A Nuclear Plant Like That: Reactions to the EPA Carbon Rules

If the Environmental Protection Agency regulations on carbon emissions, released yesterday, left anyone surprised, that would be a surprise. These rules have been in the works since 2007, when the Supreme Court said that such emissions must be regulated under the Clean Air Act (the government argued against it), and since 2010, when President Barack Obama told Congress that he would proceed with carbon emission rules if Congress did not (which, indeed, Congress did not.) The White House preceded the new rules with an energy plan that explicitly linked renewable energy with nuclear energy as carbon emission mitigators, another factor that played (or seemed to) into the news coverage that has appeared in the last day.
Granted, some of the coverage is muted or even a bit bizarre. Here’s the New York Times:

The proposed rule also opens the door for nuclear power plant operators to collect extra revenue because their reactors do not generate carbon dioxide. The nuclear industry has long touted its carbon-free nature, but has not been able to collect cash for that attribute.

Well – that’s an interesting take. Sometimes, the Times feels like “all the news that’s fit for oligarchs.”
Nuclear made the Associated Press’ list of winners:

If carbon-free power becomes more valuable to the marketplace, no one will benefit more than nuclear power producers such as Exelon, Entergy, Public Service Enterprise Group and First Energy.

Energy Daily (not online) quickly explains why this might be so:

A rule to limit CO2 emissions from power plants would certainly help nuclear utilities because it would make power from nuclear generation more valuable.

Which seems a bit premature, but it certainly holds the potential, another way around to the Times’ point. Nuclear and hydro are the gold standard for non-emitting baseload energy and hydro (and its dams) would be much more difficult to stand up than new nuclear plants. So – we’ll see.
The Financial Times also deems nuclear a winner:

Q: Who would be the main winners and losers?
A: The winners are the gas, renewable and nuclear power and energy efficiency industries. The EPA has calculated its new standards based on the emissions reductions that would be possible if there were a 50 per cent rise in gas-fired power generation.

And this story from Reuters throws the “sputtering, flailing” nuclear energy industry a lifeline:

U.S. environmental regulators could throw a lifeline to the nation's ailing nuclear power fleet when they unveil landmark carbon pollution curbs next week, heeding calls from operators like Exelon Corp to acknowledge nuclear energy as a valuable way to reduce emissions.

This actually came from a preview of the release. Reuters story of the actual release tamps down the whole “death rattle of nuclear” idea:

The plan gives states multiple options to achieve their emission targets, such as improving power plant heat rates; using more natural gas plants to replace coal plants; ramping up zero-carbon energy, such as solar or nuclear; and increasing energy efficiency.

As you’d expect, newspaper coverage takes a rather measured approach – nuclear energy gets its due, but mostly deep in the story. I expect editorials will catch up with some of the obvious implications in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, The Minneapolis Post lets reader Rolf Westgard get straight to the point:

I would feel better if I heard more about measures like using new, safer nuclear plants, such as the Westinghouse AP 1000. A nuclear plant like that produces 8 billion around-the-clock kilowatt hours per year, without emitting any carbon dioxide.

“A nuclear plant like that.” Just so. So the White House recognizes the value of nuclear energy, journalists and the people they talk to get it, and so does Rolf Westgard. Interesting times.

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

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