NEI Nuclear Notes

Tony Pietrangelo Later today, Tony Pietrangelo, NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer, will testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee concerning " NRC’s Implementation of the Fukushima Near-Term Task Force Recommendations and other Actions to Enhance and Maintain Nuclear Safety (click 'Live Hearing' at link beginning at 9:00 a.m. U.S. EST to watch webcast).”  The first panel will be comprised of the five current members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, including outgoing Chairman Allison Macfarlane. Pietrangelo will appear in the second panel in the afternoon, along with Daniel Hirsch of UC-Santa Cruz and Sam Blakeslee, a former California state senator who was once a member of the state's Seismic Safety Commission. A preview of Pietrangelo's oral testimony follows. America’s 100 nuclear power plants provide approximately 20 percent of our electricity and nearly two-thirds of our carbon-free electricity. They produce that electric...

The other day, we listened to the hearings for the NRC commissioners - there are three open slots - but did not follow up with the TVA candidates later that afternoon. Maybe we should have : During the hearing, each of the nominees gave a statement and was questioned by the committee members about their suitability for the role. Each nominee said that they backed TVA's use of nuclear energy. You can read all the quotes - and who said them - at the links but here's a taster: "In the short run, additional generation needs to come almost surely from new nuclear." "I am pro-nuclear and I do think it needs to be part of the solution." To support economic growth, I think we have to have low-cost power, and that additional power may have to be through nuclear." "We've got some old dirty coal plants and, even if we were to miss the call for increased demand, I think nuclear must be part of our solution." And that's a clean swee...

As you might expect, the second of three days of the hearings on the climate change bill saw some themes emerge. First, the tenor more-or-less avoids talking about specific energy generators even when representatives of relevant companies are present. Natural gas probably picked up the most traction and even that was fairly muted. Second, many of the participants worry that Congress will not act and carbon reduction will be mandated instead via Environmental Protection Agency regulations. Some say waiting for either a legislative or regulatory remedy causes enough uncertainly to forestall investment. Here’s Ralph Izzo, Chairman, CEO and President of the Public Service Enterprise Group  (PSEG), on this issue (our transcipt): Some companies are now making low-carbon investment choices, particularly those like PSEG that are already subject to carbon regulation. But uncertainty about a national program slows our transition to a green economy, complicating investment decisions a...

Just in case you thought we’d have to wait a bit for some comment on the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill introduced yesterday, think again. Here’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): “We’ve got to be honest with ourselves if we are truly going to decrease emissions,” Murkowski said.  “Nuclear energy must be a part of our energy mix if we are going to do so.” We guess some of our readers consider that Republican boilerplate, but remember that the bill itself is very friendly in its preamble to nuclear energy. Since Murkowski is on a committee that gets a crack at this – Energy and Natural Resources - look to her (among others, of course) to push for the nuclear imperative. --- And she’s not the only one. Here’s Sen. John McCain (R—Ariz.): The bill introduced Wednesday by Sens. John Kerry , [D-Mass.], and Barbara Boxer , [D-Calif.], has "nothing about nuclear power," McCain complained in the interview, which was part of the "First Draft of History" forum ...

The Senate Environment and Public Works committee took up the energy bill this morning and honed in quickly on nuclear energy – honed in on it so insistently, in fact, that if President Barack Obama really wants bipartisan support for the bill – which squeaked by in the House – speaking out for a more prominent role for nuclear energy might be a way to achieve it. But Republicans, as we’ll see, were not the only ones positively focused on nuclear. The panel included Energy Secretary Steven Chu, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The latter two became a little stranded with only a few questions asked of them, especially Salazar, but these hearings tend to go where they will. Let’s start with opening statements from the committee members and our old friend, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.): “Why are we ignoring the cheap energy solution to global warming, which is nuclear energy. If what we're really intereste...

Some interesting testimony from Thomas Friedman in his appearance earlier today before the Senate committee on Environment and Public Works . The hearing was titled, " Investing in Green Technology as a Strategy for Economic Recovery ." Think about the scale. I give just one example. Nate Lewis of Cal Tech uses this number. We currently, the world currently uses about 13 terawatts, 13 trillion watts of energy. Between now and 2050 we’re going to double that to 26 terawatts, 26 trillion watts. If we want to go from 13 to 26 [terawatts] as a world, accommodate the growth of China and India, and not double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere – which is the red line from pre-industrial period, which is the red line beyond which climate scientists believe all the climate monsters will come out of the closet—if we want to do that, we basically, we have to take 13 terawatts and get rid of them, through energy efficiency. And of the new 13 terawatts, we need to produce 80% of that ...

On Tuesday it was the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources holding a nuclear energy-related hearing , yesterday the Committee on Environment and Public Works served as Senate host. The webcast of the hearing, “ Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Licensing and Relicensing Processes for Nuclear Plants ,” can be seen here . Appearing before the committee: Dr. Dale Klein - Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Dr. Gregory B. Jaczko - Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Dr. Peter B. Lyons - Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Ms. Kristine L. Svinicki - Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mr. Hubert T. Bell - Inspector General, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mr. David A. Christian - President and Chief Nuclear Officer, Dominion Mr. Anthony R. Pietrangelo- Vice President for Regulatory Affairs, Nuclear Energy Institute Mr. Richard Webster - Legal Director, Eastern Environmental Law Center Dr. Joseph Romm - Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Mr. H. Jo...