Author Archives: dyurman

92nd Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

Posted on February 19, 2012 by dyurman| Leave a comment

This week we’d might as well call the Carnival the “Vermont Yankee” edition because of all the news coming out of that state about this reactor.

Governor Shumlin tilts his lance again announcing an appeal of a Federal District Court ruling against the efforts of the legislature and the governor to shut the reactor down.

The carnival weekly post is the collective voice of blogs with legendary names which emerge each week to tell the story of nuclear energy.

If you want to hear the voice of the nuclear renaissance, the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is where to find it.

Past editions have been hosted at Next Big Future. Yes Vermont Yankee, NuclearGreen, Atomic Power Review, ANS Nuclear Cafe, Idaho Samizdat, and CoolHandNuke, as well as several other popular nuclear energy blogs.

The publication of the Carnival each week is part of a commitment by the leading pro-nuclear bloggers in North America that we will speak with a collective voice on the issue of the value of nuclear energy. While we each have our own points of view, we agree that the promise of peaceful uses of the atom remains viable in our own time and for the future.

If you have a pro-nuclear energy blog, and would like to host an edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang at Next Big Future to get on the rotation.

This is a great collaborative effort that deserves your support. Please post a Tweet, a Facebook entry, or a link on your Web site or blog to support the carnival.

This Week’s Carnival

Here’s what some of the nation’s nuclear bloggers have to say about Vermont Yankee news generally and CNN in particular.

Yes Vermont Yankee

  • Vermont AG to appeal Federal court ruling – Meredith Angwin writes that yes, we all knew it would happen. The State is appealing the judgment. The State is throwing good money after bad, but Shumlin has to show his hard-core supporters that he really tried.
  • Citizens Rights, State Rights, and Vermont – Everyone knows that the Vermont Attorney General stressed “state’s rights” as he fought Vermont Yankee and two clauses of the Constitution (Commerce Clause and Supremacy Clause).  However, once a state begins defying the Constitution, the rights of the citizens are also compromised.

NEI Nuclear Notes

ANS Nuclear Cafe

On January 19, the Federal District Court in Brattleboro, Vt., issued a court decision in favor of Entergy Corporation, regarding the continued operation of its Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.  Howard Shaffer examines the political milieu of the Vermont Yankee court decision in light of states rights issues, shared authority among Federal and State regulators, and the political history of some other rather extreme positions taken by state governors.

Tamar Cerafici has a plain English review of the legal ins-and-outs of the Federal court ruling. It is worth your time to step through the issues because so much is at stake.

Atomic Power Review

Will Davis catches up on various news items from this week, including comments on Fukushima Daiichi, a CNN report, and nuclear energy in various far places in the world.

Next Big Future

Brian Wang reports that the Areva Anteres reactor was selected by the next generation nuclear plant project. Also, he reports on French, U.S., China, India and Ukraine nuclear generation figures for 2011

Idaho Samizdat

Dan Yurman has an indepth report on the selection of Areva’s HTGR design by the NGNP Alliance for process heat applications.

Also, he reports on a major deal involving Areva reactors to be built in the U.K. by EDF as a result of a face-to-face meeting between U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Atomic Insights

Rod Adams writes that MIT’s studies on the future of various energy fuels are important guides for policy makers. The contrast between strong optimism over the future of natural gas compared to a far more pessimistic view of the future of nuclear energy is stark and difficult to ignore.

An explanation might be found in the amount of natural gas money and the number of natural gas salesmen on the Advisory Committee for the study on natural gas when compared to the more neutral funding source for the study on the future of nuclear energy. He asks if the MIT Energy Initiative has been captured by natural gas money?

Nuke Power Talk

Gail Marcus is pleased to be able to pass on information provided by a reader of her blog providing more details on the Japanese personnel practice called ‘amakudari,‘ the institutionalized system of moving Japanese government retirees into positions in the organizations they used to regulate.

Nuclear Diner

Cheryl Rofer has a unique report that Peter Alaric DeSimone tells how he makes music from the random disintegration of radioactive isotopes and provides MP3 files and videos of the process.

Also, she reports that the National Research Council released a report this week on nuclear technologies NASA needs, including nuclear rocket propulsion, nuclear reactors for power in space, and radioisotope power systems. Susan Voss presents the details.

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Posted in Carnival of nuclear bloggers, News

Czechs temper expectations at Temelin

Posted on February 16, 2012 by dyurman| Leave a comment

Europe’s biggest nuclear project is chopped down from five reactors to two

By Dan Yurman

An ambitious plan to build five nuclear reactors in the Czech Republic worth an estimated $28 billion has been scaled back to just two units. The Czech Republic won’t build the other three anytime soon, even though Germany and Poland may have been counting on those units to supply electricity. Germany has closed eight of its oldest nuclear reactors and will close another nine by 2022.

In an unrelated move, Poland just delayed the start date of a new nuclear power station by five years to 2025 three years after Germany has closed its last reactor.

Power that Europe thought it could buy from Czech state-owned utility CEZ has evaporated before it lifted off  the drawing board. The real winner in the short term will be Russia’s natural gas supplier Gazprom.

Newly installed Czech Industry & Trade Minister Martin Kuba down shifted CEZ’s ambitious plans calling the five-reactor plan “unrealistic,” but he did not say what energy mix would be used in its place to meet growing demand for electricity in central Europe. The primary problem likely is how to finance the combination of two new units at Temelin, one at Dukovany, and two more at the Jaslovske Bohunice site in Solvakia.

The Czech government proposed that reactor vendors provide a complete turnkey solution, including up to nine fuel reloads for the new units. As part of the financing, the Czech government would guarantee rates and provide loan guarantees to CEZ as lures to investors.

What may be “unrealistic” is the expectation that investors and reactor vendors would be willing to pump $28 billion into a nuclear power project spread across five new units at three sites.

However, a plan for two reactors worth $10 billion at one site, Temelin, seems more likely to fly, especially since the United States just last week licensed two new reactors planned for the Vogtle site in Georgia said to cost $14 billion.

The Czech energy plan under Kuba’s predecessor, Martin Kocourek, called for up to 80 percent of the nation’s electricity coming from nuclear reactors by 2060 and being a net exporter of electricity to Germany. Kocourek, however, quit in a financial scandal unrelated to his government job. While Kocourek was a stalwart supporter of the five reactor plan, he got into legal trouble in a complicated divorce proceeding in which he hid assets sought by his now former wife in the settlement agreement.  It’s not clear where the money came from. This revelation in his private life made it impossible to continue in a role of public trust.

What’s realistic now?

Now at the helm so to speak, Kuba believes it is realistic to build the next two reactors at Temelin where power transmission infrastructure is already in place. It has approximately 2000 MW at a site near the Austrian border.

Also, Kuba wants to extend the life the reactors at Dukovany, which are four Russian-built VVER designs of about 470 MW each. They were completed in the mid-1980s. The two units at Temelin that are currently in service are also Russian-built VVERs at 963 MW each. These reactors are relatively new, having been completed in 2000 and 2003.

