NEI Nuclear Notes

Courtesy Wikimedia Commons It's a quiet Thursday morning in Washington, so I decided we ought to play a game of "Who said it?" Here's today's quote: "To be sure, nuclear power is the largest source of low-carbon electricity in the country, a major selling point." Leave your guess in the comments. No Googling! Back with an answer this afternoon. UPDATE : We're running this contest on Facebook too. No correct answer yet. AND THE ANSWER IS ... Elliott Negin. Ironically, Elliott is the Director of News & Commentary for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Mr. Negin wrote that line on June 2, 2014 in the Huffington Post.

Our friends over at the Union of Concerned Scientists have always had an interesting approach to nuclear energy. It claims to support it - if reactors could be, you  know, safer, less expensive and more secure. You could call it the love of 1000 razors, each cut inflicting another wound, but all for the benefit of nuclear energy. So knowing that UCS has a new report on small reactors leads one to suspect that the conclusion will be that that these sub-350 megawatt reactors will not be safer, less expensive than their full size counterparts or more secure. And so it is. Now, let’s allow that no small reactor has been deployed or even licensed, though interest runs high. The Department of Energy is working with Babcock & Wilcox on prototyping and licensing the B&W design, with other vendors to follow . The Tennessee Valley Authority has expressed interesting in using them at its Clinch River site. Still, early days. A lot could happen. It also means that anything I ...

You’re motoring down a lonely country road. Ahead of you, there is a person walking in the middle of the road. You honk your horn. Nothing. So you go around the person, take a quick look to make sure there’s nothing wrong, and continue on your way. But you might have had a collision and killed the person. That was close, a near-miss. You saw risk (person in road who might be killed by your driving), tried to reduce the risk (honked at person), avoided the risk (drove around the person). But the risk was always there and could have ended in disaster. So, logically, driving when other people are around, even only one other person, always presents a risk. Shouldn’t driving therefore be banned to eliminate the risk? We’d be safer, right? Even if the initial risk is small and you mitigate it and avoid it, risk is risk. So when I hear the Union of Concerned Scientists offer its comments about nuclear energy, I sometimes wonder, Why not driving? Why nuclear energy? Isn't driving...

One of the blogs we regularly monitor is All Things Nuclear , the blog on commercial nuclear energy sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists . It was impossible to miss this passage in a post published there yesterday by David Lochbaum. He wrote the following after participating in a panel discussion on industry safety at the 2012 Nuclear Energy Assembly: Before closing, I wish to express my appreciation to Marv Fertel, Tony Pietrangelo and NEI for including me on this panel. They knew beforehand that my views would not align with theirs and could have easily and justifiably not invited me to the panel. I applaud Marv and Tony for soliciting a broader spectrum of viewpoints. You're welcome, Mr. Lochbaum.

Earlier this week, the journal Nature Climate Change published a study concerning how warmer weather and reduced river flows might impact electricity generation at nuclear and coal-fired power plants. Here's how Reuters reported the findings: In a study published on Monday, a team of European and U.S. scientists focused on projections of rising temperatures and lower river levels in summer and how these impacts would affect power plants dependent on river water for cooling. The authors predict that coal and nuclear power generating capacity between 2031 and 2060 will decrease by between 4 and 16 percent in the United States and a 6 to 19 percent decline in Europe due to lack of cooling water. The nuclear energy industry isn't unfamiliar with the topic. Here at NEI Nuclear Notes, we first dealt with the issue during the Summer of 2006 when a heat wave struck Europe and forced a number of nuclear plants to reduce power. Back then, our points were pretty clear: the indu...

After a whirlwind three days in Charlotte at NEA 2012, I'm back in Washington. And while I'm done unpacking my suitcase at home, we're not done unpacking all of the content we created during the conference. One of the highlights of the conference had to be a roundtable discussion on industry safety and Fukushima that was moderated by NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer Tony Pietrangelo. Joining Tony were Chip Pardee of Exelon , David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Bill Borchardt of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission . Luckily, we captured the entire discussion on video, and will be sharing it with you as soon as we're able to get the clip processed and uploaded to our YouTube Channel . In addition, we'll also be combing the questions that were submitted for the session that our panelists weren't able to answer due to time constraints. Among my favorite moments from the conference had to be getting to see the pride and joy on the faces o...

