NEI Nuclear Notes

IT’s way too early in the cycle to talk about the presidential candidates’ energy policy formulations – heck, we may not have the majority of them announced as candidates yet. Consider, then , former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, one of those candidates who has not yet announced. The Associated Press and Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush spoke out against the proposal to bury nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, without mentioning Bush's ties to a nuclear industry group that actively supports the project. Really, a nuclear energy group? Which one? What the AP and Review-Journal left out, however, is that Bush is currently listed as a member of a nuclear industry group called the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition (CASEnergy), which has long advocated for Yucca Mountain -- and continues to do so. As recently as February 24, CASEnergy published a blog post declaring Yucca Mountain a "scientifically safe and sound opti...

The Nuclear Energy Assembly wrapped up this morning with a panel on nuclear energy and its worth as a low carbon dioxide emitting energy source. Low in this case means zero. That’s been true from the opening of Shippingport in the 50s and remains true. But it has taken on new significance in recent years. The panel was called A Discussion on Climate Change. Panelists included  Philip Sharp, President of Resources for the Future , Christine Todd Whitman, Co-chairman of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition and President of the Whitman Strategy Group , Armond Cohen, Executive Director of the Clean Air Task Force and Dan Reicher, Executive Director of Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University. This is an excellent group, ranging over the topic from their varied perspectives. We’ll provide a few highlights from each speaker, but the exchanges between them are very enlightening as well. You can view the 40 minute session here – if you need somethi...

Former EPA Administrator and New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman weighs in on climate change in the Boston Globe, but also tilts the discussion toward local concerns: During the polar vortex event, nuclear energy facilities around the country helped to save the day in the face of extreme weather. Because uranium fuel is plentiful and stable in price, nuclear energy facilities aren’t affected by the same type of fuel price fluctuations as other sources of energy. Neglecting clean energy sources such as solar, wind, and especially nuclear, can result in blackouts, increased power bills, and will take a heavy toll on our efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. I’ll add that uranium doesn’t get diverted to home heating, which really hurt the natural gas supply in New England last year. If predictions of a powerful winter come true, expect nuclear energy’s reliability to once again play a part in keeping people warm. Whitman’s larger point is that New England is becoming ov...

Tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 P.M., Gov. Christie Todd Whitman, Co-Chair of the CASEnergy Coalition , will be participating in a live Twitter chat concerning nuclear energy's role in helping states comply with EPA's new carbon regulations. To follow the chat in real time, click here to see all of the questions and answers. If you’d like to submit a question to Gov. Whitman, you can do so via Twitter beginning right now. Be sure to add the #AskGovCTW hashtag in order to make sure that the folks at CASEnergy see the question. Topic : Nuclear Energy’s Role in New EPA Carbon Regulations Host : CASEnergy Coalition Co-Chair Governor Christine Todd Whitman, former EPA Administrator Handle : @CASEnergy Hashtag : #AskGovCTW Date/Time : Thursday, June 26 from 1-1:30 P.M. (accepting questions now)

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2010 data), a nuclear technician can earn an average of $68,090 per year or $32.73 per hour with an Associate’s degree and no experience — none, as in nada, zilch, zip — in the industry. Power plant operators, distributors and dispatchers controlling systems that generate and distribute electric power can earn as much as $65,360 with a high school diploma, while nuclear engineers are paid $99,920 with a Bachelor’s degree. The key word in that paragraph is nada, as the story in Politic365 is about the potential for ambitious young Latinos to join the nuclear energy industry. Now, you may ask, anyone can get into the industry without consideration of ethnic background, right? That’s certainly true. For those that rankle at minority communities being targeted for potential careers and jobs, it’s really more an issue of communicating the existence and potential of those jobs than picking people off the street and installing th...

France enjoyed a little controversy a few weeks ago when automaker Renault questioned whether nuclear energy alone could recharge all the electric cars that will soon be on the road. I wrote about it as an issue of energy diversity or rather, France’s lack of it due to its use of nuclear energy. If there can be a place where nuclear energy can be said to hamper energy diversity, France is it, even if it has had a largely salutary effect on the country. The principle of diversity is a good one, regardless of energy type and where it can become an issue usually doesn’t involve nuclear energy. Too much of one energy type can lead to shortages that can lead in turn to price instability; a single source for fuel can play some pretty repulsive games, as Russia did to some of its neighbors with natural gas a few years ago. Former EPA Administrator and New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman weighs in on the topic as regards the rush to natural gas in this country: The shale...

Dr. Patrick Moore Earlier today we got the news that the original " sensible environmentalist ," Dr. Patrick Moore, was stepping down as co-chair of the CASEnergy Coalition in order to begin enjoying a well-deserved retirement. The following letter was posted  at the CASEnergy Coalition website: Dear Clean and Safe Energy Coalition Members: With more than 3,000 influential members across the nation, the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition has become an important voice in conversations about our country’s energy future. We know that nuclear energy must continue to be part of a solution – not just to our energy challenges, but to our economic and environmental challenges – and the coalition continues to make great strides toward making sure that Americans understand why. The mission endures, and the coalition is stronger than ever, so it is with mixed emotions that I share with you today my decision to retire as Co-Chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. I will rem...

Patrick Moore, ex-Greenpeace, sees in nuclear energy an interesting argument for what he terms “environmental justice,” which is true enough, and economic justice, used in the headline, works as well : African-American and Hispanic advocacy groups have historically been focused on civil rights, but they're "morphing into economic development," Moore said, and looking at energy policy for the first time. Unlike many other big industrial facilities, he noted, polls show nuclear power plants have increasing popular support the closer people live to them. Nuclear plants are "wealth creating machines," Moore said, with no pollution, better roads and schools financed by the plants' property taxes, and large payrolls. Moore is right about this. Nuclear energy facilities are also often union shops, which offers a good path to the middle class and out of economic uncertainty. A city of industry can be a world of opportunity and nuclear energy plants have the adde...