So, where will the money come from for even just two new reactors? CEZ chief financial officer Martin Novak thinks that some form of shared risk with investors will draw them in. Although Novak claims that CEZ is solvent enough to build two units in the range of 1000 MW each out of cash flow, he’d like to leverage other people’s money for about half of the costs.

At a hypothetical cost of $4,000/Kw, the two units would require $8 billion for which CEZ would have to come up with half and then offer the other half to investors. Leveraging support from investors for the nuclear plants will allow CEZ to build other power plants including natural gas.

Another sweetener would be for the government to offer CEZ guaranteed rates of return for the plants. CEZ chief executive officer Daniel Benes said that the way the model would work is that the government would step in with payments if the market price of electricity dropped below a certain level. On the other hand, if the rates increased on their own, the utility might wind up paying the government the difference. In effect, the government would subsidize the rate of return without directly impacting rate payers.

There isn’t agreement on any of these ideas across the government. Some ministers are opposed to any financial support for new nuclear plants.

And here’s a few more ideas

Vaclav Bartuska, the man in charge of the Czech government’s drive to see the plants built, said that having guarantees for power prices in turnkey projects is the only way such massive investments are possible.

Neither CEZ nor the government have explained in detail the extent to which loan guarantees would also be part of the financial package, though Bartuska has mentioned them. If the government offers loan guarantees, it would make the two Temelin reactors more attractive.

Given the shadow of sovereign default that has spread across Europe, however, a government loan guarantee is no longer a punched ticket to financial success. There still would be a risk premium based on how solvent the Czech government is or how well it can convince investor and rating agencies that it is solvent.

And Bartuska isn’t done with ideas about how to get the other three reactors built. His latest brainstorm is to use decommissioned military bases as sites because the government still owns them. He added that the government could use the sites also as interim storage locations for spent nuclear fuel. In any case, the government is worried about a public backlash if it starts demolishing privately held sites for new reactors.

It may get a backlash anyway with its idea for using decommissioned military bases. Now some of the abandoned sites have reverted to the status of de facto nature preserves with wildlife. Green groups are said to want to protect them. However, the military reservations are also contaminated with chemicals and unexploded ordinance. Contracts to clean up the sites are being offered for bid.

Meanwhile, the bidders for the now downsized Temelin project are going ahead with their proposals, which are due next July. These three short-listed bidders are Westinghouse, Areva, and Atomstroyexport. CEZ hasn’t changed the date for the award of the contract, which is early 2013.

All three vendors are inking memorandums of understanding with local manufacturing firms to improve their localization scores with the selection board. CEZ has said that local manufacturing content, and the jobs that come with it, will be an important element of the evaluation regardless of the size of the project.

Poland pushes back plant start dates

Polish state-controlled energy group PGE announced last week that it will delay by five years completion of the first of two new nuclear plants to 2025. The utility did not state a reason for the change in schedule, which was announced as part of the rollout of a larger energy strategy plan. A second unit would come online in 2029. PGE is reported to be aiming at 3000 MW for each site. Each power station could be composed of two to three reactors.

The sites for the reactors tentatively selected include Choczewo, Gaski, and Zarnowiec. Local support for any of the sites may be thin as the country has considerable anti-nuclear sentiment stemming from the Chernobyl accident.

Later this year, Poland will issue a request for proposals for the first unit. So far, GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse have been gearing up their supply chains as part of their planned response. PGE is looking for equity investors in the plants and plans to hold a 51-percent share for each of them.

# # #

Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in Atomstroyexport, News, Nuclear events, reactor designs, Westinghouse

91st Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

Posted on February 12, 2012 by dyurman| Leave a comment

The Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at Yes Vermont Yankee

Nuclear abstract

This week it is titled “The Vogtle Edition” after the historic decision Feb 9 by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to grant combined operating and construction licenses for two Westinghouse 1100 MW AP1000 nuclear reactors.

This post is the collective voice of blogs with legendary names which emerge each week to tell the story of nuclear energy.

If you want to hear the voice of the nuclear renaissance, the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is where to find it.

Past editions have been hosted at Next Big Future. Yes Vermont Yankee, NuclearGreen, Atomic Power Review, ANS Nuclear Cafe, Idaho Samizdat, and CoolHandNuke, as well as several other popular nuclear energy blogs.

The publication of the Carnival each week is part of a commitment by the leading pro-nuclear bloggers in North America that we will speak with a collective voice on the issue of the value of nuclear energy. While we each have our own points of view, we agree that the promise of peaceful uses of the atom remains viable in our own time and for the future.

If you have a pro-nuclear energy blog, and would like to host an edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang at Next Big Future to get on the rotation.

This is a great collaborative effort that deserves your support. Please post a Tweet, a Facebook entry, or a link on your Web site or blog to support the carnival.

# # #

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Carnival of nuclear bloggers, News

NRC issues licenses for Southern’s Vogtle project

Posted on February 9, 2012 by dyurman| 8 Comments

By a 4-1 vote, the agency opens the door to $14 billion in new construction of two Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors

By Dan Yurman

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on February 9 in a 4-1 vote cleared the way for its Office of New Reactors to issue a combined construction and operating license (COL) to the Southern Nuclear Operating Company for two 1100-MW Westinghouse AP1000 model reactors to be built at the company’s Vogtle site, in Waynesboro, Ga. (NRC final order) NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko made the one dissenting vote.

The Vogtle site is already home to two existing nuclear reactors owned by Southern that started commercial operations in the late 1980s.

In a statement, Jaczko said that he wanted the COL issued only on the condition that Southern implement the agency’s Fukushima safety agenda. Said Jaczko:

I cannot support the issuing of this license as if Fukushima had not happened.

NRC Commissioner Kristine Svinicki, speaking for the four commissioners who voted in favor of issuing the COL, said that Jaczko was mistaken if he thought that his peers on the NRC had disregarded the Fukishima crisis. In a statement that cut through Jaczko’s dissent like a samurai sword,  she said:

There is no amnesia individually or collectively regarding the events of March 11, 2011, and the ensuing accident at Fukushima.

Svinicki added that there was no recommendation by the NRC staff to amend the COL to take Jaczko’s requirements into account. Said Svinicki:

We found that it would not improve our systematic regulatory approach to Fukushima nor would it make any difference to the safety of operating or planned reactors.

Paradoxically, in December 2011 when the NRC approved the amended design for the AP1000, Jaczko said that he voted for it based on the “enhanced safety margins” provided by “innovative safety and security functions.”

In dissenting against the COL on February 9, however, Jaczko went against the recommendations of his own agency.

New Part 52 process comes in on time

The original application under the new Part 52 rule for the Vogtle site’s COL was submitted in March 2008, followed by a supplemental document submitted in October 2009. True to its word, the NRC reached a decision in just under 48 months. Along the way, the NRC had considered safety and environmental issues and held multiple public hearings to get testimony on them.

