Clean Energy Insight - Moving Energy Forward

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The Washington Capitals, an NHL hockey team, endorsed nuclear power today.  Through an endorsement from the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Caps will attempt to share the importance that nuclear energy has with respect to emission-free energy generation.  The endorsement showcases the great work and increased spending from the NEI in the past year to educate the American public on the benefits of nuclear power as a clean, safe, and reliable form of energy for the country.  Now, if only the Capitol (rather than the Capitals) will choose to fully endorse nuclear power.  Although, this is a great start.  You can check out the interesting details of the endorsement below.

NEI Partners with NHL’s Washington Capitals to Promote Nuclear Energy’s Clean-Air Value

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — To increase awareness of nuclear energy’s role in clean-air electricity generation, the Nuclear Energy Institute has entered into its first-ever partnership with the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League. As an official energy partner of the Capitals, NEI is teaming up with the team to promote the clean-air benefits of nuclear energy to sports fans via multiple media, including signage at the Capitals’ home arena, the Verizon Center, in print and radio ads, and on the Caps’ and NEI’s Web sites.

Hockey and climate change may seem unrelated, but a rising concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is, many believe, creating changes in the climate–changes that are having an impact on hockey. From Vancouver to Vermont, Stockholm to Moscow, the ponds and lakes on which many hockey players hone their skills are freezing later in the year and melting sooner.

“Nuclear energy is an important part of a technology-based solution to climate change,” said Capitals majority owner Ted Leonsis. “It’s a proven energy provider in Virginia and Maryland for Capitals’ fans. We are pleased to work with NEI to raise awareness of the role that it can play in reducing greenhouses gases across America.”

The Washington region has long benefitted from nuclear energy’s clean, reliable electricity generation: Nuclear power plants do not emit greenhouse gases or other controlled air pollutants while generating electricity. For local Caps’ fans, 85 percent of the clean electricity produced in Maryland comes from the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant located 45 miles from Verizon Center. In Virginia, nuclear energy produces 91 percent of the state’s emission-free power.

Additionally, Baltimore-based Constellation Energy and Richmond-based Dominion Power are among energy companies that have filed permits with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build new nuclear energy facilities.

“The Capitals’ success here in Washington provides a terrific branding opportunity for the industry as Congress and the Obama administration tackle important energy and environmental issues, all of which will benefit from America’s investment in nuclear energy,” said Scott Peterson, NEI’s vice president of communications.

Nuclear energy is the largest generator of clean-air electricity with 104 reactors in 31 states generating 20 percent of all electricity and 72 percent of electricity produced from sources that do not produce greenhouse gases. For many U.S. energy companies, nuclear energy is a vital part of a clean energy production portfolio that also includes wind, solar and hydroelectric power.

Like the energy sector, NHL players are increasingly serious about climate change. The NHL Players Association has helped its membership calculate their total carbon emissions for the regular season. Hockey players are uniquely qualified to comment on the demonstrable effects of climate change.

“A rite of winter passage among generations of hockey players–playing and falling in love with the game out on frozen ponds and lakes–has been curtailed as warmer winters in recent years have meant less access to skating recreation,” Peterson noted. “A lot of people associated with hockey believe this is due to climate change.”

Capitals’ fans this hockey season will see NEI’s “Nuclear: Clean Air Energy” message prominently displayed near the goal both at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., as well at the team’s training facility, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, in Arlington, Va. NEI also will air 30-second radio commercials during coverage of all 82 games on local radio WFED 1500 AM. NEI also will have video and display ads on the Capitals’ Web site and full-page advertisements in the game programs.

All season long, NEI will provide updated information on nuclear energy’s role in moving America to a more climate-friendly energy portfolio for Washington Capitals fans at http://nei.org/caps. To view partnership-related photographs, including shots of the Capitals in action, throughout the season, see NEI’s Flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/_nei/.

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China is quickly becoming the world’s largest producer of wind energy; however, they are also building coal back-up plants to safeguard against blackouts when the wind doesn’t blow.  Typically, wind mills are producing energy 30-35% of the time.  The author also notes 30% of the wind-power capacity installed in China was not connected to their grid due to the transmission network’s inability to absorb the growth in renewable-energy output.

Other countries that have a combination of rapidly growing energy demand, an old and inflexible grid, a heavy reliance on coal, and ambitious renewable energy expansion plans will face the same problem.  The US currently meets 3 of those 4 requirements.

There are plans in the US to use natural gas combustion plants to supplement our wind energy; however, these plants are subject to high energy price volatility.

China is also leading the way on nuclear power fleet development by rapidly building new nuclear plants that don’t require fossil fuel back-ups.  The plan is to use nuclear plants to offset the need to build coal plants will help China curb their carbon emissions and maintain stable electricity prices.

China’s Wind Farms Come With a Catch: Coal Plants

Wall Street Journal - Sept 28, 2009

SHANGHAI—China’s ambition to create “green cities” powered by huge wind farms comes with a dirty little secret: Dozens of new coal-fired power plants need to be installed as well.

Part of the reason is that wind power depends on, well, the wind. To safeguard against blackouts when conditions are too calm, officials have turned to coal-fired power as a backup.

China wants renewable energy like wind to meet 15% of its energy needs by 2020, double its share in 2005, as it seeks to rein in emissions that have made its cities among the smoggiest on Earth. But experts say the country’s transmission network currently can’t absorb the rate of growth in renewable-energy output. Last year, as much as 30% of wind-power capacity wasn’t connected to the grid. As a result, more coal is being burned in existing plants, and new thermal capacity is being built to cover this shortfall in renewable energy.

In addition, officials want enough new coal-fired capacity in reserve so that they can meet demand whenever the wind doesn’t blow. This is important because wind is less reliable as an energy source than coal, which fuels two-thirds of China’s electricity output. Wind energy ultimately depends on wind strength and direction, unlike coal, which can be stockpiled at generators in advance.

