Think You’ve Got Game? Try NARUC’s Energy Risk Lab

The following guest post was written by Mary Pietrzyk, NEI’s Manager, Fuel Cycle Policies and Programs.

I had the opportunity recently to participate in a thought provoking and action packed event in Washington, DC—NARUC’s Energy Risk Lab. NARUC, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, is the national association representing public utility commissioners from each state. NARUC is a valuable resource for Commissioners around the country and provides fora for dialogue among diverse entities in the public utility industry.

NARUC’s Energy Risk Lab, generously supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, is a scenario-planning game that looks at decisions and uncertainty facing the U.S. electricity generation sector. NARUC staff, using natural disaster related emergency tabletop exercises as a foundation, developed this game, along with others, to explore the impacts of new policy, market, or technology developments on electricity generation.

The basis of this lab is that each team is given a portfolio of generation. Teams start with coal, and then other technologies are added as the game progresses. NARUC’s Miles Keogh walked our group through various rounds of complying with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Rules. After getting a brief overview of each rule, teams had to retrofit, repower or replace generation to comply with:

· the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule in round 1;

· the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule in round 3; and

· the New Source Performance Standards Rule for existing plants in round 5.

While some of these rules are not finalized, assumptions were made as to what would be deemed compliant. Teams worked to make generation decisions, manage uncertainties as the game progressed, and eventually worked between teams to buy and sell generation and allowances.

In addition to gaining valuable knowledge about EPA rules, the game explored the psychology of decision-making under situations of uncertainty and incomplete information (sounds like the real world doesn’t it?) For example, all teams had a proclivity to make small incremental changes instead of making dramatic changes to their generation portfolios due to uncertainty looming in subsequent rounds.

It was also difficult to balance the various drivers of change—complying with the rules in a timely manner while maintaining reliability, developing new clean energy generation while managing costs, and the list continues. Compounding the challenges, my team was representative of a diverse set of interests (industry, environmental organizations, regulatory organizations, etc), so options had to be carefully presented and defended.

This game definitely conveyed the enormous pressures on our electricity system—but more importantly the enormous pressure on our utilities, regulators and legislators who have to make these generation planning decisions.

Kudos to the NARUC team and the Department of Energy for the great event! A special thanks to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for hosting the group in its DC conference center.

Anyone seeking more information regarding the Energy Risk Lab should contact Miles Keough, Director of Grants and Research, at mkeough-at-naruc.org.

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

NEI Nuclear Notes

Search This Blog