NEI Nuclear Notes

We recently lost our Internet connection and cable TV at home due to a fire that cindered some underground fiber. Since two of the things we do most at home for entertainment is prowl the Internet for picture of nuclear power plants and channel hop in a St. Vitus kind of way, this was a problem. Generally speaking, we tend to take the presence of those things for granted, and sure, it’s certainly easy enough to do other things – talk to friends on the phone, do some writing and reading, make a more elaborate dinner. But then imagine that the grid overloads and pretty soon, you’re fleeing town for a nearby hotel with air conditioning and a pool. But even when the electricity disappears, one can reasonably guess it’ll reappear soon enough. But what if electricity use soars to the extent that it necessitates brownouts or precipitates a blackout for a considerable length of time – and the temperature is 130 degrees – and there’s nowhere to go. Meet Kuwait : Kuwait is experienci...

Although Germany has become something of a whipping post on this blog, it’s hard not to look at its energy profile since it decided to close its nuclear facilities and not see something like chaos. But a lot of that chaos is incipient, so there’s time – not a lot, but still some time – to figure out how to proceed. For Germany, one of those ways has been encouraging the uptake of renewable energy. But now, the plummeting price of solar panels has unleashed a new round of, how shall we put it, chaos. Germany plans to reduce government subsidies supporting solar power by up to 30 percent within a year because higher-than-expected demand has made the scheme far more costly than authorities initially expected. At first glance, that seems a boon to the solar business and a vindication of those subsidies – they seeded the market and now the market can proceed on its own. But not so. German companies producing solar panels, already under pressure from stiff competition from n...

Around the world: France has made a deal with Kuwait: An agreement "to develop the peaceful use of nuclear energy" was signed in Paris by Kuwait's Prime Minister, Sheikh Nasser Mohammed al-Ahmad al-Sabah, and French government officials. "This agreement will permit the development of cooperation between France and Kuwait in several areas of nuclear energy" including electricity generation, a French government statement said. Of course, water desalination is a big issue in desert countries and requires impressive electricity resources. Beyond that, Kuwait already suffers brown-outs and black-outs once the air conditioners start running full force. Kuwait has a population of 3.4 million people – the article doesn’t say, but it seems they could become an electricity exporter to Saudi Arabia and its old enemy, Iraq. --- So if that’s what the French are up to, how about the Russians? Moscow aims to spend billions of dollars to help Argenti...

Russian President Vladimir Putin, that’s who . "You couldn't transfer large electric power stations to wind energy, however much you wanted to. In the next few decades, it will be impossible," Putin said, adding that consumption patterns would only undergo minor changes. He said the only "real and powerful alternative" to oil and gas is nuclear energy. He rejected other approaches as "claptrap." Russian has a word for “claptrap?” --- Even though we’ve run a lot of stories about international activities, it’s actually rather hard to keep up with every country that wants to (re)join the nuclear family. So I thought it might be worthwhile to catalog a few countries that haven’t had a post yet – get them on the radar so we can take a better look at their ambitions going forward. -- Argentina has revived its nuclear energy industry, joining its neighbor Brazil. President Cristina Fernandez's government is finishing constructio...

The IAEA approves a fuel bank: The fuel bank would offer nations civilian atomic reactor fuel on an apolitical basis in hopes of deterring them from pursuing their own capability to produce such material -- a process that could also generate nuclear-weapon fuel. Essentially, it does this by providing enriched uranium when there is a disruption in the commercial supply. The idea is that this limits proliferation opportunities because the host country will not do the enrichment itself. Naturally, there are still a lot of details to work out: Undecided aspects of the plan include the site of the fuel supply, the precise process by which the bank could acquire additional fuel and how its capacity could be increased. This story goes into more details of Warren Buffett’s involvement, which was considerable: "Throughout my lifetime I will be interested in this subject and I will back that interest up with money," Buffett told Reuters. "If the project so...

Reuters has put up an interesting “Fact Box” detailing which countries in the middle East and African want to knock together a few nuclear energy plants. It includes countries we’ve discussed here but a fair number we haven’t, including Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Libya, Namibia, Niger, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and UAE. Some of these are in very early stages of planning and the list is not free of red flags ready to spring up. But it’s a great overview and it’s interesting to see countries with significant supplies of uranium pursue nuclear energy. That’s energy security writ large, something uranium-rich, nuclear-free Australia should consider. ---- There have been a few news stories about the Japanese reluctance to work with India on the latter’s nuclear efforts, but we admit we steered around it because we didn’t quite get the gist of it – India has plenty of partners without worrying about Japan. But apparently, it’s important to the two countries...

