NEI Nuclear Notes

Here is a transcript of the testimony from yesterday’s hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee. The intent of the hearing was to discuss energy R&D, and mostly concerned that issue, but with DOE Secretary Steven Chu present, several of the Senators let their displeasure known about the scaling back of Yucca Mountain. This is the exchange between John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Chu. We pick up after Sen. McCain established that solar energy will not exceed providing 15% or so of electricity production by 2015. McCain: That means that clean coal and nuclear power are far more important than maybe some people appreciate today. Chu: I agree with that in the short term. McCain: Is it true that a Department of Energy spokeswoman told Bloomburg  [News] that President Obama and you, quote, have been emphatic that nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain is not an option, period. Chu: That’s true. McCain: That’s a true statement. So now we’re going to ha...

First, consider that Steven Chu’s confirmation hearing yesterday (you can watch the whole thing at this link – it’s a little over two hours) was moved to a bigger room. While we suspect that Hilary Clinton’s hearing, happening at the same time, got the marquee space, the interest in Chu’s testimony was huge – and justifiably so, as many of the energy topics addressed during the Presidential campaign continues to interest people even as gas prices have righted themselves. Second, consider Chu’s unexpected celebrity as the product of the permanent bruising left from the pummeling at the pumps everyone took last Summer. If average energy consumers were sanguine before about their energy options, they are no longer. Add the popular and largely media-driven concern about global warming and greeniness and there is a perfect storm – the abstract and distant becomes concrete and immediate. You can read Chu’s comments about nuclear energy in the post below. He had a lot to say on other top...

State of the Union is CNN’s Sunday morning discussion show. Candy Crowley is the interviewer. I’ve paired question and answer to make it easier to follow. (Transcript cleaned up just a bit to cover pauses.) Crowley: As of right now, the status of the three troublesome reactors in Japan? Chu: Certainly. Of the three reactors, one, two, and three, two of them we believe are intact, the main containment vessel. Crowley: So no danger of meltdown in two of them? Chu: that's true. Crowley: Okay. Chu: Well, I should be more precise. There’s a containment vessel. I think there is suspicion of damaged fuel rods in the reactors themselves. But the issue here now is whether the containment vessels are intact. The main containment vessels in two of them we believe are intact. We don't know the status of the third one. Crowley: Okay. So inside two of them, you might have some damaged fuel rods. But the containment is secure? Chu: That's what we believe at t...

Secretary Steven Chu was on Capitol Hill yesterday talking to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee. The discussion was wide ranging, but there’s no question the nuclear sections were the most pointed, especially notable in that Chu did not mention nuclear energy in his opening comments. Now, we should say that Chu is notably nuclear friendly. Energy Daily (which is behind a pay wall) reported that Chu pushed hard against a directive from the Office of Budget and Management that would limit DOE spending on some nuclear technologies, including small modular nuclear reactor and fast reactor recycling of used nuclear fuel. Asked about this by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Chu said “What we … are trying to do is make our best technical assessment, and it’s a bit of a crystal ball, but the best technical assessment of what could be productive. But because it’s research, we do not want to down select. And so what you’re referring to [the Energy Daily story] is a snippet...

[Edit: Click here for coverage of Steven Chu's confirmation hearing .] So how is Steven Chu playing as the purported candidate for Department of Energy secretary? Before we look at the developing narrative, let's remember the lesson of John Ford's movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance . Here's the question: Did Senator Ransom Stoddard begin his sterling Senatorial career and usher in statehood for Arizona by shooting bad man Liberty Valance? After we learn the truth, a newspaper editor sagely concludes, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." He had in mind the George Washington-cherry tree kind of legend, but it works equally well with, say, the Al Gore-internet kind of legend. Once a legend develops, it can be devilishly hard to shake loose of it. And it can warp the truth rather severely. So let's see what legend is developing around Dr. Chu. Here's the Wall Street Journal 's Keith Johnson buffing a legend that might alarm yo...

A tip of the hat to an anonymous NNN reader for passing along Energy Secretary Chu's appearance on the Charlie Rose Show last night. (See what you miss when you go to bed early?) The nuclear-related nugget appears at the 18:10-19:34 mark of the interview . (I do recommend watching the video, as the rush transcript below doesn't fully capture Rose's inimitable interrupting interview technique.) Rose : Nuclear. Where are you on nuclear? Chu : I think that nuclear energy should be a part of our energy portfolio in the United States this century. It’s carbon-free. It, we... Rose : This century? It is now 2009. Chu : Well, that's right. It's the beginning of this century. So, the reason I say that it is because it's going to take time to develop the transmission, and to develop the renewable energies, resources that it gets to be 50, 80% of our electrical power generation. And so... Rose : In France, it's what, 80%? Chu : France is a little bit less than 80% ...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu made the rounds of the morning shows today – virtually all of them – to talk about the Fukushima Daiichi and its implications for the American nuclear energy industry. Let’s see what the lead is in the first coverage of his appearances: From Bloomburg: U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the worst is probably over in Japan as efforts to stabilize the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant have had some success. From The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Sunday that the Japanese are making progress at stabilizing the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and said U.S. regulators are reviewing the safety of reactors with a similar design. This one, from Reuters , tries a different tack: Japan's nuclear crisis will influence where the United States builds future nuclear power plants, and the operation of a facility near New York City will be reviewed in the wake of the disaster, U.S. Energy Secretar...

