NEI Nuclear Notes

In our year end wrap up, we more-or-less ignored international doings to stick with the domestic industry. That makes sense given NEI’s interests, but it does undersell the larger context of nuclear energy’s value. We can argue about the costs of building new facilities or the impact of natural gas all we want – and they’re important issues – but for much of the rest of the world, such as India, the reaction is a big “meh.” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday strongly advocated nuclear power as a 'viable and clean option' for emerging India's growing energy needs. Addressing a gathering at Jassaur Kheri village of Jhajjar district after laying foundation stones of four projects, including Global Centre for Nuclear Energy and Nation Cancer Institute, Singh said the country was aiming to generate more than 27,000 MW of nuclear power in the next 10 years. The juxtaposition of nuclear energy and cancer is awkward, but both centers are certainly excellent undert...

The processes may have been a little sloppy, but if the outcomes are good, so be it. First, in Florida : The Florida Supreme Court rejected on Thursday the challenge to a controversial law that allows electric utilities to collect money from their customers for nuclear-power plants that won't be built for years — if ever. The unanimous ruling, in a challenge filed by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, found that the 2006 law did not violate the Florida Constitution by shifting too much decision-making power to the state Public Service Commission. Also, it upheld PSC decisions that allowed Florida Power & Light and what was then known as Progress Energy Florida to collect $282 million in nuclear-project charges from their customers in 2012 alone. Reporter Jim Saunders sounds a little unhappy with the court ruling himself, doesn’t he? But so what if He gets the facts right. This is another case where anti-nuclear types took a grain of possibility (that t...

Jim Asselstine The following is a guest post submitted by Scott Peterson, NEI's senior vice president of communications . SINGAPORE-- Jim Asselstine has an unparalleled pedigree to assess the nuclear energy industry. He has analyzed the industry for the past 23 years at Lehman Brothers and Barclays , was a Nuclear Regulatory Commission commissioner and punched his policy credential as a congressional staffer. “My own personal view is that we should try to keep nuclear power, as the only zero-carbon, large-scale baseload generating source at about its current level of 19 or 20 percent of U.S. [electric] generation,” Asselstine said during a clear-eyed assessment of America’s nuclear energy industry. He was speaking at the World Nuclear Fuel Conference , a global symposium in Singapore sponsored by the Nuclear Energy Institute and World Nuclear Association . Assuming modest electricity demand growth and with the closure of existing reactors after 60 years of production,...

It's almost impossible to get your arms around the sheer size and scope of the blackout that's struck India over the past two days. Estimates say that about 670 million people are without electricity. As the New York Times noted , that's roughly equivalent to the entire population of Europe or more than the population of North and Central America combined. By way of comparison, the largest blackout that ever struck North America, the 2003 outage that hit the Northeastern U.S. and parts of Canada, deprived about 50 million people of electricity for about two days. As we've seen in the past, power outages in advanced economies can lead to economic disruption and loss of life -- something that should give all of us pause when considering the magnitude of this event. I'll close with some words from NEI's Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, Alex Flint: The earth has 7 billion people on it. Today, 2 billion of those people’s principal source of e...

Welcome to the 99th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers, a get together that we at NEI Nuclear Notes have been honored to host from time to time since its inception. This week, we've got selections from seven of the best blogs the online nuclear energy community has to offer. If you would like to host a future edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang of Next Big Future to get on the rotation. And please, don't ask to host the 100th edition of the carnival, as that honor has already been parceled out to a well-deserving blogger. Nuclear Power Talk: What's Good for the Goose . Gail Marcus takes a hard look at Mark Cooper's claims about the economics of nuclear energy. The Nuclear Green Revolution: The Clinch River Reactor Failure, Lessons Unlearned . Did AEC make a mistake by pursuing the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor over other designs? Read and find out. Yes, Vermont Yankee: Green Jobs and Taxes . In this guest post, Guy Page of the Vermont Energy ...

Last week was another busy week in social media. Today we’re hosting the 94th carnival and highlighting 21 posts from 14 blogs. To start, Gail Marcus at Nuke Power Talk discusses her concerns about the zeroing of funds for nuclear engineering education programs in the 2013 budget request. It’s been an annual battle to maintain the nuclear education programs at the NRC and DOE and this year was no different. From Gail: It seems to me that in general, it is penny-wise and pound-foolish for a nation to skimp on education. I know the budget is tight and I know there are many other important programs, but we really can't stop looking ahead. The case for nuclear engineering education is particularly important. The current workforce of nuclear engineers is rapidly retiring. … One hopes that some of the supporters of nuclear energy on the Hill will notice this cut and restore the funding. I would encourage those who share my concern to contact your members of Congress and ask f...