Further complicating matters is poor connectivity between regional transmission networks, which makes it hard for China to move surplus power in one part of the country to cover shortfalls elsewhere.

China may not be alone in having to ramp up thermal power capacity as it develops wind farms. Any country with a combination of rapidly growing energy demand, an old and inflexible grid, an existing reliance on coal for power, and ambitious renewable energy-expansion plans will likely have a similar dilemma. What marks China out as different is the amount of new coal-fired capacity that needs to be added.

The China Greentech Initiative, a group made up of more than 80 mostly large Western companies and organizations with interests in the environmental sector, said in a report earlier this month, “China’s increased focus on renewable energy exerts yet greater demands on China’s electric power infrastructure. Power generation based on renewable energy sources … necessitates greater use of intermittent generation management and storage.”

“China will need to add a substantial amount of coal-fired power capacity by 2020 in line with its expanding economy, and the idea is to bring some of the capacity earlier than necessary in order to facilitate the wind-power transmission,” said Shi Pengfei, vice president of the Chinese Wind Power Association.

Largely due to its reliance on coal, China is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in absolute terms. Last year, the country accounted for more than 85% of global growth in coal demand, according to BP PLC’s statistical review of world energy.

Facing pressure from abroad over the pace of China’s emissions growth, President Hu Jintao used a speech to the United Nations last Tuesday to stress his country’s commitment to tackling climate change. He said China will lower energy intensity as the country grows, while raising output of renewable energy and nuclear power. China aims to cut carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product by a “notable margin” by 2020, Mr. Hu said, without setting a concrete cap.

The city of Jiuquan, in the flat and arid northwestern province of Gansu, shows the complexities that crop up when implementing such plans. The city is meant to showcase the strides China is making in renewable energy. Wind turbines with a combined capacity of 12.7 gigawatts are due to be installed there by 2015—more than the country’s present nuclear-power capacity.

But the Jiuquan government wants to build 9.2 gigawatts of new coal-fired generating capacity as well, for use when the winds aren’t favorable. That’s equivalent to the entire generating capacity of Hungary.

Construction of these thermal power plants is pending approval by Beijing, an official with the Energy Department under the Jiuquan Development and Reform Bureau said Tuesday.

The heavy reliance on coal-fired power plants to add to the power supply from large wind farms in order to meet minimum power demand is essential to grid safety, said Mr. Shi of the Chinese Wind Power Association.

To be sure, any kilowatt hour of wind power consumed by end users ultimately replaces a kilowatt hour of electricity generated by other, possibly dirty, sources such as coal, and the huge power supply expected from the new wind farms represents a major stride in China’s clean energy push.

In addition to Jiuquan, there are plans for six other wind farms in China with a capacity of more than 10 gigawatts each, mostly in sparsely populated inland regions such as wind-swept Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang.

Several gigawatts of new thermal power capacity will need to be built at these sites as well, Mr. Shi said.

China has plenty of windswept plains and sun-baked deserts like the Gobi which can host turbines or solar panels, but these are often far from cities and existing infrastructure for shipping power. Sebastian Meyer, director of research and advisory services with clean-energy consultancy Azure International, says China needs a more modern and flexible grid if it wants to raise the share of renewable power in its energy mix.

So-called smart-grid technology aims to modernize the power sector by overlaying digital communications onto the grid, enabling utilities to manage supply more efficiently and compensate for any variance. But while the U.S. and many countries in Europe are lining up spending to exploit the technology, China is lagging behind.

State Grid Corp., China’s monopoly power distributor in all but five provinces, says it wants to build a nationwide “strong smart grid.” But while it is investing heavily in grid improvements, its immediate focus is the construction of ultrahigh-voltage lines linking China’s coal production and hydropower centers in inland areas to the densely populated east.

A single such line can carry up to 6.4 gigawatts of power, which makes it even more important that generation at its starting point is stable and reliable.

—Jing Yang

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Energy Is Our Future–Don’t Waste It!

This Friday blog series will aim to raise awareness concerning the importance of energy efficiency. Throughout this series we will discuss issues linked to energy consumption and energy savings.

Clean Energy Insight realizes that the cleanest energy is energy that you don’t waste. Conserving energy is more than just about saving money…it helps to reduce adverse environmental and social impacts related to the creation and consumption of energy.

So while we are talking about reducing CO2 emissions, energy costs, clean energy and the how much energy is consumed, let’s talk about ways that we can save, conserve and maintain this energy for our future generations.

Cleaning or Replacing Air Filters on your Air Conditioning Unit

Check your filter every month, especially during heavy use months (winter and summer).  If the filter looks dirty after a month, change it. At a minimum, change the filter every 3 months. A dirty filter will slow down air flow and make the system work harder to keep you warm or cool…wasting energy. A clogged or dirty air filter can increase operating costs of an air conditioning unit by at least 10%.  A clean filter will also prevent dust and dirt from building up in the system leading to expensive maintenance and/or early system failure. (www.energystar.gov)

How to Change or Clean your Air Conditioning Filter:

Effort: Low
Time Required: 5-10 minutes
Materials Needed:

1. Broom or vacuum
2. Water hose/spigot access
3. Replacement filter (if needed)

Instructions

1. Locate your filter. They can usually be found in the wall behind a metal grating.

2.  If the filter is near a very dusty or dirty area, sweep or vacuum the floor.

3.  Make sure that the system is turned off before you touch any part of the filter.

4.  Pop or slide open the panel door.

5.  Slide the filter out.

6.  If it’s a disposable filter, carefully measure the length and width of the filter.

7.  Go to the hardware store and buy filters that are the same size. (Go to step 10.)

8.  If it’s a replaceable filter, take the filter out to a solid, clean surface outside and spray it down thoroughly with water. Do not use detergents, since this can actually make the dirt stick to the filters.

