NEI Nuclear Notes

Uprate at St. Lucie impossible without CWIP. Two nuclear critics, Peter Bradford and Mark Cooper, recently published a report (pdf) explaining how “advanced cost recovery” for nuclear plants in Florida and South Carolina “creates another nuclear fiasco.” Cooper’s main argument seems to be that Construction Work in Progress (CWIP) shifts to ratepayers all of the risks of building nuclear plants. This is either a deliberate distortion or a misunderstanding of how the cost recovery mechanism works. How “advanced cost recovery” (aka CWIP) works When a utility builds any type of project, it uses a mix of debt and equity to pay for the construction. The debt comes from banks and other investors and, of course, the utility must pay interest to use the debt. The equity comes from the utility’s shareholders and also requires a return for its use. The CWIP financing mechanism, which is also allowed by the federal government for interstate transmission projects, allows a company building...

Let’s take a step back, shudder, and look at a dire report from Mark Cooper of the Institute for Energy and the Environment at the Vermont Law School. Cooper releases reports like this occasionally, although why he continues to be interested in nuclear energy is difficult to pin down. He’s not trying to dispute the “lies” propagated by the industry nor try to show that nuclear energy does something other than it claims to do. He just sees the business crumbling into dust every couple of years – I guess that can qualify as an academic pursuit, even if it’s not exactly productive. You can read the earlier articles linked above to see how Cooper’s ivory tower musings have not been as rigorous as they might be. In the current instance, he wants to grab the San Onofre/Kewaunee “nuclear is unviable” wave to assert that “more than three dozen U.S. reactors in 23 states are at greatest risk of early retirement, including nine reactors that exhibit the largest number of risk factors.” T...

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...

AREVA’s Chief Commercial Officer Ruben Lazo offers some interesting thoughts and predictions: “In two years, there will be very strong demand on the [uranium] market, as new reactors start operating, and as new contracts with the existing fleet kick in. …I’m sure that Japan will restart a few reactors this year, and complete all necessary measures to restart many others in 2013 and 2014.” and “Responsible governments won’t tie the whole industrial and economic development of their country to a single source of energy,” Lazo said. “Manufacturers want some predictability in power prices that can’t be provided by gas, while nuclear is the only energy that can guarantee some price stability.” Which is – true – and not often said. Lazo also says the “nuclear renaissance scenario isn’t there anymore,” which I’m not sure I agree with – there are 61 reactors under construction around the world, after all – 65 with the four here - but that’s okay. He’s providing his views and t...

More than a month ago, Mr. Craig Severance wrote about his lively debate on new nuclear costs with NEI’s Leslie Kass and in response, we posted this . The following week, Mr. Severance responded timely to us and now it’s our turn again. We’re on our second round of posts and the debate has gotten into the weeds. The statements on nuclear from Mr. Severance have become more glaring, in my opinion, so that simply letting just a few of the statements go would be a mistake. Besides the needless analogies and repeating literally half of his rebuttal with previous literature, there are some major interpretation issues Mr. Severance assumes in his latest rebuttal that need airing. (Disclaimer: you're about to read a really long post with no pictures and visuals, hope you enjoy and make it through it!) “Black Box” From Mr. Severance's latest post: The NEI fight-back response is welcome in that we are blowing open the "Black Box" of hidden assumptions about the costs of new ...

If you are in a lull at work or have time this afternoon, click here around 2 PM Eastern time to watch an oversight hearing titled “Nuclear Power’s Federal Loan Guarantees: The Next Multi-Billion Dollar Bailout?” The chair of the subcommittee that is holding the hearing is Mr. Kucinich from Ohio. NEI’s Leslie Kass will be testifying on the first panel along with former NRC commissioner Peter Bradford, IEER’s Arjun Makhijani, and Heritage Foundation’s Jack Spencer. Panel two includes a few familiar names as well: Mark Cooper and Richard Caperton among others. Pretty much everyone from all sides will be speaking at this hearing. The Q&A should be quite interesting, especially from the Chairman … Update 2:15: Well, it looks like we won't be able to watch the webcast after all. We were told that it's not working today and the committee will archive the video for viewing later this week. Update 4/21, 8:00 am: NEI's Donn Salvosa who was at the hearing said that it was l...

The answers to this question from various experts should be fun to watch unfold over the week . Be sure to remember to check in occasionally to see how the discussion is going. It's up to five mixed responses so far... Update 1:50 pm: NEI's CEO Marv Fertel added his two cents to the discussion . Update 10/21, 4 pm: So far 14 experts have weighed in. Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa has the most favorable votes with NEI's CEO right behind. Carl Pope from the Sierra Club dropped an odd comment about Texas and low-level waste and surprisingly the American Wind Energy Association felt the need to comment about the nuclear industry's financial barriers. I wonder what AWEA thinks of HSBC's comments : HSBC Private Bank is recommending weightings of 1-5 percent in nuclear power to clients without ethical objections, as subsidy-dependent renewable energy stocks are too exposed to political risk. Fredrik Nerbrand, head of global strategy at HSBC's private banking arm, said nuclear ...

Welcome to the 99th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers, a get together that we at NEI Nuclear Notes have been honored to host from time to time since its inception. This week, we've got selections from seven of the best blogs the online nuclear energy community has to offer. If you would like to host a future edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang of Next Big Future to get on the rotation. And please, don't ask to host the 100th edition of the carnival, as that honor has already been parceled out to a well-deserving blogger. Nuclear Power Talk: What's Good for the Goose . Gail Marcus takes a hard look at Mark Cooper's claims about the economics of nuclear energy. The Nuclear Green Revolution: The Clinch River Reactor Failure, Lessons Unlearned . Did AEC make a mistake by pursuing the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor over other designs? Read and find out. Yes, Vermont Yankee: Green Jobs and Taxes . In this guest post, Guy Page of the Vermont Energy ...

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...

Triplepundit asks the following question: At some point you just have to ask yourself, what is it that these politicians are getting to push nuclear energy so hard? Answer: knowledge. It’s a powerful thing. You can read the rest of the post yourself, but we didn’t find it all that noteworthy. The opening question was just too easy. --- While Congress is contemplating a new energy policy, American women are paying the electric bills at home and making the critical decisions on energy use in their homes and businesses, according to the national Women's Survey on Energy & the Environment, the first in-depth women's survey on attitudes and awareness about energy. We look forward to finding out what women think about energy. Oh wait, we already know that – from polls – that also include – men. We genuinely don’t get this one. --- We trust that Mark Miller at the Vermont Law School’s Institute for Energy and the Environment means only the best when he wri...