NEI Nuclear Notes

Here’s something that might have been kind of fun to attend if you were rambling around Oregon in August: NuScale Power announced today that it will host the first NuScale Exposition (also known as NuEx ) on August 20 and 21, 2015 in Corvallis, Oregon. NuEx will provide the opportunity to learn more about the US leader in small module reactor (SMR) development, tour its facilities, talk with senior executives and interface with suppliers, investors and state and federal legislators. NuScale also hosted a gala dinner featuring “some of the finest wines of Oregon.” I was happy to read in NuScale’s follow-up press release that our old friend , Washington state Rep. Sharon Brown, was able to make it over the state line to try out some fine Oregon wine: “[S]mall modular reactors are not your grandpa’s nuclear. They are emerging technologies built on existing designs. New nuclear is smaller, safer, and carbon-free.” Smaller, sure. Safer? Well, when the legislature is out of ...

It’s a good thing we learned young not to touch the stove: This nuclear reactor’[s] the new approach is a "super-hot" type of nuclear reactor cooled by helium gas, not water, and can reach 2000 degrees. That's about three times hotter than existing reactors. Something went sic in this Fox News Oregon story. It’s about a new approach to nuclear energy that will be demonstrated at Oregon State University. Construction began today on the $4.8 million facility meant to test a new nuclear energy technology that could be safer, more efficient and produce less waste than existing approaches. Researchers say it is a viable and versatile energy concept for the future. […] Researchers say it could produce electricity, hydrogen to power automobiles, steam to heat a building complex, or provide a cheaper way to desalinate seawater. I admit that “hydrogen to power automobiles,” puzzled me. Are there cars that do that now? If they can make the cars, w...

A letter from Martha Gordon of Monmouth Oregon to the Statesman-Journal of Salem (Ore.), re-rendered as a poem: As one survivor of the Dust Bowl who experienced the failure of one mistaken idea, I am vitally afraid of earth-shaking experiments. Our experience with nukes, you would think, would rival that of a child learning about fire by getting burned. Our wind power, while not so fruitful in this water-lush year, is a “money in the bank” recourse for the dry years predicted to come. How can we justify more nukes on our beautiful Columbia? I was struck by Ms. Gordon’s (who must be well into her eighties if she remembers the dust bowl) artful arrangement of words in making her lyrical and somewhat mysterious statement about the vagaries of energy. So it’s not pro-nuclear – or is it?  Or is that even the point? Wind, nuclear, natural gas – she alludes to their power generating potential and, like the first person confronted ...

The other day, we mentioned Babcock & Wilcox’s small reactor project and its indirect use in the Gubernatorial race in Indiana. Now, another vendor of small reactors, NuScale, has attracted some press attention from Reuters. It’s especially nice to see that NuScale has overcome its financial difficulties. NuScale staff half-jokingly refer to the first half of 2011 as the "Great Pause," when NuScale could not pay its bills and dozens among its 100 employees at the time had to be let go. It now employs 260 people, and hopes to add another 70 by year-end. And how did it do this, at least in part? But NuScale is trumpeting the safety aspects of its new technology, and has found helpful supporters including U.S. engineering giant Fluor Corp, which bought a majority stake in the 5-year-old company last October. Fluor is no stranger to the nuclear energy business. Start here for more on its activities. Fluor has been around for much of the nuclear age. Like I...

We've been on the hunt for editorials both negative and positive about nuclear energy to see if there are themes that can be identified. Many resolve that nuclear energy is the surest way to help the country reach emissions goals and see the event in Japan as a call to strengthen safety rules - both in this country and worldwide. But there are other approaches, too. --- This op-ed  from The New Straits Times (in Malaysia) is negative and very much wants Malaysia to go to solar energy. The problem is, nuclear energy is less expensive. Ah, but that won't always be the case - maybe - down the road a piece: Hence, the pertinent question in this energy debate is: How would the projected costs of solar power and nuclear power compare in the near future, say, in 10 years time? (2021 is the proposed date for Malaysia's first nuclear power plant). If indeed the cost of electricity generated by the new nuclear power plants is rising, the cost of solar-generated electricity is li...

From the Wall Street Journal : Al Gore has been hectoring Americans to pare back their lifestyles to fight global warming. But if Mr. Gore wants us to rethink our priorities in the face of this mother of all environmental threats, surely he has convinced his fellow greens to rethink theirs, right? Wrong. If their opposition to the Klamath hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest is any indication, the greens, it appears, are just as unwilling to sacrifice their pet causes as a Texas rancher is to sacrifice his pickup truck. If anything, the radicalization of the environmental movement is the bigger obstacle to addressing global warming than the allegedly gluttonous American way of life. . . . These dams provide cheap, renewable energy to 70,000 homes in Oregon and California. Replacing this energy with natural gas -- the cleanest fossil-fuel source -- would still pump 473,000 tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. This is roughly equal to the annual emissi...