NEI Nuclear Notes

Xcel Energy has announced its new Utilities Group , which will consist of the company’s four operating companies. Paul Bonavia, formerly president of Xcel Energy’s Commercial Enterprises unit, will be president of the Utilities Group. The presidents and CEOs of the operating companies will be: • Cynthia Lesher, Northern States Power Co. Minnesota • Gary Gibson, Southwestern Public Service • Michael Swenson, Northern States Power – Wisconsin • Patricia Vincent, Public Service Co. of Colorado. Edison International has elected Michael Alvarez vice president of strategic planning, effective Dec. 1. Currently, Alvarez is executive vice president, chief financial officer and general counsel for Nexant Inc. , which provides software and advisory services to the global energy industry. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has appointed Marc Ferdas senior resident inspector at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in New Jersey. Ferdas, who has been with the NRC since 1998, replaces Robert Su...

Using a two-part feature in LA Weekly ( Part I , II ) as a departure point, members of the Metafilter online community are now debating the merits of new nuclear build . And it looks like nuclear is getting a fair hearing. Some comments: Nuclear power has been terribly demonized, but environmentalists should love it. It does almost no damage to the environment at all, unlike fossil fuels, which appear likely to change the climate on Earth and wipe out thousands (millions?) of species... Yeah, I've never understood why environmentalists are opposed to Nuclear power. it's the only possible energy system we could use that doesn't cause much pollution. It seems more like irrational fear then anything else... We will have an energy crisis if we don't find some way of replacing fossil fuels. Nuclear power seems like the logical step... Nuclear is, alas, our only hope of keeping our society at the level it is at. We, quite simply, cannot continue to burn other fuels at the ...

In yesterday's Daily News , columnist Stanley Crouch said it's time for America to embrace nuclear energy: Some automatically fall on the floor and begin barking and drooling at the very mention of anything nuclear because all they can see is a mushroom cloud. This became even more of a favorite after Sept. 11, when many began to believe Islamic fundamentalists could have flown those planes into Indian Point instead of the World Trade Center. In fact, studies done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission make it quite clear that a plane would not even penetrate the domes in which the reactors are held. Switching to nuclear energy is the sort of thing that is more important to consider. It is what this country must do, instead of trying to get customer concerns elevated on the agendas of oil companies. If the French - whom I would almost never point to as a source of policy inspiration - can see the validity of using nuclear power to dramatically reduce dependency on foreign oil, i...

Try as hard as I might to get away from media criticism, our old friends at ABC News and Time keep popping up to reveal more about relationships between reporters and sources that seem all too cozy. And right in the middle of all of it is the Project on Government Oversight , a so-called watchdog group that claims it isn't anti-nuclear even thought they continue to maintain that security at industry facilities can't stand up to terrorist attack. To recap the ABC News side of the story related to the Prime Time Live report, " Loose Nukes ," POGO and ABC failed to disclose that POGO had received a two-year, $200,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation , the same Carnegie Corporation that provided the ten Carnegie Fellows for the network's "Radioactive Roadtrip." The same POGO that provided consultant Richard Stockton as a source for "Loose Nukes". Here's a passage from a piece on anonymous sources in this month's issue of American Jou...

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will be considering the nomination of Ward Sproat to be Director, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management at the Department of Energy . Also on the agenda is the nomination of Jeffrey D. Jarrett to be Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy. Click here for the live stream of the hearing beginning at 10:30 a.m. U.S. EST. One of my colleagues, Trish Conrad, is at the hearing and will providing a summary later in the day. UPDATE : For some reason, the live stream doesn't seem to be working. We'll be back with a summary later. AFTERNOON UPDATE : Thanks to Trish Conrad for this short summary: The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a confirmation hearing earlier today for Edward F. Sproat, III. Sproat has been nominated to serve as the Director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management at the Department of Energy. Among his other responsibilities, Sproat will oversee the design and license...

From the Daily Telegraph (U.K.): The only way to plug Britain's growing "energy gap" is to build more nuclear power stations, scientists said in a report published yesterday. A group of 150 academics and energy industry specialists concluded that in order to achieve the Government's target for reducing greenhouse gases and meet the demand for energy, Britain must replace its nuclear power stations as they reach the end of their useful lives. The report, published by the Geological Society , stated that renewable energy sources are unlikely to fill the gap left by the ageing nuclear reactors when they are decommissioned, all but one of which will be shut down by 2023. With demand for energy growing by around 0.7 per cent per year, the report said production will be 20 per cent, below peak demand by 2015. For more on the study, click here . Click here for more from Tim Worstall , who takes Greenpeace to task for a typical distortion about nuclear energy. Others in th...

Meet Ed Hillan . Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy , Energy , Electricity , Environment