9.  Let the filter air-dry outside.

10.  Put the filter back in, making sure to line up any guide arrows correctly.

Helpful Reminder:

Each month when you go to pay your electric bill, replace or clean your air conditioner’s filter.

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The school newspaper for Virginia Tech, the Collegiate Times, released a story on the NRC’s recent education grant to Virginia Tech to start a nuclear engineering program.  The article is great and the news is wonderful for the university and for the future of the nuclear industry in the United States.  What caught our eye here at Clean Energy Insight was the graphic that was placed in the print edition of the newspaper article. (See below)

Eric Danner and myself from Clean Energy Insight were compelled to write a letter-to-the-editor of the Collegiate Times in order to follow up on the article and let the students of Virginia Tech know that atomic bombs aren’t business-as-usual for the nuclear industry, much less a university nuclear engineering degree program.

Nuclear Engineering Graphic Bombs

Collegiate Times, 9/21/09

Last week, the CT released an article covering the recent grant from the NRC for a nuclear engineering program at Virginia Tech.  The students at Virginia Tech are some of the best and brightest in the country, and well deserving of this challenging educational opportunity.

However, at least one person made the mistake of placing a picture of a mushroom cloud in the background of a “Virginia Tech’s Nuclear Energy History” timeline.  Although this is probably more of a minor oversight by someone at the CT, it does raise a larger issue that is prevalent in today’s society.

The relationship between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy are all too often confused, mostly because of a lack of education on the subject.  It seems that in today’s world it is becoming easier to demonize something that isn’t understood, instead of attempting to understand it.

No one at Virginia Tech will be taught how to engineer nuclear weapons.  A nuclear engineering program is focused on an energy technology that creates clean, safe, and reliable energy.

Just as a bottle of petroleum jelly cannot explode while sitting in your bathroom cabinet, a nuclear power reactor cannot possibly explode like a nuclear bomb.  Although the two technologies share the same name, they are very different.  Simply, fuel for nuclear power is enriched 25-30 times less than that of weapons-grade material.

Although this new nuclear engineering program is wonderful news for the University, unfortunate inaccuracies like this can cause severe damage to the future of clean baseload energy in the United States.

Nuclear power currently accounts for 74% of clean energy production in the United States and helps the country avoid almost 700 million metric tons of CO2 emissions per year.  The second and third closest clean energy competitors are hydro and wind energy with 200 and 27 million metric tons of CO2 avoided, respectively.

Nuclear power is also the most reliable clean energy that we have available today.  It produces clean energy 100% of the time, compared to wind (30%), hydro (27%), and solar energy (19%).

Not only is nuclear power clean and reliable, it is safe.  According to the Dept. of Labor, the US nuclear power industry has a workplace accident rate lower than that of the US education and communication industries, which includes the entire faculty and staff of Virginia Tech and the CT.

Hokies, please take this opportunity to learn more about nuclear power and support the new nuclear engineering program at Virginia Tech.

J Carrington Dillon
Alumnus, Civil Engineering & Economics

Eric Danner
Alumnus, Aerospace Engineering

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You may have read on Clean Energy Insight before about the Coles Hill, Virginia uranium deposit.  Pittsylvania County, Virginia is known for its tobacco farms, but it’s also home to the largest untapped uranium deposit in the United States.  Currently, the National Academy of Sciences is conducting an 18 month study to determine the effects that uranium mining will have on the area.

Despite an objective study currently being done to determine if uranium mining can be done safely at Coles Hill, there has been some opposition from a small group of people in Southwest Virginia.  Some anti-uranium mining groups from other states have even come in and attempted to organize opposition based on fear tactics and baseless myths.

The Virginia Energy Independence Alliance has put together a great video dispelling some of the myths being put out there by radical opposition groups.

Myth 1: There is no established need for uranium in the United States. The US exports most of its uranium.

Myth 2: Uranium test drilling at Coles Hill is leading to lead contamination in local wells.

Myth 3: Uranium has never been safely mined. Especially, in a temperate environment like that of Southwest Virginia.

Myth 4: Problems from uranium mining in Navajo communities in the 1950’s will happen again if uranium mining were started in Southwest Virginia.

Thanks to VEIA for the great video, and I hope there are more to come.  Enjoy.

Learn The Facts About Uranium from Jason Phillips on Vimeo.

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Radioactive waste comes mainly from nuclear power generation, (plants, operations in the fuel cycle, R&D centers), and is managed in a very rigorous, controlled industry that serves to protects humans and the environment. It maintains high-level oversight from operators, regulatory agencies and governments.

Waste management includes collection, sorting, processing, packaging, transport, storage and disposal. Since the United States does not currently recycle nuclear waste, the issue of waste management, in particular waste storage, is a sensitive issue.

Currently, the idea of using the Yucca Mountain repository as a nuclear waste storage site has been rejected by the Obama administration. Despite the fact that over 20 years of research and BILLIONS of dollars have been put into the project. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has since then been determined to appoint a panel to best determine the future of nuclear waste.

The Department of Energy will soon be announcing their Nuclear Waste Panel, a group of individuals who will study the best possible way to deal with growing civilian nuclear waste. This panel is created based on the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a law that is designed to ensure the panel is balanced with objective representation of each policy option.

Does it make sense for nuclear waste to be stored on-site at numerous locations throughout the country, or at one central location? Does it make sense for all 104 nuclear power plants to hire extra security on-site at nuclear plants or to have advanced security at one location for all of the stored nuclear waste? And in a place that scientists around the world agree to be a safe and efficient location, based on natural barriers, design elements?

