NEI Nuclear Notes

At the Washington Post, editorial board writer Stephen Stromberg surveys the energy scene in Taiwan: Taiwan imports about 98 percent of its energy supplies , mostly the fossil fuels that keep its fluorescent streetscapes flashing and its many factories humming. The Taiwanese are against virtually every form of carbon dioxide-free energy for various reasons. A fourth reactor on the islands faced such massive protest it has never been turned on. But Stromberg is having none of it, coming to the point of his piece: Because climate change is a global problem, the choices of Germany and Japan — both of which have shut down perfectly serviceable reactors in recent years — and Taiwan as well affect the rest of us. Their greenhouse-gas emissions mix into the atmosphere just like everyone else’s. And the big danger is that these nations will encourage the international stigmatization against nuclear power, when tough-mindedness, not self-indulgence, is necessary. The global norm s...

Richard Myers The following post was submitted by Richard Myers, NEI’s vice president of policy development, planning and supplier programs. It addresses the bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement with Taiwan submitted to Congress for review on Jan. 7. The agreement was signed by the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office. The agreement will be reviewed by Congress for 90 days of continuous session before entering into force.  The U.S. nuclear energy industry thanks the Obama Administration for concluding negotiation of an agreement to continue nuclear energy cooperation between the United States and Taiwan. The industry is eager for the renewal of the agreement for cooperation with this longstanding strategic partner. U.S. exports of nuclear technology, equipment and services to Taiwan support thousands of U.S. jobs. Two General Electric nuclear energy facilities are under construction in Taiwan at Lungmen, and other U.S. c...

Nuclear energy isn’t a trap for the unwary. When a country decides to invest in nuclear energy, it does so knowing the risks and benefits. If it invests heavily in nuclear energy – think France, Germany, Russia, China, The U.S. - it has done a good deal of study over many years to determine the value of the decision. Public support for nuclear energy certainly took a significant hit after the accident at  Japans’ Fukushima Daiichi plant, but even that has begun to moderate. Public support for nuclear power appears to have bounced back in the UK after falling sharply in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, a survey showed today. The Ipsos MORI poll of almost 1,000 adults across Britain revealed half of those questioned (50%) supported the building of new nuclear plants in the UK to replace the current generation of reactors which are being shut down. That’s what makes Germany’s decision to close its nuclear energy facilities so fascinating. Of course, you’d expect nuclear ener...

There’s some good news : China has 28 plants under construction, and India is building seven reactors and has plans for 20 more. And despite its proximity to Japan, South Korea, with 21 active nuclear reactors, is moving forward on 18 more. Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are all actively seeking to join the nuclear-power club. But mostly bad: When voters here choose a president and a new legislature on Saturday, their decisions will also determine whether Taiwan pulls the plug on a state-backed nuclear power industry that provides the country with a fifth of its electricity. This is because the challenger Tsai Ing-wen has a good shot of unseating the current President Ma Ying-jeou. I was curious about this, because Ma has overseen a economic boom due to a financial rapprochement with mainland China. Tsai prefers no contact with the mainland. Of course, this is a key issue in any Taiwanese election – much more so than nuclear energy could ever be – and consequently, acc...

This MIT Technology Review article is good but gets off on the wrong foot: Politicians are drawing parallels between the $535 million federal loan guarantee issued to bankrupt solar manufacturer Solyndra and loan guarantees that the U.S. Department of Energy is offering to utilities building new nuclear power plants. But while those nuclear startups could also go bust, experts say U.S. taxpayers are unlikely to take a loss on them. That's because the only reactor projects moving forward are those in a handful of southern states, where laws allow utilities to offload the risk onto state ratepayers. Offload the risk? All the risk of any large electricity project redounds to the ratepayers – because they pay the bills. What those southern companies are doing is using a method that pays for plant construction as it goes along – which means less money borrowed from banks or paid back to banks – and thus less interest charges for ratepayers to eventually absorb. Here’s how So...

Duncan Currie takes a look at various energy sources and the history of their use – using the books Energy Myths and Realities by Vaclav Smil and Power Hungry by Robert Bryce as a basis – and comes to some conclusions that, at the very least, are true : Compared with solar and wind, nuclear and natural-gas energy boast much higher power density and can deliver far greater capacity. Bryce argues that they are the true "fuels of the future," though he concedes that nuclear plants are extremely costly to build and take a long time to become operational. Therefore, he urges a short-term expansion of natural-gas production and a long-term transition to nuclear. Earlier in the piece, Currie’s survey leads him to conclude that large shifts in energy policy are incremental and thus the run up to a nuclear future need not be immediate to be effective. He exaggerates a bit. Southern Co.’s Plant Vogtle reactors are scheduled to go online in 2016 and 2017, which isn’t all that...