Clean Energy Insight - Moving Energy Forward

[Approx. Read Time: 2 mintues]  Earth day 2010 was commemorated with the dedication of an Earth Day Garden located at the Entergy Nuclear national headquarters in Jackson, Miss. Amy Pittman, officer for the Mississippi North American-Young Generation in Nuclear chapter, not only helped with the planting but addressed the employee gathering during Earth Day.

“It was a fun project for all three professional groups to work on,” stated Pittman. “We are coordinating efforts of the local chapters of NA-YGN, Women In Nuclear and the American Nuclear Society and the Earth Day Garden was a great way to collaborate.”

In 2010 a lot of environmentalists are not only celebrating Earth Day but are starting to rethink nuclear energy. President Obama himself has endorsed it along with Energy Secretary, Dr. Stephen Chu. NA-YGN members and other Entergy Nuclear employees have taken this small step to better the planet via the Earth Day Garden as a reminder that nuclear is not only a “green” source of energy but reliable, base-load and affordable.

April 22 marked the 40th anniversary of Earth Day globally and Entergy supported the event with activities across the organization and information at www.entergy.com/earthday. Entergy is the second-largest nuclear generator in North America and safely operates plants that provide power in Arkansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New York and Vermont.

[Approx. Read Time: 5 minutes]

Local educators learn how a nuclear power control room works.

Exelon employees from the Braidwood Nuclear Generation Station outside of Chicago, Illinois recently changed the game when it comes to nuclear power advocacy in the United States.  Led by their North American Young Generation in Nuclear (NA-YGN) Chapter, Braidwood Generating Station has started a nuclear power education program called Nuke 101.

The program aims to educate 6th-12th grade teachers on nuclear power, in hopes that they will pass this knowledge on to their students–creating a more informed and educated generation of Americans when it comes to nuclear power.

Let’s hope that the Braidwood Generating Station NA-YGN Chapter continues this program into the future, and other NA-YGN Chapters can follow.  This is undoubtedly important to America’s nuclear energy future.

Teachers learn about nuclear energy during Nuke 101

By Jo Ann Hustis

BRACEVILLE – For Dr. Charles Birch, the nation’s pilot Nuke 101 program Saturday was almost a walk back in time with his late father.

“He was a maintenance electrician 41 years for Wisconsin Power, and so, as a kid, I had the chance to understand electrical power,” said Birch, instructor at Coal City Intermediate School and one of 16 area junior high and high school teachers participating in the instructional session, hands-on lab, and tour of the immensely secure Braidwood Generating Station.

“At that time, nuclear just began to become part of Wisconsin Electric Power, so this was a very personal experience for me. I couldn’t help but think of my father walking at my shoulder and saying, ‘Hey, this is something.’”

A first-of-its-kind educational opportunity in the U.S., Nuke 101 was the inspiration of Braidwood Station engineer Morgan Davis and the North American Young Generation in Nuclear chapter at the plant.

“Educating the educators,” station spokesman Neal Miller noted prior to taking the teachers through the giant concrete, two-unit generating station.

“The first time we’ve ever done this. We do plan on taking it to another level, learning what we can here to improve for the next time, and continue building on it.”

The pilot program’s goal was to teach teachers about nuclear power so they can take the information back to their students.

Most of the young engineering professionals at Braidwood Station started in nuclear science by chance. Davis, herself, was introduced to it by someone who invited her to tour a generating station.

“This is an opportunity for teachers to take the wealth of information (from Nuke 101) and pass it on to the younger generation,” Braidwood Site Vice President Amir Shahkarami noted.

Fran Ogden has taught chemistry classes at Seneca Township High School for many years.

All this time, she has lived with La Salle Generating Station in Brookfield Township practically in her backyard, but never visited a nuclear plant until Saturday.

“It’s something I wanted to learn about as much as I could to relay to the students,” Ogden said of her participation in Nuke 101. “We always try to help the students find a career, and this is definitely an area many of them could get involved in.”

