world-nuclear

Nuclear Energy is (can be) Renewable

2007-10-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

Nuclear energy is not renewable if we discard nuclear fuel after one use. This uses, and wastes much of, the only fissile nuclear energy source, uranium-235. The U-235 is just 0.7% of natural uranium.

But nuclear energy is renewable if we recycle the fuel. The U-235 can then convert the billions of tons of uranium-238 (99.3% of natural uranium) into more fuel. (There are 4.5 billion tons of uranium recoverable just from the oceans.)

The world also has four times more thorium than uranium; which we can then also convert to U-233 as fuel.

Therefore, our nuclear fuel supplies can be ever-increasing; to be renewed for billions of years. This defines “renewable energy.”

-Jim Muckerheide

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Finally, a rational U.S. industry leadership response: "Maybe no dump at Yucca after all"

2007-09-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

Friends,

The U.S. nuclear industry has not addressed spent fuel policy and program realities, and deficiencies, in the clearly impossible to implement, 1987 NWPA Amendments for >10 years. This has been compounded by DOE program management deficiencies since 1985/86 in failing to effectively implement the 1982 Act.

The industry has been destructive in trying to push the government to "just implement" a structurally impossible program, repeating the mantra: "It only takes political will" instead of recognizing: "That elephant can't be pushed through that knothole."

The industry was especially disingenuous to then feign surprise when DOE missed the Jan 1998 "deadline." This is even worse since the U.S. Justice Dept accepted responsibility for interim on-site storage costs, from the general treasury, not the Nuclear Waste Fund.

The industry could be positive and proactive, and work for a politically manageable resolution, instead of negative and destructive creating political confrontation and an anti-nuclear "cause," instead of letting the issue fade away (unless this was a strategic effort to misdirect anti-nuke attention from operating reactor safety), despite the massive industry funding.

(Industry similarly has not constructively addressed the U.S. low level waste program of the 1982 Act, at unnecessary cost to nuclear operations.)

Although the statements in the report below address reprocessing, they do not adequately link YM to future decisions on reprocessing. This includes the need and benefits of disposing of cooled HLW instead of hot spent fuel (or even cooled spent fuel in the "highly unlikely event" that we ultimately found that nuclear power is not needed in the US, and the world). (Of course, we must ultimately also consider the enormous benefits of the radiation and radioisotope sources that would be wasted by disposing of HLW with or without burning TRU.)

The industry must yet act to establish its own strong and responsible policy to address spent fuel management and reprocessing.

Thank you.
Regards, Jim Muckerheide
=========================

September 26, 2007
Maybe no dump at Yucca after all
By Lisa Mascaro
Published in the Sun on Sept. 26, 2007

WASHINGTON — For years Yucca Mountain and the future of nuclear energy in this country have been intertwined until, suddenly Tuesday, that seemed to no longer be the case.

At a packed Capitol Hill news conference celebrating plans for the nation’s first new nuclear power plant in a generation, senators praised the project. Colorful charts showed what the future would bring.

Then 45 minutes into the briefing the most important issue for Nevadans emerged: Would Yucca Mountain, the nation’s planned repository 90 miles outside Las Vegas, be expected to store the nuclear waste?

Not necessarily, came the answer.

The chief executive of the firm submitting the first nuclear power application in nearly 30 years for a pair of plants in south Texas said that as far as he’s concerned, the waste can stay on the company’s 12,200-acre site for the next century.

“There’s plenty of room to store our own waste,” said David Crane, president and chief executive of NRG Energy Inc.

Later he told reporters: “Whether Yucca Mountain happens or not plays no part in our calculation.”

Ever since Washington chose Yucca Mountain to be the nation’s nuclear waste dump over Nevada’s objections five years ago, the Bush administration’s hoped-for nuclear energy renaissance and Yucca Mountain have been intertwined.

Without a guaranteed place to store the waste, new plants would have difficulty coming online.

