NEI Nuclear Notes

Over at Planetsave , Shirley Siluk Gregory, a self-described nuclear skeptic, has just finished reading James Lovelock's book, The Revenge of Gaia . Though she still has her doubts about nuclear energy, that didn't stop her from compiling 10 Green Arguments for Nuclear Power . Give it a look.

This morning on NPR, Morning Edition ran a feature on France's nuclear reactor fleet and how about a third of those reactors had to cut power during the European heat wave of 2003 . While I'm not going to quibble with the basic premise of the piece, there are a number of facts that NPR left out that taken together, fail to show the entire picture. The situation described in France and occurring right now at Browns Ferry here in the U.S. is not unique to nuclear reactors, it's something that can affect any power plant that uses the steam cycle -- and that's about 80% of our current generating capacity. For example, three coal plants in Canada had to go off line recently for just the same reason. We also need to keep in mind that this is not an operating problem, rather, utilities are simply acting as responsible stewards of the environment. As our CEO Skip Bowman put it in a note to us here at NEI this morning: Commercial reactors typically operate under licenses/agr...

From Nuc Net: Australia has decided to change its foreign policy to allow the export of uranium to India, but only subject to a number of “strict conditions”, prime minister John Howard has announced. In a statement today Mr Howard said conditions for uranium exports to India, which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), include: • Conclusion of a suitable safeguards agreement between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) covering all designated civil nuclear facilities; • A consensus decision by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to make an exception to its guidelines enabling international civil supply to India; • Conclusion of a bilateral civil nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the US; • Satisfactory progress in implementing India’s commitment to place designated civil nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards in perpetuity. Mr Howard said Australian uranium supply to India would also be conditional on the conclusion of a b...

From Bloomberg : Germany's big four power companies including E.ON AG and RWE AG will be forced to improve the efficiency of their power plants under government plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions. Chancellor Angela Merkel, after talks in Berlin today with utility chief executives, said that she expects power plant productivity to be raised 3 percent each year from 2010, adding that progress would be monitored. With new energy-saving projects, the steps are vital to reducing national emissions by up to 40 percent by 2020, she said. ``It's clear that we have no choice but to act'' to combat global warming, Merkel told reporters in Berlin after the government's third energy summit. ``There is some doubt about whether our goals can be reached,'' she said, though the proposals are ``a reasonable path'' to achieving German targets. Merkel's decision to spearhead carbon dioxide reduction in the European Union adds pressure on the government to fulf...

From Der Spiegel : The fact that the German government renounced nuclear energy in 2000 and pledged to take its last plant off the grid by 2020 might lead you to think that it would scale back its nuclear research programs. What, after all, is the point in spending money on developing a technology which is on its way out? However, the current administration seems reluctant to give up nuclear quite yet -- at least not totally. German Research Minister Annette Schavan raised eyebrows this week with her announcement to DER SPIEGEL that she would increase research spending between 2008 and 2011 by up to €40 million. Most of the money has been earmarked for young researchers working on nuclear waste storage and nuclear security issues. [...] Meanwhile, over at the Green Party -- which governed together with the Chancellor Gerhard Schröder when parliament approved the phaseout -- party boss Reinhard Bütikofer said he viewed the plan as an open provocation. "Each euro which is spent on d...