NEI Nuclear Notes

Ted Jones The following is a guest post by Ted Jones, Director of International Supplier Relations for NEI. For several months now, we've been shining a spotlight on the dispute in Washington over the reauthorization of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. But this week, the focus of this battle is moving outside the Beltway far away from Washington-based Tea Party groups to where real jobs are at stake - in this case on Wednesday morning in Charlotte where businesses from across the Carolinas are going to rally to support the bank and the work it does promoting exports in the region. The event will take place at the Westin Charlotte Hotel beginning at 8:30 a.m. and will include businesses from all over the Carolinas. Already confirmed to be in attendance and participating are companies like Duke Energy, Holtec, CB&I, Fluor, Curtiss-Wright, GE Aviation and Boeing. We also expect a number of smaller nuclear energy suppliers - companies who would be forced to start laying off emp...

Nuclear energy plants are financial boons in all kinds of ways – both directly, in terms of the people they hire and their contribution to the tax base; and indirectly, through their support of the supply chain and all the businesses that benefit from having a nuclear energy plant in their midst. That’s obvious enough and true of almost any large physical plant. There’s another economic consideration, too, that one nuclear reactor can produce a lot of new electricity. Sometimes, a new reactor will take the place of an older electricity generator – a coal plant here, a gas works there – but sometimes, more is just more . With the construction of base-load nuclear plants at the Summer Nuclear Station, South Carolina will have ample electric capacity to attract more companies like Bridgestone and BMW while also protecting the environment. This combination will put South Carolina in the driver’s seat for an expanding economy in the years ahead. Op-ed writer Mel Bruckner points out i...

NEI’s Top Industry Practice Awards recognize innovation in the nuclear energy industry. Presented at NEI’s annual conference, the awards honor accomplishments that help the industry improve safety, streamline processes and increase efficiency. In a special series of articles this week, our publication Nuclear Energy Overview highlights the challenges and successes of five winners. This year’s Westinghouse Combustion Engineering Award went to a gargantuan project— NextEra Energy completed the largest extended power uprate project in history, adding more than 700 megawatts of additional generating capacity across four reactors in Florida and two in Wisconsin. With more than 30 million hours worked to complete the uprate, NextEra’s project called on a workforce of thousands, an economic boon to the communities that host the facilities. Terry Jones, vice president of nuclear power uprates, stressed the importance of instilling in the workers the nuclear energy industry’s safety cul...

NEI’s Top Industry Practice Awards recognize innovation in the nuclear energy industry. Presented at NEI’s annual conference, the awards honor accomplishments that help the industry improve safety, streamline processes and increase efficiency. In a special series of articles this week, our publication Nuclear Energy Overview highlights the challenges and successes of five winners. Rachel Doss’ team at Duke Energy’s Oconee nuclear energy facility in South Carolina earned the 2013 AREVA Vendor Award, but its project—developing and implementing guidelines for inspecting and evaluating pressurized water reactor internals—was many years in the making. Rather than scheduling reactor internal inspections over multiple refueling outages, Duke’s winning team performed one of the industry’s largest-ever reactor vessel inspections, examining more than 6,500 reactor components during one outage at the Oconee 1 reactor. Its scope required planning with vendors, performing numerous risk ass...

Earlier this month, the Associated Press ran a story on its national wire concerning what it described as rising construction costs at America's new nuclear plants : America's first new nuclear plants in more than a decade are costing billions more to build and sometimes taking longer to deliver than planned, problems that could chill the industry's hopes for a jumpstart to the nation's new nuclear age. A couple of days later, I had a chance to spend a few minutes with Steve Byrne, SCE&G 's President, Generation and COO, to ask him some questions about the topic. SCE&G's parent company, SCANA Corporatio n, is building a pair of new reactors at the VC Summer site in South Carolina (click here for the latest progress report from SCANA). I started off by asking Steve why claims that costs were spiraling out of control at VC Summer and Plant Vogtle in Georgia were incorrect: I also had the chance to ask Steve about how "construction work in pr...

South Carolinian and Missourian leaders came forward this week to tout the economic benefits of new nuclear reactors, a sign of their growing support for further developing new plants in their states. The positive statements come at a time when the bidding continues to heat up for investment funds from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to participate in the first public-private partnership to develop and deploy small nuclear reactors (SMRs) . Today, S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley held a joint press conference with representatives from Holtec International, SCE&G and AREVA on how small reactor technology could bring additional jobs and manufacturing to the Southern state. The Aiken Standard reports : Deployment of SMRs at SRS [ Savannah River Site ] would "offer South Carolina a unique opportunity to become a leader in the next generation of nuclear reactor manufacturing," according to a press release from the governor's office. Savannah River Nuclear Solution...

 Unrattled : South Carolina Electric and Gas Co. said it expects to have a federal license by January to operate two new nuclear reactors it wants to build in Fairfield County. The State newspaper reported SCE&G received a letter Wednesday from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission saying the utility's application is complete and a final safety report should be ready in September. The NRC then would have four months to hold a public hearing and issue the licenses for the nearly $10 billion project. SCE&G provides a little more detail about the two reactors planned at V.C. Summer: In the letter, the NRC staff concluded that SCE&G’s application for a combined operating license is complete. The revised schedule supports the issuance of the Final Safety Evaluation Report (FSER) in September 2011. As the NRC letter stated “The objective for completion of the mandatory hearing, including issuance of a final Commission decision, should be no later than four months...