Now, if the companies are saying they don’t need Yucca Mountain, who does?

Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley’s spokesman, David Cherry, said, “if it’s perfectly OK to leave it in Texas for the next 100 years, what is the urgency — or need, period — for Yucca Mountain?”

“The whole dialogue has shifted in our favor,” Republican Rep. Jon Porter said. “This should change history as to the future storage of nuclear waste.”

What came through Tuesday was the acknowledgment by NRG Energy and industry backers in Congress that on-site storage will be the de facto plan for the future.

The company’s application is the first of 28 expected in the next few years for 32 new plants, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which licenses the facilities.

Government regulators have long said that spent fuel can be safely stored at plant sites well beyond the life of those facilities — for at least 90 years.

Perhaps the industry’s strongest supporter in Washington, New Mexico Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, said Tuesday that a permanent repository remains the goal, but interim options should be on the table.

“Some people believe we should proceed with the site in Nevada, and others believe it’s close to becoming a research facility,” Domenici said.

“I think we’re ready as a nation to get around to a temporary storage facility,” he said. “That’s what I’m hoping for.”

Domenici called the waste issue “the most important question.”

But he added, “I’m not worried yet.”

Even as nuclear energy has grown in popularity as a way to curtail global warming, Yucca Mountain’s popularity has been waning among the industry and lawmakers as the project drags on.

When Nevada Sen. Harry Reid became majority leader in January, some thought the proposed repository was doomed.

More than 50,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel are stored at power plants across the country. Because of the delays, the government failed to carry out its legal responsibility to take the waste to Yucca Mountain, and the companies have sued the government for storage costs.

Separately, the Energy Department has been entertaining ideas to store waste at research sites nationwide that are being considered to pursue nuclear waste reprocessing — a method of recycling the waste that scientists think remains decades off.

Nevada’s congressional delegation has sought legislation to have the government take ownership of waste at existing storage sites nationwide.

“This is the way the nuclear industry needs to be thinking,” Reid spokesman Jon Summers said.

Although the industry’s new attitude may be good for Yucca’s critics, it still poses problems for the nation, some said.

The industry still has no long-term solution for one of the most dangerous materials on the planet, Cherry said.

“I’m sure the people of Texas will be thrilled to hear they will become a waste dump,” he said. “They’re going to create trash there’s nowhere to put.”

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UK energy policy and nuclear power

2007-02-17T01:46:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday's court decision giving a "victory" to Greenpeace does not really change anything for the UK.

It simply said that the government's performance (in process of consultation) did not match its rhetoric. So, what's new?

Surely that is the sort of thing best left to the voters to pass judgment on at a general election?

Meanwhile the acute need to replace 25 GWe of old UK generating capacity by 2020 remains. So does the imperative - accepted by the government - to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So does the looming energy security crisis as Russia is attracted by natural gas markets to its east and south, and the wisdom of dependency on the Middle East oil and gas looks ever more questionable.

The hot air from a High Court and any number of lobby groups is not enough to turn the wind turbines, so nuclear power looks more and more attractive as a major component of future electricity supply.

Those are the fundamentals.

Anything which weakens the resolve of the UK government to grapple sensibly with energy policy will cost the Brits dear. The last two decades of spineless equivocation and embracing soft options have left little room to manoeuvre.

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Nuclear power in UK

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Fear by Survey

2007-01-31T22:58:00.000-08:00

The Australia Institute’s ‘research’ on public opinion about the potential location of nuclear power plants in Australia is not actually intended to help public debate. Its real intent is to create fear in order to serve the Institute’s own aims on the issue. How do you create fear by survey?

First, you start with the assumption that there is a lack of public knowledge about nuclear power. A safe assumption in most countries.

Next, you write a question that asks something like ‘If there were plans to build a nuclear power plant in your local area, would you be in favour of it or against it?’ And you don’t add anything that would help the respondent give an informed answer. This is par for the course with the Australia Institute. Look at its website. It certainly is a nuclear information free zone.

