NEI Nuclear Notes

Well, all right, not really – but welcome retro-computing fans, anyway – but we have been interested in how the nuclear energy utilizes computer systems. We know the basics of security – don’t point crucial systems at the internet is a big one – but on a day-to-day basis, how does the industry interact with computers? What does it do with them that’s unique? Here’s part of the answer: The new agreement, which adds to the original contract signed in April 2008, covers additional work necessary for Accenture to support business processes, including configuration management of detailed design data and management of data associated with required inspections; testing, and analyses; and use of acceptance criteria involved with the construction of nuclear energy facilities. The agreement is between UniStar and Accenture, and it gets a little complicated after that. UniStar is jointly owned by Constellation and EDF, tasked with developing, as its home page says, “the safest, most...

While this article in the Baltimore Sun initially focuses on job cuts, it later gives a good summary of the choices shareholders will have in deciding the fate of Constellation. Here is what I want to talk about: The EDF proposal unveiled Wednesday called for selling half of Constellation's nuclear power assets to the French firm for $4.5 billion, including an immediate down payment of $1 billion in cash, and also selling several non-nuclear power plants to the company for as much as $2 billion. The rest of Constellation would remain roughly the same, publicly traded and operating out of its Baltimore headquarters. So how does the fact that a French company is so keen to buy the nuclear assets, but not the entire company, play with a new administration that says it will address energy policy right away? How does it play with Wall Street investors? What would be the effect of a French company owning and operating nuclear power plants in the U.S.? Discuss among yourselves...

The Maryland Public Television's State Circle program aired a debate last Friday over building a third reactor at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in southern Maryland. NEI's Mary Quillian Helms was interviewed along with Kevin Kamps from Beyond Nuclear. Check out the video .

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...

From Yahoo : UniStar Nuclear's development arm, UniStar Development Company, has entered into an agreement with Ameren Corporation's (NYSE: AEE - News ) Missouri-based utility, AmerenUE, to assist in preparing a combined construction and operating license application (COLA). UniStar Nuclear, the jointly developed nuclear business enterprise of Constellation Energy (NYSE: CEG - News ) and AREVA Inc., is working toward developing and deploying a proposed standardized fleet of advanced U.S. Evolutionary Power Reactors (U.S. EPR) in the U.S. Another one to add to the list .