NEI Nuclear Notes

Back in 2012, The New York Times noted a certain ethical laxitude about some of the biggest tech companies : Internet companies often cloak themselves in an image of environmental awareness. But some companies that essentially live on the Internet are moving facilities to North Carolina, Virginia, northeastern Illinois and other regions whose main sources of energy are coal and nuclear power, the report said. The report singles out Apple as one of the leaders of the charge to coal-fired energy. At the time, this just seemed silly. Companies needing a lot of electricity moved to states that had a lot of electricity or could easily generate it. If it came from nuclear energy, even if some people griped about it, so be it—believe it or not, if you need a lot of clean electricity, you couldn’t do better. That was 2012. How are things going in 2016 ? Apple is being criticized for trying to justify its placement of a data center in Ireland, by keeping it as far away from nuc...

From Jolly Olde England : The UK's remaining coal-fired power stations will be shut by 2025 with their use restricted by 2023, Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has proposed. A little more: Ms. Rudd wants more gas-fired stations to be built since relying on "polluting" coal is "perverse". Only if gas-fuelled power can fill the void created by closing coal-powered stations would coal plants be shut, she said. “Perverse!” Still, that doesn’t sound as promising as it could, from our perspective. But: "Gas is central to our energy-secure future," she said. "So is nuclear." She believes that plans for new nuclear power stations, including those at Wylfa in Wales, Moorside in Cumbria and Hinkley Point in Somerset, could eventually provide almost a third of the low carbon electricity the UK needs. Well, let’s see : coal and natural gas each currently generate about 30 percent of the UK’s electricity, with nuclear ...

Sustainable Business Oregon presents a interview with Pete Lyons, DOE’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy. It’s fine and worth a read – he talks mostly about the NuScale deal – see posts below for more on this. Lyons does a good job explaining what NuScale offers specifically and what the interest in small reactors may mean generally: Small modular reactors offer an opportunity for a new paradigm in how we think about nuclear plant construction. In the past we’ve gone to bigger and bigger plants built at a job site. We have realized there are some economies going to these bigger and bigger plants (built) on site. We’re trying to explore a different type of economy by moving down in size to where they can be built in a factory under factory quality assurance standards and moved intact to a site. --- The European Union is investigating the deal between the British government and Electricite de France to build a new reactor at Hinkley Point C. That story will require mor...

From Twitterer Emily Gosden of the British newspaper The Telegraph : Decc [Department of Energy and Climate Change] deleted this graphic comparing nukes/wind/solar "because of sensitivities". Says "not inaccurate". Hmm. This is a post about it by Telegraph news blogger Will Heaven: It turns out that the Renewable Energy Association called it "unhelpful" in a press release , pleading that "as Ed Davey stressed… it is not an either/or choice". And here’s the infographic: It basically shows the land mass taken to generate a similar amount of energy. Well, it really isn’t helpful to the renewable folks, is it?. Wind farms and solar arrays can eat up a lot of space. Context really matters: if land mass is the key issue, nuclear energy wins. Nuclear energy wins on capacity, too, the potential generated output. Nuclear energy the realizes most of its capacity, wind and solar do not. This infographic doesn’t reflect that. Imagi...

Here’s the news : The 16-billion pound ($25.9 billion) project, which was agreed on Monday with France's EDF energy and a group of Chinese investors, aims to keep the lights on in Britain amid declining supplies of North Sea gas and rapidly escalating fuel costs. "If people at home want to be able to keep watching the television, be able to turn the kettle on, and benefit from electricity, we have got to make these investments," Energy Secretary Ed Davey told the BBC. "It is essential to keep the lights on and to power British business." That sounds decidedly apocalyptic, but it’s a theme picked up by other stories. Here’s The Telegraph : During her reign [Queen Elizabeth’s], our atomic expertise, which promised a future of clean, green and affordable electricity, has been handed to foreign competitors on a plate, and Britain’s grid is now under such strain that 57 years later, we find ourselves relying on China and France to keep the lights...