But you know, by looking at research from overseas, that people have a negative view when asked about specific siting possibilities, like their backyard.

Lo and behold! Public opinion, uninformed by anything you could do to help it make an informed judgement, says it does not want nuclear power stations in its backyard.

You have knowingly traded on people’s fears to produce the polling result you expected. Case closed.

Simultaneously, you publish other ‘research’ on the potential location of nuclear power plants and you say – with a straight face - you are doing that to inform public debate. You do this because you know –you just did the polling - that, due to lack of knowledge, people are fearful when confronted with specific siting ideas for nuclear power plants.

What have you actually achieved by this? You have added to the fear of things nuclear by demonstrating that public opinion, in the absence of knowledge, is fearful of things nuclear. And you have implied there is a secret plan about the location of nuclear power plants. Because if you can identify possible locations, then they might be real. And you’ve made it seem immediate. And you might even have implied that it will happen against people’s wishes.

There’s a fair bit of dogwhistling going on here. Especially when you consider that there is a very respectable recent government report by Ziggy Switkowski that says the development of as Australian nuclear power industry depends on a range of technical and policy issues as well as public confidence and acceptance. In other words, Switkowski says that we need to continue the debate and, if ever there was to be a nuclear power industry in Australia, public opinion would have to have change first. In effect, Switkowski has already acknowledged the crucial role of public opinion.

Looks a bit suspect if you ignore Switkowski, doesn’t it?

In short, this ‘research’ is a stunt. Creating fear is a pretty reprehensible price to be prepared to pay for a mere stunt. The Australia Institute is not to be taken seriously.

Michael Angwin
Executive Director
Australian Uranium Association

WNA
wna links here

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World Nuclear News launched

2007-01-16T11:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the staff of the World Nuclear Association celebrated two simultaneous website launches.

Firstly, the main WNA website was updated with a clean and clear new layout that simplifies navigation. In addition, that site now boasts three new features: a Jobs section; a Picture Library and a live news feed on the homepage from the second website to launch, World Nuclear News (WNN).

WNN is an exciting new project supported by the World Nuclear Association and the World Nuclear University which builds on WNA's global contacts and established information gathering ability by providing a free-access news website with daily updates. Above all, WNN is intended to get clear and accurate information on nuclear developments 'out there' on a short timescale. The main method of distribution will be the website, which is free for everyone to access. WNN is intended to be read by the nuclear industry, researchers, journalists and the general public.

To help the mainstream press, WNN has a relaxed copyright policy so that its output might be reproduced widely. Furthermore, when a really big story breaks WNN will email detailed stories with full background information directly to journalists and nuclear communicators. These Insight Briefings are intended to give non-specialists everything they need to place key stories in full context.

There's more information about WNN on its about page, and you can visit WNN's subscribe page to sign up for Insight Briefings as well as the WNN Daily and WNN Weekly notifications of new content.

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Nuclear subsidies??

2007-01-02T20:40:00.000-08:00

Peter Garrett, the Australian Labor Opposition's new environment spokesman, (The Age 2/1/07) purports to put the Prime Minister's nuclear power claims into proper perspective, but instead peddles a major misrepresentation.

But his point about needing "a fair system in which clean[er] energy alternatives are allowed to compete within an international market for carbon emissions" is spot on. Australian uranium will be a major fuel for such energy sources in the carbon-constrained world of the future. It already avoids te emission of over 300 million tonnes of CO2 per year, relative to coal, and if some stae Labor governments came to their senses, it could do much more.

His misrepresentation is in respect to subsidies. Nowhere in the world to our knowledge is nuclear power currently subsidized, and nowhere in the world is his preferred alternative of wind power not subsidized.