If we can’t store nuclear waste somewhere, what are our other options? Since we live in a world obsessed with the three R’s, reduce, reuse and recycle, perhaps this panel will entertain the idea of recycling nuclear waste.

The French have been recycling nuclear waste for decades, and France’s LA Hague plant is an example of how much waste can be recycled and reused. The plant recycles 96% of used fuel, which leaves 4% categorized as waste. This industrial scale recycling process is proven as an effective approach to waste management, one that the United States could benefit from.

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Myth: Nuclear Power Emits Massive Amounts of Greenhouse Gases

I have heard many times before that Nuclear Power emits a lot of greenhouse gases. In all actuality Nuclear Power emits NO greenhouse gases while producing electricity, but if you look at the entire life cycle of nuclear (mining, construction, etc.) you will see that it does emit a minimal amount of CO2 because of the labor involved in manufacturing and the construction of the units. This is the same for all other forms of energy producing sectors as well, including wind, solar, and hydro.

Yes–you read that correctly, all forms of energy production releases some sort of greenhouse gases in their life cycle. If you think about it for a minute, this statement makes total sense. Humans release CO2 into the atmosphere, we even breathe out CO2, and since we have to work at these facilities all facilities will release some CO2.   Manufacturing and construction of the facilities will also emit CO2.  The truth of the matter is, we can’t possibly have 100% CO2 free energy, but we should produce large amounts of energy while keeping our CO2 emissions to a minimum. Luckily, we have that technology available to us today and that is nuclear power!

Lets look at the graph below, it illustrates the amount of CO2 energy the US has avoided by the use of nuclear power production.

How about the rest of the energy industries you ask? Well lets look at the graph below to see how much energy is avoided by other energy producing industries. You can see that nuclear power far exceeds the amount of avoided CO2 by the top “renewable” energy productions.

Nuclear power accounts for 73.6 percent of all the energy production methods considered to be CO2 free. The graph below shows you how much energy is produced by nuclear power compared to other CO2 free emitting energies. This is one of many reasons why we should have a big portion of our energy come from nuclear power, but this is not to say that we should not keep using the other forms of clean energies. In fact, in order for the US to have the greatest benefit, the US will need to use all forms of CO2 free emitting energies, but for the most part the main producer and base power producer should be nuclear power.

This is great information to have but one might ask, “How much CO2 is released by nuclear?” Great question! The answer is in the graph below. It illustrates the amount of CO2 that is released during the life-cycle of energy production from 8 different energy industries. As you can clearly see nuclear power is a close 3rd place but is very comparable to both Wind and geothermal. Now lets combine the information above with the amount of energy produced from nuclear and you have a clear winner of where our country needs to get their base power from…Nuclear Power!

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NEI President and CEO Marvin Fertel recently wrote the following Op-ed at The Hill outlining legislation must-haves in order for the expansion of nuclear power to occur in the United States.  Fertel creates a nuclear industry wish-list of policy and legislation changes that he feels must be made.  If Fertel’s policy suggestions were implemented in such legislation as the Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade bill, nuclear power will be able to create jobs, clean baseload energy, and economic benefits a lot sooner than currently projected.  I’ve bolded the important stuff to save you time.  Enjoy.

Nuclear power poised to help meet demands of climate change legislation

By Marvin Fertel - 09/08/09 PM ET

More than a century ago, the famed journalist and writer Ambrose Bierce stated, “Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the arts and industries. The question of its economical application to some purposes is still unsettled, but experiment has already proved that it will propel a streetcar better than a gas.”

Bierce’s prediction is staggering in its understatement.

Today, the electric power sector is a $340 billion industry that employs approximately 400,000 workers and constitutes 3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Electricity’s reach, of course, has long since eclipsed streetcars. It propels virtually the entire economy and is so vital that there is a discernible statistical correlation between a nation’s reliability of electricity supply and its mortality rate.

Electricity has long since become an inextricable part of our lives. Even with improved efficiency measures, our nation’s need for electricity — including reliable, carbon-free sources such as nuclear power plants — continues to climb.

A host of recent analyses has concluded that the nation’s use of nuclear energy must increase in the coming decades to meet rising electricity demand while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in its analysis of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, found that the contribution of low- or zero-carbon energy technologies to electricity supply must increase to 38 percent by 2050 from the current 14 percent. An additional 180 nuclear power plants (104 operate today) will be needed to meet the legislation’s emissions targets, the EPA said.

Similarly, the National Academy of Sciences concluded in its July report “America’s Energy Future” that “(S)ubstantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector are achievable over the next two to three decades through a portfolio approach” that includes nuclear energy. The report identifies advanced nuclear energy plants as one of two “key technologies” that must be demonstrated during the next decade “to allow for their widespread deployment starting around 2020.”

At present, 25 new reactors are in the federal permitting process, with four to eight plants expected to be completed by 2017. The industry plans to invest $8 billion in just the next few years — on top of billions already spent — to be in a position to start construction of carbon-free nuclear plants in 2011-2012.

Nuclear energy and other clean energy technologies can help jumpstart our economy and make America a world leader in low-carbon energy. American manufacturers will benefit because construction of new nuclear power plants will create demand for thousands of components and commodities like concrete and steel.

Nuclear energy’s good-paying, long-term employment opportunities already are helping to fuel a transition in America’s energy landscape. The nuclear energy industry is one of the few bright spots in the U.S. economy — expanding rather than contracting in communities like Chattanooga, Tenn.; Newport News, Va.; Cheswick, Pa.; and Lake Charles, La.

As the Southern Legislative Conference of the Council of State Governments stated in a pro-nuclear resolution it adopted unanimously in August, “Clean nuclear energy is an engine for economic growth.” Construction of a new reactor by itself constitutes four years of employment for as many as 2,400 skilled craft workers, with 400 to 700 permanent jobs once the plant starts operating.