An independent review by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards was submitted in its report in January 2011. The NRC’s final safety evaluation report was completed August 9, 2011.

The NRC previously certified the amended Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design on December 30, 2011.

Economic impacts

NRC spokesman Scott Burnell told financial wire services that the agency will issue the COL immediately, which will kick off a huge construction boom in Georgia. The Shaw Group, which will be building the two units, announced plans to hire 3500 workers for the $14-billion construction phase that is expected to take until 2016 for the first unit and an additional year for the second.


When operating, each reactor will employ about 800-1000 people. The supply chain for components will stretch across the entire United States.

The Vogtle project will be seen as a major test of the ability of Westinghouse and its contractors to bring in the two reactors on time and within budget. Westinghouse is already building four of the new reactors in China, with the first one expected to enter revenue service in 2013.

Tenacity wins

Southern Company chief executive officer Thomas Fanning said in a statement that “this is a historic accomplishment,” and Georgia Power CEO Paul Bowers told the Atlanta Constitution, “We never wavered.”

Marvin Fertel, head of the Nuclear Energy Institute, focused on the historic nature of the decision, the first of its kind in more than three decades. Said Fertel:

Today’s licensing decision sounds a clarion call to the world that the United States recognizes the importance of expanding nuclear energy.

Instant opposition

A coalition of nine anti-nuclear groups announced plans to challenge the NRCs decision. The groups, echoing the views of the NRC’s Jaczko, said that the NRC is violating the law without taking the safety issues associated with Fukushima into account. They said that they would file a lawsuit in federal district court.

The groups also plan to challenge the safety certification of the AP1000 design, and one of the groups plans to challenge the Department of Energy’s $8.3-billion federal loan guarantee for the Vogtle project.

The legal challenges pose a near-term risk to the project as the groups plan to ask the courts to issue an order stopping construction until their case can be heard, which, if granted, could take many months.

What’s next for the nuclear renaissance?

Within the next month, the NRC is expected to issue two more COLs for construction of Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at South Carolina Electric & Gas Company’s (Scana) V.C. Summer nuclear plant in South Carolina. That project is expected to cost about $10 billion. Scana did not apply for a federal loan guarantee. If the license is approved as expected, Scana would complete both of its reactors by 2018.

South Carolina and Georgia have in common a regulated rate structure and the ability of the utilities to request new rates to cover the costs of the construction of the reactors while they are being built. The measures save millions in interest charges.

In related news, the Tennessee Valley Authority said in a financial document issued this week that it expects to complete the Watts Bar-2 reactor in 2014 and that it has issued a construction contract to complete the Bellefonte reactor by 2020. It will start work on Bellefonte once Watts Bar-2 is done. In 2007, TVA completed a reactor at Browns Ferry.

Plans to build new nuclear reactors in states using the merchant model—where costs cannot be recovered until the plant is in revenue service—have faltered, including Calvert Cliffs-3 in Maryland.

Exelon CEO John Rowe said of the Maryland project that the expected long-term low cost of natural gas makes such a nuclear energy investment there “inconceivable” given the speed at which a combined cycle gas plant can be brought online.

Constellation previously walked away from a loan guarantee for Calvert Cliffs-3, citing the high cost of the credit risk premium calculated by the federal government. The risk premium for the Vogtle plant is said by industry sources to be very low in comparison.

Yet, there may be policy changes in the future. In Ohio, for example, the government is reviewing fracking practices after fluid injected in a waste disposal well set off earthquakes near Youngstown. And, at a national level, a future U.S. president and congress may revive carbon taxes.

Nothing is certain today except for the NRC’s vote.

____________

Yurman

Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy, and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in News, Nuclear Regulatory Commission

90th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

Posted on February 4, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

The 90th weekly edition of the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at Atomic Power Review.

Tag cloud for Atomic Power Review

This post is the collective voice of blogs with legendary names which emerge each week to tell the story of nuclear energy.

If you want to hear the voice of the nuclear renaissance, the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is where to find it.

Past editions have been hosted at Yes Vermont Yankee,  Next Big Future, Atomic Power Review, ANS Nuclear Cafe, Idaho Samizdat, NEI Nuclear Notes, and CoolHandNuke, as well as several other popular nuclear energy blogs.

The publication of the Carnival each week is part of a commitment by the leading pro-nuclear bloggers in North America that we will speak with a collective voice on the issue of the value of nuclear energy. While we each have our own point of view, we agree that the promise of peaceful uses of the atom remains viable in our own time and for the future.

If you have a pro-nuclear energy blog, and would like to host an edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang at Next Big Future to get on the rotation.

This is a great collaborative effort that deserves your support. Please post a Tweet, a Facebook entry, or a link on your Web site or blog to support the carnival.

# # #

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Posted in Carnival of nuclear bloggers

Japan stressed out over future of its nuclear reactors

Posted on February 2, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

Safety checks by the IAEA haven’t boosted public confidence

By Dan Yurman

An International Atomic Energy Agency expert mission team to Japan arrived there the last week of January to check on so-called “stress tests” of the nation’s 54 reactors. While preliminary responses from the team are generally favorable, a final report, including proposed corrective actions, is still forthcoming.

In the meantime, the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), as well as Japan’s other nuclear utilities, find themselves tied up in knots about how to restart shut down reactors.

Japan’s nuclear energy industry continued a domestic downward spiral in January with only three reactors remaining on the grid. At the rate things are going, all of the country’s nuclear reactors will be closed by May. Japan gets 30 percent of its electricity from them. The lack of power, and fuel replacement costs, contributed in January to the nation’s first balance of payments trade deficit in more than three decades.

The IAEA team said in its preliminary report that the comprehensive safety assessments that are being carried out are generally consistent with the agency’s international standards. Japan’s nuclear utilities are conducting the reviews based on instructions from the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), which is soon to be reorganized as an independent agency.

An incomplete grade?

Two areas of vulnerability highlighted in the IAEA preliminary report as missing pieces in Japan’s stress tests are seismic safety margins and severe accident management. In the diplomatic language of a United Nations agency, the IAEA wrote that NISA should address these topics in greater depth and soon.

James Lyons, leader of the eight-member IAEA team, told the New York Times on February 1, “there is room for improvement.”

IAEA spokesman Greg Webb clarified to the newspaper that the agency was not certifying the safety of Japan’s nuclear reactors.

Critics of the stress tests quickly latched on to this language. They said that the reviews ignore the potential for multiple natural disasters occurring simultaneously, which is what happened on March 11, 2011. Also, critics said that the tests don’t take into account the age of the reactors.

What’s significant about the criticisms is that they come from nuclear experts inside the industry. Masashi Goto, who says his expertise is in design of nuclear reactors, and is an adviser to NISA, told wire services that the stress tests are computer simulated and do not take into account operator errors and multiple failures of equipment causes by a cascade of natural disasters.

Hiromitsu Ino, a professor at Tokyo University, said that neither NISA nor the nuclear utilities updated the test protocols to take the Fukushima accident into account.

