NEI Nuclear Notes

Something we always like to hear : Nuclear energy has received the thumbs up from a former anti-nuclear environmentalist who co-authored an independent report pitting the advantages of nuclear energy against renewable energy for electricity generation. Ben Heard told a uranium conference in Adelaide today that nuclear power presented lower start-up costs, lower cost electricity, much smaller land use, no use of fresh water, more reliable generation capacity and other advantages compared to renewable energy. Lower startup costs? He’s got numbers. Key takeaways include nuclear power requiring a capital cost of between $3.5 billion and $4.8 billion for a 690* megawatt equivalent plant compared to $8.1 billion for a 1,460MWe equivalent combined renewable energy plant as well as requiring 2 square kilometers of exclusive land compared to 18.1 square kilometers for the renewable option. I’d like to see those num – oh, wait, I can? Heard’s comprehensive, self-funded report (Zero C...

The New York Times’ Matt Wald provides a nicely reported history and the state-of-play in the small reactor world. Just as the first domestic nuclear reactors were scaled up versions of small reactors, current versions of the tiny titans are scaled down versions of full-scale reactors (actually, some of them are – some are based on new ideas entirely). “They offer the potential for a new paradigm in how we think about construction of nuclear power plants,” Peter B. Lyons, the Energy Department’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy , said of the so-called small modular reactors, also known as S.M.R.’s. He is supervising a program under which the government will pay up to half of the development cost of two different models. One manufacturer already has a contract to develop a plan for two small reactors in Tennessee. That manufacturer would be Babcock&Wilcox , teamed with Bechtel and the Tennessee Valley Authority (interesting B&W video on this page). Wald al...

Our service academies aren't really much known for developing NFL talent, but Navy linebacker Keegan Wetzel could hear his name called during the NFL Draft, which starts tonight and concludes on Saturday. Wetzel is profiled today in the Annapolis, Md., Capital Gazette , and his inspiring story deserves broad commendation. Navy competes admirably and successfully in the top division of NCAA college football, and after a standout senior season, Wetzel has had contact with a handful of NFL teams this spring. His football stats are tremendous, but pro football teams likely have additional cause for their interest in the linebacker. The Gazette notes that Wetzel is one serious scholar athlete: Wetzel, who earned the Tony Rubino Silver Helmet Award as Navy's Most Outstanding Player from the Touchdown Club of Annapolis, is thought to be the first Football Subdivision player to score a perfect 1,600 on the Scholastic Assessment Test. He boasts a 3.91 grade point average as a s...

One of the most vexing aspects of President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget request (as regards topic of blog, naturally) is the deep cut made to MOX facility construction in South Carolina. This is being built at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and is about 60 percent complete. But let’s back up. What is the MOX facility? For that matter, what’s MOX ? (link to NEI’s member site – you can see the whole thing if you’re a member – but this is the key part) Shaw AREVA MOX Services is the prime contractor for the design, construction and startup of the Energy Department’s mixed oxide fuel fabrication facility being built at DOE’s Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. Under a program managed by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, the MOX plant will help dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapons grade plutonium by blending it into fuel for commercial power reactors And here’s the thing or at least a thing: we share this obligation with Russia, who participa...

If you’re looking for a compelling overview of the enormous potential for a career in the U.S. nuclear industry today, our Elizabeth McAndrew-Benavides has authored it in the May-June issue of Search & Employ . The potential for nuclear workforce participation is especially appealing for men and women in the United States Navy. In August 2012, McAndrew-Benavides notes, industry entered into a first-of-its-kind agreement with the Navy to establish a system affording a seamless transition for Navy personnel to enter the civilian nuclear workforce. The navy has long been a fertile source for industry recruitment, so the agreement makes perfect sense. The agreement is a two-way street and benefits the Navy as well. It expands from the civilian sector to also include recruitment by the Navy for enlisted positions through the industry’s Nuclear Uniform Curriculum Program (NUCP). Additionally, the nuclear industry has been hiring more than 5,000 people a year in the U.S. over the p...

We've been recognizing Earth Day all day long here on all of our social media platforms , but I wanted to share one image that warmed my heart today like no other. If you pop over to the home page at Reddit , the link that's currently ranked #1 is a story that originally appeared at Scientific American on James Hansen's conclusion that the use of nuclear energy has saved millions of lives all around the world . Click to enlarge. For those of you who haven't read the paper from NASA's Godard Institute , here's the nut graph: The authors come up with the striking figure of 1.8 million as the number of lives saved by replacing fossil fuel sources with nuclear. They also estimate the saving of up to 7 million lives in the next four decades, along with substantial reductions in carbon emissions, were nuclear power to replace fossil fuel usage on a large scale. Impressive. It's indeed a happy Earth Day.

Nuclear Notes friend Meredith Angwin kindly pointed us to a pdf of Robert Alvarez’s written testimony to the Vermont Senate committee considering a bill to tax the used nuclear fuel being held at Vermont Yankee. The fuller post about the Vermont hearing and who Robert Alvarez is is two below this one. I figured Alvarez was simply reinforcing what the committee wanted to do, and with no other witnesses, no opposition to his statements. Little did I know. The written testimony is just – awful – almost willfully useless as a fact set. Because, in this instance, facts don’t matter. The document is on Ms. Angwin’s site, so by all means, send some clicks her way . It’s the bottom link. Thanks to her for this. It’s an important “o” to put an umlaut over – it exposes the hearing as little more than a show trial for Vermont Yankee. If the state wants to tax used fuel, then pass a tax bill including it – that’s its right. But trying to fix a bogus motivation to the effort is very discourag...