NEI Nuclear Notes

The quote of the day that's getting passed around this morning at NEI comes from Suzzanne Shelton of the Shelton Group. She was in attendance last week at Fortune's Brainstorm Green 2014 , and shared her top five takeaways from the conference on her blog before the start of the long holiday weekend. Not surprisingly, this aside involved Mike Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute and his ongoing struggle to get other environmentalists to understand that constraining carbon emissions and keeping the lights on is going to mean relying on a diverse set of energy sources that includes nuclear energy: The solar industry doesn't need the Sierra Club. There was a very interesting point/counterpoint discussion between Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, and Michael Shellenberger , president of the Breakthrough Institute. It appears the two men are/were friends, and Shellenberger was practically doing an on-stage intervention with Brune, begging him ...

The following post was submitted by William Skaff, NEI's Director of Policy Development. The Sierra Club and Riverkeeper report, Treading Water, claims that the 316(b) rule governing cooling water intake structures of existing facilities should impose a national standard that requires the installation of cooling towers everywhere, preventing state environmental agencies from determining the best technology available at their sites for minimizing environmental impact. As the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports, “[C]ooling tower technologies consume at least twice as much water as once-through cooling technologies” [emphasis added]. 1 That is, cooling towers consume twice as much of aquatic life habitat as once through cooling systems. Given that climate change modeling indicates freshwater constraints, why would we want a nation of cooling towers? How can doubling water consumption possibly protect fish in a water-constrained future? All cooling systems, inclu...

The Sierra Club, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the Tennessee Environmental Council, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and We the People Inc. on Wednesday asked the NRC for permission to intervene against TVA's bid for an operating license at the Rhea County site [a.k.a. the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant]. The groups contend the Unit 2 reactor could harm water resources, including the Tennessee River, and risk public health and safety because of fundamental weaknesses in the reactor's four-decade-old design. This comes from Knoxnews.com . Apparently, a gathering of environmental groups on one issue is a bit unusual: [Sara] Barczak [of the the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy] believes it is "pretty unique for Tennessee" for several environmental groups to come together on an issue like Watts Bar, but is glad for the support. "We are very pleased to get some of our longtime allies to join in the fight." Sometimes we wonder if...

And let me be the first one to welcome Clean Energy Watch to the Blogosphere. I tripped over them today because -- surprise, surprise -- they decided to write about Harvey Wasserman's anti-nuke video . I really can't think of a better way of welcoming them than passing along this message from Dr. Patrick Moore on what he thinks of the environmental movement today. UPDATE : More from Depleted Cranium . UPDATE : Another Wasserman rebuttal, here .

Over at The Denver Post , columnist Al Knight has cracked the code with another member of the "no solutions" gang on questions of energy and the environment -- in this case, the Sierra Club : More nuclear plants would improve the convenience and therefore the use of electric or hybrid cars, reducing air pollution in the bargain. More electric and hybrid cars would reduce dependence on foreign oil. This trifecta of potential blessings has utterly failed to impress the Sierra Club. A posting on its website (sierraclub.org) flatly states the club "opposes the licensing, construction and operation of new nuclear reactors" pending the achievement of two important objectives (which are impossible to meet): There must be a national and "global" policy to eliminate "energy over- use" and "unnecessary economic growth." It is already obvious that the United States has no power to prohibit "unnecessary economic growth" around the globe. ...