NEI Nuclear Notes

The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan has an informative brochure on Japan’s current and future energy plans (pdf). It provides stats on the 10 companies that service Japan, the country’s long-term supply and demand outlook, lifecycle CO2 emissions, and the hourly supply and demand electricity curve. A few images from the pdf are pasted below. This is just some of it. There are tables on all of the power plants by fuel type, maps of the locations of power plants and transmission grid, details on their nuclear fuel cycle and much more. It’s an excellent short and sweet piece on the country worth checking out.

Last May, Public Utilities Fortnightly published an independent analysis by Navigant Consulting that provided some great comparisons between various energy technologies. One of the comparisons is the number of jobs created on an equivalent basis. To analyze the economic and workforce contributions of various energy technologies, the authors began by reviewing the contribution of permanent direct local jobs per megawatt of installed electric capacity for the most common types of generation technologies… On top of jobs, the analysis calculated the workforce impacts from each technology. Here’s what it said about nuclear: Nuclear plants create the largest workforce annual income based on both large capacity and being a labor-intensive technology (see Figure 3). The average wages in the nuclear industry compare favorably with other power generation technologies. While nuclear power plant operator wages may approach $50 an hour, the large support staff and security force wa...

According to EPA’s core policy analysis of Senators Kerry and Lieberman’s proposed legislation released yesterday , nuclear energy is projected to generate 44.2% of the US’ electricity in 2050, more than any other source. Total nuclear capacity is projected to more than double from 101 gigawatts in 2010 to 256 gigawatts in 2050 (assuming 90% capacity factor). This means that if all existing operating plants in the US retire at 60 years, the US will need to build another 253 GW or 181 new plants (assuming 1,400 MW each). There are not many quotes for nuclear in the two reports at the link above, but the good numbers below are found in their data tables in the zip folder. US Electricity Generation Stats IGCC – integrated gasification combined cycle coal plants, CCS – carbon capture and sequestration, MSW – municipal solid waste, CC – combined cycle gas plants For comparison, EPA’s analysis last summer of the Waxman/Markey House bill projected the need for 262 GW of nuclear power ...