TEPCO responded that the comments from the advisory committee are valid and agreed to revise the simulation. However, according to Japanese English language media reports, TEPCO’s calculation aren’t comprehensive enough to satisfy critics who say that they also don’t take into account damage from hydrogen explosions, the resulting debris, leaking radioactive water, and other issues that hampered the emergency response for multiple reactors at Fukushima.

Rebuilding public confidence

Japanese nuclear utilities have hoped that the visit by the IAEA team would bolster public confidence in the restart of the reactors. Local communities around the reactors, which benefit from work force payroll, taxes, and other economic benefits, are anxious for the reactors to restart soon. However, the further away you get from the plants, the more anxious the population becomes about them. While provincial government officials have no legal power to stop the reactors from restarting, Japan Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has said that he will take community feelings into account in his decision.

As part of his effort to boost public confidence in the government’s oversight role, Noda is reorganizing the nuclear safety function. Until the Fukushima disaster, NISA was located inside METI, the trade ministry. Many felt that this proximity created role ambiguity with both the promotion and regulation of the nuclear industry reporting to the same politically appointed minister. Under the new plan, NISA will be established as an independent agency with beefed up technical staff.

Another step in the direction of plant safety is to impose a cap on the duration of reactor operation. A cabinet draft legislative proposal issued this week could impose a 40-year life on reactors from their commissioning date. It would also allow for an extension of 20 years. Japan has no regulatory limit on how long a reactor can remain in service.

The cost of replacement fuel

As Japan pursues a race to the bottom in terms of having no reactors generating electricity, driven by public angst, fossil fuel costs are rapidly rising and contributing to economic stress. In December and January, Japan’s imports of crude oil and natural gas increased significantly according to the Federation of Electric Power Companies.

Fossil imports have pushed the Japanese economy into its first annual trade deficit in three decades. The primary reason is a 33-percent increase in oil imports from the Middle East. Japan’s need for oil also contributed to its tepid response to a U.S. call for an embargo of crude oil buying from Iran over its uranium enrichment activities.

Japan relies on high-value manufacturing exports to pay for its energy and food imports. When the lights go out at its factories, the trade deficit is the result. As this trend is accelerating, TEPCO is proposing a 17-percent increase in electricity rates, to take place in April, largely to cover the cost of replacement power as the reactors remain shut down.

Steelmakers have protested the steep rate increase saying it will force them to move production offshore. A spokesman for the Japanese Iron & Steel Federation said on January 28 that the electric furnaces used by its members can’t be kept running in Japan under the new rates. He said that the new rates would cost an additional 20 billion yen ($2.2 billion) a year.

Restructuring TEPCO

The Japanese government is trying to keep TEPCO afloat financially with a $13 billion bailout to cover cleanup, decommissioning, and compensation costs. In return, TEPCO will give the government a two-thirds equity stake, effectively nationalizing it.

Meanwhile, TEPCO is seeking to restructure its massive debt with the Japan’s leading banks. For their part, the banks have refused to accept a request from the government to forgive some or all of TEPCO’s loans. They want the firm to become profitable, pay off its debts to them, and issue new bonds to pay off the government loan.

TEPCO’s financial plan to return to profitability hinges on the restart of its nuclear reactors including the units at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, the largest nuclear reactor complex in the world. In addition to a whopping 17-percent increase for industry, TEPCO is proposing a 10-percent rate increase for households.

In summary, proving the reactors can operate safely, so that they can be restarted, requires new and bigger stakes than just electricity supply. The country’s economy needs the electricity to avoid further negative impacts of fossil fuel replacement costs. Getting there isn’t going to be easy or quick.

The government’s action to effectively nationalize TEPCO offers a hint at its next action, which may be—taking national interest into account—to override provincial officials opposed to restarting the reactors. If it doesn’t, it will be a long, hot, and expensive summer in Japan.

# # #

Yurman

Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in Fukushima

89th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

Posted on January 29, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

The 89th Carnival of Nucler Energy Bloggers is up at Idaho Samizdat

This post is the collective voice of blogs with leading names that emerge each week to tell the story of nuclear energy.

If you want to hear the voice of the nuclear renaissance, the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is where to find it.

Past editions have been hosted at Yes Vermont Yankee,  Atomic Power Review, ANS Nuclear Cafe, Idaho Samizdat, NEI Nuclear Notes, and CoolHandNuke, as well as several other popular nuclear energy blogs.

The publication of the Carnival each week is part of a commitment by pro-nuclear bloggers in North America that we will speak with a collective voice on the issue of the value of nuclear energy. While we each have our own point of view, we agree that the promise of peaceful uses of the atom remains viable in our own time and for the future.

If you have a pro-nuclear energy blog, and would like to host an edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang at Next Big Future to get on the rotation.

This is a great collaborative effort that deserves your support. Please post a Tweet, a Facebook entry, or a link on your Web site or blog to support the carnival.

Comments Off

Posted in Carnival of nuclear bloggers, News

TVA’s countdown to MOX fuel

Posted on January 26, 2012 by dyurman| 3 Comments

The utility is assessing options to use it 

By Dan Yurman

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) could be one of the first nuclear utilities to accept mixed oxide fuel (MOX) from the Department of Energy (DOE) for use in its commercial nuclear reactors. The government is building a $4.8 billion factory in South Carolina that is scheduled to start producing MOX fuel assemblies by 2016 by blending weapons grade plutonium with uranium. The resulting fuel can be swapped out for regular uranium fuel.

The government’s nonproliferation objective is to get 34 tonnes of surplus weapons-grade plutonium out of circulation forever. TVA’s objective is to get nuclear fuel that will work safely in its reactors and at a competitive price.

TVA is a public power provider for a seven-state region serving nine million people. In 2010, 36 percent of its power generation came from nuclear energy. One element of its charter, which dates back to the New Deal programs between 1933 and 1936 of President Franklin Roosevelt, is to support national security missions. TVA built power plants to provide electricity for the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge.

Today, it participates in the DOE’s nonproliferation efforts through the use of fuel made from blended down highly-enriched surplus uranium.

Evaluating the potential for MOX

Mick Mastilovic, TVA's manager of Nuclear Fuel Supply

Mick Mastilovic, TVA’s manager of Nuclear Fuel Supply, told ANS Nuclear Cafe in a telephone interview that the utility’s evaluation of the potential for using MOX fuel will primarily address safety as well as economics of using MOX relative to all uranium fuel. TVA has not yet made a decision to pursue MOX fuel licensing and implementation.

If TVA decides to use MOX, it could eventually replace up to 40 percent of the fuel assemblies in the cores of its Sequoyah and Browns Ferry reactors. The two Sequoyah reactors are pressurized water reactors with 193 fuel assemblies each. The three Browns Ferry reactors are boiling water reactors with 764 fuel assemblies each.

The DOE’s MOX plant is expected to produce the equivalent of 1,700 PWR assemblies to dispose of 34 tonnes of surplus plutonium. At a projected output rate of up to 70 metric tons heavy metal per year, the MOX facility may produce more fuel than TVA’s five reactors could consume.

