NEI Nuclear Notes

Or even wins. Note the two posts about USEC below – it’s all about the company’s American Centrifuge project and DOE’s rejection of its loan guarantee application to move it to the next stage – and USEC’s almost ferocious response to that rejection. And now, DOE issues a press release : The Department of Energy and USEC Inc. today announced an agreement to delay a final review on the company’s loan guarantee application for the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, OH. There’s a good deal of give on both sides of the issue. From USEC: As it has indicated, the Department sees promise in the ACP technology, but USEC’s application does not meet all the statutory and regulatory standards that would permit the agency to grant a loan guarantee at this time.  Both DOE and USEC recognize that meeting these criteria will likely take six months or more. Okay, so USEC accepts that the application needs more work. From DOE: The Department plans to defer review of the ap...

Anyone can make a bad argument at any time. But when you take some of the most negative elements of your case and try to spin them into a positive, the results can be – er, more negative. So, here’s Joe Lucas of Americans for Clean Coal Electricity : "I can take you to places in eastern Kentucky where community services were hampered because of a lack of flat space — to build factories, to build hospitals, even to build schools. In many places, mountain-top mining, if done responsibly, allows for land to be developed for community space." Love to go on that tour, Mr. Lucas. h/t ThinkProgress Cleared mountaintops in Kentucky. We’ll let the coal people take care of themselves, but the article in The Guardian containing the quote is quite interesting – do go over there for the whole thing. There was chatter a couple of years ago to plant windmills on cleared mountaintops in West Virginia, be we think NIMBY issues killed that one.

The Electric Power Research Institute, or EPRI, has updated a report that predicts what the energy mix will be in 2030 given the parameters set for carbon reduction by the energy bill passed by the House. Now, EPRI covers almost all electricity generators and favors none in particular, but its studies still answer to the interests of the electricity business. Since the goal here is to predict the optimum mix of energy sources needed to achieve a specific goal, you could easily decide to amp down some of EPRI’s proscriptions (say, less nuclear) and amp up others (say, more renwables). There is a game-like aspect to this. All that said, here’s the bottom line: The U.S. needs to build 45 nuclear reactors and reduce power consumption by 8 percent by 2030 to meet greenhouse-gas emission reductions called for by Congress, a report funded by the electric industry says. The Electric Power Research Institute , whose members produce and deliver more than 90 percent of U.S. power, issue...

No sooner does Italy drop its ban on new nuclear plant development than someone starts developing them : The Italian energy company Enel has formed a joint venture with France's EdF to develop nuclear energy in Italy, the companies said in a joint statement Monday. The companies billed the move "as the first substantial step" toward establishing nuclear plants in Italy following the approval of an Italian law last month allowing a return to nuclear energy more than two decades after voters shut down the country's reactors. The new venture is called Italy Nuclear Development (Sviluppo Nucleare Italia). You can read Enel’s take on this development here . Interestingly, Enel is not completely new to this: EdF and Enel have been working together since 2007 on the construction of a third-generation reactor in Flamanville in Normandy, in which Enel owns a 12.5 percent stake. By a separate agreement Enel will take an identical-sized stake in the second EPR...

We generally think protests and protesting are good things. They are ways of getting a message out and trying to bring attention to issues. We don’t even mind when a nuclear power plant is protested – after all, it’s a great opportunity to educate the protesters and even try a counter-protest. Seems so American, so small-d democratic. Even when it threatens to go small-a anarchic, we would still tilt in favor of an unruly public gathering. This came to mind while we were reading and thinking about a story in Politico this morning that talked about the increased rowdiness at political town hall meetings. It was Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) whose encounter with a disgruntled constituent brought the issue to the fore. But now, some pols are cancelling the meetings, others are ensuring there is a police presence if they do have one and getting escorted to their cars. It’s as if they’d never heard of a old fashioned free-for-all. But at least two politicians get it. “Town halls are ...

Below is the last video of four videos NEI has released over the past month highlighting top industry practices. Hope everyone has found these videos as informative and intriguing as I have. This video, “Robotic Inspectors,” highlights new inspection devices developed at the Vermont Yankee nuclear energy station to closely analyze the facility’s steam dryer. Entergy Nuclear employees at Vermont Yankee are recipients of the Maintenance Process Award for developing innovative tooling for the inspection of a boiling water reactor steam dryer. The steam dryer is located in the top of the reactor. Entergy Nuclear partnered with AREVA NP Inc. to develop two remotely operated inspection systems, one to inspect the outer diameter of the dryer and the other to inspect the inner diameter. The outer diameter innovation uses a rail-and-trolley system with a telescoping mast and camera to inspect all 213 welds and components. The inner diameter method uses an underwater crawler with a telescoping...

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