NEI Nuclear Notes

There’s been a lot of work done to expand the relationship of the United States and India, one part of which allows nuclear trade and technology to flow between the two countries. President George W. Bush’s administration worked through a lot of the issues, culminating in a so-called 123 agreement in 2008 opening nuclear trade. This agreement took so much effort because India has avoided anti-proliferation treaties and harbors nuclear warheads – resulting in a two decade moratorium – so the determinative factor was whether India in the interim had proved to be a good actor on the international stage. Answer: good enough. But one remaining piece of the puzzle was about liability concerns – whether most liability should lie with the supplier (which might be American) or with the operator (most certainly Indian). While every country hoping to operate in India wants to contain liability on suppliers, it’s especially true for the United States, which does not have a state-run nuclear i...

Last week, Margaret Harding, former GE engineering manager, took on a post by UCS’ David Lochbaum that misstated the nuclear events at two reactors. From Margaret: On August 24th, Mr. Lochbaum posted a story on the Union of Concerned Scientists website about an event in 1988, then proceeded to link it to a 2005 event at a different plant and makes the case that the nuclear industry is filled with screw-ups and near misses. You can read the original article here. As it happens, my career has included learning about these particular events and leading the team that developed some of the solutions that are currently in place to prevent/mitigate the effect. From that, I can say – Mr. Lochbaum got it wrong . To find out how Margaret is correct, stop by for the rest . As well, Dan Yurman has more background to their story . Looking forward to reading more from Margaret, maybe this will turn into a bigger debate between her and Mr. Lochbaum.

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories toted up energy use last year (for 2008) and found a marked drop. This year’s version (for 2009) reveals a further drop: The United States used significantly less coal and petroleum in 2009 than in 2008, and significantly more wind power. There also was a decline in natural gas use and increases in solar, hydro and geothermal power according to the most recent energy flow charts released by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. You’d be perfectly within your rights to say, It’s the economy, stupid, and that was the main takeaway from the Labs report last year. Not this time: “Energy use tends to follow the level of economic activity, and that level declined last year. At the same time, higher efficiency appliances and vehicles reduced energy use even further,” said A.J. Simon, an LLNL energy systems analyst who develops the energy flow charts using data provided by the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration. “As a r...

Here’s House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) during the Q&A following his economic speech yesterday: QUESTION: The only repository for nuclear waste planned or conceived or developed for this country is Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and it is stopped dead in its tracks by [Sen.] Harry Reid (R-Nev.). If the Republicans can take back Congress, what position would the party take on opening Yucca Mountain so our nuclear reactors have someplace to put their waste? BOEHNER: Most Republicans have supported Yucca Mountain for the twenty years that I've been here and the American people would be shocked to know how much nuclear waste is laying just miles from their home. It's laying at every nuclear plant in the country and why? Because we can't get Yucca Mountain finished because it's not politically correct. We've invested tens of billions of dollars in a storage facility that's as safe as anything we're going to find. Rep. Boehner is 100% corre...

The Patriot-Journal in Pennsylvania sees a solution : We talk and hear a lot about solar and wind power — in fact there are many government-backed programs providing grants and tax incentives for homeowners and companies willing to use these forms of energy production. But another part of our energy equation that is just as important but discussed far less is nuclear power. The only way the United States will ever become less dependent on other countries for our energy is to increase our commitment to nuclear energy. True. And it sees some of the problems with making this happen. Our government has yet to deal with the important issue of disposing of the nuclear waste. Incredibly the federal government has not disposed of any civilian nuclear waste and has no plan for doing so. Estimates show the government is more than 10 years behind schedule in its contractual obligations for waste disposal. And then it offers some advice: When he talks about green energy, ...

Last May, Public Utilities Fortnightly published an independent analysis by Navigant Consulting that provided some great comparisons between various energy technologies. One of the comparisons is the number of jobs created on an equivalent basis. To analyze the economic and workforce contributions of various energy technologies, the authors began by reviewing the contribution of permanent direct local jobs per megawatt of installed electric capacity for the most common types of generation technologies… On top of jobs, the analysis calculated the workforce impacts from each technology. Here’s what it said about nuclear: Nuclear plants create the largest workforce annual income based on both large capacity and being a labor-intensive technology (see Figure 3). The average wages in the nuclear industry compare favorably with other power generation technologies. While nuclear power plant operator wages may approach $50 an hour, the large support staff and security force wa...

Even the most solid free marketeer has to have a soft spot for the Tennessee Valley Authority, founded in 1935 by the Federal Government to electrify and perform other tasks in the region. And what a region! The Tennessee valley didn’t get hit by a double whammy in the great depression but by multiple whammies all at once. Not only had farmland become depleted and the timberlands denuded but the area was riven by malaria (about 30 percent of the population). Economically, the area was on par with the poorest of countries, with annual income as low as $100. TVA was set up to deal with all of this – as well as provide electricity – and once officials got local leaders on their side – the people there did not trust bureaucrats - genuinely transformative work took place. TVA worked with farmers to develop different planting and crop rotation methods, developed fertilizers specific to the area, replanted forests, drained fetid ponds – mitigating the malaria – and electrified the region...