NEI Nuclear Notes

EWeek has up a roundup of electric, hybrid or incredibly fuel efficient cars that will be shown at the 2009 New York Auto Show and, presumably, at many auto shows around the country over the next year. You know what the first one will be : The third-generation Prius hybrid vehicle has more "oomph" under the hood than previous iterations, with an expanded 1.8-liter engine, 160 hp and roughly 50 miles per gallon for combined city/highway driving. But how about: The Mini E is powered by a 150 kw (201 hp) electric motor fed by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. The car has a range of 156 miles "under ideal conditions," and 104 miles "under normal conditions." The BMW Group’s public field trial will use 500 cars; actual mass production, however, could be a long time away. Or: The Karma’s sleek chassis moves from Point A to B utilizing a hybrid "Q Drive," featuring a gasoline engine that powers a generator that charges a lithiu...

The purchase of a major asset, whether a car or a new power plant, frequently involves a trade off between the purchase price and operating costs. A column by Joseph B. White published in The Wall Street Journal's Eyes on the Road column on June 16, 2008 titled, " Still Waiting for Hybrids to be the Smartest Buy ", updates us on the trade-off between the higher purchase price and lower fuel costs of hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius . White shows that, even with gasoline at $4 per gallon, a typical consumer would have to drive the hybrid vehicle for more than seven years to begin to realize net savings compared to the non-hybrid alternative. Said differently, if the consumer expects to keep the vehicle for more than seven years, purchasing the hybrid could make sense economically. Interestingly, the article also mentions some of the non-economic reasons buyers offer to explain their willingness to pay a premium for a hybrid. Among them are a desire to be "greener...

Jay Zawatsky proposes an energy plan that will solve a great many problems. At it's center is nuclear energy: How is nuclear power the cure to all that ails us? Here’s how: We import ten million barrels of oil every day. That costs us one billion dollars every day, adding $365 billion each year to our trade deficit. Nearly all of that imported petroleum goes into transportation fuels. Replacing all of the imported-oil horsepower with an equivalent amount of nuclear-generated power eliminates nearly 30 percent of the trade deficit. But how do you run cars on nuclear power? The answer can be found in two words: “hydrogen” and “hybrids.” Amusingly, the focus on nuclear energy proves a stalking horse for hydrogen production. This seems an odd approach and the author is identified only as chief executive officer of havePower , LLC. And what is that? According to its website: havePower is the nation’s leading hydrogen fuel cell systems design,...

Following a press conference announcing GM's new plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, a blogger from AUTOSAVANT was able to ask GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz a couple of questions. The following exchange caught my eye: I’m sure you’re familiar with the report from the Department of Energy that stated that the existing utility grid in the U.S. could accommodate approximately 140 million plug-in hybrids right now (our reporter was dizzy from all the new iron around him - the actual number stated by the DOE in the report was 180 million). Has GM been in contact with the DOE or any of the utility companies regarding this conclusion? No, although our research gives a smaller number than the DOE report, but it’s still a pretty big number. That’s the great thing about the Volt or an EV, it runs on something that is cheap and readily available in this country, doesn’t require pumps, pipelines, you know? It’s an even better situation in other countries like France; they have nuclear power that su...

Over at CNN.com , Rachel Oliver is taking a closer look at hybrid gas/electric vehicles (like the Toyota Prius ) and the impact they could make in helping to constrain greenhouse gas emissions. It's an interesting piece, but she gets one thing very, very wrong: A US Department of Energy ( DoE ) study found that 73% of the nearly 217 million vehicles on America's roads could be charged with existing power plants to generate the electricity to charge the cars - and greenhouse gases would fall by 27% as a result. The problem is, existing power plants often means coal or nuclear power, so "dirty" energy powering "clean" cars kind of misses the point. The DoE study also found -- not surprisingly - that particulate emissions would increase with the power grid having to charge all these vehicles. Actually, it's Oliver who is missing the point. As we've mentioned time and again, nuclear reactors don't emit any greenhouse gases , so linking them with...

From the IHT : Would you feel better about the environment by filling up on electricity generated by a nuclear plant than plain, old gasoline? That’s one of the questions Toyota may face as part of a partnership with Electricite de France announced Wednesday at a glitzy Toyota showroom on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. The companies are setting up a “smart network” of plug-in points and household sockets that would charge users for filling up on French electricity, most of which comes from the country’s dozens of nuclear plants. Unlike coal, gas and oil plants, nuclear emits virtually zero carbon dioxide, although it does leave radioactive waste that troubles many citizens and environmentalists. By charging cars at night, drivers would emit virtually no CO2 because that’s when nuclear plants are providing almost all the country’s base load of electricity, said Pierre Gadonneix, EDF’s chief executive. I'd be willing to plug my car in at night? How about you?

From Green Car Congress : Two studies released by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) show that widespread use of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in the United States could significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and has the potential to provide small but significant improvements in ambient air quality in most areas of the US. Widespread adoption of PHEVs could reduce GHG emissions from vehicles by more than 450 million metric tons annually in 2050—equivalent to removing 82.5 million passenger cars from the road. Cumulative GHG emissions reductions from 2010 to 2050 could reach 10.3 billion metric tons under the most aggressive scenarios for the development of a lower-carbon electrical infrastructure and PHEV penetration. The analysis is the first to combine models of the US electric system and transportation sector with atmospheric air quality models to account for the future evolution of both sectors in te...