April Fools? Maybe not: Nuclear energy is, for the most part, clean. Though not inexpensive to build, power plants do provide energy at a reasonable cost to consumers for many years. In remarks made recently during a meeting with national, regional and local news media Ray Golden, TVA’s senior manager of nuclear communication, said, “You cannot abandon use of this fuel.” Golden is correct. Nuclear energy has to be in the mix as does coal, natural gas, wind and solar energy. This is from the Scottsboro (Ala.) Daily Sentinel. A little more, explaining the TVA connection: After meeting with TVA and NRC officials numerous times over the years and recently being involved in a tour at TVA’s oldest nuclear facility I’m [Ken Bonner is the writer] convinced that nuclear power must play a larger role in the future. It must be regulated and icensees diligent in operating and maintaining the plants. “Our nuclear reactors at TVA have been safely operated for years,” TVA chief nuclear officer P...

The Small Business Administration recently awarded 10 contracts (out of 173 entries) to the winners in its Innovative Economies initiative, a pilot program to: support small business’ participation in regional economic “clusters” – collaborations between small businesses, the public sector, economic development and other organizations. Here’s what SBA Administrator Karen Mills says about the program. “Maximizing a region’s economic assets is one of the best ways to create long term job growth, and that’s what SBA’s new Innovative Economies pilot initiative is doing,” Mills said. Well, we’ll see if it does that, but it’s a laudable goal. We note it here due to one of the winners . South Carolina’s Council on Competitiveness (New Carolina), an organization that works to increase South Carolina’s competitiveness by developing industry clusters, has been awarded one of 10 “Innovative Economies” contracts … for its Carolinas’ Nuclear Cluster initiative. And here’s ...

Among other things (no doubt), House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) sat down with South Carolina Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Otis Rawl and discussed energy and economic issues. This exchange on CEO Corner jumped out, Rawl : Do you think nuclear, in, from a national level, is a viable alternative? Clyburn : It is. It absolutely is. All we have to do is to step up and make the case. I have been unabashed in my support for nuclear energy. That's about 54% of the energy we produce in this state. We don't consume all of that. We export some of it. But it is a very critical part of the economy in South Carolina. And I do believe that there's much more support in the Congress for nuclear being a significant part of the sources going forward . [Emphasis added.] The entire interview can be seen here . (The nuclear nugget appears at the 3:05 mark.)

We highlighted the Washington Post’s response to the Yucca Mountain situation because the paper carries some weight and helps set the agenda for the news media. But other editorials can drop the responsible judicious pose and just let ‘er rip : President Obama's decision to abandon the national nuclear waste disposal site at Yucca Mountain, Nev., is a breathtakingly irresponsible dismissal of a vital project on which billions already have been spent. It extends a security risk at dozens of temporary waste disposal sites around the nation and threatens to cripple the future nuclear development needed to advance national energy independence. So there! We don’t really agree that maintaining the fuel at sites is a massive security threat – it’s an issue plants wrestled to the ground a long time ago, with a lot of extra attention paid to it after 9/11/01. And the developing attitude seems to be that leaving nuclear out of the energy mix is a non-starter. But heck, they do kno...

S.C. Politics Today poses an interesting question: The chance juxtaposition of the Nevada and South Carolina primaries creates a Yucca problem for presidential candidates. In Nevada, the Democrats have been competing with each other to claim they are the most opposed to sending nuclear waste to the proposed Yucca Mountain facility there. Next week, those same candidates will be in South Carolina, the state that would benefit the most from the opening of the Yucca Mountain depository. For years, federal officials have pledged nuclear waste stored at the Savannah River Site near Barnwell would be shipped to Yucca Mountain. At a campaign stop in Nevada on Thursday, Democratic contender Barack Obama responded to a new Clinton radio ad that accused him of having financial ties to supporters of the Yucca Mountain site. "I have said over and over again I'm against Yucca," Obama said. "I'm against Yucca Mountain. I think the science is not there. I've never, I'...

A member of the South Carolina legislature ponders the question .

From the AP : Republican presidential hopeful John McCain says the United States needs to reduce its dependence on troubled parts of the world for oil. McCain told about 200 people at the Center for Hydrogen Research in Aiken Monday the United States should look to hydrogen and nuclear power as alternatives. The Arizona senator says more nuclear power has been stymied by politics. He says an endless political fight over the storage of old nuclear fuel has made it virtually impossible to build a new plant. McCain called nuclear energy safe and non-polluting.

Off the wire .

Say hello to The Nautilus Forum . And thanks to them for digging up this clip of John Edwards stating his opposition to nuclear energy at a campaign event in South Carolina: Again, that's South Carolina, a state that gets 52% of its electricity from nuclear energy .

The following comes from a campaign rally held in South Carolina :

Just off the wire : Fluor Corporation (NYSE: FLR) today announced the formation of a dedicated business line within its Power Group to address the next generation nuclear power market. Fluor has prepared for this emerging market through the combined talent, activities and resources in both its Government and Power Groups. The nuclear business line will be headquartered in Fluor’s Greenville, S.C. office. Looks like somebody is bullish on a future for nuclear energy.

At a luncheon hosted by our friends at NAM , House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC), offered an unqualified endorsement of nuclear energy .