NEI Nuclear Notes

The following is a guest post by Ted Jones, Director of International Supplier Relations for NEI. From August 4-6, heads of state from Africa came to Washington for the 2014 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit hosted by President Obama. Yesterday, NEI hosted a delegation of African leaders from Niger, Namibia and South Africa to discuss nuclear energy development in their countries. As Africa strives to develop new sources of abundant, clean electricity, nuclear energy holds great promise. President Mahamadou Issoufo of Niger and Ambassador Maman Sidikou. Africa’s Power Gap According to the World Bank. The 48 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, with a combined population of 800 million, generate roughly the same amount of power as Spain , with a population of only 45 million. Per capita power consumption – just a tenth of what is common elsewhere in the developing world – is actually falling due to lagging development and population growth. Africa cannot close its power gap with f...

What can be happening in editorials these days? Is nuclear energy going pear shaped under the weight of – economics? natural gas? gastric distress? No, none of these. Actually, the views of different news outlets and their op-ed writers is not so bad. Take this from NJ dot com , a website shared by several state papers (the op-ed comes from the Times of Trenton): There is good reason to give nuclear power a fresh look. It can replace fossil-fuel-burning power plants for generating electricity 24/7, avoiding air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions that could contribute to global warming. This is nothing new to readers here, but we certainly purr when we hear it in the mainstream press anyway. Now, this is interesting, an argument that really does tend to dwell among the nuclear friendly only: There is a humanitarian imperative to using nuclear power. More than 2 billion people still lack access to electricity for basic needs such as clean water, cooking, sanitat...

Words to live by: Not only would a nuclear expansion create mining and construction jobs, it would also open opportunities in the scientific sphere. "We have sufficient local capacity in terms of scientists and scientific companies and we can capitalize from our own intellectual capacity instead of sourcing from abroad," she pointed out. She is South African Energy Minister Dipuo Peters. The main thrust of the story is that she wants to reassure coal miners that their jobs will not disappear and, anyway, there are plenty of uranium mining jobs. But along the way, you get some interesting nuggets : South Africa plans to generate 9.6 GW of electricity from nuclear energy by 2030. The integrated resources plan also calls for 6.3 GW of new baseload coal capacity. Really? Good for nuclear, but that’s a lot of new coal. When you look at the integrated resource plan and the studies that informed it, you find out why.  --- In the study that provides the engine...

We always have time for some good news: A three-judge panel at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) denied a filing by Massachusetts to stop the relicensing of Entergy's 685-megawatt Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Massachusetts. This had never seemed a good bet for Massachusetts, which had based its contention on events at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi. Since the NRC is working to apply lessons learned from Fukushima to the American fleet, the state’s contention seemed irrelevant. But – there are further steps to be taken: The NRC said the state could appeal the ASLB ruling against its Fukushima contention to the five-member, presidentially appointed Commission that oversees the NRC. The ASLB is is the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board , which handles these issues. It was the ASLB that created a minor tempest when it ruled the Department of Energy could not withdraw its license application for Yucca Mountain from the NRC. This is smaller in scope, but an important step to...

A certain cognitive dissonance : Building new nuclear power stations will make it harder for the UK to switch to renewable energy, said one of the top German officials leading the country's nuclear energy phase-out. And why might that be? Jochen Flasbarth, president of the Environmental Protection Agency in Germany, who advises the German government, said: "We are not missionaries, and every country will have to find its own way in energy policy, but it is obvious that nuclear plants are too inflexible and cannot sufficiently respond to variations in wind or solar generation, only gas [power stations] do." “Too inflexible.” That’s a new one. What Flasbarth is trying to say is that nuclear energy doesn’t give renewable energy enough room to play a significant role in energy policy, but what he actually conveys is that nuclear energy provides many of the benefits of renewable energy, but can run at 90 to 92 percent capacity rather than the 30 to 35 percent c...

An early release of a draft of an NRC report contains good news that clearly isn’t what some folks, however perversely, might have hoped: The conclusion, to be published in April after six years of work, is based largely on a radical revision of projections of how much and how quickly cesium 137, a radioactive material that is created when uranium is split, could escape from a nuclear plant after a core meltdown. And that conclusion? [A] meltdown at a typical American reactor would lead to far fewer deaths than previously assumed. By far fewer, it means close to zero. Now, I’d rather wait until the final version is released next April to discuss it in detail, but what is interesting now is that it was the Union of Concerned Science that requested this version of the report via the Freedom of Information Act.  I cannot imagine the report’s conclusions are what the group expected, and having gotten it, they just deny it. Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist with...