From the department of unlikely mind changes , India division: An anti-nuclear forum spearheading the stir against Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant today said they would withdraw their protest if most locals favored the project and demanded that the state government constituted panel visit all villages and towns affected by KNPP. NEI will close its doors as soon as a majority of Americans decide nuclear energy is not for them. The President will resign his position if his approval rating slips below 50 percent. My chance of surviving this disease is slightly less that 50/50. Time to reach for the bottle. Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. But it’s called the  People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy for a reason. So even if what it will win will be a pyrrhic victory, with the taste of ashes on its tongue, I hope it doesn’t quit on the prospect of 51 percent going against its views. We wouldn’t. But it can make you think. --- So shrill you almost have to b...

This struck me as a little funny: The Dec. 14 hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will look at how well the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is working as it tackles high-profile reforms in the wake of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster -- and the long-standing issue of what to do with toxic nuclear waste. "There have been reports and information that the commission is not always working well together," a committee aide said. No comment on the substance of the hearing, but perhaps NRC could return the favor and hold a meeting on how well Congress is getting along. --- Kuwait, Bahrain and Egypt have stalled their plans because of heightened safety concerns triggered by the Fukushima meltdown caused by a 9-magnitude earthquake and a 49-foot tsunami. Well, that makes sense – hey, wait a minute there! But they have also been hit by the pro-democracy uprisings that have plunged the Arab world into political turmoil and an...

We suppose you could call it a running debate : Stating that the country's atomic energy program is self-sufficient in terms of human resources, advisor to Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Prof MGK Menon on Monday said, "In the past two decades, the country has successfully been able to generate trained people to carry out nuclear energy programs on its own." Menon goes further: Menon, a former ISRO chairman, said, "We need nuclear energy because it is a source that does not leave carbon footprint. The development of the country rests upon nuclear energy and hence we need it in abundance." But do we need it? Switzerland has studies : Over the past few months, a group of researchers at the Energy Science Center (ESC) of ETH Zurich have carried out an intensive examination of whether the available options will enable Switzerland to scope out a medium-term energy future without nuclear power, as decided by the Swiss Federal Council...

The analysts at the Commonwealth of Australia Bank want you to know : "But it is a case of one step backward, two steps forward," they said in a review of the sector. "Nuclear growth plans remain intact in China, India, Russia, South Korea, the U.S. and U.K. among others, and dominate the medium- term uranium industry outlook." The Australians maintain an interest as a large exporter of uranium, but the salient point is that the accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi has not dimmed interest in nuclear energy in many countries. One can see that in any number of stories, but it’s interesting to see it aggregated where its abandonment would cause financial pain – as it would in Australia – even if it has no nuclear facilities of its own. But uranium? it has a lot of that. You can read more about uranium mining in Australia here . Obviously, not speeding ahead is good policy. But so is not stopping. --- Speaking of which : Developers of major energy ...

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is visiting India . There are a skein of issues to discuss, but one with special resonance to us: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Tuesday for easier access to the Indian market for US nuclear energy firms, who are trailing their French and Russian competitors. Here’s what she had to say about that: "With regard to our civil nuclear agreement... we need to resolve those issues that still remain so we can reap the rewards of a robust energy partnership," Clinton said in opening remarks during her trip to India. Creating or expanding a market for goods of any stripe is a job creator, so well worth pursuing. Nuclear trade between India and the U.S. is still relatively new – the treaty opening it was one of President George W. Bush’s last major accomplishments – so effort is still needed to resolve lingering issues. The most serious such issue involves liability : The United States wants India to "tighten u...

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce says the U.S. nuclear energy industry doesn't have technological problems — it has "political problems." The "United States developed the nuclear power field and then regulated it out of existence. We have built no new nuclear power plants in 30 years," Pearce said Wednesday, the first day of a two-day international nuclear energy conference in Hobbs. The Republican New Mexico congressman said nuclear power is essential to the nation's energy future, and suggested that the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan brought on by a devastating earthquake was an incident to build from, not run from. About right , though he really doesn’t like regulation.  "We should be analyzing exactly what went on, instead of saying 'no' to all nuclear," Pearce told the gathering, which is considering how to make nuclear energy a viable and essential piece of the world's energy portfolio. Saying no to nuclear energy...

There’s a certain logic here: Kiriyenko said the impact from the Fukushima plant disaster would not only increase safety concerns but also quicken demand for new reactors to replace the industry's ageing plants. "There will be a need to build new plants more quickly to more swiftly replace previous-generation plants," he said. He added that Russia may speed the retirement of its older generation plants in the wake of Japan's nuclear accident. I can’t decide if what Kiriyenko is asking here is, essentially, why let Fukushima go to waste? If the accident there allows new plants to be built in Russia whether or not they are needed, that seems rather too cynical. Because the corollary would be to say that the older plants need replacing and that would be irresponsible. Maybe Kiriyenko is just musing out loud. He does say this: Russia has said it has no intention of curbing its drive for more nuclear power at home and for export. Russia here pre...