When nuclear power came on the scene in 1972, there were 42 generating stations operating across the nation.

Today in the United States, there are 104 operating nuclear plants, supplying 20 percent of the power needed in the country, Shahkarami noted during the instructional portion of the session.

Worldwide, today, there are 439 operating nuclear reactors. Eighty percent of the power used in France is generated by nuclear plants.

Also, another 54 nuclear generating stations are under construction throughout the world today. South Korea alone has 20 operating nuclear plants and another six under construction. Taiwan is currently constructing one nuclear plant. The United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Japan are considering building nuclear plants.

China is building from 12 to 15 reactors into each of its nuclear plants.

“That’s massive,” Shahkarami said.

The maximum number of reactors in any nuclear station in the U.S. is two.

In the 1970s, the U.S. had the technology for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, but not today.

“France, Germany and Russia do have the technology,” Shahkarami noted. “They got it from us. But President Jimmy Carter said, in 1977, no to processing nuclear fuel.”

The United States’ biggest nuclear accident, at Three Mile Island, occurred in 1977. Six years later, the nation canceled construction of the 259 generating stations that were on order.

“Because they couldn’t control the cost of construction,” he said.

China is building a dozen nuclear plants at a time today. However, with the financial crisis in the United States , it doesn’t make sense to build nuclear plants here, Shahkarami said.

“But, how long can we depend on foreign power? We haven’t built a nuclear plant in the U.S. since the early 1980s,” he said.

The back end of the nuclear generating process is recycling. The country is looking for new ways of operating this process. Meanwhile, the nation is storing its spent fuel.

“Sometime, someone will come along with a viable idea for reprocessing spent fuel,” Shahkarami said.

In the United States today, there are two kinds of reactors – pressure and boiling water.

Fast-breeder reactors are not in use in the U.S. today. These are fast-neutron reactors designed to breed fuel by producing more fissile material than they consume.

“They are the type that eventually will reprocess nuclear fuel,” Shahkarami said.

He stressed the importance of spent nuclear fuel not getting into the hands of the unauthorized, especially terrorists.

“Because they can extract plutonium from it, and that’s what makes missiles,” he said.

Braidwood Station currently stores its nuclear waste in deepwater pools within the plant, and in dry cask storage on station property.

“Eventually the dry casks have to go somewhere,” Shahkarami said. “The latest reprocessing techniques eventually take the uranium and plutonium and burn them in the reactors.”

At the conclusion of the tour, Dr. Birch, a social science teacher, noted the Nuke 101 class should definitely be an annual offering to educators.

“We in education are educators for all disciplines, so I would want this to continue, and include grades K through 12,” he said.

“We have to recognize we teach students first, and then, in particular cases, a subject area. It’s a very important experience I think ought to be continued.”

Teachers in Nuke 101 learn that radiation is all around you - even in bananas

[Approx. Read Time: 4 minutes]

If you’ve looked for a comparison in land areas needed for different power sources, I would be willing to bet that you found a lot of numbers and zero pictures.  In order for you to gain a valuable perspective on the amount of land area needed for different energy sources, I feel that a graphical presentation would be more of an eye opener.  In order to do this, I’ve enlisted the help of Google SketchUp. Let’s begin…

(I’ve included the calculation, justification, and references of these numbers at the end of this blog entry.)

Nuclear’s Footprint

For this comparison, I’ve used the largest commercial nuclear reactor on the market–the AREVA 1600 MW EPR.  A nuclear power plant typically has 2 reactor units on site.  Two EPRs take up less than 2 sq. miles of land area. (You can check this out for yourself at the Flamanville or Olkiluoto EPR sites on Google Earth)  Here is what Nuclear’s footprint looks like:

(Nuclear - Isometric View)

(Nuclear - Overhead View)

Solar’s Footprint

By comparison, solar photovoltaic technology requires a little more land area than the AREVA EPR in order to match the EPR’s power output.  According to the US Dept. of Energy and others (Ref. 1), 1,000 MW of electrical capacity requires 11,000 acres of photovoltaic solar panels.  A capacity factor of 0.19 is used for solar photovoltaics (Energy Information Administration, Ref. 2).  Referencing the calculation at the bottom of this blog entry, this means that 3,200 MW of electrical production from solar energy would need approximately 292 sq. miles, or 185,264 acres.  That’s 146 times more land required than the two EPR’s.  To put this into perspective for most Americans, that’s approximately 141,328 football fields.

