NEI Nuclear Notes

From the department of unlikely mind changes , India division: An anti-nuclear forum spearheading the stir against Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant today said they would withdraw their protest if most locals favored the project and demanded that the state government constituted panel visit all villages and towns affected by KNPP. NEI will close its doors as soon as a majority of Americans decide nuclear energy is not for them. The President will resign his position if his approval rating slips below 50 percent. My chance of surviving this disease is slightly less that 50/50. Time to reach for the bottle. Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. But it’s called the  People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy for a reason. So even if what it will win will be a pyrrhic victory, with the taste of ashes on its tongue, I hope it doesn’t quit on the prospect of 51 percent going against its views. We wouldn’t. But it can make you think. --- So shrill you almost have to b...

One of the things that struck me when reading about the bankruptcy of Solyndra and its implication for the federal loan guarantee program is that it seemed so small bore – beyond the entertainment value of any “scandal-worthy” elements attached to it – because it “only” realized the risks associated with the loan guarantee program. That doesn’t impact the social value of loan guarantees as a mechanism for promoting a desirable energy policy. Now, I’m not saying risk is nothing – and Solyndra’s bankruptcy is worth an investigation – but everyone knows that no business is a sure thing.  But, of course, Solyndra didn’t make nuclear facilities, so it was interesting here only insofar as its downfall might impact upon the loan guarantee program. Still - Solyndra had a use as Exhibit A for the argument that solar energy is always a bad investment, but that’s transparently false, so there’s nowhere really to go with that line of attack. It has also been used as an argument agains...

IEEE has published a very strong account of the first 24 hours at Fukushima following the earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Japanese plant. Almost novelistic in depth, it is long and impossible to extract – well, not impossible, I just don’t want to. Read the whole thing here . Terrific job by Elizabeth Strickland. We’ll be seeing some official timelines on the accident before the end of the year – consider this a considerably fleshed out coming attractions trailer. --- The folks at IEEE have also put up an interesting if slightly misleading chart called Fukushima Daiichi’s Messy Future. It aims to show how the cleanup will go at the stricken Japanese plant at the 1 year, 10 year and 100 year marks. The misleading part is that setting the future at 10 and 100 years doesn’t really indicate when the cleanup or disposition of various components – reactor buildings, reactor cores, etc. – will be finished, only that they will be finished by then. Maybe this is fair enough ...