No single technology can independently slow and reverse increases in carbon emissions. But these studies confirm nuclear energy is an indispensable part of a comprehensive approach that, thankfully, is identified in energy and climate change bills pending in Congress.

Provisions in the House and Senate bills are necessary if nuclear energy is to expand at the level necessary to meet both electricity demand and reductions in greenhouse gases.

The legislation in both chambers would establish a Clean Energy Deployment Administration, which would function as a permanent financing platform to provide loans, loan guarantees and other credit support for clean-energy technologies, including new nuclear power plants, wind and biomass.

Congress should approve additional policy elements that will speed the transition to advanced reactors and help meet near- to mid-term carbon reduction goals. These include:

• Ensuring that the volume of loan guarantees available for new reactors is comparable to other carbon-free electricity sources and refining the Department of Energy loan guarantee program in key areas that are slowing implementation of the program;
  
• Providing new tax stimulus for investment in new nuclear energy facilities, new nuclear component manufacturing and workforce development;
  
• Expanding the existing production tax credit to all new reactors that produce electricity by 2021;
  
• Reducing the time to market for advanced reactors to six years from nine to 10 years by enacting clarifications to ensure that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing process works as intended; and
  
• Mandating creation of a blue ribbon commission to re-examine management options for used nuclear fuel, and establishing incentives for state and communities to develop consolidated storage facilities for used nuclear fuel.

America needs a commonsense, balanced approach as we shift toward low-carbon sources of energy. Diversity of clean electricity is essential not just to protecting our environment, but also to promoting energy security and reliability.

Nuclear energy is a proven source that generates one-fifth of U.S. electricity reliably and affordably.

In the coming decades, we will be challenged to simultaneously meet rising electricity demand and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. To meet this challenge, Congress must establish a comprehensive and sustainable national policy that supports the development of technology-based, zero-carbon solutions like nuclear energy, solar and wind that can be implemented in the near term and are affordable for consumers.

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Rod Adams at the Atomic Insights Blog documented the volatile nature of the price of natural gas today in the attached blog.  Rod sums up his article with the following sentence:

It sure seems strange to me that power companies think that there is too much risk in planning a large nuclear power facility yet they will make what appears to be an even riskier bet by building lots of natural gas fired capacity where the major cost component is something that can vary in price by 15% in a single day. (In a gas fired electrical power plant, the cost of fuel is between 80-95% of the total cost of generation.)

With that being said, I feel that it is also important to note the news today from Bloomberg that uranium prices are expected to continue to fall steadily in the near future even with plans of constructing 30 or more new nuclear plants around the world.

“Cheap” Natural Gas Soars by 15% in a Single Day Based on Better Economic News and Less Gas Going to Storage

Friday, September 11, 2009

by Rod Adams

As a long time observer of energy markets, I have maintained a continuing skepticism as many people assured the world that we were entering into a lengthy period of low, well-behaved natural gas prices. I have heard that before and watched as the fuel’s natural volatility took over and prices see-sawed with great drama. Though natural gas has many good qualities, the only time that it is not subject to periods of dramatic price changes is when its price is regulated and that situation has its own significant disadvantages.

Traders love gas; they make their living on changing prices and often benefit no matter which direction the movement is happening.

Yesterday there was another day of excitement on the trading floor as natural gas prices increased by 15% in a single day, rising 42.7 cents per million BTU to settle in New York at $3.256 per MMBTU. As is true for most market fluctuations, the reporters and traders can list a number of factors that caused the movement. People with longer than daily time horizons should recognize that the previous price of $2.90 is/was clearly unsustainable in a world where heating oil, one of the prime competitors to gas in some markets, sells for a price that is 4 times as high. At yesterday’s market close of $1.78 per gallon for heating oil, one can use the conversion of 139,000 BTU per gallon to figure out that it costs $12.80 per MMBTU.

Gas is currently selling for about 25% of its 2008 market highs, also around $12 per MMBTU. That means that the dramatic increases in available fuel reserves that were revealed at that price are NOT going to arrive in the market because the drilling effort that makes them accessible for human use has slowed dramatically. It is predictable human and businessman behavior to slow or stop a difficult and expensive activity if the promised reward for success falls by 75%.

Aside - MMBTU is an archaic, but still frequently used market unit symbol. The MM stands for “thousand thousand” from Roman numerals which equals a million. To add to the confusion of casual market observers, many participants will talk about gas in “per M” which also means a million BTU. Conveniently, one thousand cubic feet of gas holds almost exactly 1,000,000 BTU, so you may also hear people talk about the price per thousand cubic feet - it is generally within pennies of being the same as per M. I know that this kind of discussion frustrates the heck out of engineering types and everyone outside of the USA that like metric units, but we are talking about markets here and need to be familiar with the market lingo.End Aside.

Some of the specific factors cited for yesterday’s move include a lower than expected increase in gas storage additions. Fall, which is closely followed by winter when gas begins to be used for both space heating and for producing electricity, is normally a period when gas storage increases due to lower overall demand. Fall is also the onset of one of the normal maintenance period for some large base load generating plants like coal and nuclear facilities. At this point in the cycle, US nuclear plants are operating at a total of 94% of rated capacity; there are only 5 plants that are in a maintenance period. The trend over the next few months will be for that number to drop as more plants enter into their scheduled refueling periods in the lull between summer and winter demand.

When traders saw the Energy Information Agency storage addition number and saw that it was lower than expected for this time of year, they piled in, causing that dramatic price increase that many have been expecting would happen. The price has plenty of room for additional increases, each of which makes natural gas less and less competitive in the electricity production market where it competes against coal, which has fallen by about 50% since last year to its more normal range of something close to $1.50 per million BTU and commercial nuclear fuel, which has sold for a rather steady price over the past 15 years of about 50 cents per million BTU.