Like the United States, India wants to take a look at the relative safety of its nuclear plants. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) has set up a 10-member committee to examine if our 20 nuclear plants can withstand earthquakes and other external events such as tsunamis, cyclones, floods, etc. That includes checking if the arrangements are adequate to ensure safety in case of such events, both within and beyond the design. The panel is chaired by AERB’s former chairman, S K Sharma. Its first meeting is on the coming Thursday. Naturally, the focus will be on earthquakes and tsunamis: He [an unidentified board member] said during the 2004 tsunami, nuclear plants in south India were able to withstand the effects. “Our plants are almost 2,000 km away from the tectonic boundary of Sumatra. The earthquake following the tsunami in Japan was quite unprecedented and, therefore, the committee will revisit the safety applications installed in our plants.” This is a wor...

TIME Magazine’s Joe Klein offers President Barack Obama some advice on working with Republicans this week. Much of it is a little glib, but how could we not like this : If Obama wants to get a major stimulus program through the next Congress, he should propose the National Defense Nuclear Power Act. And make it big: a plan to blast past the current financing and licensing quagmires and break ground on 25 new nuclear plants between now and 2015. … The program would be wildly stimulative: 25 new plants could produce more than 70,000 construction jobs. Nuclear energy produces about a fifth of U.S. electricity now; this could raise that figure closer to a third. And the loans will be paid back, over time, by utility customers. Depending on your perspective, you can see this as a little glib – part of Klein’s premise is that this would be popular with Republicans, which feels more than a little outdated. He’s right about the stimulative nature of building nuclear energy p...

There’s been a lot of work done to expand the relationship of the United States and India, one part of which allows nuclear trade and technology to flow between the two countries. President George W. Bush’s administration worked through a lot of the issues, culminating in a so-called 123 agreement in 2008 opening nuclear trade. This agreement took so much effort because India has avoided anti-proliferation treaties and harbors nuclear warheads – resulting in a two decade moratorium – so the determinative factor was whether India in the interim had proved to be a good actor on the international stage. Answer: good enough. But one remaining piece of the puzzle was about liability concerns – whether most liability should lie with the supplier (which might be American) or with the operator (most certainly Indian). While every country hoping to operate in India wants to contain liability on suppliers, it’s especially true for the United States, which does not have a state-run nuclear i...

Enough about the DOE budget, the blue ribbon commission and government stuff! – for today anyway. --- We weren’t quite sure what this meant : On Wednesday the U.S ambassador met with Energy Minister Taner Yildiz to express the desire of U.S. firms to build Turkey's first nuclear power station. Government sources have said the license for the Turkish nuclear power station may simply be handed to Moscow, which already supplies 60 percent of Turkey's gas needs, if they can agree over pricing and other technical issues. Such a move would add to worries over the possibility that NATO-member Turkey's policies are shifting away from Ankara's traditional Western friends. So Turkey may partner with Russia rather than the U.S. to build a plant. What we don’t get is why this means Turkey is necessarily moving away from the West. It sounds to us – even based on the bit above – that Turkey has long-standing energy ties to Russia (for better or worse) and might w...

Reuters has put up an interesting “Fact Box” detailing which countries in the middle East and African want to knock together a few nuclear energy plants. It includes countries we’ve discussed here but a fair number we haven’t, including Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Libya, Namibia, Niger, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and UAE. Some of these are in very early stages of planning and the list is not free of red flags ready to spring up. But it’s a great overview and it’s interesting to see countries with significant supplies of uranium pursue nuclear energy. That’s energy security writ large, something uranium-rich, nuclear-free Australia should consider. ---- There have been a few news stories about the Japanese reluctance to work with India on the latter’s nuclear efforts, but we admit we steered around it because we didn’t quite get the gist of it – India has plenty of partners without worrying about Japan. But apparently, it’s important to the two countries...

If you’re not too busy during this second week of my favorite holiday month, there are a number of readings on nuclear energy I recommend (in no particular order). First is from Brian Wang who’s the main writer at Next Big Future . Brian, in a rebuttal to Michael Dittmar’s series at The Oil Drum claiming the “world’s uranium supply situation is unsustainable,” is making a small bet with Dittmar about who will be wrong in their nuclear generation and uranium forecasts out to 2020 . The two have been really duking it out in the comments section which has made for quite the entertaining read. The second piece comes from This Week in Nuclear’s John Wheeler who discussed the incident at the Kaiga nuclear plant in India where a worker contaminated his fellow employees’ drinking water with tritium . After all the facts were presented, John expressed his beef with the inaccurate reporting from the media of this incident: What REALLY caught my eye about this story was the irrespons...