The National Nuclear Security Administration and its contractor, Shaw Areva MOX Services, are working toward agreements to market additional MOX fuel through the fuel fabrication vendors operating in the United States: Areva, Westinghouse, and Global Nuclear Fuel Americas (GE-Hitachi).

TVA won’t start out at the 40-percent core replacement level. The initial replacement level for the reactors will be about 8 assemblies of MOX fuel. Ramp up time to the 40-percent level depends on the DOE’s production schedule, how well the MOX works, and cost factors, among others.

“There is nothing quick about the process, as we have many gates to go through before possible implementation,” Mastilovic said, adding, “For instance, in the best case, we don’t expect to be able to load MOX assemblies before 2018.”

Explaining MOX to the public

One of the challenges that TVA faces is that the public perceptions of using plutonium as fuel needs some explaining. TVA starts by describing that MOX is a mix of uranium and plutonium. MOX has about 4-percent plutonium oxide (of which 94 percent is Pu-239) and the rest is depleted uranium oxide.

Commercial nuclear fuel starts as uranium oxide. What many people do not know, Mastilovic said, is that plutonium is a normal byproduct in nuclear reactors that fission uranium.

Plutonium builds up in the fuel inside the reactors and eventually provides up to 40 percent of the core’s heat energy. Fission of plutonium produces this energy in the reactor at the end of the life of the fuel.

“We’re not introducing a new element to a core, plutonium is already there,” he said.

And he also noted that “we’re not changing the thermal output of the reactor.”

Mastilovic said that while Pu-239 is more energetic than U-235, “The license governs the use of MOX. Heat inside a core can be managed by blending different fuels just like mixing different types of wood in a fireplace.”

Oak Ridge National Laboratory data presented by TVA to the Nuclear Waste Technology Review Board show little difference in decay heat loads between used MOX fuel and normal non-MOX fuel.

“Thus the difference in heat load between used MOX and used uranium oxide fuel can be accommodated in spent fuel pool cooling or space requirements and in dry cask thermal design,” Mastilovic said.

Next steps

Overall, with TVA support as a cooperating agency, the DOE is on track to complete a supplemental environmental impact statement for MOX fuel use that will assess safety for workers, the public, and the environment. TVA’s public affairs office told ANS Nuclear Cafe that the MOX program will proceed in phases with multiple opportunities for public input.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses for all the reactors that are candidates to use MOX will have to be updated to address physical operating differences and any changes in safety requirements. Technically, at this point, TVA believes that the physical modifications needed for each reactor are manageable. Also, TVA expects the DOE’s MOX to cost less than uranium fuel.

A decision to proceed with engineering and licensing is currently expected to be made in 2013.

_____________

Yurman

Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy, and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in BWRs, Department of Energy, licensing, MOX Fuel, National Laboratories, Nuclear Fuel Cycle, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, PWRs, reactor designs, Tennessee Valley Authority

88th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

Posted on January 23, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

The 88th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at Next Big Future.

Tag Cloud for Next Big Future

This post is the collective voice of blogs with legendary names which emerge each week to tell the story of nuclear energy.

If you want to hear the voice of the nuclear renaissance, the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is where to find it.

Past editions have been hosted at Yes Vermont Yankee,  Atomic Power Review, ANS Nuclear Cafe, Idaho Samizdat, NEI Nuclear Notes, and CoolHandNuke, as well as several other popular nuclear energy blogs.

The publication of the Carnival each week is part of a commitment by the leading pro-nuclear bloggers in North America that we will speak with a collective voice on the issue of the value of nuclear energy. While we each have our own point of view, we agree that the promise of peaceful uses of the atom remains viable in our own time and for the future.

If you have a pro-nuclear energy blog, and would like to host an edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang at Next Big Future to get on the rotation.

This is a great collaborative effort that deserves your support. Please post a Tweet, a Facebook entry, or a link on your Web site or blog to support the carnival.

# # #

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Posted in Carnival of nuclear bloggers, News

A win for Vermont Yankee

Posted on January 20, 2012 by dyurman| 3 Comments

Federal District Court rules against efforts by the State of Vermont to assert regulatory authority over radiological safety issues

By Dan Yurman

Efforts by the State of Vermont to regulate a nuclear reactor within its borders were struck down on January 19 by U.S. District Court Judge J. Gavan Murtha in Brattleboro, Vt. Murtha ruled in three instances against the state, which had sought to shut down Entergy’s (NYSE:ETR) Vermont Yankee reactor, located on the banks of the Connecticut River.

Murtha’s ruling follows a three-day trial last September. The decision was fast tracked to insure it would be handed down prior to the expiration of the current license on March 12, 2012.

Murtha wrote in his 102-page decision that the State of Vermont could not use the legislature’s refusal to issue a Certificate of Public Good as a basis to force the reactor to shut down. He said that state law is preempted by the Atomic Energy Act, which assigns radiological safety regulation to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The judge emphasized that the legislature was focused on “radiological safety concerns” that are the province of the NRC.

A second item in the judge’s ruling enjoined the State of Vermont from using its assertion that it has authority over management of spent fuel at the site as a means to force the plant to shut down.

Finally, the judge said that the legislation could not make a condition of continued operation contingent on the existence of a below-wholesale-market power purchase agreement between Plaintiffs and Vermont utilities, or requiring Vermont Yankee to sell power to Vermont utilities.

Immediate and irreparable harm

“The harm to the public interest from even a temporary shutdown of the Vermont Yankee Station would be significant, immediate, and irreparable,” the judge wrote.

Entergy claimed in its filing with the court that the state’s plans to shut down the reactor would cause the utility to lose highly trained employees, cost jobs both at the plant and in the community, make the electric grid in New England less reliable, force electricity prices to rise, increase greenhouse gas emissions, and hurt state tax revenues.

Vermont likely to appeal ruling

The court ruling will likely be appealed by the State of Vermont to the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals in New York, but in the meantime, the reactor will continue to operate and supply electricity to Vermont ratepayers.

The 605-MW plant provides about one-third of the electricity used in Vermont.  Rates for electricity in Vermont are significantly lower than in surrounding states due to the low cost of producing it by the reactor.

Vermont Gov Peter Shumlin

Despite the economic advantages the plant provides, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin said in a statement he was “disappointed” with the ruling.

“I continue to believe that it is in Vermont’s best interests to retire the plant,” he said.

Entergy said in a statement issued by its corporate offices that “the ruling is good news.”

Background to litigation

Vermont has  attempted to assert regulatory authority over reactor operations, management of spent fuel, and to attempt to use economic leverage on rates as a contingency for allowing the plant to stay open.

The NRC granted a 20-year extension to Vermont Yankee’s initial 40-year license in March 2011. Vermont’s State Senate had previously voted in 2010 by 26-4 against allowing the Vermont Public Service Board to issue a Certificate of Public Good. There was no corresponding vote in the State House.