This struck me as a little funny: The Dec. 14 hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will look at how well the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is working as it tackles high-profile reforms in the wake of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster -- and the long-standing issue of what to do with toxic nuclear waste. "There have been reports and information that the commission is not always working well together," a committee aide said. No comment on the substance of the hearing, but perhaps NRC could return the favor and hold a meeting on how well Congress is getting along. --- Kuwait, Bahrain and Egypt have stalled their plans because of heightened safety concerns triggered by the Fukushima meltdown caused by a 9-magnitude earthquake and a 49-foot tsunami. Well, that makes sense – hey, wait a minute there! But they have also been hit by the pro-democracy uprisings that have plunged the Arab world into political turmoil and an...

Even if we were a little more, um, self-centered, we probably  wouldn't try out a sentence like this : Nuclear power rather than renewable sources like the wind or sun are the best option for oil-rich Gulf Arab states to meet growing energy demands, especially if produced collectively, say regional experts. Not that we don't agree, but it does seem counter-intuitive: we're not sure about wind, but one thing we do know, there's a lot of sunshine in those parts. So why the focus on nuclear? [Saudi Electricity Company president Ali Saleh al-Barrack] said that while Saudi Arabia was conducting research into renewable energies, options such as wind and solar power were either limited or less attractive for technical reasons. Given the high demand for power and the population growth in the Gulf region, "I think the only immediate solution is nuclear energy," which is the best option in economic and environmental terms, Barrack said. And here'...

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) let fly an op-ed in the Wall Street journal today entitled “Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?” that glides around some very odd desert lands. First, he dings President Bush for going nuclear instead of solar, noticing that the kingdom has lots of sunshine: Have Ms. Rice, Mr. Bush or Saudi leaders looked skyward? The Saudi desert is under almost constant sunshine. If Mr. Bush wanted to help his friends in Riyadh diversify their energy portfolio, he should have offered solar panels, not nuclear plants. Second, he doubts that Saudi Arabia has good intentions, especially with Iran nearby: An Iranian nuclear weapon would radically alter the region's balance of power, and could prove to be the match that lights the tinderbox. By signing this agreement with the U.S., Saudi Arabia is warning Iran that two can play the nuclear game. And third, those ingrate Saudis are taking advantage of us while they have us over an <ahem> ba...

Here's Max Boot : Of the top 14 oil exporters, only one is a well-established liberal democracy — Norway. Two others have recently made a transition to democracy — Mexico and Nigeria. Iraq is trying to follow in their footsteps. That's it. Every other major oil exporter is a dictatorship — and the run-up in oil prices has been a tremendous boon to them. My associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, Ian Cornwall, calculates that if oil averages $71 a barrel this year, 10 autocracies stand to make about $500 billion more than in 2003, when oil was at $27. This windfall helps to squelch liberal forces and entrench noxious dictators in such oil producers as Russia (which stands to make $115 billion more this year than in 2003) and Venezuela ($36 billion). Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez can buy off their publics with generous subsidies and ignore Western pressure while sabotaging democratic developments from Central America to Central Asia. The "dictatorship dividend" ...

From a symposium on energy issues held last night at the University of Wyoming in Laramie: Francois Dickman of Laramie, former ambassador to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, said OPEC's oil exports had declined from as high as 38 billion barrels in recent years to as low as 30 billion. He said this and other developments, coupled with the emergence of China as a major player, pose "a serious threat," and suggested that the United States should "take nuclear power seriously ." Edward B. Barbier, a UW professor of economics, asked, "Do we really want to be in the position of supporting a ruthless dictator because he is the enemy of our enemy?" He said this has been "part of our foreign policy for 20 years."

From a new administration in Washington, D.C., to the debate on climate change, 2009 was a busy year for the nuclear industry as the domestic fleet continued to operate at near-record capacity. The following summary of nuclear energy in 2009 was eloquently written and compiled by one of NEI’s writers, TJ Swanek. Hope you enjoy and find it useful! BIG CHANGES IN WASHINGTON At the federal level, many changes took place that will affect the nuclear industry. Steven Chu, confirmed as energy secretary, oversaw increases in funding for long-term nuclear energy research in the budgeting process , including research dollars for advanced fuel cycles and Generation IV reactors. At the NRC , Gregory Jaczko was appointed chairman, succeeding Dale Klein, who had been serving in that role since July 2006. President Obama nominated George Apostolakis , William Magwood and Bill Ostendorff as NRC commissioners to fill two vacant seats and replace Klein on the commission. If the nominees are a...