Let’s call it Partnership Friday : Japan has submitted a bid to construct a nuclear energy power plant in Turkey through the mediation of Toshiba, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yıldız has said. And the Turks seem amenable: “We see this offer from Japan as an important bid in terms of our efforts to construct nuclear power plants in Turkey. However, we told them that we cannot give them a definite answer before concluding our negotiations with South Korea,” Yıldız said. But if the South Koreans lose? Well: Korea signed an agreement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy with South Africa Friday, completing the necessary procedure to make Korean firms eligible to access the nuclear energy market there. The announcement came about a month after South Africa announced plans to build more nuclear reactors to cope with soaring demand for electricity. Oddly, South Africa doesn’t seem to acknowledge two Koreas. Maybe the South Koreans call it Afric...

There are certain press releases one doesn’t expect to see these days. This one from South Africa’s leading electric utility Eskom would be fairly high on the list: Eskom has begun the process of building a new coal-fired power station, the first of its kind in twenty years. The Medupi Power Station, which means “rain that soaks parched lands” symbolizes economic relief to the area where it will be constructed, and was formerly known as Project Alpha and Project Charlie. At least it won’t be acid rain that soaks those parched lands, but still, it seems rather late in the calendar for a large scale coal-based project. And this is a big plant, comprising six units with 4,788 MW installed capacity between them. Naturally, we were a bit curious about where the money came from for the project: The World Bank yesterday [April 8] approved a $3.75 billion loan to help South Africa build one of the world's largest coal-fired power plants, a decision long expected but bitt...

From the World Nuclear News : Japan's Toshiba Corporation expects orders for at least 33 nuclear power reactors by 2015, and plans to expand all its nuclear businesses over the period to 2020, according to the company's president. The predictions were made earlier this month in Strategies for Growth 2008 , the company's outline of the business directions planned for all its divisions. In a question and answer session, the company said that 33 units could be a conservative estimate, adding "we believe it is possible that the number of orders might increase." The Toshiba presentation does not say where it expects the orders for 33 units to come from but highlights the US, China, South Africa and the UK as countries with plans for new projects and where it is making sales efforts. The company plans to more than double its current annual sales target for the nuclear division, to ¥1 trillion ($9.6 billion) in 2020. ...

Eskom has invited AREVA and Westinghouse to submit bids .

By now I'm sure many of you have read the disturbing news coming out of South Africa concerning the incident at Pelindaba . For a solid roundup of all the events, click here . Thankfully, the NRC is ever vigilant about plant security here in the U.S.

Over the course of the past several weeks, I've noticed a lot of anti-nuclear activity coming out of South Africa. Now, by way of the blog Commentary , I see that it's bled through to the national television network there . Fortunately, not everyone is buying what they're selling : More importantly though, one thing the anti-nuclear lobby in SA can never really explain is what we should be using instead of nuclear power. Because after all, this is all about choices: We still have a serious need to generate huge amounts of electricity, the only question is how we’re going to provide it. The standard alternative provided by environmental groups (and Carte Blanche) is to use wind or solar power instead, but this is like claiming you could use bamboo to build skyscrapers. Wind energy and solar power, while they have their place, are far too inefficient and unreliable to provide the continuous and reliable base-load power we need, and at best can only supplement traditional po...

On September 25 at the inaugural United Association Tripartite Conference in Mokena, Illinois, Bill Hite, General President of the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters , delivered a message to politicians all across the U.S.: "The Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Union will only support political candidates who support nuclear power." Thanks, Bill. It's good to know who your friends are. Here's hoping the message gets out. UPDATE : Organized labor's support for new nuclear is a global phenomenon, with recent support coming from Scotland and South Africa .

Details from The Times (South Africa).

Details from the Mail and Guardian . More here . UPDATE : More from The Sowetan .

Details from Engineering News (South Africa).

Columnist Melanie Gosling has taken a look at South Africa's energy budget, and she doesn't like what she sees: Eskom has a budget of R6-billion for nuclear energy, but a mere R4,5-million for renewable energy. This vast difference in South Africa's energy spending was highlighted at the Renewable Energy and Climate Change conference on Thursday, hosted by the Western Cape's department of environmental affairs and development planning. Yaw Afrane-Okese, renewable energy specialist at the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), told delegates that part of Nersa's job was to review Eskom's budget. He said anyone who compared the amount Eskom spent on nuclear energy with the amount it spent on renewable energy, would be "amazed". "If you compare this (R4,5m on renewables) to the billions on nuclear energy, really, there is nothing green here, far from green," Afrane-Okese said. On the contrary, I think there's plenty of green in S...

Details from The Herald (Port Elizabeth, SA).

Details from All Africa.com .

Details from the Cape Times .