The vote against the plant came following a low point for the reactor. Entergy’s plant managers in testimony before a legislative committee said that the reactor did not have underground pipes that carried tritium.

It was later found that not only did the plant have the pipes, but that they were leaking tritium into the ground within the plant boundaries. The amounts turned out not to be a threat to public health and safety, but the damage was done to the company’s credibility.

The ruling in Vermont is significant elsewhere as neighboring New York state has been trying to shut down the two operating reactors at Entergy’s Indian Point power station. Reactor relicensing actions are pending with the NRC.

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________________________

Yurman

Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in American Nuclear Society, BWRs, Entergy, lawsuit, licensing, News, nuclear opponents, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reactor designs, spent fuel, View from Vermont

Covert bombing kills another Iranian nuclear scientist

Posted on January 19, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

It is the latest in a series of deadly attacks

By Dan Yurman

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, inspects uranium enrichment centrifuges

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, inspects uranium enrichment centrifuges

An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in Tehran on January 11 by a bomb that was magnetically attached to his car. A driver, who doubles as a body guard, was also killed in the blast.

The scientist was identified as Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, age 32, who was a departmental manager at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.

According to media reports, a motorcycle rider and a passenger attached the bomb to the car in heavy morning commuter traffic. The attack occurred at 8:20 AM Tehran time. It is the fifth such attack in the past two years.

The attack came one day after it was reported that that Iran had launched uranium enrichment production at its underground facility at Fordow near the city of Qum. It is reported to be enriching the uranium to 20-percent U235, which is the boundary between commercial use and weapons use. Iran has been making 20-percent enriched uranium at Natanz, about 400 km south of Tehran (250 miles), since February 2010.

In a related development, the Wall Street Journal reported that two days later on January 13 that Iran agreed to allow a high-level team of International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear inspectors enter the country on January 28. The delegation will be headed by the agency’s chief weapons inspector, Herman Nackaerts.

It is not clear whether the Iranian government will let the inspectors visit is nuclear sites, underground uranium enrichment facilities, and interview officials that the United Nations agency believes may head a nuclear-weapons program.

The combination of three events occurring within a few days of each other indicates the intensity of the issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear programs.

U.S. denies involvement in blast

In Iran, government officials repeated their accusations that the United States and Israel are responsible for this and prior bombings. Top-level Iranian officials called for revenge.

The Obama administration rejected the accusation and also condemned the murder. In Israel, government officials were said to have hinted at covert campaigns against Iran, but did not say that the nation was directly involved in the most recent attack.

Pattern of prior attacks

Model of uranium hexafluoride (UF6)

The explosion in Tehran this week resembles four others, including two in 2010. It comes on the third anniversary to the day of the killing of another Iranian nuclear scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammandi, who also worked on uranium enrichment.

Several of those targeted have been high ranking officials. In a November 2010 attack, two separate car bombs killed Majid Shahriari and wounded Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Shahriari was a member of the nuclear engineering faculty at Shah Behesti University and did work for the Atomic Energy Organization.

Roshan, who died in the explosion this week, was described as a mid-rank manager in charge of procurement of materials and services for Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

In July 2011, Dariush Rezaeinejad was shot dead by persons unknown.  He worked at K. N. Toosi University of Technology in electrical engineering as well as the Atomic Energy Organization. These are conflicting reports about his connections to Iran’s nuclear energy programs.

The sophistication of these attacks indicates that whomever is carrying them out has an organization chart of key personnel in Iran’s nuclear programs and has tracked specific individuals in terms of where they will be on particular dates.

For instance, Roshan worked on procurement at Natanz, but was killed on his way to an office in Tehran. The attack suggests a long period of undetected intelligence gathering and surveillance of potential targets. It suggests that future bomb attacks may take place.

Other covert attacks on Iran that have delayed its nuclear programs include the Stuxnet worm, which resulted extensive mechanical failures of uranium centrifuges in 2009 and 2010. There are significant clues that point to the likelihood that Israel had involvement in the development of the Stuxnet computer worm.

A devastating explosion on November 12 at the Bid Kaneh missile R&D center killed a high ranking military official in charge of rocket development. Some analysts  have suggested that the explosion at the missile site resulted from an attack by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).  Iran has since displayed what it says is a U.S. surveillance UAV that it claims it captured after it crashed inside Iran’s borders.

Damaged Iranian missile site. Image: ISIS 11/12/2011

More information from ISIS about this image is available at its home page.

The explosion occurred shortly after Iran reported success with a test of the missile technology. It is seen as a big setback for Iran in terms of its ability to put a nuclear weapon payload on a medium range missile. A rocket with a range of 800 miles would be able to target many major cities in the Middle East.

What’s really going on?

Patrick Clawson, a national security expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the New York Times on January 11 that the covert attacks on Iran’s nuclear scientists appear to have two objectives.

First, they have a chilling effect on the nuclear workforce and they don’t provoke a nationalist reaction in Iran. A military attack from the United States or Israel would surely create one.

Second, Clawson said, “it allows Iran to climb down if it decides the cost of pursuing a nuclear weapon is too high.”

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)

Gary Sick, a specialist on Iran at Columbia University, told the newspaper, however, that he does not believe the covert campaign will be effective in stopping Iran from its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Sick said that he thinks “Iran will double down” in its efforts because it enhances their feelings of being under attack by the West.

Charles D. Ferguson of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) told Reuters on January 17 that “such acts of terrorism” are unlikely to significantly delay or deter Tehran’s nuclear work.

“The resulting climate of insecurity feeds ammunition to hardliners in Tehran demanding reprisals,” he said.

U.S. government officials declined to discuss what security measures they will be taking to detect and deter possible retaliatory attacks by Iran on U.S. nuclear scientists. The U.S. Department of Energy is the largest employer of nuclear scientists in the United States, located at dozens of facilities across the country.

In Houston, Tex., this week, Gelareh Bagherzadeh, 30, a medical student who has a long history of speaking out on human rights issues in Iran, was shot dead under mysterious circumstances. Her purse and cell phone were still in her car, which had crashed into a building near her home.

Iran is continuing its threats to block the Straights of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, adding a security premium to the price of oil. This move increases revenue for Iran and imposes costs on the U.S. economy. It is unclear whether or not Iran will actually take any military action, but even a single attack on an oil tanker could send oil prices skyrocketing.

Can Iran make a bomb?

It is also unclear whether Iran has the other capabilities to make a nuclear weapon including the metallurgy, trigger mechanisms, and delivery systems, e.g., missiles with a compact working warhead capable of hitting a specific target 800 miles away.

Diagram of a nuclear weapon using highly enriched uranium

To develop a conventional uranium-based atomic bomb, Iran would have to produce output of about 90-percent U235. Weapons experts say that if Iran wants to produce weapons grade at that level, there is little to stop them, technically speaking, from doing so.

