Clean Energy Insight - Moving Energy Forward

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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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Myth: As Nuclear Power Plants Age, They Become More “Risky”

A generality that the 104 commercial U.S. Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) commonly fall victim to is that as things age, they are at a greater risk for potential failure.  The more miles on your car, the more time you usually spend at the repair shop.  The longer you live in your house, the more trips you have to make to the nearby home improvement store.  Although this is common with most things that we encounter in our everyday lives, this is not the case for NPPs.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) initiated the Industry Trends Program (ITP) to monitor trends of industry performance indicators to ensure safety at NPPs is maintained.  If any adverse trends are detected in the performance indicators, the NRC will evaluate the issue and take appropriate regulatory action to address it.  Each year these performance indicators are reviewed by the NRC as part of the Agency Action Review Meeting (AARM).  Any statistically significant adverse trends are included in the NRC’s Performance and Accountability report to Congress.

“No statistically significant adverse trends have been identified through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2008, based on the ITP indicators and the Accident Sequence Precursor (ASP) program.” – NRC website, Industry Trends page

Full details of the trends monitored by the NRC as part of the ITP can be found in the current ITP report, SECY-09-0048.  Definitions and descriptions for performance indicators can be found in the NRC Inspection Manual Chapter (IMC) 0313, Appendix A.  Below you can find several of the Fiscal Year 2008 Long-Term Industry Trends Results from the most recent ITP report along with a brief description of the indicator.

Significant Events

Definition: Significant Events are defined as —

1. A Yellow or Red Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) finding or performance indicator
2. An event with a Conditional Core Damage Probability (CCDP) or increase in core damage probability (ΔCDP) of 1×10-5 or higher
3. An Abnormal Occurrence as defined by Management Directive 8.1, “Abnormal Occurrence Reporting Procedure”
4. An event rated two or higher on the International Nuclear Event Scale

Forced Outage Rate (FOR)

Definition: The forced outage rate is the number of forced outage hours divided by the sum of unit service hours and forced outage hours.

Safety System Actuations (SSA)

Definition: Safety system actuations are manual or automatic actuations of the logic or equipment of either certain Emergency Core Cooling Systems (ECCS) or, in response to an actual low voltage on a vital bus, the Emergency AC Power System.

Automatic Scrams While Critical

Definition: The number of unplanned automatic scrams that occurred while the affected reactor was critical.  A Scram is an emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor.

Opponents to the industry trending rationale may state that NPPs are subject to negative aging effects, such as equipment failures.  My response to this claim is that you are exactly correct.  Every plant does experience some form of equipment aging or failure, but being realistic, nothing is made to last forever.  Equipment aging begins as soon as a piece of equipment is operated for the first time.  The important issue is how the utilities manage the aging effects and also how they identify and mitigate the risks associated with the operation of their plants.  NPPs are designed to sustain equipment aging and failures through redundancy and dedicated systems that are capable of and dedicated to maintaining public safety.

Along with the ITP, there are also measures to evaluate the ability of NPPs to maintain safety on an individual basis.  INPO routinely sends teams to evaluate plant operations, processes and personnel.  INPO then assigns a score to the plant based on observations during the assessment.  Negative ratings from the assessment generally warrant more demanding requirements to maintain safety by the NRC and can even lead to a NPP being shut down.

The information presented in the annual ITP report confirms that the safety of operating nuclear power plants is being maintained.  The decreasing trends can be attributed to the dedication of the individuals in the commercial nuclear power industry to deliver safe and reliable power to the public, as well as:

• Regulatory guidance (NRC)
• Industry organization involvement (INPO, EPRI, etc.)
• Improved processes and procedures
• Evaluation and incorporation of operating experience and lessons learned
• Advances in technology / Plant modifications
• Predictive and preventive maintenance capabilities
• Economic benefit to maintain a plant

Another intriguing subject that comes up when discussing the safety of NPPs is the potential for a plant to become a terrorist target.  Mike Bullard will be addressing this issue in two weeks.  Next Wednesday, Jonny Abendano will take on the myth that nuclear energy emits greenhouse gases.

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I found a pretty interesting video a couple of months ago of Google CEO Eric Schmidt giving his strong opinion on nuclear power.  We were still designing this website at that time, so I have been waiting to post this for a while.

Watch the video before you continue:

What really strikes me is the pompous attitude Mr. Schmidt carries with him throughout the video clip.  Where did he get this information that he is so confident in?  Nuclear power just doesn’t “cost out” against renewables?

I believe that Mr. Schmidt’s flawed assumption is that wind and solar installations will last forever, just like their energy sources–the sun and wind. That is obviously not the case, these installations must be replaced on a large scale every 15 to 20 years (if everything goes as planned).

