NEI Nuclear Notes

During the first meeting of the DC Chapter of Young Generation in Nuclear, a member proposed putting together some type of public education exhibit to coincide with Earth Day. After a little research we identified that the District of Columbia's Energy Office was holding a week long Earth Day event and that this would be the best venue.

About a week ago, I contacted, Marielle Avilla, the woman in charge of the event. She seemed to understand why a group like NA-YGN would like to participate in a public education day on energy. As we finished our conversation, she promised to send me the registration materials that afternoon.

Fast forward to this week and I was still waiting for the materials, so I decided to call Ms. Avilla. She responded to me via email asking me to provide a brief paragraph as to "why we wanted to exhibit". I emailed the following:
Nuclear energy is the largest, emission free source of baseload electricity production. With the current environmental situ…

In trying to understand the tangled issues of a national fuel repository, I have been reviewing how we got here. Specifically, how did we, as a nation, come to be stockpiling used fuel? And how, exactly, did the decision to stockpile the fuel instead of recycle it relieve non-proliferation fears?

FRONTLINE has provided links to two essays: one in favor of the 1977 decision to delay/cancel nuclear fuel reprocessing and one opposed. While these resources do not make for light reading, they are very informative, and paint a picture of the reprocessing decision in light of the political landscape of the times.

The show that is associated with these essays was first aired in 1997. When you're finished with the essays, the reactions to the show are much easier to digest. I was delighted by Frank R. Borger's email regarding radiation exposure from coal stations (with a link to the appropriate reference)!

Yesterday, another stage in the PR battle over the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant began, as supporters and opponents of the plant both staged public rallies concerning a possible relicensing.

But while you might be familiar with many of the names associated with the opponents of Indian Point, you ought to take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance (NY AREA), an alliance of business, labor and community groups formed to rally support for the plant and raise public awareness about the New York area's energy needs.

Yesterday at a press conference in White Plains, New York, Jerry Kremer, former New York State Assemblyman and Chairman of the Advisory Board of NY AREA had this to say:
Tonight, the anti-nuclear group Riverkeeper will launch what they are calling a campaign kickoff to deny re-licensing for the Indian Point Energy Center and advance their cause to close the plants. But it’s really an attempt to breathe life into what ha…

Earlier this month, the Amsterdam Forum on Radio Netherlands held a debate between Bruno Comby, president of Paris-based Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy and Rianne Teule from Greenpeace Netherlands, on the environmental benefits of nuclear energy.

The program, which runs just under 30 minutes, is available in both Windows Media and Real Media.

For more on the background on the nuclear energy debate in the Netherlands, click here and here.

Commenting on Tom Friedman's column in Sunday's New York Times, Seattle's Roy Smith makes the case for nuclear energy:
For too long, the "environmental movement" has sabotaged real solutions to the climate change issue by their ideologically based, uninformed opposition to nuclear energy. It is refreshing to see voices such as Mr. Friedman and James Lovelock pointing out that rather than being an enviromental armageddon, nuclear energy may be our only hope for saving the planet from a global warming catastrophe.
To read what other bloggers have to say about nuclear energy, click here, here, here and here.

From the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune:

Columbia Water & Light officials are considering doubling the size of the coal-burning Municipal Power Plant on Business Loop 70.

As an alternative, Mayor Darwin Hindman said he’d be interested in looking into buying a portion of a new nuclear power plant outside the Columbia area . . .

Hindman said he favors looking into building a new coal plant but also wants the nuclear option investigated. While a nuclear plant would probably never be built in Columbia, he said, the city’s utility could buy a percentage of one built elsewhere.

"I do think that in a volatile market where we subject ourselves to market prices of buying electricity during peak times, we need to hedge that in some way," Hindman said. "Building a power plant is one way to do that."

"One thing we should never overlook is the use of nuclear power," he said. "It doesn’t pollute the air."

As I've mentioned before, the Virginia Section of North American-Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN) has been vocal in the public debate about the potential for new nuclear power plants in our state. Articles have appeared in many local newspapers and anti-nuclear activists have been writing letters attacking not only nuclear power, but NA-YGN members personally. Some of us have responded as diplomatically as possible to the misinformation and character defamation.

Recently, in a letter published in Cville, a weekly newspaper in Charlottesville, one writer suspected that the nuclear industry was trying to fake a grassroots movement and that NA-YGN "reeks of deceit and corruption." In response, I wrote that NA-YGN was founded in 1999 well before anyone seriously began talking about new nuclear plants, that the Virginia section in particular was engaged in many public outreach activities years before Dominion ever submitted an Early Site Permit application, and that m…

The Van Buren County (Michigan) Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution at the March 22 meeting in support of Consumers Energy's application for license renewal for Palisades Nuclear Plant.

For more on the NRC license renewal process, click here.

From Japan's Asahi Shimbun:
Vietnam has nuclear power in its sights as a way to meet the sharp rise in its domestic electricity consumption. The country could see the completion of its first nuclear power plant as early as 2017.