Experts believe that Iran will eventually be able to produce enough weapons grade material to build four or five atomic bombs.  However, at this time, while Iran is enriching uranium to 20%, it isn’t clear that it has moved beyond that point to actually build a bomb.  On Jan 19 the Washington Post reported that the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency said Iran has “the resources and components” to build one.

“If the Iranians get together tonight and decide to secretly develop a bomb, then they have all the resources and components to do so,” Amos Yadlin was quoted Thursday as telling the Maariv daily.

The newspaper added that it was not clear whether Yadlin, who retired in November 2010, was referring to the mechanical elements of a bomb, or that the Iranians have weapons-grade uranium, that is, enriched to 90% U235.

Limited political options

Iran’s political objectives remain unshaken by the bombings of its nuclear scientists. Its clerical leadership is driven by a warped and paranoid world view that is bent on getting the West to recognize its role as a regional power. Unfortunately for Iran, its neighbors in the Middle East are as alarmed about Iran’s nuclear ambitions as the United States and western Europe.

There is no workable roadmap at this time to convince Iran to stop its drive to produce a weapon. Ray Takeyh, a senior analyst at the Council of Foreign Relations, wrote in the Washington Post on December 9 that one of the reasons is that Iran’s defiance of Western powers plays well in terms of domestic politics despite the activity of opposition parties. He wrote:

Ray Takeyh, CFR

“A clerical oligarchy trapped in a mind-set conditioned by conspiracies and violent xenophobia paradoxically views both American entreaties and sanctions as an affirmation of its perspective.

Offers of diplomatic dialogue made in respectful terms are seen as indications of Western weakness and embolden the regime to sustain its intransigence.

Conversely, coercive measures are viewed as American plots to not just disarm the Islamic Republic, but also to undermine its rule. Armed with the ultimate weapon, the Islamists think, they may yet compel the West to concede to Iran’s regional aggrandizement.”

While the U.N. Security Council has imposed four rounds of economic sanctions against Iran for enrichment work, its members are divided on next steps. There is general agreement that enrichment to 20 percent exceeds the country’s civilian needs, since Russia is providing the fuel for Iran’s Bushehr commercial nuclear reactor.

Finding a path to bring Iran back into predictable diplomatic relations and to stand down from its pursuit of a weapons program remains a major challenge.

_______________

Yurman

Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in accident, Department of Energy, IAEA, Iran uranium enrichment, National Laboratories, News, Nuclear events, PWRs, reactor designs, Russia

87th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

Posted on January 15, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

This post is the collective voice of blogs with legendary names which emerge each week to tell the story of nuclear energy.

If you want to hear the voice of the nuclear renaissance, the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is where to find it.

Past editions have been hosted at Next Big Future. Yes Vermont Yankee,  Atomic Power Review, ANS Nuclear Cafe, Idaho Samizdat, NEI Nuclear Notes, and CoolHandNuke, as well as several other popular nuclear energy blogs.

The publication of the Carnival each week is part of a commitment by the leading pro-nuclear bloggers in North America that we will speak with a collective voice on the issue of the value of nuclear energy. While we each have our own point of view, we agree that the promise of peaceful uses of the atom remains viable in our own time and for the future.

If you have a pro-nuclear energy blog, and would like to host an edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang at Next Big Future to get on the rotation.

This is a great collaborative effort that deserves your support. Please post a Tweet, a Facebook entry, or a link on your Web site or blog to support the carnival.

This week’s carnival

Cool Hand Nuke

Areva inks $500 million nuclear fuel deal with Xcel for Monticello – French state-owned nuclear giant Areva signed an integrated fuel and services contract with Xcel Energy to supply the utility’s Monticello nuclear generating plant in Minnesota. The contact is worth approximately $500 million for a ten year period of performance.

The deal, which starts in 2015, will cover six re-fuelings of the reactor. Products and services include uranium, conversion, enrichment, fuel design, and fabrication as well as related engineering services. It is the first integrated contract of its type in the U.S. in several decades.

ANS Nuclear Cafe

At the ANS Nuclear Cafe, Suzy Hobbs Baker writes about the new social media phenomenon Pinterest.com, and explores how to better connect and communicate with women about energy issues.

NEI Nuclear Notes

NEI Nuclear Notes has two posts ~ Early in the week, Mark Flanagan, NEI and many others criticized the Department of Interior’s decision to ban uranium mining next to the Grand Canyon. The Interior’s own environmental impact statements explain that uranium mining is done safely and sustainably and that the Grand Canyon won’t be harmed.

The other post to mention is from Victoria Barq detailing the nuclear industry’s new FLEX strategy to increase safety based on the lessons learned from Fukushima. The industry presented its strategy to the NRC in a public meeting on Friday. From Victoria:

The FLEX concept is based on how the industry responded to the events of 9/11, in which additional security precautions—such as portable generators, water pumps, hoses and batteries—were put in place to mitigate against “beyond design-basis events,” or unlikely events that are considered outside the scope of what a plant should be designed or regulated to withstand.

Idaho Samizdat

New reactor deals for the new year – Dan Yurman writes that Jordan short lists three firms and selects six potential sites for a $5 billion project

Government energy officials completed a site selection study.  The JAEC, which had already selected two sites at Mafraq, 60 km east of Amman, and Aqaba, Red Sea port city, said the criteria for the first two and the other four are safety, seismic stability, and access to cooling water.

Next Big Future – Brian Wang

Toshiba has a device for removing 97% of radioactive material from soil and water at 1.7 tons of soil per day. The rate of treatment will be increased by 100 times to the range of 100-200 tons of soil per day

A team of LLNL researchers has developed the first plastic material capable of efficiently distinguishing neutrons from gamma rays, something not thought possible.  The new technology could assist in detecting nuclear substances such as plutonium and uranium that might be used in improvised nuclear devices by terrorists and could help in detecting neutrons in major scientific projects.

China cleared to buy world’s fourth largest uranium deposit which is in Namibia. Liu Tienan, head of NEA, said that China would approve nuclear safety regulations more quickly and speed up revisions of its medium- and long-term plans for nuclear power development.

Yes Vermont Yankee

Meredith Angwin writes ~ The Sixth Lawsuit About Vermont Yankee: Suing For the Cost of Replacement Power – Meredith Angwin follows her “five lawsuits” post with another about the newest lawsuit. Vermont distribution utilities are suing Vermont Yankee for the cost of their replacement power.

VY cut its power output to repair a cooling tower, and the utilities had to buy more expensive power during the repairs.  The utility contracts did NOT require VY to pay replacement power costs. However, in Vermont, mere facts never stand in the way of a lawsuit.

Atomic Insights

Rod Adams writes that David Owen’s book, “The Conundrum” comes to the conclusion that there is no way for people to sustain a high energy consumption life-style. He ignores the incredible store of energy inside of uranium and thorium.

Nuke Power Talk

Gail Marcus writes that we have long known about the radioactivity of emissions from coal-fired plants.  Now, Gail Marcus comments on radioactive emissions from yet another fossil fuel.  Among the other problems identified with the process of “fracking” to extract natural gas, they have now been identified with increased releases of radioactive emissions.