Wind and solar installations aren’t made by Ron Popeil.  You don’t “set it and forget it”. Other than having proverbial maids go around and wash off those solar installations every three to four days (which are ironically best placed in the desert), the installations must be replaced every 20 years.  All in the face of a 60-80 year lifetime for nuclear plants.  (The lifetime promise is the same for wind turbines; but, Danish turbines are only lasting for an average of 16 years.)

Anyway, Clean Energy Insight created this graph “Comparing Clean Energy Costs” with information from the Energy Information Administration’s 2009 Annual Energy Outlook.  Annually, the EIA completes energy forecasts for the following 20 years based on current information.  Back in April, they updated their forecast to include Stimulus provisions.  This includes subsidies for renewables in an attempt to make them more competitive.  Even Schmidt admits in the video that renewables rely on federal subsidies to be competitive.  Something that Nuclear power does not rely on.  As you can see, nuclear is far cheaper than any variation of wind and solar technologies.

Here is a link to the full-size graph.

Here is a link to a decent explanation of the information used.

Finally, I would like to address Mr. Schmidt’s claim that solar thermal power can power the entire United States with a 10,000 sq mile installation.  I’ll bring back my methodology from What Does Renewable Energy Look Like? Parts I and II to debunk this claim.  I’ll even ignore the fact that current transmission technology isn’t even able to do this in the first place, and even the biggest planned solar thermal installation is only 340 MW and yet to be proven.

According to the Energy Information Administration Solar Thermal installations have a capacity factor of 0.312.

Mr. Schmidt proposes a 100 mi x 100 mi = 10,000 square mile area of solar thermal panels will power the entire United States.

The 340 MW Arizona installation uses approximately 4,000 acres or 6.25 sq miles.  We’ll use that ratio for this quick calculation.

This means that for 1,000 MW, solar thermal would need approximately 18.4 square miles.

The United States uses an approximate hourly average 3,310,502 MW of power.

Mr. Schmidt’s proposed 10,000 square mile solar thermal installation will reliably provide:

18.4 sq mi / 0.312 capacity factor = 59 sq mi per 1,000 MW

Therefore, 10,000 sq mi of solar thermal panels will yield only 169,491 MW of power.

5.1% of the energy consumption of the United States.  That’s 3,141,011 MW short.

Someone recently commented on one of the “What Does Renewable Energy Look Like” posts and said that I was at least 95% off in my calculations.  It’s pretty ironic that Mr. Schmidt is actually 95% off in his claim.  I would really like to see the study Mr. Schmidt used for his claims, and would welcome the chance to see the methodology and calculations of the study.

I wonder why the CEO of Google would make such blatantly false claims like this about solar power?

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Myth: People don’t want Nuclear power plants in their backyards

Where do I even start? This is an enormous myth. I was pleased last week to find that Bisconti Research Inc. made public their Nuclear Plant Neighbor Survey results because it makes my job in disproving this myth embarrassingly easy.

The Nuclear Plant Neighbor Survey used a sample of 1,100 adults living within 10 miles of one of our nation’s 64 nuclear plant sites. Plant employees living within ten miles of a site were not surveyed. Below are some of the results worth highlighting:

• 84% of Americans living near nuclear power plants favor nuclear energy!
• 90% view the local nuclear power station positively!
• 76% would support the construction of a new reactor near them!
• 72% associate nuclear energy “a lot” with reliability!
• 71% have heard or read about the clean-air benefits of nuclear energy!
• 58% strongly support nuclear energy whereas only 5% strongly oppose!
• 83% believe that companies that own sites are involved in the community!

Wow! Nuclear plant neighbors are not only happy with the plants, but they wouldn’t even mind more reactors being constructed on site. These survey results really point out what great stewards domestic nuclear sites are within their respective communities. It doesn’t hurt that no member of the general public has ever been killed as a result of nuclear power plant operation something even wind turbines can’t claim.

Separate from the survey, I also wanted to take a more in depth look at another argument made by the “not in my backyard” crowd. Some residents have expressed worry that nuclear power plants could drive down home prices and hurt nearby communities. I decided to take a look at home prices directly next to McGuire Nuclear Station outside of Charlotte, NC where the median home price is $169,000. Using Zillow.com, I scanned prices of homes that have recently sold or are for sale near McGuire Nuclear Power Station. I found that there are several houses within less than ten miles of the power plant that have recently sold for over $1 million. Some of Charlotte’s most wealthy residents are choosing to live near the plant. When people that can afford to live just about anywhere invest in a home that close to a plant it makes you wonder if the “driving down home prices and hurting communities” fear really carries any weight. And the answer is no.

