NEI Nuclear Notes

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...

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 ...

Climate Central notices that nuclear energy technology is not standing still. The writer, Bobby McGill, makes it clear that nuclear “isn’t likely to grow much in the United States” and that the “the EIA [Energy Information Agency] has forecast flat nuclear power (through 2040).*” So that’s that –or is it? The $60 million the Department of Energy is dedicating to nuclear research will go to more than 40 different projects at universities across the U.S. focusing on nuclear energy modeling, nuclear security and safety and new reactor concepts and fuels. U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz , speaking Monday at the Energy Information Administration’s annual energy conference in Washington, said he is bullish on nuclear power as a clean energy source. However, the high costs of developing nuclear energy have to come down, he said. Fair enough, I guess. Other accounts of Moniz’s keynote suggest he talked mostly about the U.S.Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the need to relea...

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has never hidden his support for nuclear energy. In 2011, before he took up his current post, he wrote an article for Foreign Affairs surveying the nuclear landscape, finding some sump holes and crevices (as well as gold-infused hillocks and verdant valleys), and concluded : As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, finding ways to generate power cleanly, affordably, and reliably is becoming an even more pressing imperative. Nuclear power is not a silver bullet, but it is a partial solution that has proved workable on a large scale. … The government's role should be to help provide the private sector with a well-understood set of options, including nuclear power -- not to prescribe a desired market share for any specific technology. And: The United States must take a number of decisions to maintain and advance the option of nuclear energy. As energy secretary, he has embraced President Barack Obama’s “all-of-the-above” energy ...

Here’s the good news: The nuclear industry applauds the Department of Energy and Southern Company for fulfilling the promise of the clean-energy loan guarantee program enacted by Congress in 2005. The agreement demonstrates the Obama administration’s recognition of the key role nuclear energy must play in a successful clean energy policy. U.S. nuclear energy facilities have proven their ability to provide reliable, affordable electricity while protecting the environment. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced this yesterday at a luncheon and you may well be thinking that this happened a while ago – even a long while ago. Well, yes and no. Previous Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the guarantee to Southern Company in 2010. Reuters picks up the story from there: But record low natural gas prices, tepid growth in electricity demand and the lack of a federal cap on carbon emissions have kept any such revival at bay. Now only a few new reactors are projected t...

A couple of major editorials take a look at President Obama’s energy-related nominations to his cabinet: Ernest Moniz for Energy Secretary and Gina McCarthy for EPA Administrator. These are not specific to energy generation or even to the nominees, really, zeroing in on climate change mostly, but it never hurts to see if nuclear energy gets a shout out – or just shouted at. Here’s the Times’ view. It opines that Congress is unlikely to move on climate change legislation and continues: This means that his second-term agenda on climate change will run through Ms. McCarthy’s and Mr. Moniz’s agencies, and will depend almost entirely on executive actions that do not require Congressional approval. Here are three strategies that could make a big dent in carbon emissions.  Just three? You’ve got to start somewhere. They are: Use the Clean Air Act to limit pollution (good for nuclear); Make natural gas safer (neutral); Improve energy efficiency across the board (also neutral). A...

If you want a sense of what Ernest Moniz, the MIT physicist who is President Barack Obama’s pick for energy secretary , thinks about nuclear energy, read some of his writing. There’s a lot of it, and he’s pretty direct : It would be a mistake, however, to let Fukushima cause governments to abandon nuclear power and its benefits. Electricity generation emits more carbon dioxide in the United States than does transportation or industry, and nuclear power is the largest source of carbon-free electricity in the country. Nuclear power generation is also relatively cheap, costing less than two cents per kilowatt-hour for operations, maintenance, and fuel. Even after the Fukushima disaster, China, which accounts for about 40 percent of current nuclear power plant construction, and India, Russia, and South Korea, which together account for another 40 percent, shows no signs of backing away from their pushes for nuclear power. This is from November 2, 2011. A little more: Nuclear power...