Natural gas producers will cheer the sales price increases as they fall directly to their bottom line, but I expect that they will continue to talk to politicians and electrical power customers about the massive quantities of gas that can be extracted from shale gas areas. They like to tell the story to some listeners that gas is a reliable, low cost, environmentally sound fuel while they tell their investors about the profit increases that will come when the prices increase due to increased demand and less competition.

It sure seems strange to me that power companies think that there is too much risk in planning a large nuclear power facility yet they will make what appears to be an even riskier bet by building lots of natural gas fired capacity where the major cost component is something that can vary in price by 15% in a single day. (In a gas fired electrical power plant, the cost of fuel is between 80-95% of the total cost of generation.)

Perhaps the regulated utilities are comforted in their decision making by the nearly automatic fuel price adjustments that are allowed by essentially all of the public utility commissions in the United States. I wonder how the producers in more competitive markets feel about the risk balance between the two choices or how the customers in those regulated markets feel about the variation in the fuel surcharges?

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A long slow recovery of the economy with job growth tentatively scheduled on the back end has caused our government to spend nearly a trillion dollars on “stimulus.”   Job creation is supposed to be at the heart of this spending and the results are mixed at best.

As much as 50 billion dollars in federal loan guarantees were almost  included in the stimulus package this Spring which could have allowed for the construction of 7 to 10 new nuclear power plants all in different states across the country.   Unfortunately, the loan guarantee amount was reduced by Rep. Waxman (Dem, CA) at the last minute to 18 billion dollars, which would allow the construction of only 3 new plants.

A quick refresher of what a loan guarantee is: essentially, the government co-signs on a construction loan but pays no cash in the process. The reason this is done is to lower the risk of the loan, which lowers the interest rate.   The lowering of the interest rate makes the large investment more manageable for the utility and incentivizes them to start construction sooner.   In this instance it would be economic stimulus without spending. This cash free type of stimulus is a beautiful thing in this poor economy.

So, if EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) and others say we need more nuclear plants to meet the nation’s energy needs and maintain clean air standards, and the economy is desperate for job creation, then loan guarantees are a no brainer.   The current three loan guarantees are not enough and we need more to add job creation into this economic recovery. Our congress needs a sense of urgency in the right direction on this issue, and currently the urgency is all going to other issues besides job creation.

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The ABC affiliate in San Diego is reporting that a replacement project at one nuclear power plant will temporarily employ 1,000 people and could generate business of more than $300 million.  If this is just a temporary project, think what a new plant could do in terms of jobs, external business, and tax revenue!  The news report also states that the $670 million project will save utility users as much as $1 billion in replacement energy!

Nuclear Project To Create SoCal-Area Jobs

SAN ONOFRE, Calif. — A massive construction project to replace integral parts of Southern California’s only nuclear generators will begin this month, Southern California Edison announced Monday.

The main phase of a $670 million project will create more than 1,000 temporary jobs and generate roughly $300 million in spending benefiting Southern California businesses, the utility announced. The two nuclear generators perched on the side of the Pacific Ocean, at the San Diego-Orange county line, will each get two new steam generators inside the containment domes in the project. Each new generator is 65 feet tall, 22 feet in diameter and weighs 640 tons.

The generators absorb heat from the nuclear piles, and transfer it to water, flashing it into steam. That steam is then routed through special pipes to turn massive turbines and generate about 20 percent of the region’s electricity on a normal day.

The four original steam generators are approaching the end of their service life, Edison said. The California Public Utilities Commission in 2005 approved a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis that concluded replacing steam generators would save utility customers as much as $1 billion during the next two decades, when compared to the likely cost of obtaining from other sources the 2,200 megawatts of power the plant generates. Edison has had to take special steps to plan to slice into the containment domes, which are built with concrete that encases cables that were stretched tight to keep the structure intact. Cutting those cables, without jeopardizing the domes, required engineers to practice on a similar dome at a decommissioned power plant near Sacramento. The largest pieces of the new generators arrived via barge at Oceanside last winter, and were creeped up the beaches of Camp Pendleton over a ponderous, months-long effort. SCE plans to replace the two steam generators in the northern unit this fall and those in the southern unit during the fall of 2010. Each generator will be off line about 100 days for the changeovers. The utility said San Onofre is one of the last plants in the U.S. nuclear power fleet to replace its steam generators. The process has been successfully carried out by 49 of the 58 U.S. plants of similar design without a serious safety incident, Edison said. The construction project will be reviewed and monitored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Edison said.

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In an article written by Aaron Curtis, of The Palladium Times of Oswego, New York, “Nuke plant personnel offer a glimpse into daily operations”, published Tuesday, August 25, 2009, it was reported that Constellation Energy opened the doors for media plant tours of its two nuclear power plants, Nine Mile Units 1 and 2, in Oswego for the first time in several years.

The media plant tours were hosted by Constellation Energy as a way to educate and build relationships with the company’s’ main constituents. The tour included a walk through the reactor building, turbine building and control room, and these tours may become a regular occurrence in the future. The tours that Constellation Energy provided to members of the media are beneficial for the nuclear power industry as it strives to educate and enhance communications for relationship building with the general public.

Security of a nuclear power plant is a real concern to the general public and security issues and misconceptions of heavily fortified nuclear power plants have led to the taboo image that the industry is trying to re-invent. At the Nine Mile Point power plants, guests, and daily employees, go through a series of security checkpoints on their way to the plants facilities. Plant tours can provide the public a glimpse of the heavily armed security guards that are trained for potential attacks on plants, especially one that provides power to more than 1 million homes in New York State.

The nuclear power industry can benefit greatly from Constellation Energy’s media tour example, if it follows suit. The industry can highlight and correct misconceptions that the public may have of the security of nuclear power plants. Tours of plants can displace rumors by informing the public and by building trustworthy relationships with its consumers. Residents of the plants’ communities can feel better knowing that they saw first-hand the great lengths taken to provide security in and around the plant and the surrounding community.