Generally, you know you’ve lost an argument, especially one with a political dimension,  when you bring in Nazism to bolster your point. What Nazism means is up to the ears of the listener as long as it boils down to “really bad.” It’s an effective argument killer, but unfortunately, if you bring up Hitler, you lose, because your arguments have gone bankrupt and you’re spewing nonsense. The use of Nazism in debates is largely an American thing. We didn’t suffer under Nazi rule, so it can be trotted out to mean any abstract thing we want, as long as it’s, well, really bad and we don’t mind losing debates. But Europeans did experience it directly, so they have had an experience of it and don’t treat it lightly. The difference between two opposing views doesn’t portend murderous racist dictatorship. Now, “Soviet,” on the other hand: A prominent clean energy campaigner has been banned from the European Energy Forum after tweeting remarks made by the EU's energy commi...

The nuclear energy situation in Great Britain has been full of drama, with Spanish and German interests dropping in and out of the mix and the government’s will to even build a new reactor brought into question. But, really, the most notable thing about the virtually daily drumbeat of news was that there was a drumbeat of news – to me, that meant the issue wasn’t going to expire until a solution was reached one way or another. Meet the solution : Energy giant EDF was today given permission to construct a new nuclear facility at Hinkley Point C in Somerset. The announcement was seen as a huge boost to the industry which ministers are relying on to keep the lights working. EDF said the plant’s two nuclear reactors would be capable of producing seven per cent of the UK’s electricity, enough to power five million homes. “Relying on to keep the lights working.” To quote Orson Welles from a notorious Paul Masson ad , Ahhhh the French. EDF just got knocked back ...

Nuclear energy would be perfect for electric/hybrid cars, a potentially gigantic market for electricity that is well-suited to an energy source with a 24/7-profile. We’ve got the nuclear facilities, all we need now are more cars. I haven’t given up on the possibility, and there has been some traction in the kilowatt mobile business, but it’s been a bit of a slog. Still, a good idea is a good idea, so it’s interesting to see Great Britain explicitly tie their electric trains to nuclear energy. The majority of Britain's trains will be indirectly running on nuclear power for the next 10 years following Network Rail's agreement to a £3bn deal with EDF to supply electricity to the railways. “Indirectly running.” That sounds like a nice way of saying, “We cannot know where the electricity is coming from,” which is true, “but a lot of it is nuclear energy,” which is also true. What it really means is that only 50 percent of the train service is electric, though that is expe...

Former Vice President Al Gore has never been the biggest advocate of nuclear energy: In 2009, he said he saw it playing "a somewhat larger role" in the energy mix because of climate change and efforts to cut carbon emissions. "I'm not a reflexive opponent of nuclear. I used to be enthusiastic about it, but I'm now skeptical about it," he told the Guardian at the time. But at least three years ago, not it biggest detractor, either. I think it’s fair to say that he is currently indifferent to it. "It will play a role, but probably a limited role. I think the waste issue can probably be solved, and Fukushima notwithstanding, the safety of operation issue can probably be solved. But the cost is absurdly high and still rising," he wrote during a question and answer session on Reddit to promote his 24-hour Climate Reality webcast on the links between fossil fuels and extreme weather. That happened Wednesday into Thursday. If the webcast...

A Betamax machine Energy is energy – and producing electricity doesn’t have an ideological bias. But how electricity gets produced is another matter. It involves interactions between government, industry and citizens, which quickly gives it an ideological cast. In England, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett and Caroline Lucas, the first Green Party member of parliament offer what represents energy manna to them in a recent Guardian article: If there weren't already a solution at hand, we'd have to be frantically hunting around for one. But the fact is that there is - renewables, combined with a serious drive for energy conservation, which would also have the added benefits of making our homes more comfortable and our air more breathable. They put this at the end of the article, the capper on a loosely reasoned piece on the downsides of nuclear energy, which they call  the Betamax of the energy world. I wouldn’t even call Betamax the Betamax of the videotape world – ...

