NEI Nuclear Notes

Nuclear power is working for America. On May 22, hundreds of engineers, scientists, plant operators, entrepreneurs and students will gather in Scottsdale, at the annual Nuclear Energy Assembly , to talk about the multiple benefits that our technology provides, and the challenges and opportunities ahead. In preparation, NEI's Matt Wald sat down recently with Lenka Kollar , the director of business strategy at NuScale Power , the company that submitted the first application for design certification of a small modular reactor . Lenka will be a panelist on the first day of the conference. NuScale is one of several companies working on small modular reactors, reactors that can be built in a factory and then shipped by barge, rail or truck to sites around the country or the world. It’s not quite plug-and-play, but it’s closer to it than anything the nuclear industry has done so far. NuScale is further down the path to deployment than others; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rece...

The Nuclear Energy Assembly wrapped up this morning with a panel on nuclear energy and its worth as a low carbon dioxide emitting energy source. Low in this case means zero. That’s been true from the opening of Shippingport in the 50s and remains true. But it has taken on new significance in recent years. The panel was called A Discussion on Climate Change. Panelists included  Philip Sharp, President of Resources for the Future , Christine Todd Whitman, Co-chairman of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition and President of the Whitman Strategy Group , Armond Cohen, Executive Director of the Clean Air Task Force and Dan Reicher, Executive Director of Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University. This is an excellent group, ranging over the topic from their varied perspectives. We’ll provide a few highlights from each speaker, but the exchanges between them are very enlightening as well. You can view the 40 minute session here – if you need somethi...

Did you know that the Nuclear Energy Assembly is this week? NEA is the annual NEI conference and provides a good overview of the previous year’s accomplishments and a preview of what’s coming up next. The conference alternates between Washington DC and other locales, attracting nuclear leaders from around the world and across many related disciplines. This year’s assembly is in Scottsdale, Ariz. which means the heat is considerably drier. The assembly is just about wrapping up now, but it doesn’t hurt to keep up. The twitter page and news wrap-up will provide you with a good sense of the state of the industry in 2014. You can follow the doings on Twitter , hashtag #nea2014 – very busy account right now- and there are some news stories to peruse: Ex-Cameco CEO Grandey Receives Nuclear Industry’s Leadership Award Gerald “Jerry” Grandey, the former chief executive of Cameco Corp., was honored with the industry’s William S. Lee Award for Leadership at NEI’s annual conference thi...

One of the things that nuclear energy plants do well is what factories and plants of all kinds have always done – facilitate a middle class. It’s more complex than that, of course, and we have to deal with the history of unions, the G.I. Bill, entrepreneurship and and a lot else before we get to all the factors that have contributed to the growth and maintenance of a thriving middle class. But let’s just focus on factories, because nuclear facilities are factories of a kind and because a new report focuses on the economic benefits of just one such facility: Iowa’s Duane Arnold Energy Center. The whole report is worth a look, especially because it’s a quick, comprehensible read with a lot of tables to explore but also because it’s chalk full of good data for nuclear advocates. Duane Arnold, like any nuclear plant, is a virtual city of industry and its economic impacts are broad and comprehensive. Explore the press release and the report itself for lots of nuclear goodness. For this p...

Don’t make the wrong assumption. This is great : The Citi Bike Pedal Power Station will be located on the Southeast corner of 7th Avenue and 42nd Street. It will be open to New Yorkers and visitors on Saturday, December 28th and Sunday December 29th from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM and on Monday, December 30th from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Citi Bike brand ambassadors will be on-site taking photos of participating riders. Participants will receive a free Citi Bike day pass and they will be sent a digital photo of them helping power the Ball that they can save and share via social media. The six bikes at the Citi Bike Pedal Power Station will be connected to 12-volt deep cycle batteries. Each bike is expected to generate an average of 75 watts per hour. The Times Square New Year's Eve Ball is lit by more than 30,000 LEDs. Throughout the three-day event, a power meter at the Citi Bike Pedal Power Station will show how much energy has been generated. A lot of this press release is a s...

Greetings from Charlotte, North Carolina, where I've decamped to attend the 2012 Nuclear Energy Assembly at The Westin Charlotte Hotel. Though the conference won't officially begin until tomorrow, participants have already started to arrive in town ahead of tomorrow's opening session. Working with my colleague, John Keeley, I'll be doing my level best to give you some insight into what's happening here via NEI Nuclear Notes as well as our Twitter feeds ( @N_E_I and @NEI_Media ) and our Facebook page . We've also set up a dedicated page on our website , NEI.org. When you follow us on Twitter, please be on the lookout for our hashtag, #NEA2012. That'll be especially important on Wednesday morning when we'll be covering a panel discussion chaired by NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer Tony Pietrangelo on lessons learned from Fukushima. If you'd like to ask a question of the panelists, send us an email at questions@nei.org or simply tweet them with...

NEI will be hosting its annual nuclear industry conference and supplier expo, Nuclear Energy Assembly (NEA), May 21-23 in Charlotte, N.C. This year the conference focuses on “Setting the Agenda” and boasts an interesting lineup of speakers who will be discussing topics from workforce development to new plants to industry actions post-Fukushima. The coveted Top Industry Practice (TIP) awards, which recognize innovation to improve safety, efficiency, and plant performance, will also be awarded during this time. As a sneak preview, I just sat down for two minutes with NEI’s Lisa Steward, senior director of member relations and corporate services, and asked her what we can expect to see next week. Here’s what she had to say: In addition to the conference agenda, more than 30 utilities, suppliers and other industry organizations will be exhibiting at NEA, with booths including information on the latest work being performed in the nuclear energy industry and showcasing some of the awa...

NEI hosted its annual Nuclear Energy Assembly in Washington DC Tuesday and Wednesday with a solid lineup of speakers and plenty of opportunities for attendees to catch up with colleagues and industry pals. Let’s consider the latter analog social media and leave it at that. The speakers represented a topflight assemblage of industry, government and regulatory figures. Happily, none tried “the future is bright for nuclear energy” approach you might reasonably expect at an industry meeting. Everyone looked at the year and years ahead through clear eyes. Here’s a bit of what they had to say: NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko expressed the continued confidence of his agency in the safety of U.S. nuclear energy facilities. “The commission remains confident in the programs of the NRC and in the safety of the nation’s nuclear power plants,” he said, noting that in 2010 “there were no statistically significant adverse trends in industry performance.” Still, Jaczko warned the gathere...