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Duke Energy announced Friday that they may delay their plans to construct a Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power reactor near Gaffney, South Carolina by 3 years.  The proposed Lee Nuclear Station would then be delayed to a 2021 start-up instead of the previously planned 2018 date.  See the Charlotte Business Journal article below for more information.

I’m not posting this article because I think that the three-year delay is a dagger to the heart of the “nuclear renaissance.”  The reason I posted this article was because of my personal experience at a Kangaroo gas station near Gaffney, SC last Friday.  I was on my way out of town for the Labor Day weekend and stopped at the station to fill up for the ride.

Two women–one a Manager, the other a sales clerk, were discussing the news from Duke Energy that had come out that morning.  They were honestly upset that Duke was considering delaying the construction for 3 years.  I overheard the Manager say a couple of times that it was a “shame” that Duke is going to delay the construction, and that she “really was looking forward to getting all of that business.”

These women want more nuclear power in their area, and their conversation just goes to show how much the average person understands about the economic benefits that nuclear power can provide to a community.  It’s not just the large energy corporations that benefit from new nuclear plants.  It’s the local small-business owners that also look forward to the residual economic successes that nuclear power can promise to bring.

Nuclear revival may not arrive on schedule

Charlotte Business Journal

September 4, 2009

By John Downey

As Duke Energy considers as much as a three-year delay in building the proposed Lee Nuclear Station, there are signs that the approval process for AP1000 — the reactor chosen for Lee and most new plants planned in the Southeast — may fall off schedule. At issue is certification of the reactor design for Plant Vogtle, the dual-reactor plant being built in Georgia by the Southern Co. The power industry hopes to cut licensing and construction times — and thus save money — by building plants on a few standardized reactor models. The idea is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission can certify one standard reactor model for a plant and then subsequent plants using the same model will not need to get new certifications.

Westinghouse blamed

Vogtle is the lead plant for the wave that will be built on the AP1000. So a delay, if significant, could affect plants planned in Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina. An NRC spokesman tells the Augusta Chronicle it is too early to tell whether the current delay in approving some safety features will result in an overall delay in certification. But it is clear that the commission cannot now get its review of certain safety features accomplished by November as planned. The NRC blames Westinghouse Electric Co., designer of the AP1000, for the delay. In a letter last week to Westinghouse, the NRC’s New Reactor Licensing division complains the company has been slow to submit “necessary design information” on engineered safety features. And it says the information, when submitted, “failed to resolve the long-standing fundamental questions.”

Missed deadline

The schedule for the review had already been delayed once. But in June, the NRC says, Westinghouse missed a new deadline. And more delays followed, according to the letter: The staff received the subject submittal at the end of July 2009…. The submitted information failed to resolve the long-standing fundamental questions related to the design basis debris source term, the limiting system flows, in-vessel testing, the magnitude of debris bypassing the sump screens, and the choice of the limiting accident scenario. The staff had planned to meet with Westinghouse on August 25, 2009; however, that meeting has been delayed at your request until the week of August 31, 2009. Given the fundamental nature of the questions raised by the recent submittal and the delay in meeting with the NRC on resolving these issues, the staff is no longer able to support an Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards briefing … in November.

Charlotte’s stake

The delay may be nothing more than a hiccup. But business leaders and economic developers in Charlotte may want to keep an eye on Duke’s plans and the progress of the AP1000. Economic developers have concentrated on attracting nuclear energy related companies to the region over the past couple of years. Those efforts have been successful. Westinghouse, the Shaw Power Group and Toshiba — partners in the AP1000 — all have growing presences here. The French company Areva SA also has important operation in the region. The growth in nuclear energy business here is related to the broader plan to turn Charlotte into a national energy hub.

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I was disappointed to read in the news that recent attempts to overturn explicit or effective nuclear power bans failed in six states. West Virginia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Wisconsin upheld new nuclear power plant bans in 2009. This comes at a time when the NRC is considering licensing applications for new plants in 14 states. West Virginia has an effective ban under which certain conditions have to be met in order to begin construction on a new nuclear power plant. The following West Virginia stipulation is taken from an article discussing nuclear plant bans:

“The code requires at least 24 months’ prior operation of a national facility which safely, successfully and permanently disposes of any and all radioactive wastes associated with operating any such nuclear power plant, nuclear factory or nuclear electric power generating plant.”

Of course now that Yucca Mountain has lost federal support the development of such a repository seems unlikely in the near future.

The first ban on new nuclear plants was instated in California. Twelve states now ban the construction of new nuclear plants. Many bans were developed shortly after Three Mile Island. Improvements in operation and reliability in existing plants have since proven that nuclear power provides safe, clean, CO2 free energy. These bans come despite the increasing support shown by the general public for nuclear power as reported in an earlier blog post.

Residents in states with new nuclear power bans need to make their legislators aware that they support nuclear as a clean baseload power alternative to greenhouse gas emitting energy sources such as coal and natural gas.

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An interesting study documenting anticipated electricity blackouts came out of the United Kingdom this week.  Because of poor energy planning, the federal government projected in their Low Carbon Transition Plan that energy demand would exceed supply as early as 2017.  This will leave millions of families without power.  The UK government has talked the talk on the need for reliable nuclear energy to fulfill their energy needs.  But it is time for them to walk the walk when it comes to providing people with clean, reliable, cheap, and safe nuclear energy.  Here is the news article from the Telegraph that first broke the issue.  However, I’ve attached an article from the Daily Mail on the issue that, typically for the Daily Mail, displays more flair, frustration, and entertainment value.