This morning at around 10:00 a.m. U.S. EDT, NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer, Tony Pietrangelo, will chair a panel session at the 2012 Nuclear Energy Assembly entitled, "Ensuring Operational Safety While Implementing Lessons Learned from Fukushima." Panelists for the session include: Charles G. Pardee, Chief Operating Officer, Exelon Generation Company, LLC  R. William Borchardt, Executive Director for Operations, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission  David Lochbaum, Director, Nuclear Safety Project, Union of Concerned Scientists  As part of our effort to better leverage social media, we'll be taking questions for panel members from online audiences. You can submit your question either by sending an email to questions@nei.org or simply tweeting the question with the conference hashtag, #NEA2012. Here's hoping our readers can participate.

Yesterday the Union of Concerned Scientists published a new study about how using electric vehicles could help the U.S. cut fuel costs and reduce emissions. When auto companies begin manufacturing electric vehicles in larger numbers, the nation's 104 nuclear reactors (and counting) will be standing by to supply that zero emission electricity that UCS loves so much. Unfortunately, the press team at UCS apparently forgot how to spell the word nuclear (I know you're shocked) when they put together their report. From the press release : [T]o fully realize the benefits of EVs will require changing not just the kind of vehicles people drive, but also the power that drives them. Electric drive vehicles can be zero emission today, when powered by renewables like solar and wind. But it will take continued steps to ramp down coal and ramp up renewables so that every region can enjoy clean energy and the best benefits EVs have to offer. Given that wind and solar only generated about 3% o...

NEI's Senior Vice President of Communications, Scott Peterson , passed along the following note concerning last week's report by the Union of Concerned Scientists , " U.S. Nuclear Power Safety One Year After Fukushima ." The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has weighed in on the U.S. response to Fukushima and their conclusion is clear: We’re moving too slowly….No, wait, we’re moving too fast!...Check that, too slow! Taking a page from Goldilocks, who couldn’t seem to find the right size chair, UCS can’t seem to find the right speed for applying lessons learned in the aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan a year ago. After first praising the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for reacting quickly to the events in Japan, a new UCS report prods the agency to move faster. Then report declares that “speed is not always a virtue.” In the most remarkable twist of logic, UCS criticizes the nuclear energy industry for “acting too hastily by launching...

Overnight, we've seen a lot of breathless coverage about the steam generator leak that happened at San Onfre Generating Station on Tuesday , one that led to a story on the AP's national wire and another during the first segment of ABC's World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer on Wednesday evening. What happened at San Onofre is a pretty typical operational event. If you don't believe us, feel free to ask David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Here's what he told one Southern California newspaper about the incident at San Onofre: The "pinhole"-sized leak in a steam generator tube that caused a partial shutdown at the San Onofre nuclear plant Tuesday is something that is actually to be expected when a plant has new generators like San Onofre does, according to one expert. San Onofre recently replaced its old generators. Whenever generators are new or very old, leaks can occur, and engineers know to be alert for the problem, said David Lochbaum,...

Sometimes, when you see an attack on the nuclear energy industry, it may have some grain of truth in that a facility did not implement something perfectly or a license application is missing some data. But when you don’t like something – as in the case of anti-nuclear campaigners – then any perceived flaw proves the industry negligent. So that’s one thing. But some arguments just seem willfully naïve – about how the industry works, how NEI works, the NRC, in the hopes that information that is fairly benign is instead shocking evidence of malicious intent. That brings us to the Union of Concerned Scientists. The group says it’s nominally in favor of nuclear energy – as long as the industry passes a long litmus test devised by UCS to prove its worth. This allows UCS to nibble at the edges in the hopes that enough holes will cause the edifice of the nuclear energy industry to crumble into dust. The blatancy of the approach is actually rather amusing. Take for example a blog post...

An early release of a draft of an NRC report contains good news that clearly isn’t what some folks, however perversely, might have hoped: The conclusion, to be published in April after six years of work, is based largely on a radical revision of projections of how much and how quickly cesium 137, a radioactive material that is created when uranium is split, could escape from a nuclear plant after a core meltdown. And that conclusion? [A] meltdown at a typical American reactor would lead to far fewer deaths than previously assumed. By far fewer, it means close to zero. Now, I’d rather wait until the final version is released next April to discuss it in detail, but what is interesting now is that it was the Union of Concerned Science that requested this version of the report via the Freedom of Information Act.  I cannot imagine the report’s conclusions are what the group expected, and having gotten it, they just deny it. Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist with...