If you're a proponent of nuclear energy in the United States, I'm not sure that Steven Chu 's testimony from today's Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of Energy could be any more encouraging. Excerpts from a rush transcript are below. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK): Let me ask you about nuclear energy. You have indicated in your statements and in our conversations that you support continued nuclear development. I think we recognize as we want to move towards a world where we have greatly reduced our emissions, that nuclear is a very key component in our energy package there. The nuclear waste policy act requires that in exchange for a 1 mill per kWh fee on nuclear power, the DOE has an unconditional obligation to take and dispose of that nuclear waste. That was beginning back in 1998. Obviously we’re about ten years late. The projected taxpayer liability for DOE’s failure is $11 billion at this point and growing. The issues as they relate to Yucca Mountain. I unde...

That question reverberated through a couple of hearings about the  Department of Energy’s 2011 budget request and, up to now, has not received a very adequate answer. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has took a stab at it this week. At the House Science and Natural Resources committee yesterday and at the Senate Appropriate Committee’s Energy and Water subcommittee today, Chu faced some pretty insistent questions on this issue. We admit that we’re as curious as anyone on this. We found that this exchange between Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Chu got to the heart of the argument and gave Chu enough room for a full answer (our transcript): Sen. Patty Murray: Who was consulted in making the decision that Yucca Mountain is no longer a viable option? Steven Chu: One has to go back and look at the entire history of the choice of Yucca Mountain, the Nuclear Waste Act, all those things. What one finds is that there are other things, other knowledge, other conditions that as they evolve...

The Third Way, a policy organization in Washington, held a conference yesterday called the New Millennium Nuclear Energy Summit , which proved to be exceptionally consequential . Energy Secretary Steven Chu called for nuclear power to be part of the mix as the nation moves toward mandating that power companies use more clean and renewable energy. As much as 25 percent of the country's power could be from clean energy by 2025, That’s a start, but not that different than what Chu has said consistently. The consequential part comes with the push for a clean energy standard, which would include nuclear energy along with renewable energy sources as a means to reduce carbon emissions. “Our Republican friends in the Senate are less comfortable with a renewable electricity standard. They are more comfortable with a clean energy standard that would allow some credit early on for nuclear [and] some credit early on for clean coal,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.). “Some kind of c...

In case you missed the tweets from @SouthernCompany or @EnergyPressSec yesterday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu   toured the site where two new reactors are being built at Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Ga. Reconfirming his commitment to nuclear energy, the Nobel Laureate spoke to the more than 500 workers already on site on the need to build new nuclear plants to create jobs for American workers and boost U.S. competitiveness . “In his State of the Union address, President Obama outlined a blueprint for an American economy that is built to last and develops every available source of American energy,” said Secretary Chu. “Nuclear power is an important part of that blueprint. The work being done in Georgia and at research organizations like Oak Ridge National Laboratory is helping restore American leadership in the global race for the nuclear energy jobs of tomorrow.” Just how many new jobs is Secretary Chu talking about? Business Week says : About 1,700 workers are alrea...

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....

Not our headline – that of the AP story that covers Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s testimony before the Senate Budget Committee. A lot of the Senators there had no intention of letting nuclear energy slip away as a priority and Chu reassured them that it won’t. Some money quotes: "I believe in nuclear power as a central part of our energy mix. It provides clean, busload [sic: baseload] electricity" “Closing the fuel cycle is something we want to do.” Chu said he is ready to act on loan guarantees for the first group of new reactors and plans on "moving very aggressively to getting the money out the door." "Nuclear is going to be part of our energy future. It has to be." Read the whole story for the senatorial jitters – all good, in our view – and Chu’s remarkably reassuring performance. We’ve noticed that the Obama administration has displayed a tendency to roll back over an issue it’s passed by once – see the squabble over earmarks ...

Ever since Energy Secretary Steven Chu set about closing Yucca Mountain, Congress members have been handing DOE staff – and Chu – considerable grief for the decision at virtually every hearing since then. So the recent decision that the used fuel repository’s license application cannot be withdrawn from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seems a kind of vindication, reasserting Congressional will – the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 that, via a 1987 amendment, designated Yucca Mountain as the used fuel repository – over an executive decision. Drawing the lines between branches of government is, of course, a perpetual issue in American governance, but this decision seems clear cut: the Act and its amendment were passed by Congress and signed by President Ronald Reagan. Closing Yucca Mountain means overturning or further amending the Act – and no one seems eager to do either. So if Congress does feel vindicated, why not press the point ? Some 91 members of Congress on Tuesday...