Green zealots and muddled ministers are leading Britain to blackouts

By Christopher Booker

03 September 2009

Power-cut Britain, to anyone who remembers it, will seem utterly antediluvian. It predated home computers and mobile phones, and colour televisions were only then beginning to appear.

Those who were young in the early Seventies will remember poring over their homework by candlelight, and there was a clear division between people who liked the reek of paraffin lamps and people who didn’t.

Then, along with the three-day week and crippling industrial disputes, powercut Britain disappeared into the past, never to return. That is, until now.

Once again we are being warned that within a few years this country could be facing its worst wave of power blackouts since those far-off days more than three decades ago — and that even the Government itself now admits these might be inevitable.

For seven years it has been glaringly obvious to energy experts that Britain will soon be facing a colossal energy gap, as the ageing power stations which currently supply 40 percent of our electricity are forced to close down.

Eight of our nine nuclear power plants are coming to the end of their life. And half of our coal and oil-fired power stations are rapidly running out of the hours they are allowed to keep running under the EU’s Large Combustion Plants directive, designed to stop the pollution blamed for acid rain.

By 2015, or even earlier, we shall thus begin to lose two-fifths of our present electricity supply, and the question energy experts are asking is: how do we propose to fill this yawning gap?

Britain faces a colossal energy gap

The seriousness of this cannot be overestimated. Cosy images of candlelit Britain in the Seventies are all very well, but since then we have been through a revolution which makes our society almost wholly dependent on computers.

It is no longer just our lights, cookers, fridges and televisions for which we rely on electricity, but pretty well our entire working lives, from offices, banks, petrol pumps and supermarket tills to traffic lights, railway signals and virtually all our transport system.

The tragedy is that for seven years, politicians of all parties have refused to face up to Britain’s fast-looming energy gap because they have all been bewitched by the great ‘green dream’, that we could somehow save the planet by generating much of our electricity from ‘renewables’, such as building thousands more wind turbines.

In reality this is just makebelieve. The 2,300 turbines so far built in Britain supply barely 1 per cent of our power, less than a single medium-sized conventional power station.

The Government talks about spending £100 billion on building 10,000 more windmills to meet our EU target that within ten years we must generate 32 per cent of our electricity from ‘renewables’. But, first, there is not the remotest chance that we could build three turbines a day between now and 2020.

And, second, even if there were, they would do virtually nothing to close our energy gap, not least because we would need to build a dozen or more conventional power stations just to provide back-up for when the wind is not blowing.

Almost the only politician who realised this was John Hutton, the former energy minister, who last year reversed Government policy by announcing that we needed at least a dozen new nuclear and coal-fired power stations to fill the gap.

As he starkly declared to the 2008 Labour conference: ‘No coal and no nuclear means no power, no future.’

Two weeks later, however, Hutton was moved to another department, and Britain’s energy policy was handed over to Ed Miliband, a ‘green’ zealot in charge of a new ministry ominously named the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

Mr Miliband still makes noises about allowing the French and German companies which now dominate our electricity supply industry to build a new generation of nuclear power plants.

But under EU rules they cannot, unlike the wind industry, expect any subsidies, and the chances that any new nuclear plants could be built before 2020 are virtually non-existent.

Wind turbines won’t solve the problem

As for new coal-fired power stations, he has decreed that these cannot be built without socalled ‘carbon capture’, piping off their CO2 to bury it in holes in the ground.

Not only would this double the cost of the electricity, but the technology to do it hasn’t even been developed yet.

In other words, Miliband is so obsessed with the need to halt ‘climate change’ that his concern with the ‘energy’ half of his brief — keeping Britain’s lights on — so obviously takes second place that it is scarcely evident at all.

This was glaringly obvious from his recent policy statement on making the ‘transition to a low-carbon economy’: hundreds of pages about how we are going to build windmills and achieve imaginary cuts in our CO2 emissions, but notably short on any practical suggestions as to how we are going to keep our economy running.

From a statement put out by Mr Miliband’s ministry this week, it has become even more obvious that the one thing they hope will save Britain’s electricity supplies from disaster is a scramble to build dozens more gas-fired power stations — just when our own North Sea gas reserves are fast running out.

This means we shall be looking to gas to provide anything up to 80 per cent of our electricity, and the gas will be largely imported from politically unreliable countries such as Russia and Algeria at a time when world gas prices are likely to be soaring.

It is exactly the disastrous scenario which Mr Hutton warned against last year.

Even if, by this extremely risky gamble, we might manage to close the energy gap now fast approaching us, it could only mean a further massive hike in electricity prices, driving millions more into ‘fuel poverty’.

Not for nothing is Mr Miliband also proposing that we should spend £7 billion on fitting every home in the country with what are called ‘smart meters’.

These are two-way devices, connected electronically to our supply company, which would not only allow us to see how much electricity we ourselves are using but would enable the firms to ‘manage demand’ by controlling how much power we receive.

A massive price hike is inevitable

If the power cuts come, this ‘Big Brother in the cupboard’ would allow the firms to ration our electricity use.

And it is revealing that instead of looking to that £7 billion to be spent on two or three new nuclear power stations, the Government prefers a system which would allow the misery of electricity cuts to be spread around in a ‘managed’ fashion.

It is ironic that this week’s stories about the Government admitting that we face the possibility of blackouts should have originated with the Tory Party, whose own energy policy has long been indistinguishable from the Government’s — windmills, ‘carbon capture’, ‘smart meters’ and all.

The truth is that, if David Cameron comes to power in nine months’ time, there will be no bigger headache confronting him than how to avoid precisely the disaster which his spokesman was yesterday warning about.

If there is one issue to which he and his colleagues should now be giving their fullest attention it is how to keep Britain’s lights on without prices going through the roof.

And that will mean abandoning a lot of that childish Milibandian make-believe which now threatens us with as great a crisis as any our politicians have ever landed us with.