U.K. Nuclear Stations Our Olympics-hosting friends in Great Britain appear poised to react to climate change in a manner far different from the Germans, who have designs on abandoning nuclear energy . Britain Gives Nuclear a 2nd Chance , the New York Times informed this week, and in it we learn that the British government "is courting the nuclear industry." Why? "It wants low-carbon power to aid its goal, enshrined in law, of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050." Those numbers caught my attention. They sounded eerily familiar to me, and for good reason. I work a lot with communicators at California's two nuclear energy facilities, San Onofre and Diablo Canyon . In 2006, then Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law Assembly Bill 32 , the Global Warming Solutions Act. Under that law California must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 -- about 30 percent. And the state must redeuce GHG by 80 perce...

Martin Freer is a professor of nuclear physics at the U.K.’s Birmingham University. He lets us know that he wants his country to stop dithering when it comes to nuclear energy: There are very strong arguments for making nuclear power a crucial component of Britain's overall programme of low-carbon energy generation. Indeed, there is a compelling case for the country to be rebuilt as a nuclear nation if it is to tackle the threat of global warming and other colossal concerns. Although a number of hurdles must be overcome if this is to happen. And perhaps some of the problems are a least somewhat systemic. Now the R&D workforce stands at fewer than 600, while funding has fallen to less than 10 per cent of the historical level. Similarly, we are far from having an appropriate workforce in place in the event of a build programme getting under way. At this point in time there is a very real worry that the scale of training achievable will not match demand. It’s a st...

Who said it? “It’s a great pleasure to be back here again and a real pleasure to open something that’s going to have serious and important consequences in the years to come. “Something is going to have to be done to supply the huge increase in the amount of energy we need. There has to be some part of the energy sector delivering nuclear. It’s not just about the UK. Nuclear will be used globally.” Okay, we know he’s British and he gets invited to open things – in this case the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre. Give up ? The Duke of York said that it would make a significant difference to Britain in the future if it didn’t build up its own civil nuclear manufacturing capabilities. “We must deliver at least some part of the supply chain. The ability to harness the knowledge, skills and innovation of the UK in a facility like this is hugely important,” he said. Prince Andrew is currently fourth in line to the throne of England and is probably better...

Don’t try this at home : An emergency was declared at the McGuire nuclear plant in Huntersville early Sunday morning after a security breach, according to a report from Duke Energy. The report states that security saw someone climb over a fence into an unauthorized area around 3:30 a.m. on January 1. Uh-oh. According to police, 18-year-old David Hamilton Drake Jr. was arrested for first degree Trespassing. Oh. Well, I can remember annoying some trainmen while crossing the switchyard as a shortcut to school and getting chased now and then. The most that would have happened to me was likely a severe beating – those were pretty tough guys. The bottom line is: this is something not to do. Security forces don’t treat this kind of thing more lightly than those trainmen did. --- Interesting article from the Yorkshire (U.K.) Post: One third of all households in the UK will be in fuel poverty by 2030 unless the coalition Government rapidly moves to encourage and ...

Last night, I saw a “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” segment of a chat show that focused on Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun station, which is sitting in an area now flooded by the swollen Missouri River. The speaker stressed that, despite the mutual presence of water around Fort Calhoun and Fukushima Daiichi, the two incidents are not similar, though he did call Fort Calhoun a Fukushima-like event in slow motion. Is it? Let’s allow our old friends the Union of Concerned Scientists to take this one: The Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the nuclear-power industry’s toughest critics, sprang into action when the Missouri River flood threatened the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska. But after looking into the matter, the scientists group was reassured. Precautions had been taken to deal with the floodwaters, and federal inspectors had checked over the plant on Monday. You may be sure that if there were the tiniest concern, UCS would be taking the most dire tone imaginabl...

