NEI Nuclear Notes

In any large market, there are are trends that can be predicted and trends that cannot. For example, the loss of San Onofre (and some hydro plants) in California can be predicted to have an impact on the energy market, not least through an increase in carbon emissions. It would seem this is true, per this report from California ISO (the grid managers): The generation gap caused by having less hydro-electric and nuclear generation was filled, in large part, by natural gas. Natural gas generators supplied about 40 percent of ISO energy in 2013, up from 39 percent in 2012 and 28 percent in 2011. That’s not too bad – solar energy increased during the same period from 5 percent to 8 percent, so that helped stave off carbon emissions. This is the unpredictable part, with no nuclear mention whatever and put as sunnily as possible: While total wholesale electric costs increased by 31 percent in 2013, after controlling for the 30 percent in natural gas prices last year, costs r...

The reaction to the closure of San Onofre in the California Press has been mixed, to say the least. The anti-nuclear feeling out there has faded a bit, as demonstrated by the failure to get enough signatures for ballot measure to close San Onofre and Diablo Canyon, but there’s still a fair amount of it. Still, this leads to a Jekyll-Hyde response to the closure. Here, as exhibit A, is the Sacramento Bee . Take it away, Jekyll: But San Onofre and California's one remaining nuke, Diablo Canyon, delivered more than 15% of the state's electricity. San Onofre, located in northwest San Diego County, supplied power to 1.4 million homes. The plant cannot be replaced solely with sun and wind, at least not with current technology. Still to be answered: Will the bills of Edison customers go up because of the utility's need to purchase more expensive power from elsewhere? Your turn, Hyde: Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and anti-nuclear energy activists hailed the c...

Four weeks after the earthquake in Japan and this is the editorial view in Wisconsin: Gov. Scott Walker is going to unveil sometime in the next several months a statewide energy plan. Included in the plan will be a proposal to lift the state's moratorium on building new nuclear plants. It should be. That does not mean that someone will start building new nuclear plants tomorrow. Nor does it mean that the tragedy in Japan doesn't have lessons for Wisconsin. It just means that discussion and proposals for eventually building new plants will no longer be off the table. Walker has become a controversial figure, but this wouldn’t be one of the things that makes him so. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel goes through several other energy sources and notes their shortcomings then proceeds: Those alternatives should receive more encouragement and support from Walker's administration - and he said last week he is open to them - but right now they can't meet the ...

The slow pace of news coming from Japan means that reporters have to write about things in a somewhat more speculative fashion – about things that might happen. For example, the Japanese government might expand the evacuation zone around Fukushima: Japan's government said Thursday it is considering extending the evacuation zone around its hobbled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, as the government recalculates the risk of radioactivity that continues to issue from the plant four weeks after Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami. But there’s no set timetable for determining this while Tepco and the government take more radiation readings: Tepco said it has provided radiation figures from several locations near the complex and is awaiting government analysis before making the data public. The government hasn't said when it would make a decision on expanding the zone, what measures it would use or how it might house those it relocates. It said it h...

How are our major newspapers reporting on the situation in Japan today?  The New York Times still has it at the front of its site, but Libya and Syria have the lead positions. The story leads with comments for the International Atomic Energy Agency: The world’s chief nuclear inspector said Saturday that Japan was “still far from the end of the accident” that has stricken its Fukushima nuclear complex and continues to spew radiation into the atmosphere and the sea, and acknowledged that the authorities were still unsure about whether the nuclear cores and spent fuel were covered with the water needed to cool them and end the crisis. That would by Yukiya Adano, head of the IAEA and Japanese himself. It seems odd not to lead with TEPCO or the Japanese government, but maybe Adano gave the most dramatic comments. The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Saturday that a test of seawater taken on Friday from a monitoring station at the plant showed the level o...

After receiving flowers and surviving a hail of flash bulbs, new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano officially began his four year term and made a short statement (there’s a video there, too, and Amano speaks in English): "The situation surrounding the Agency is stormy now. We have a lot of difficult challenges, but I would like to do my best. I would like to address the global issues that include non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, enhancing nuclear security, addressing the energy need, providing good health care, and water management, among others. I will try to be an impartial, reliable, and professional Director General." He isn’t kidding about stormy, but for now let’s allow Amano his flowers and photo ops. Plenty of time for the storms. --- We found this op-ed at the Wall Street Journal by Richard Lester, head of the department of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, interesting and a little troubling. Despite his title, his interest here is in determining wh...

The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial on nuclear energy this past weekend. It’s pretty weak tea. Senate Republicans and many moderate Democrats are seeking to lard up prospective climate and energy bills with billions of dollars in loan guarantees and other subsidies for nuclear power, even though it makes no sense as a solution to climate change and is a terrible option from an economic, environmental and national-security standpoint. Lard. Pork. Get it? We understand that the Times doesn’t like nuclear energy – and they have every right not to – but the arguments, like the one above, are flatly contradicted by, how shall we call it, reality. Like a lot of absolutist anti-nuclear advocates, the Times gets a little stuck when trying to figure out what to do about climate change, which it clearly views as a problem. And renewable-power plants can be built almost immediately, without the long permitting delays faced by nuclear reactors. Some clean-energy strategies, suc...

Here’s what you get for patting yourself on the back too much, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times : When it comes to highly radioactive nuclear waste, pretty much everybody is a NIMBY. Setting aside the fact that scientists have yet to develop the technology to safely store this waste for the thousands of years it takes to decay, there's the fact that it has to be transported to the disposal site -- mostly by train -- creating the opportunity for spills. Even if the nuclear dump isn't in your backyard, the train tracks might be, and the closer you live to the center of it all, the greater the danger. Little wonder that Nevadans aren't excited by the prospect of a glow-in-the-dark desert. Ulp! We’d note that nuclear “waste” moves around on trains now without spilling. It’s not put in open barrels, after all. See here for more. Pro-nuclear activists, whose ranks are growing as the nation looks for non-carbon-emitting sources of energy, needn't fret too much ...

The LA Times today published an inaccurate and sloppy editorial stating: "McCain's energy plan misleads the public and ignores the risks of nuclear energy." Nearly every claim in this opinion piece on nuclear energy is either grossly exaggerated or wrong. The editorial also makes several qualitative statements unsupported by facts to play into the fears of its readers. Here are a few: McCain claims that nuclear power is clean, safe and cheap, but it is none of the above. Nuclear waste remains hazardous for millenniums, and this country still hasn't developed a practical way to store it. No "practical" way to store the used fuel, huh? I guess the LA Times hasn't heard of Yucca Mountain in Nevada . Congress designated YM, which is in the middle of a desert 100 miles from the nearest city, to store the nuclear industry's used fuel. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has just begun reviewing the application submitted by the Department of Energy to build ...