23rd Carnival of Nuclear Energy: Uphill Battles and Spaghetti Regulations

For the third time since the nuclear carnivals began, we have the privilege of hosting this week’s highlights of the pro nuclear blogs.

In no particular order, we start with Ted Rockwell at Learning About Energy who contributed a thought-provoking essay on the topsy-turvy world of nuclear energy. Here’s his synopsis:

Nuclear means being special. That brings special favors, but we soon learn that it also brings a curse that is hard to shake: no solution that would otherwise be quite adequate is ever good enough for nuclear. People are ready to believe that our competitors’ problems will soon be solved, but for nuclear, we have to promise that we’ll make each succeeding plant safer than its predecessors.

Rod Adams at Atomic Insights has been racking up the comments after challenging the regulatory system on excessive costs due to the extremely conservative linear no threshold theory:

The regulatory system in the US for nuclear energy is based on the assumption that all radiation, no matter how small the dose represents an avoidable risk. The rules push nuclear facility operators to keep doses as low as reasonably achievable, but the regulators assume a broad definition of a "reasonable" cost for reducing radiation doses.

Nuclear costs would fall if regulators recognized the science showing that there is no harm from doses that are within the normal variations in natural background radiation.

Brian Wang at Next Big Future noted how fast India is increasing its nuclear generation and exceeding its projected targets.

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat reported on the delay for two new nuclear units in the Czech Republic due to lower electricity demand and possibly Germany’s decision to keep their reactors running longer.

Gail Marcus at Nuke Power Talk liked the World Nuclear Association’s idea of building more attractive nuclear facilities for a “less-intrusive profile”:

There is no reason why much of our infrastructure needs to be quite as unattractive as some of it is. If designed right from the beginning, many facilities could be made more attractive for minimal additional cost.

Margaret Harding at ANS Nuclear Cafe explained the spaghetti of regulations among five different departments regarding nuclear export control. In order to reduce this complexity, Margaret referenced Defense Secretary Gates’ proposal to create a single list, single agency and single IT infrastructure to manage the process.

Charles Barton at Nuclear Green pointed out the number of cost savings that can be achieved from small and advanced reactors.

Steve Aplin at Canadian Energy Issues discussed another go at building new nuclear at Darlington in order to replace 6,000 MW of coal. Aplin pointed out how history has proved that when decision-makers take bogus ideas like Amory Lovins’ ‘negawatts’ seriously, the result is skyrocketing greenhouse gas emissions and a stagnant job market.

Areva’s blog took on Climate Action Progress’ Joe Romm and Richard Caperton’s statements regarding the loan guarantee program:

As the details of all loan guarantees are proprietary, Caperton has no knowledge of the financial protections included in any given transactions, and thus no basis to evaluate whether a credit subsidy cost is “correct”.

Meredith Angwin at Yes Vermont Yankee wasn’t shy to discuss the Vermont gubernatorial politics. In a debate between anti Vermont Yankee Senator Shumlin and pro VY Lt. Governor Dubie, Meredith took issue with Shumlin’s tactic of describing Vermont Yankee as Entergy Louisiana.

And here at NEI Nuclear Notes, Mark Flanagan pointed out that Constellation’s decision to withdraw from the Calvert Cliffs 3 project doesn’t mean the end of new nuclear.

Picture of the assembly modular building for Vogtle units 3 and 4 with units 1 and 2 in background.

Sneak Peek

There's an invisible force powering and propelling our way of life.
It's all around us. You can't feel it. Smell it. Or taste it.
But it's there all the same. And if you look close enough, you can see all the amazing and wondrous things it does.
It not only powers our cities and towns.
And all the high-tech things we love.
It gives us the power to invent.
To explore.
To discover.
To create advanced technologies.
This invisible force creates jobs out of thin air.
It adds billions to our economy.
It's on even when we're not.
And stays on no matter what Mother Nature throws at it.
This invisible force takes us to the outer reaches of outer space.
And to the very depths of our oceans.
It brings us together. And it makes us better.
And most importantly, it has the power to do all this in our lifetime while barely leaving a trace.
Some people might say it's kind of unbelievable.
They wonder, what is this new power that does all these extraordinary things?

A Design Team Pictures the Future of Nuclear Energy

For more than 100 years, the shape and location of human settlements has been defined in large part by energy and water. Cities grew up near natural resources like hydropower, and near water for agricultural, industrial and household use.

So what would the world look like with a new generation of small nuclear reactors that could provide abundant, clean energy for electricity, water pumping and desalination and industrial processes?

Hard to say with precision, but Third Way, the non-partisan think tank, asked the design team at the Washington, D.C. office of Gensler & Associates, an architecture and interior design firm that specializes in sustainable projects like a complex that houses the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. The talented designers saw a blooming desert and a cozy arctic village, an old urban mill re-purposed as an energy producer, a data center that integrates solar panels on its sprawling flat roofs, a naval base and a humming transit hub.

In the converted mill, high temperat…

Seeing the Light on Nuclear Energy

If you think that there is plenty of electricity, that the air is clean enough and that nuclear power is a just one among many options for meeting human needs, then you are probably over-focused on the United States or Western Europe. Even then, you’d be wrong.

That’s the idea at the heart of a new book, “Seeing the Light: The Case for Nuclear Power in the 21st Century,” by Scott L. Montgomery, a geoscientist and energy expert, and Thomas Graham Jr., a retired ambassador and arms control expert.

Billions of people live in energy poverty, they write, and even those who don’t, those who live in places where there is always an electric outlet or a light switch handy, we need to unmake the last 200 years of energy history, and move to non-carbon sources. Energy is integral to our lives but the authors cite a World Health Organization estimate that more than 6.5 million people die each year from air pollution. In addition, they say, the global climate is heading for ruinous instability. E…

NEI Nuclear Notes

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