The International Atomic Energy Agency starts a mission : Starting Monday, they will hold meetings with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. and others, Denis Flory, IAEA deputy director general and head of the department of nuclear safety and security, said at a separate news conference. "The objective of this mission is to exchange views with Japanese technical experts and to get firsthand information what the current status of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is, measures to be taken and also future plans to mitigate the accident," he said. "It is not an assessment team," he said, adding that this will also "pave the way for future missions which will be expert peer review missions." It will also be interesting to see if the IAEA will feel it needs to rethink its own role in an incident like this. I'm not implying it has or hasn't done what it should - I really don't know - but insofar as...

Michigan Live talks to for EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. We already know Whitman because she is the co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition , which is a grassroots organization supporting nuclear energy. But what about Granholm ? For Granholm, the energy portfolio of the future would include wind, solar, lithium ion battery, biofuel, nuclear and some measure of fossil fuel generation. She’s especially enthusiastic about solar energy and battery technology, likely due in part to the car industry centered in her state, but, like Whitman, her broad based energy interests avoids putting too much weight on one technology. The writer, Kirk Heinz, a local radio personality, decides that Whitman’s focus on nuclear energy suits him better. I share Granholm’s enthusiasm for other green energy technologies, especially solar and battery, but I have come to the conclusion that we need to invest more resources in th...

Over in Investors Business Daily, Bernard Weinstein takes positive note of Republican gains in Congress and what he thinks is a concomitant better outlook for nuclear energy, but expands beyond politics : The case for nuclear energy remains stronger than ever because it is an efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels that doesn't emit greenhouse gases or particulates. In addition, production costs don't fluctuate as they do with fossil fuel plants. Public sentiment in favor of nuclear energy has been rising, and even some environmental groups have started to embrace nuclear because of its minimal carbon footprint. At the same time, President Obama has voiced support for a revival of America's nuclear power industry and has also proposed increasing federal loan guarantees for new plants from $18.5 billion to $54 billion. All true. Weinstein also notes the rise in interest internationally: South Korea, currently generating 40% of its...

The former Florida governor and CASE Coalition member shares his thoughts : "Change" seems to be the operative word this election season. It's on the lips of political contenders and on the minds of the voters. But politics isn't the only arena where change is in the air. Change is happening in the world of energy as well, specifically when it comes to nuclear energy. ... There are now 104 nuclear power reactors in the United States that are safely producing 20 percent of the nation's electricity - notably, without producing any of the harmful greenhouse gases some believe to be a major factor in climate change. Americans are beginning to recognize that nuclear energy caters to both our lifestyle and our greening mentality. And it offers the most proven means for our country to achieve much needed energy security. ... American are demanding changes in energy production and the utilities are listening - there are 31 new nuclear power plants on the drawing board to ...

You can listen here .

In the January/February 2008 edition of Extra, Karl Grossman at Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting wrote a disingenuous, inaccurate piece against nuclear energy . The whole premise of his article is that the mainstream media doesn't question the nuclear advocates in the industry and government. We know this is false, though, as evidenced by AP's one-sided piece on the nuclear industry's water issues . Lifecycle Emissions Grossman's first claim begins with how the biased media doesn't question NEI's clean air ads. What is left unmentioned by the NEI, the Times and other mainstream media making this claim is that the overall “nuclear cycle”—which includes uranium mining and milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication and disposal of radioactive waste—has significant greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. According to his source, there are: independent studies that document in detail the extent to which the entire nuclear cycle generates greenhous...

Michael Kanellos of CNet recently interviewed CASEnergy co-chair Patrick Moore . Here's an excerpt: Q: When people look at your biography and see you're a Greenpeace co-founder and now a nuclear advocate, they don't believe it. Could you give us a synopsis of your personal history on this issue? Moore: Well, actually I did feel a little lonely in that corner for a while, but I've been joined by the likes of Stewart Brand, Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel), and (environmental author) Tim Flannery, and now we form a fairly serious phalanx of pro-nuclear environmentalists. In fact, I'm the honorary chair of the Canadian chapter of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy, which has 9,000 members worldwide. As a co-founder of Greenpeace, even though I was a scientist, I made the same mistake in those days as all the rest of my colleagues did. We kind of lumped nuclear energy in with nuclear weapons as if all things nuclear were evil. It was an honest mistake...

Click here for a clip from Tucker Carlson's MSNBC program that took a look at nuclear energy. There's a lot of talk, along with a short interview with CASEnergy 's Patrick Moore.

In today's installment of our interview with Dr. Patrick Moore of the CASEnergy Coalition , Dr. Moore talks about his own conversion on the question of nuclear energy: As always, to join CASEnergy, click here . Look for another clip this afternoon.

Know that we were on the cusp of an election in the Canadian province of Ontario in which energy was a big issue, I asked Dr. Patrick Moore about the energy situation there, and how nuclear energy is playing a role as the provincial government seeks to shut down all of its coal plants: As always, to join CASEnergy, click here . Look for another clip tomorrow morning.

In today's installment of our interview with Dr. Patrick Moore of the CASEnergy Coalition , he addresses the link between nuclear energy and low CO2 emissions: As always, to join CASEnergy, click here . Look for another clip this afternoon.

Earlier today, we linked to a clip of Dr. Patrick Moore talking about "independent thinkers" and nuclear energy. In this afternoon's clip, Moore turns to the issue of those who are reflexively anti-nuclear, including groups like the one he helped found, Greenpeace : As always, to join CASEnergy, click here . Look for another clip tomorrow morning.