Here is what solar’s footprint looks like in comparison to Nuclear’s footprint (I’ve inserted three solar panels and enlarged each of them to about 2 sq miles):

(Solar Photovoltaic - Isometric View)

Try to imagine the entire solar (yellow) footprint covered with solar panels.  Next, try to imagine washing these things every three to four days.

(Solar Photovoltaic - Overhead View)

Wind’s Footprint

Are you ready to look at the land area required for wind energy?  To produce 3,200 MW and match the EPR’s power output, wind turbines require even more land area than solar photovoltaics, and 416 times more land area than two EPR Nuclear reactors.  Again, according to the American Wind Energy Association (Ref. 3), 1,000 MW of electrical capacity requires 50,000 acres of wind turbines operating at full capacity.  But a capacity factor of 0.30  is used for wind turbines (Energy Information Administration, Ref. 2).  Referencing the calculation at the bottom of this blog entry, this means that 3,200 MW of electrical production from wind energy would need approximately 832 sq. miles, or 533,334 acres.  Yes, 832 sq. miles or 533,334 acres.  That’s 402,688 football fields.

Here is what the land area required for wind energy looks like in comparison to the footprints for Nuclear and solar photovoltaic (I’ve got two wind turbines a few hundred times taller than the Empire State building inserted into the model):

(Wind - Isometric View)

(Wind - Overhead View)

The State of Rhode Island has an area of approximately 1,545 sq miles.  Try to imagine counties and counties of wind turbines and solar panels covering the State.  Or you could just look at this picture below.

(Rhode Island)

No wonder T. Boone Pickens jockeyed Congress for help with eminent domain issues while executing his plan for using 1,200 sq miles for 4,000 MW of wind power production.  Hopefully, this will be an eye opener to the amount of forests, plains, and desert needed to enable wind and solar energies to compete with nuclear energy in power production.  Until the technology is developed to store the energy produced by wind and solar energies, this is the footprint of land that we will be dealing with.

Calculations and References

Nuclear

I used the commonly accepted <1 sq mi for Nuclear power plants and doubled it to be conservative.  The average capacity factor for Nuclear power plants is 0.90.  Two sq miles envelopes 1.5 sq mi / 0.90 capacity factor = 1.67 sq mi for 3,200 MW.  I also checked against the current EPR footprints in Europe with Google Earth.  You can easily check this for yourself.

Solar

11,000 acres / 0.19 = 57,895 acres for 1,000 MW

57,895 acres = 91 sq mi for 1,000 MW

3,200 MW/1,000 MW = 3.2

3.2 x 91 sq mi = 292 sq mi

3.2 x 57,895 acres = 185,264 acres

160 ft x 360 ft = 57,600 sq ft for an American football field (including end zones)

1 sq mi = 27,878,400 sq ft

(292 sq mi x 27,878,400 sq ft) / 57,600 sq ft = 141,328 football fields

Wind

50,000 acres / 0.30 = 166,667 acres for 1,000 MW

166,667 acres = 260 sq mi for 1,000 MW

3,200 MW/1,000 MW = 3.2

3.2 x 260 sq mi = 832 sq mi

3.2 x 166,667 acres = 533,334 acres

160 ft x 360 ft = 57,600 sq ft for an American football field (including end zones)

1 sq mi = 27,878,400 sq ft

(832 sq mi x 27,878,400 sq ft) / 57,600 sq ft = 402,688 football fields

References

1 - US Department of Energy, Office of Utility Technologies, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy & Electric Power Research Institute

2 - US Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration

3 - American Wind Energy Association

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