NEI Nuclear Notes

Based on an anti-nuclear group’s report, the New York Times and its global edition, the International Herald Tribune , published a piece last week claiming that solar is now cheaper than nuclear. Rod Adams right off the bat saw through the bunkum and took the NYT as well as the anti-nuclear group’s report to town. After taking a closer look, we have more to add. The report the NYT references comes from the group North Carolina Waste Awareness & Reduction Network (WARN). Below is the thesis of their 18 page report (pdf): Here in North Carolina, solar electricity, once the most expensive of the “renewables,” has become cheaper than electricity from new nuclear plants. When digging into the foundation of this statement, there’s one key factor in the solar cost assumptions that makes all the difference. As Rod pointed out, it’s that they are based on large incentives. On page 17 of the report, this sentence explains the large solar incentives included in the calculation...

The Western Governors Association surprised a lot of people last year when it issued strong support for nuclear energy among its energy provisions. You can read Nuclear Notes’ coverage of that here . As I wrote then, the interest isn’t that it was nuclear-friendly, it’s that it focused so intensely on energy issues. This year, they’ve gone further, sending a letter to some key Congressional chairmen: The Western Governors' Association urged Congress to increase federal loan guarantee authority for new nuclear development by $36 billion, the amount included in President Obama's 2011 budget request. Doing so would enable the financing of six to nine additional new reactors beyond those previously authorized, the governors said. And why do they want this? Writing on behalf of their colleagues, Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter, WGA's chairman, and Washington Gov. Christine O. Gregoire, WGA vice chairman, said this increased loan guarantee volume "wi...

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat has the helm this week. For the past few carnivals that we missed, be sure to check out #9 at Atomic Insights , and #10 and #11 at Next Big Future.

A few quick hits: A US appeals court said Wednesday it would wait until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules on the Yucca Mountain appeal before the commission before it hears oral arguments in a lawsuit over the planned termination of the nuclear waste repository project. This story from Platts concerns efforts to keep the license application for the Yucca mountain used fuel repository in review at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board earlier ruled that the Obama administration overreached in trying to withdraw the license application – because Yucca Mountain was set as the repository through legislation that only Congress can amend or repeal – and the NRC needs to affirm or deny this ruling. Which hasn’t happened yet, hence the court’s decision to wait. Read the whole story for more details. --- Urenco lately opened a uranium enrichment plant in New Mexico – the opening had an admirably bipartisan group of local and na...

One of the more exciting developments in the nuclear realm over the last couple of years have been been small reactors, those that generate less than 350 megawatts of electricity. While enthusiasm sometimes translates into a business model and sometimes does not, both the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have sponsored workshops and meetings specifically about them and several bills have been floated in Congress to support their development. There have been a lot of reasons bruited for the interest in small reactors;  two are that they are less expensive than a full scale reactor while providing the same clean air benefits and most of the proposed designs can be built in a factory and sent fully constructed to a site. Oh, and a third reason: the site can serve a locality that would not necessarily benefit from a full-size reactor or even might want to use them off the main electricity grid (think army bases). So all that favors continued ...

For those of you who tend a bit more to the wonkish end of things, a new joint study from the OECD and IAEA on the world’s supply of uranium could make for some interesting reading.  The biennial OECD “ Red Book ” (officially known as Uranium 2009: Resources, Production and Demand ) on uranium supply was just released and it has some interesting tidbits on uranium mining and exploration that bode well for the health of the nuclear energy industry. …uranium resources, production and demand are all on the rise… Worldwide exploration and mine development expenditures have more than doubled since the publication of the previous edition…These expenditures have increased despite declining uranium market prices since mid-2007. It’s an odd thing for mining expenditures to increase as prices of a commodity drop. Usually as the value of a resource drops, there’s a pullback on production and exploration. After all, who wants to dig up a worthless rock? But with uranium, prices ar...

The current British government is a coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, an awkward marriage considering that the Conservatives favor increased use of nuclear energy and the Liberal Democrats most definitely don’t. As part of the coalition agreement – or compromise – the liberals got much of what they want in energy policy, as laid out by new Energy Minister Chris Huhne (who is a Liberal Democrat): The UK is blessed with a wealth of renewable energy resources, both on and offshore. We are committed to overcoming the real challenges in harnessing these resources. We will implement the ‘Connect and Manage’ regime [this has to do with connecting off-the-beaten-path energy sources to the electricity grid] and I am today giving the go ahead to a transitional regime for offshore wind farms. Ah, wind. And a little more: We also need incentives for small-scale and community action. We are currently consulting on a new micro-generation strategy. I am today...