An exploratory committee appointed by the government in 2001 has completed a pre-feasibility study for nuclear power development. The compiled report is now ready to be submitted to Prime Minister Phan Van Khai . . .

Even if the country greatly expands its hydropower and thermal power plants, demand will overtake production capacity, forcing the country to buy power from nearby countries including Laos, China and Cambodia around 2015.

Vietnam therefore plans to have its first nuclear power plant with an electricity generating capacity of 2 million kilowatts running sometime after 2015.
Meanwhile, Taiwan is finding that phasing out nuclear energy will be a lot harder than the country originally anticipated.

In yesterday's New York Times, columnist Tom Friedman offered an endorsement of nuclear power that's becoming familiar (registration required):
We need to start building nuclear power plants again. The new nuclear technology is safer and cleaner than ever. "The risks of climate change by continuing to rely on hydrocarbons are much greater than the risks of nuclear power," said Peter Schwartz, chairman of Global Business Network, a leading energy and strategy consulting firm. "Climate change is real and it poses a civilizational threat that [could] transform the carrying capacity of the entire planet."
Blogger Dave Johnson is thinking the same thing.

Adding Dave Halliday to the growing list.

In the second part of his two-part series on Yucca Mountain (click here for our post on Part I), George Will comes to this conclusion:
The nation should generate much more than the one-fifth of its electricity nuclear power currently produces. Forty percent of the Navy is nuclear-powered. More nuclear waste is produced daily.

Nevada has two tactics. It is insisting on a degree of certainty -- absolute certainty, over 100 millennia -- that is unreasonable, even considering the stakes. And it is making testable assertions about geological and metallurgical matters about which scientists are reaching conclusions that are beyond reasonable doubts.

Three truths: America must store nuclear waste more safely, can never prove perfect safety forever and hence cannot store waste anywhere it will be welcomed. An axiom: Put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket.
Blogger John Starley likes the idea.

I was pleased to come across a new blog on Nuclear Engineering. Click here for the first post, an e-mail Q&A with a student.

From Cap Weinberger's column in the latest edition of Forbes:
At the beginning of his first term President Bush stated the need for more reliable supplies of reasonably priced, environmentally responsible energy to be produced domestically. For four long years Congress paid but scant attention to his call. The President quite properly reminded Congress in his State of the Union address that our future economic growth will require far more energy production at home, including safe, clean nuclear energy. In order to jump-start our nuclear energy program, we will need to reduce the regulatory delays and hurdles that now stand in the path of any utility ready to invest in the long, costly effort required to build nuclear power plants.
To learn more about exactly just what incentives would be appropriate, click here for a report from the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board's Nuclear Energy Task Force.

From the Rice Lake (Wisc.) Chronotype:
State officials say a planned wind farm next to the Horicon Marsh in east central Wisconsin raises concerns the turbines could harm large migrating birds such as sandhill cranes and also could endanger the thousands of bats that hibernate at a nearby abandoned mine.

The draft environmental impact statement issued Tuesday suggests raptors and small birds could also be at risk from the 133 wind turbines proposed by the Forward Wind Energy Center.

Authors of the statement are critical of the developers for not having their studies include the types of birds located in areas closest to Horicon. Those studies focused on other wind energy projects and found little evidence of damage to birds, but none of the studies approximated conditions around Horicon, the report said.
Going forward, America and the world are going to need a lot more electricity, and we're going to have to rely on a diverse portfolio of sources of generation -- and every one of thos…

From the Twin Cities Business Journal:
Xcel Energy Inc. has applied with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to renew its operating license for its Monticello nuclear power plant, the company announced Thursday.

The Minneapolis-based utility company requested a 20-year extension for the single-unit, 600-megawatt plant. Its current 40-year license expires in 2010.

Hudson, Wis.-based Nuclear Management Co., which operates the facilities the Xcel, filed the application at Xcel's direction.
As we mentioned earlier, the NRC license renewal process is one of the great success stories of the American utility industry.

Congratulations to the team at Susquehanna on this achievement:
It was anything but business as usual when PPL Corporation reconnected Unit 2 of the Susquehanna nuclear power plant to the electrical transmission network early this morning (3/24).

It was business better than usual.

Employees and contractors safely completed a 26-day refueling and inspection outage - the shortest in the plant’s 20-year history.

"This achievement is the result of significant improvements to processes and planning that we have made over the past several years," said Bob Saccone, vice president-Nuclear Operations. "Employees thoughtfully reviewed and researched plant and industry experience to identify improvements that would not sacrifice safety."

The improvements include better planning, earlier inspection of equipment, performing more work simultaneously and using new equipment to perform routine tasks more efficiently.
Again, it's a familiar storyline.

Earlier this week, the Brookings Institution held a panel discussion on Blogs and New Media that was moderated by E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post. For a transcript of the meeting, click here (PDF).

Thanks to Tom Biro for the link.

Using rising gas prices as the background, Knight Ridder's Robert Boyd is taking a look at the future of hydrogen-powered vehicles:
But the cost of delivering a hydrogen-powered car to market is a major obstacle, as is the cost of converting tens of thousands of service stations from gasoline to hydrogen. Despite its abundance in nature, producing hydrogen in a usable form costs three to four times more than refining crude oil into gasoline.

