric air quality models to account for the future evolution of both sectors in te...

I know Monday's are usually the busiest day of the week here at NEI Nuclear Notes, but a combination of meetings and other duties have kept me away from the keyboard. And now, I'm actually going to be doing a presentation on blogging for the folks at EPRI . Look for some updates later tonight. Please check back then.

Today, the nuclear energy industry says goodbye to Chauncey Starr , a man who stayed active in the business until the very end: Starr, who still worked six days a week, died Tuesday in his Atherton home. His heart stopped beating during a morning nap before heading into the office, said Clay Perry, a spokesman for the Electric Power Research Institute, which Starr founded in 1972. On Monday, Starr attended a celebration in his honor at the Palo Alto-based EPRI, an independent, nonprofit center for public interest energy and environmental research. He wryly quipped to more than 200 people Monday that his title of EPRI president emeritus was academic speak for "has-been." Starr specialized in nuclear power, nuclear risk assessment and the challenges faced by the electric utility industry. In the weeks preceding his death, he actively worked with scientists, industrialists and politicians on risk-based analysis of nuclear plant investments and development of the "SuperGrid...

Randall Parker, the brains behind FuturePundit , has been reading an EPRI study about the prospect of the electric industry being able to constrain carbon emissions going forward, and asks a provocative question : The study assumes only a two thirds increase in nuclear power. [...] But imagine instead that we no longer built new coal or natural gas burning electric plants and all new electric plants used energy sources that generate no carbon dioxide. Coal burning technology isn't ready for full carbon sequestration. So go with nuclear and wind instead. Most drastically, we could halt all carbon dioxide emissions from electric generation (cutting out a third of US CO2 emissions) by switching to only non-fossil fuels for electric power generation. For example, in the United States we could switch to nuclear where we now use coal and natural gas. In 2005 nuclear power accounted for 19.3% of total electric power generated. The United States had 104 nuclear reactors operating in 2005 ...