NEI Nuclear Notes

The ANS Nuclear Cafe has put together short and sweet recommendations to the Blue Ribbon Commission from 11 pro-nuclear bloggers. One would think that there would be a consensus on a few issues but there are actually quite a diverse mix of opinions. Below are a few notable nuggets: … We must think beyond just temporary storage and permanent disposal—recycling is an essential part of building a more sustainable fuel cycle. Interim storage facilities are only part of the solution. Without a complete strategy for managing the nation’s used fuel, we are only “kicking the can down the road.” - Jarret Adams http://us.arevablog.com/ … I am a lifelong procrastinator who lives by the motto, “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow and never do at all what you can put off indefinitely.” I am thus happy to see that the BRC has apparently reached the conclusion that America does not have a nuclear waste crisis. Instead, we have a used nuclear fuel resource opportunity. - Rod ...

Check out this very descriptive video produced by the good folks at AREVA on how they recycle used nuclear fuel , it's definitely worth watching!

The used fuel repository at Yucca Mountain has found itself in a bit of a corner. The Obama administration intends to withdraw all funds for it except what is necessary to allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to evaluate its license application. Obama had stated a preference for intermediate storage at the plant sites while trying to figure something out, as expressed here : I believe a better short-term solution is to store nuclear waste on-site at the reactors where it is produced, or at a designated facility in the state where it is produced, until we find a safe, long-term disposal solution that is based on sound science. Which is pretty much what has been happening anyway. Yucca Mountain is based on sound science, so Obama presumably means sounder science. --- The scaling back of the project at least allows the politics around it to recede as well. While Senate majority leader Harry Reid generally supports expanding the use of nuclear energy, he never liked Yucca ...

American Thinker lays out the Gang of Ten's initiatives for developing nuclear energy in the US: A new faction within the US Senate, the "Gang of 10", have put forward a set of energy policy proposals that they see as a compromise between the "soft energy path" types like Speaker Pelosi and the "hard energy" hawks like Newt Gingrich. ... First, they want to subsidize "workforce training." ... Secondly, they propose to encourage research and development of nuclear fuel recycling ... [And third,] the real red meat in the proposal is the tax change to the depreciation schedule for new nuclear power plants. Check it out .

AREVA has been notably good with their outreach ads. Here's an animated piece extolling the virtues of nuclear energy through the medium of two yakky fuel pellets. Perhaps a little static in the manner of much Flash animation, but a very nicely produced piece that hits its points without fuss. AREVA is a member of NEI, so this post could easily be construed as a bit of logrolling, but good is good.

Details from David Akin .

Kevin Smith, NAM 's director of research, is in France on a trip sponsored by NEI to visit AREVA's nuclear processing center at La Hague. Click here for more details.

From Energy Daily (Subscription Only): In next year's budget request, the Energy Department is planning to ask Congress for authority to take title to spent nuclear fuel stockpiled at closed U.S. nuclear plants and to reprocess it, most likely in France, sources tell The Energy Daily. DOE officials in recent years have resisted congressional pressure to move spent fuel stockpiled at U.S. reactors to regional storage facilities, saying the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) bars them from taking title to the fuel until the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada is granted a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license. Now, sources say, the department is planning to ask Congress to amend the NWPA to remove that limitation as part of its fiscal 2009 budget request to Congress, which DOE is in the early stages of preparing. However, DOE's goal is apparently to transport it for reprocessing, most likely at La Hague in France, not to move the spent fuel to regional storage facilit...

Last week, a group of NEI staffers took a group of representatives from think tanks, business and organized labor on a fact finding trip to France concerning that country's domestic nuclear energy program. One of the individuals on the trip was Matt Bennett, Vice President of Public Affairs for Third Way . He shared the following note with us: I had the opportunity to travel to France to visit French nuclear facilities and meet with leading officials of the French nuclear industry with NEI. I found the trip and meetings enormously helpful – it significantly broadened my understanding of nuclear power, issues, particularly those relating to nuclear waste materials. Our visit to tour the Areva reprocessing plant was especially instructive. Actually seeing the transport, handling, cooling, reprocessing and storage of nuclear waste had a huge impact on all of us who were first-timers to La Hague. The level of skill that the French have developed, exemplified by the astonishingly low...