What's more, while burning hydrogen is non-polluting, generating the electric power needed to produce it, say by splitting water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen, could produce more pollution.

Scientists are experimenting with enlisting living organisms, such as bacteria and algae, that can make hydrogen from sunlight and are seeking ways to generate hydrogen from nuclear and solar power. The costs of such technologies are still unknown.

The higher the cost of gasoline, however, the more competitive hydrogen will be, said Thomas Sheahen, an anal…

From the Associated Press:
The government will start keeping track of all the "greenhouse" gases that farmers and foresters voluntarily reduce to help combat global warming.

Officials in the Energy and Agriculture departments issued guidelines Wednesday for counting those efforts. They said the action indicates how seriously the Bush administration views the problem of gases that trap heat in the atmosphere like a greenhouse.
For more on the program, click here.

In a column that began running nationwide today, George Will takes a look at the stakes involved with the Yucca Mountain Project:
One-fifth of the nation's electricity is generated by nuclear power. Were that share substantially increased, that would reduce dependence on fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) that have large environmental and geopolitical drawbacks. Also, 40 percent of the Navy's fleet is nuclear-powered. Nuclear power plants have created almost 50,000 metric tons of spent fuel, with more produced daily. Once solidified, today's 100 million gallons of nuclear waste from past reprocessing activities will also be placed in the repository . . .

The dueling is about whether safe storage of the waste can be guaranteed for 10,000 years, or perhaps a million years -- the span of projected geological stability for the mountain area. That is quite a while: 10,000 years ago, agriculture was just being born as humans, moving beyond a hunter-gatherer economy, were learning to d…

Pete Geddes, program director for the Foundation for research on Economics and the Environment, had this to say about nuclear energy in a recent issue of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle:
All energy production has environmental impacts. For example, wind farms cause visual and noise pollution and kill birds. Our choices involve trading off among imperfect alternatives.

Is it time we rethink opposition to nuclear power? James Lovelock, promoter of the Gaia hypothesis, believes so. He writes: “Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media.… [N]uclear energy… has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. I entreat my friends… to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy.”
For more on James Lovelock, click here. For a previous post on Dr. Lovelock's recent speech at the Canadian Nuclear Association, click here.…

With the Province of Ontario determined to shut down 7,600 megawatts of coal fired electric generating capacity by 2008 in order to reduce emissions, it's looking to nuclear energy to fill the gap:
The Ontario Energy Minister announced yesterday that a tentative agreement has been reached with Bruce Power to restart Units 1 and 2 at the Bruce A nuclear generating station in Kincardine. The agreement has been approved in principle by the boards of directors of the major partners of Bruce Power and is now under review by the Ontario government. The government had issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) in June 2004 for 2,500 MW of new generation and/or conservation in Ontario.

For a previous post on the future of nuclear energy in Canada, click here.

From the BBC:
A new nuclear power station may be necessary to prevent the "lights going out" in Scotland in the not-too-distant future, according to MPs.

A report by Westminster's Scottish Affairs Committee demands an audit of energy resources and suggests a renewed role for nuclear power and coal.

Two nuclear power plants generate much of Scotland's energy but they are reaching the end of their lives.

MPs have concluded that renewable energy and imports cannot plug the gap.
This is a story we've heard before in Europe. And one we'll probably hear again.

Thanks to Rising Slowly for the tip.

WNA has just updated a pair of briefing papers concerning uranium markets. Click here for a paper on Canada, and here for a look at Australia. And finally, click here to register for World Nuclear Fuel Cycle 2005, scheduled for April 12-15 in San Antonio.

Click here for the World Nuclear Association weekly news digest.

Here's Oswego, New York Mayor John Gosek on what nuclear energy means to his upstate New York city:
Gosek said he believes Oswego County residents will support the effort and any "naysayers" will be in the minority.

"If you go downstate, or other parts of the country, you say the word nuclear and they're nervous or they're frightened," Gosek said. "But here in Oswego County and the city of Oswego, people know the economic impact of those plants far outweighs any safety concerns."

"It's proven - tested and proven - they've been providing safe, clean nuclear power here for 30 years without any incidents," the mayor added.
Click here for our post from the other day concerning Oswego's interest in speaking with the NuStart consortium. These folks look determined.

The IAEA conference on the future of nuclear energy wrapped up in Paris today, with 74 nations signing a statement broadly endorsing the increased adoption of nuclear energy and praising it for not generating "air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions" and for being "a proven technology" that can "make a major contribution to meeting energy needs and sustaining the world's development in the 21st century". But this passage from an Agence-France Press wire story about the conference caught my eye as well:
Among the dissenters to the endorsement for nuclear energy were countries like Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden which are phasing out nuclear energy and others like Austria which are against nuclear power but attended the conference. Officials did not provide details on individual nations.

A diplomat present at the conference said however "give five years and most of Europe will change direction in favour of nuclear energy" since i…