Awhile ago, we featured a race for the House in New York in which all three candidates offered support for nuclear energy. New York, meet Wisconsin : It could be the most radical yet least discussed policy change coming for Wisconsin. Both candidates for governor  – Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat, and Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, a Republican – said in a recent survey they would support lifting the ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants in the state. No offense to Milwaukee Magazine’s Matt Hrodey, but if that’s the most radical idea coming down Wisconsin’s pike, time to hit the off-ramp. We know Wisconsin isn’t that dull. After all, as Hrodey himself points out, Wisconsin has plants – Kewaunee and Point Beach – and they chug along quite tidily: Nuclear power generates about 20 percent of the state’s power, according to the Public Service Commission. The article aims to produce some controversy, though, so there’s this: Shar...

Here comes the nuclear renaissance, reimagined. Robin Grimes of London’s Imperial College, with a group of scientists from there and the University of Cambridge, has put together a two-stage plan that aims to facilitate a large scale expansion of nuclear energy beginning in 2030. Stage 1 involves replacing or extending the life of current plants and stage 2 is the expansion beyond countries that now use nuclear energy. If that sounds familiar, it’s because both these stages are happening right now. While I was curious about the ideas behind this plan, it does seem that industry has not waited for him before acting on them. The study will be published in the magazine Science, but a lengthy announcement was published on Imperial College’s site. Let’s see what’s on offer. The researchers also suggest building small, modular reactors that never require refueling. These could be delivered to countries as sealed units, generating power for approximately 40 years. At the end of its...

Here’s an interesting article from Fortune Magazine: Allan Sloan on why overreacting to the Deepwater Horizon spill is counterproductive, using the reaction to Three Mile Island as a template. We found it a little confused, largely because, as we’ve mentioned before, TMI and Deepwater Horizon are tough to fit together. For example, we were amused to find this in one paragraph: We panic over horrifying but fluky events like Three Mile Island and Deepwater Horizon, costing ourselves dearly. And this in the next paragraph: In an ideal world, BP would make everyone whole for the damage it has caused, its top managers would be fired and impoverished for having failed as stewards, and the company's shareholders would be wiped out in an orderly, controlled bankruptcy that doesn't create worldwide chaos. All that would be left would be to raze BP’s buildings and salt the earth where they stood. Still, he understands that, despite calling the Three Mile Island accident...

This not very objective comment in the Guardian about a new poll canvassing British attitudes to various energy issues struck us as interesting. After noting that public concern over global warming has drooped , Owen Bowcott continues thusly: The numbers of those interested in where Britain's electricity comes from have also slipped back, according to a survey commissioned by the energy company EDF, demonstrating what appears to be growing consumer complacency in an era of electric-powered gadgetry. Well, we wouldn’t call it complacency, really. Might it be that stirring up the energy pot didn’t generate enough muck to stick to disfavored sources? As if to demonstrate this, the poll, taken by YouVote for EDF, has more alarming news: Among Lib Dems [Liberal Democrats], the coalition party explicitly opposed to new nuclear building – as many as 58% of supporters believe "nuclear energy has disadvantages, but the country needs it to be part of the energy balance...

Now, we admit we can be a little provincial when it comes to viewing the activities of other countries. We’ve travelled and had longer than vacation-length stays in other countries – still, a little provincial. So whenever we read a story about a British Lord, we inevitably think of a twit or a criminal rotter hiding under robes and a wig. But consider Lord Hunt: “We have some fantastically skilled people and in terms of employment new nuclear build offers many opportunities which I want us to take. Nuclear is low carbon, it’s safe and it’s home grown. Well, that’s about right: “And the argument for having it in the future is very persuasive. I am very excited at the prospects for people who work in the industry, lots of investment, lots of skilled jobs.” And so’s that. Who’s Lord Hunt? He’s the Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change. We’re not sure where that puts him in the hierarchy of that department – below Secretary Ed Milliband, presumably, and with ...