NEI Nuclear Notes

From The Chattanoogan : TVA met the highest demand for electricity ever recorded in its seven-state service area Tuesday, exceeding the previous record set last July by more than 100 megawatts. Officials said that record could be topped today as the heat wave continues. Based on initial readings, the TVA system met a demand of 32,037 megawatts at 5 p.m. CDT, when the average temperature across the Tennessee Valley reached 97 degrees. TVA will audit the initial readings during the next few days, and the official peak may be adjusted slightly. The previous all-time system peak was 31,924 megawatts, which was met July 26, 2005 when the average temperature across the Valley was 95 degrees. Congrats to our friends at TVA for scaling to the challenge. Great job. Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy , Nuclear Power , Energy , Electricity , TVA

Here in Washington today, all eyes are on the the House Energy and Commerce Committee 's Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality holds a hearing at 2:00 p.m. U.S. EDT on the revised schedule for the Yucca Mountain Project . Click here for all the information, and be sure to check back beginning at 1:50 p.m. U.S. EDT in order to access the Web cast of the hearing. Earlier this week, the Department of Energy announced that the new target date for opening the facility had been moved to March 2017 . In addition, DOE plans to submit a license application for the facility by June 30, 2008. In the wake of the news, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici issued the following statement : “This is an ambitious schedule but it’s nice to actually see a schedule. This is the most detailed schedule on Yucca Mountain that I have seen in recent memory. I congratulate DOE for setting these goals. I continue to support Yucca as a long-term strategy and remain commi...

Here's a summary of what went on in the energy markets last week: Electricity prices increased last week due primarily to hot temperatures (see pages 1 & 2). Gas prices at the Henry Hub fell $0.09 to $5.60/MMBtu, falling again to the lowest price over the past year (see page 4). In 2006, total U.S. natural gas consumption is projected to fall below 2005 levels by 1.7 percent then increase by 4.2 percent in 2007. Electric power sector consumption of coal is projected to grow by some 0.3 percent in 2006 and by another 1.6 percent in 2007. Power sector demand for coal continues to increase in response to high natural gas and oil prices. Electricity consumption is expected to increase by 0.6 percent in 2006 and by 1.4 percent in 2007. In 2005, residential electricity prices rose an estimated 5.1 percent nationally. In 2006, these prices are expected to increase by 7.8 percent and, in 2007, by another 2.9 percent (see page 8). For the report click here (pdf). It is also located on ...

Over at Front Burner , the blog of D , a magazine based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Wick Allison is talking Texas power plants in the wake of Sunday's New York Times Magazine feature on the resurgence of nuclear power in the U.S. Here's a comment he received from one of his readers in the investment community: I saw the same article in yesterday'’s NYTimes Magazine. And speaking as someone who is going to have an increasingly large stake in this issue: I can wholeheartedly say that the embrace of nuclear power for the purposes of electricity generation is, by far and away, the most sensible intermediate-term step that Texans can effect towards both improving environmental quality as well as reducing our dependence upon the resources of overseas partners. Wick is also thinking about statewide carbon emissions . And we can never talk about Texas without mentioning Skip Bowman's speech at the Houston Forum earlier this year . Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy , Nuclear ...

Our friend Robert Merkel has taken the time to read Helen Caldicott's new book , Nuclear Power is Not The Answer To Global Warming or Anything Else , (for that alone he deserves a medal) and has come away less than impressed: Caldicott is also almost certainly guilty of hyperbole in her reporting of the Three Mile Island accident. Caldicott, referring to one of her earlier works, claims that "hundreds of nearby residents" suffered symptoms of acute radiation sickness, the symptoms indicative of radiation doeses of "at least 100 rads" in the immediate aftermath of the accident. This is almost certainly rubbish. As the Wikipedia's article on radiation poisoning explains, if such symptoms occurred they would have been very easily identifiable by medical professionals, and such doses would have resulted in spontaneous abortions in pregnant, severe decreases in red blood cells counts, extended sickness, and probably a number of short-term casualties. However, ...

Last Friday’s Platts Nuclear News Flashes (subscription required) reported that Three future ESBWR COL applicants are working closely to produce a standard license application. The news came from a July 14 meeting between NRC staff and representatives of Entergy, Dominion, General Electric, and NuStart that have formed an ESBWR "design-centered working group." The goal is to develop a uniform combined construction permit-operating license (COL) application. Working together, the companies plan to submit the applications for Dominion’s North Anna and Entergy’s Grand Gulf stations in November 2007 with Entergy’s River Bend application following in May 2008. Gene Grecheck, Dominion’s Vice-President of Nuclear Support Services, told me that the plants will be as alike as any three plants can be and that the COL applications will be 90% identical with site-specific information clearly identified. He expects this strategy to significantly reduce the time required for NRC revie...

From Reuters : Power consumption across the U.S. and parts of Canada soared with scorching temperatures to new record highs on Monday, but blackouts were unlikely unless there were major equipment failures, said the industry group that oversees transmission. By mid-afternoon, power demand in the Midwest region and Texas exceeded 2005 records and continued to climb. Expected electric use will far exceed a summer forecast issued in May by the North American Electric Reliability Council , the group said. "We are shattering old records," said Stan Johnson, NERC's manager of situation awareness. "It's very unusual to see records being set all across North America." I also couldn't help but notice this passage: "We are feeling pretty good," Johnson said as late afternoon peak-hour demand approached the East Coast. "We are watching some areas: the upper Midwest, the mid-Atlantic states, California and Ontario." Those were areas where power-p...