ABC News tried a story on its Nightline program to suggest that the NRC finding a problem at a nuclear problem and the plant operator then fixing the problem represents a safety hazard. Aside from the the counterintuitive nature of that approach – that having to replace a nozzle puts all out lives at some kind of risk – the overall implication is that a nuclear plant can never ever have a problem, no matter how small. After all, so many people – which is to say, none – have been endangered by American nuclear power plants. To ABC’s credit, though, it has gone to the industry to learn a few salient facts. There are 104 U.S. nuclear power facilities, and Anthony Pietrangelo of the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry association, said, "The plants are very safe. There have been no abnormal occurrences reported by the NRC in their annual report to the federal government from 2005 to 2009." That's true, but Lochbaum and the Union of Concerned Scientists point to...

Last week, Margaret Harding, former GE engineering manager, took on a post by UCS’ David Lochbaum that misstated the nuclear events at two reactors. From Margaret: On August 24th, Mr. Lochbaum posted a story on the Union of Concerned Scientists website about an event in 1988, then proceeded to link it to a 2005 event at a different plant and makes the case that the nuclear industry is filled with screw-ups and near misses. You can read the original article here. As it happens, my career has included learning about these particular events and leading the team that developed some of the solutions that are currently in place to prevent/mitigate the effect. From that, I can say – Mr. Lochbaum got it wrong . To find out how Margaret is correct, stop by for the rest . As well, Dan Yurman has more background to their story . Looking forward to reading more from Margaret, maybe this will turn into a bigger debate between her and Mr. Lochbaum.

There are several posts up so far , but one post from UCS written by Mr. Lyman is the only one that’s a bit questionable. A comment section doesn’t exist yet on the blog but I’ve passed along an email suggesting they add it, we’ll see. Welcome to the blogosphere UCS, looking forward to the discussion!

Mr. Elliott Negin, media director for the Union of Concerned Scientists, published the same jaded piece at Seeking Alpha and Greentech Media on how nuclear power is “Too Costly to Revive.” He begins by painting a somewhat rosy picture of the nuclear industry but then begins to dish it out by discussing the “industry’s Achilles’ heel” (cost of construction). The nuclear industry likes to point out that it has low production costs, which it does. What it doesn't mention, however, are its rapidly escalating capital costs, those associated with paying the cost of plant construction, including financing. Well, we like to tout the good cost numbers of nuclear and of course our critics like to point out the not-so-good numbers. So which is it? According to EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2010 released last month, nuclear’s estimated costs are definitely competitive with other technologies . If you look at the total levelized unsubsidized costs of the emission-free technologie...

Not the magazine you would consider a go-to for nuclear energy  advocacy, but Mother Jones and writer Judith Lewis make the most honest attempt we've seen to honestly explore issues surrounding nuclear energy from the perspective of those who really, really don't like it. Even with a little too much David Lochbaum and a brief zinger at NEI, we recommending reading the whole thing . Here's a taster: Will a nuclear reactor operating under normal conditions give you cancer? It's a question that, surprisingly, still hasn't been conclusively answered. A 1995 Greenpeace study found an increase in breast-cancer mortality among women living near various U.S. and Canadian reactors in the Great Lakes region. Yet peer-reviewed studies by the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation as well as the National Cancer Institute show no significant increase in cancer among people living near reactors. An initiative called the Tooth Fairy Project is currently trying to ...

It’s about that time of the year when the Union of Concerned Scientists comes out with their annual criticisms of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear industry. After reading their latest critique, “Nuclear Power in a Warming World,” my emotions are mixed. Some of the time I can agree with or at least understand their arguments. The rest of the time, though, I am frustrated and irritated by some of the claims in the report. On the one hand, they correctly conclude nuclear power’s “life cycle emissions are comparable to those of wind power and hydropower” (p. 11). This tells me they have the potential to dig deep and analyze an issue and not just go by the usual anti-nuclear rhetoric. On the other hand, though, they proclaim sabotage of a nuclear reactor “could contaminate large regions for thousands of years, producing higher cancer rates and billions of dollars in associated costs” P.4. The worst nuclear accident in the world at Chernobyl didn’t even do the damage the...