NEI Nuclear Notes

After receiving flowers and surviving a hail of flash bulbs, new IAEA chief Yukiya Amano officially began his four year term and made a short statement (there’s a video there, too, and Amano speaks in English): "The situation surrounding the Agency is stormy now. We have a lot of difficult challenges, but I would like to do my best. I would like to address the global issues that include non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, enhancing nuclear security, addressing the energy need, providing good health care, and water management, among others. I will try to be an impartial, reliable, and professional Director General." He isn’t kidding about stormy, but for now let’s allow Amano his flowers and photo ops. Plenty of time for the storms. --- We found this op-ed at the Wall Street Journal by Richard Lester, head of the department of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, interesting and a little troubling. Despite his title, his interest here is in determining wh...

The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial on nuclear energy this past weekend. It’s pretty weak tea. Senate Republicans and many moderate Democrats are seeking to lard up prospective climate and energy bills with billions of dollars in loan guarantees and other subsidies for nuclear power, even though it makes no sense as a solution to climate change and is a terrible option from an economic, environmental and national-security standpoint. Lard. Pork. Get it? We understand that the Times doesn’t like nuclear energy – and they have every right not to – but the arguments, like the one above, are flatly contradicted by, how shall we call it, reality. Like a lot of absolutist anti-nuclear advocates, the Times gets a little stuck when trying to figure out what to do about climate change, which it clearly views as a problem. And renewable-power plants can be built almost immediately, without the long permitting delays faced by nuclear reactors. Some clean-energy strategies, suc...

We admit that we’ve read a lot of interesting approaches to supporting (and not supporting) nuclear energy, but this piece by Neil Russo in the Weymouth (Mass.) News is certainly unique. Here’s how he starts out: Here's the vanilla loaf cake from Eb, Mom, he put walnuts in it because he knows how much you like walnuts. Put the kettle on and let's indulge. I want to take a few moments to relax. My head is spinning from listening to Eb. The cost of getting that cake from Eb is listening to him talk about nuclear energy. Pop tell Mom all he’s learned: Pop: At today's usage rates for energy, we have proven reserves of oil for 42 years, natural gas for 57 years, uranium for 85 years, and coal for 137 years, though exploration turns up new supplies all the time. Mom’s conclusion? With 53 new plants under construction worldwide, mostly in Asia, it's time for the U.S. government to come up with an energy policy that has nuclear as its base, or we are going to b...

Not exactly a tipping point, but when advertisers are using nuclear energy power plants in their creative to reach ad agencies and designers, you know that something has changed. We found this ad atop a newsletter from Creativity , an Advertising Age publication. Hyperbolic side note for effect: To the creators of this brilliant, savvy and inspired ad campaign, the deadline for the 2010 Clio Awards is January 22nd .

The latest is up , below are three tidbits you may find useful: From January 2009 to August 2009, US primary energy consumption fell by 5.7 percent compared to the same time period in 2008. For the first eight months of 2009, petroleum provided 31.7% of US energy consumption, natural gas provided 24.6% of US energy consumption, coal provided 21.0%, nuclear 9.0%, biomass 4.1%, hydro 2.9%, wind 0.7%, geothermal 0.4%, and solar 0.1% (EIA’s Monthly Energy Review ). Uranium spot prices rose for the first time in six weeks to $44 and $45.50/lb U3O8 according to TradeTech and UxConsulting. “On the supply side, a number of sellers that came to the market in advance of the anticipated transfer of uranium by the US Department of Energy to USEC have successfully placed the bulk of their remaining 2009 inventory and are now looking towards 2010 and a potential increase in demand. As a result, sellers were less aggressive in pursuing buyers and responded to the new buying interest by raisi...

One of the themes – or is that memes – we’ve been following here is the growing support for nuclear energy among Congressional Democrats. We might be expected to consider nuclear energy a post-partisan issue – that is, one where Republicans and Democrats more-or-less agree on its value generally if not always in detail – but this reality is beginning to penetrate the wider media world. Consider this piece by U.S. News and World Report’s Kent Garber: Sen. Barbara Boxer, a liberal California Democrat, has included a whole set of goodies for nuclear energy in her climate bill in an effort to win Republicans' and moderate Democrats' support. Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the bill's cosponsor, recently penned an op-ed with South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham calling for expanding the industry. And earlier this month, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee proposed legislation to double the U.S....

Jesse Jenkins over at The Energy Collective asks : "How can policy help overcome hurdles to nuclear power in the United States?" ... As a policy wonk ... my job is to find policy levers to accelerate the transformation of the U.S. and global energy system to a low-carbon, prosperous energy system. So here’s what I want to do, and I need your help, dear reader, to do it: please lend your expertise and help answer the following questions by dropping a comment in response below. Please refer your answers to specific questions and help by keeping the discussion thread topical. Jesse followed up by asking nine questions to further the discussion and in response, the tireless, outspoken pro-nuclear contributors, David Walters and Charles Barton, weighed in. Here are some of NEI's answers to his questions . Stop by to give him your two cents.