I dug deeper and found a 2006 study by Roger Bedzek and Robert Wendling that specifically studied the impact of 7 nuclear sites on property values. The results of this study can be summed up in one excerpt:

“The taxes and fees the facilities pay often fund over half of the county and school district budgets and provide levels of public and educational services that are far above those of surrounding counties and greater than the state averages. In each of the seven regions, housing and real estate values have benefited from the operations of the nuclear facilities.”

If nuclear power plants make for better schools and higher property values you can put one in my backyard today!

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The Nuclear industry is one of the safest industries in the United States.  Recently, I looked up some facts about workplace incident comparisons by industry.  These include OSHA recordable accidents.  I decided to go and check out the updated Nuclear industry averages and compare them to some other industries in the available US Bureau of Labor Statistics database.  I made the following graph with some of the information I found.  This data may surprise some of you who do not work in the Nuclear industry.  I believe that the graph speaks entirely for itself.  (Link to graph)

( By Carrington Dillon ) [Approx. Read Time: 3.5 minutes]

With all the attention that yesterday’s meeting between President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev received, I thought that it was necessary to raise awareness of the “Megatons to Megawatts” program that turns former Russian nuclear warheads into nuclear energy fuel.  This program wasn’t mentioned a single time in yesterday’s negotiation announcements.  This is especially a shame since the “Megatons to Megawatts” program is such a great program that largely goes unnoticed on a public stage.

From the negotiations between the two countries came one agreement to negotiate, by the year’s end, a reduction in one another’s nuclear weapon arsenals.  I felt that this may have left some people wondering, “where do these weapons go?”

I only recently learned of this private program that, at no cost to taxpayers, turns nuclear weapons into nuclear energy fuel.  You may have heard of the phrase “10% of American lightbulbs are powered by a former Russian nuclear warhead.”  Thanks to the “Megatons to Megawatts” program, that is true.

The goal of the program is to recycle 20,000 Russian nuclear warheads into nuclear energy fuel by 2013.  As of June 30th, 2009, 14,686 Russian nuclear warheads have been eliminated and turned into nuclear fuel.  Another relevant statistic from this program is that 367 metric tons of weapons-grade uranium has been recycled into 10,621 metric tons of nuclear energy fuel–a testament to the importance and effectiveness of this program.

With the recent and upcoming agreements between the Russian and American governments to reduce their nuclear weapon stockpiles, hopefully, this program will be expanded and brought to light on a larger stage.

You can learn more about the program here: http://www.usec.com/megatonstomegawatts.htm

( By Mike Bullard )

With heavy emphasis placed on the use of natural gas for complimentary energy capacity in the recent American Clean Energy and Security Act, it is necessary to question if the use of natural gas delivers as a “green” energy. If the goal of this bill is to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, why are we relying on natural gas for base load or mid-load capacity with this bill?

Natural gas produces half the CO2 emissions of traditional coal and no trace amounts of carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides, mercury, etc.  For comparison, clean coal with carbon capture has only 15% of the CO2 emmissions of a traditional coal plant, so natural gas produces over 3 times more CO2 emissions than clean coal technology would.  Why aren’t we seeing anti-natural gas ads on TV?

Furthermore, there aren’t enough natural reserves of natural gas in the United States to rely heavily on natural gas, but this is what’s happening.  Natural gas power plants are quick and inexpensive to build, but the natural gas is an expensive fuel to burn.  Natural gas has had a history of regulatory ups-and-downs which have recently skyrocketed its price.  Many plants have been sitting idle for years because of the high cost of natural gas.

Additionally, many utilities, depending on state regulations, are not permitted to pass capital costs (the costs of building the power plants) on to the consumers, but they are allowed to pass fuel costs to consumers.  It’s in the consumer’s best interests for the utility to provide the cheapest energy possible, but conflictingly, it’s in the utility’s best interest to keep capital costs as low as possible, even at the expense of high energy production costs which they are allowed to pass to the rate payers.

This is related to what happened in Missouri recently, AmerenUE was planning to build a new nuclear power plant in the state, but a State Senate filibuster stopped the ban on passing capital costs to rate payers from being lifted.  Extreme environmentalists thought this was a good thing.  I wish them luck getting solar and wind power built in Missouri if capital costs can’t be passed on.

A nuclear plant would have been much greener and more cost effective to the rate payers in the long run (~9-10 years) than would natural gas.  The nuclear plant would have created a lot more high-paying jobs as well.

Eventually, domestic natural gas reserves will run low.  We will spend billions creating ways to transport natural gas from foreign countries (Russia and the Middle East), just to put ourselves at the mercy of our foreign suppliers–a story that is eerily familiar.  All of this for an energy source that is neither cheap nor “green.”