# # #

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Posted in Carnival of nuclear bloggers, News

86th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

Posted on January 9, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

The 86th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up
at NEI Nuclear Notes

Nuclear abstractThis post is the collective voice of blogs with legendary names which emerge each week to tell the story of nuclear energy.

If you want to hear the voice of the nuclear renaissance, the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is where to find it.

Past editions have been hosted at Next Big Future. Yes Vermont Yankee, NuclearGreen, Atomic Power Review, ANS Nuclear Cafe, Idaho Samizdat, and CoolHandNuke, as well as several other popular nuclear energy blogs.

The publication of the Carnival each week is part of a commitment by the leading pro-nuclear bloggers in North America that we will speak with a collective voice on the issue of the value of nuclear energy. While we each have our own point of view, we agree that the promise of peaceful uses of the atom remains viable in our own time and for the future.

If you have a pro-nuclear energy blog, and would like to host an edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang at Next Big Future to get on the rotation.

This is a great collaborative effort that deserves your support. Please post a Tweet, a Facebook entry, or a link on your Web site or blog to support the carnival.

# # #

Comments Off

Posted in Carnival of nuclear bloggers

Nuclear energy R&D budgets spared major cuts

Posted on January 5, 2012 by dyurman| 3 Comments

Congress trims funding while adding new priorities

By Dan Yurman

A Congress that has public approval ratings in the single digits because of deficit-related gridlock managed to get some of the federal budget out the door for 2012. The Energy & Water Appropriation Bill, which covers funding for the U.S. Department of Energy, contains $768 million for nuclear energy programs.

Nuclear energy at the DOE fared better than some other high profile DOE programs. The Obama administration’s poster child for a green economy—Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy—suffered a cut of $1.9 billion, reducing the funding request by the White House by more than half. The DOE’s Science programs also saw a significant reduction of $616 million from the President’s budget. And, nationwide environmental cleanup of DOE sites suffered a reduction of $469 million.

Emphasis on small modular reactors

Of the $768 million in the bill for the nuclear energy program at the DOE, $439 million is allocated to nuclear energy research and development. A key element of the appropriation is a $67 million line item for licensing technical support for light water reactors. It provides funds for first-of-a-kind engineering support for two reactor designs and sites.

Supporters of fast reactor SMR designs had hoped for appropriation language that would have advanced their cause, but it didn’t appear in the committee report related to licensing activities.

Within a line item of $136 million for reactor concepts, $29 million is provided for advanced R&D on SMR concepts that presumably would include some fast reactor work scope.

A big ticket item is $64 million for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) program, which is $14 million above the DOE’s request. The committee called for strong engagement with industry in development of the NGNP demonstration phase.

Congress also told the DOE to stick to the knitting and finish the job on the NGNP. The committee report complained that the DOE engages in a “constant shifting of priorities that starts many initiatives and finishes none.”

DOE Nuclear Energy Assistant Secretary Pete Lyons declined, through a spokesperson, to be interviewed or to comment on the funding numbers or the SMR projects.

Fuel Cycle Research received $132 million, with significant cuts from the 2011 funding level and the 2012 request.

Facilities management at the Idaho National Laboratory received $155 million, $5 million above the request. Separately, $14.6 million is allocated to the National Science User Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, the same amount as the request.

Positive reactions to reactor funding

U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, R., Idaho

U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson (R., Idaho) , whose district includes the Idaho lab, is a senior member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, serving there for the past nine years. Simpson said in a statement that he was pleased with the funding for the lab’s programs.

“I am very pleased that the Appropriations Committee and Congress have once again demonstrated strong support for the development of nuclear energy and provided the resources necessary to continue our nation’s progress on new and promising nuclear technologies,” said Simpson.

Simpson noted that total funding for DOE’s nuclear energy program was $31 million more than funding provide by Congress for FY2011.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group, also took notice. In a statement on its website, the organization said that it was relieved that the events in Fukushima, Japan, last March have not deterred Congress from continued support for nuclear energy.

“We particularly appreciate the inclusion of $67 million to initiate the Department of Energy’s small reactor licensing program. That technology will become a significant contributor to the nation’s energy portfolio and has tremendous potential for job creation to support deployment in the United States and internationally,” the NEI statement said.

Worries across the pond in the U.K.

While nuclear energy R&D fared well in the budget storm in Washington, D.C., across the Atlantic things are not going as well. The Science & Technology Committee of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament, issued a report on November 22 that said the government was “complacent” about nuclear energy R&D.

In a stinging comment, the committee wrote that the UK government’s plans for nuclear to play a part in meeting the country’s energy needs “simply lack credibility.”

The report went on to say that the absence of leadership and strategic thinking in government has created a perception that the UK is no longer a serious player in the field. The skills gap, which will be made worse by near-term retirements, will make the nation a “niche player,” the report said.

According to government budget numbers reviewed by the committee, the UK is spending less on nuclear energy R&D than Australia and Italy—and neither of these nations has a commercial nuclear power program.

The committee called for an increase in spending of £20-50 million (about U.S.$31-78 million) a year. The committee’s recommendations include the development of a long-term strategy for nuclear energy looking beyond 2025, outlining support for R&D through an R&D roadmap, and for the commercial exploitation of the UK’s current strengths in nuclear research.

It also called for the establishment of a nuclear R&D board, made up of industry, academic and government partners, to develop and implement the R&D roadmap and help to improve the coordination of R&D activities to protect vulnerable areas of research and close gaps in capabilities.

# # #

Dan Yurman, nuclear blogger

Dan Yurman publishes Idaho Samizdat, a blog about nuclear energy, and is a frequent contributor to ANS Nuclear Cafe.

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Posted in Department of Energy, financing, National Laboratories, News, reactor designs, Small modular reactors, U.S. Congress

85th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

Posted on January 1, 2012 by dyurman| Comments Off

The 85th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at:
 Yes VermontYankee

This post is the collective voice of blogs with legendary names which emerge each week to tell the story of nuclear energy

If you want to hear the voice of the nuclear renaissance, the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs is where to find it.

Past editions have been hosted at Next Big Future. Yes Vermont Yankee, NuclearGreen, Atomic Power Review, ANS Nuclear Cafe, Idaho Samizdat, and CoolHandNuke, as well as several other popular nuclear energy blogs.

The publication of the Carnival each week is part of a commitment by the leading pro-nuclear bloggers in North America that we will speak with a collective voice on the issue of the value of nuclear energy. While we each have our own point of view, we agree that the promise of peaceful uses of the atom remains viable in our own time and for the future.

If you have a pro-nuclear energy blog, and would like to host an edition of the carnival, please contact Brian Wang at Next Big Future to get on the rotation.

This is a great collaborative effort that deserves your support. Please post a Tweet, a Facebook entry, or a link on your Web site or blog to support the carnival.

# # #

Comments Off

Posted in Carnival of nuclear bloggers