The first of three days of hearings about the Boxer-Kerry climate change bill in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)) went the way opening days often do. The Senators kicked things off with what were essentially position papers, with Sen. Boxer highly favorable to the bill and ranking member Sen. James Inhofe (R. Okla.) highly unfavorable. (Inhofe noted, “If we went full speed ahead, nuclear energy would supply 40% of our electricity,” with which we can but agree.) Since all the speakers were Obama administration officials, the panel was highly favorable about the bill, too. Along with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff filled out the panel. You can read about their invariably positive thoughts about the legislation in this New York Times story , but here’s Chu: “When the starting gun sounded...

While President Obama pulled duty in New Orleans the other day, as we reported in the post below, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu is in Paris speaking to a meeting of the International Energy Agency. You can decide who pulled the better duty. Chu and the energy ministers are all jockeying for position during the run up to Copenhagen. But this Bloomberg article shows him pushing nuclear energy in a notably “aggressive” way. The U.S. government will announce loan guarantees for nuclear plants “very soon,” Chu said. “Nuclear power is an important part of what the U.S. has to do to reduce emissions.” The U.S. is “working aggressively to restart the nuclear industry,” he said. “I believe the nuclear waste problem is solvable on a scientific level and a political level.” We’ll be waiting for those announcements – we do think more loan guarantees will get that aggressive work going even more aggressively, but that may wait to be done in the Senate climate change bill...

And that’s what they’re calling it: The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. Announced today during a telephone conference with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Presidential Advisor Carol Browner, the commission’s charge is to provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the nation’s used nuclear fuel. The commission will be headed by former House member Lee Hamilton (D-Indiana) and former National Security Advisor (to Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush) Brent Scowcroft. These men volunteer to chair the commission and show considerable devotion to public service in doing so. The remaining 13 commission members include: Mark Ayers, President, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO Vicky Bailey, Former Commissioner, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; Former IN PUC Commissioner; Former Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs Albert Carnesale, Chancellor Emeritus an...

A little late for the East coast, but for the rest of you, enjoy. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is – everywhere – and there are other nuclear friendly voices throughout the listings here. Nuclear Notes writer emeritus Jarrett Adams (now at AREVA) will be on EnergyNOW! From FishbowlDC : NBC’s Meet the Press: Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy ; Governor Tom Ridge (R); Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM); James Acton, Nuclear Physicist; Mark Halperin, TIME Magazine; Helene Cooper, New York Times; E.J. Dionne, Washington Post; Kim Strassel, Wall Street Journal. • CBS’s Face the Nation: Secretary of Energy Steven Chu; Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) . • ABC’s This Week: Steven Chu, United States Secretary of Energy; Bill Richardson, Former Governor (D-NM) &former U.S. Secretary of Energy; Michael Chertoff, Former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security . • CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley : Steven Chu , Energy Secretary; Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) . • Bloomb...

NBC's First Read has the story first: From NBC's Savannah Guthrie Obama will name Steven Chu his choice for Energy secretary, Lisa Jackson for EPA administrator and Carol Browner as energy "czar" reporting to the president. It is unclear whether the Browner position is cabinet level. This will not be officially announced this week. We'll have more on this later. Interesting to note up top, though, is that Steven Chu is a signatory on the DOE Labs' report "A Sustainable Energy Future: The Essential Role of Nuclear Energy," released this past August. You can read that here (as a pdf). Chu, a Nobel prize winner in physics, is director of the Berkeley Lab. You can learn more about him here . Here's a taster: Chu has also reinvigorated Berkeley Lab’s existing programs for energy-efficient buildings, more powerful batteries, and monitoring greenhouse gases. He has made Berkeley Lab a center for powerful new climate model...

The Department of Energy’s 2011 budget request is excellent in recognizing the value of nuclear energy, mostly by simply shifting sums around to favor research a little more and increasing the loan guarantee authority to ensure more plants can be built. We’ll have more details about the budget request a little later today. In the meantime, we thought we’d provide a little context for the nuclear good news the budget request contains. After all, many nuclear advocates thought Barack Obama’s election would have dire consequences for the growth of nuclear energy in this country. That hasn’t proven to be true, in large part due to the climate change issue, which has allowed the benefits of nuclear energy to shine out, perhaps also in part due to the appointment of the nuclear friendly Steven Chu to head the Department of Energy. We’ve mentioned before that President Obama tends to revisit an issue several times before settling on an approach (admittedly, we were talking about a short...