Certainly nuclear power has benefited from major R&D funding through to the 1990s - more than twice the level for renewables, but only in Japan has this continued at a high level. The payoff has been 16% of world electricity from nuclear, with only around 1% from non-hydro renewables, so a much beter return on investment than for renewables R&D.

As to subsidies, some are on offer in USA for the first few new-generation nuclear power stations (6000 MWe), the 1.8 cents/kWh level being the same as that for wind on unlimited basis. Conversely, nuclear power is taxed in Sweden because it is so cheap.

Renewables are indeed a fast-growing industry sector as Mr Garrett says, but how much growth would there be without generous and ubiquitous subsidies? Ask its industry advocates, who have made the answer plain in submissions to government. The answer is none.

We support Mr Garrett's call for people to "read the Switowski report" - they won't find too many "rubbery figures and superhuman assumptions", just a well-researched connection to what is well known in the rest of the world..

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Energy subsidies and External costs

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Swedish PM opens for new build

2006-12-20T12:21:00.000-08:00

The Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said yesterday in an interview with newspaper Sydvenskan that he can se himself promoting new nuclear reactors in Sweden after 2010. The current agreement within the coalition running Sweden is not to discuss new reactors until next election in 2010.

He points out that several countries worrying about climate change have decided to build new nuclear power plants, and he does not rule out that Sweden will do the same. "The idea in Sweden was that nuclear power would be a temporary solution. The reactors were considered to have limited lifetime, which has proved to be wrong." The majority of Swedish reactors are now preparing for an operating life of 60 years. Looking at the construction of the new EPR in Finland and the discussion of new reactors in the Baltic states, he believes nuclear power will play a role in reducing dependence on coal and oil, as well as greenhouse gas emissions, in the Nordic and Baltic region.

In a poll connected to the article answered by 5000 readers, 82% supported new build in Sweden.

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Plans for New Reactors Worldwide
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Australian "nuclear debate"

2006-11-30T04:57:00.000-08:00

It is clear that the Prime Minister's UMPNER (see earlier blog) taskforce has done some very thorough homework, with the help a capable team. It certainly sets up the options, but it will take a few years to work them through in the public forum - nuclear power is too far from people's experience in Australia. In Europe and North America everyone knows that a significant proportion of power comes very reliably from nuclear, and the implications of not having it are clear to most.

Leader of the Opposition Mr Beazley's puerile response to the report was remarkable. The (premature) question is: Where will about 40 large new power plants (coal and nuclear) that are needed by 2050 go? People will have years to decide whether they prefer a plant with 3 million tones of coal arriving each year, or a clean nuclear plant requiring only a couple of truckloads of fuel. And the answer to where they go - beyond the obvious need for coastal sites (to cool them without using up fresh water) - probably needs to await proposals from generating companies.

Prime Minister Mr Howard's dilemma is whether to concede the dangers of global warming to the extent of slamming costs on carbon emissions, or to continue for a few years longer with Australia as one of the world's lowest electricity cost countries, conferring significant economic advantage in some industries. His "open mind" on energy options including nuclear power will appeal to most for whom the dilemma is an issue, though at the electorate level nimbyism will always be a third consideration, as much for coal as nuclear.

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Nuclear Energy Prospects for Australia

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Nuclear Insurance

2006-11-28T07:08:00.000-08:00

A Melbourne newspaper - The Age - published a short letter saying "Insurance companies, I believe, won't touch nuclear power stations. Could there be a more eloquent statement of doubt from a capitalist institution?"

To which the reply: "Peter Rechner (letters 25/11) is wrong in believing that insurers will not touch nuclear power stations. In fact, wherever they are available to private sector insurers, Western-designed nuclear installations are sought-after business because of their high engineering and risk management standards. This has been the case for fifty years."
Stephen Brain, former chairman of the Australian Nuclear Insurance Pool from 1985 to 1997.

He elaborated:
"My comment refers very much to the world scene and is not contentious. Apart from Three Mile Island, the claim experience has been very good. Chernobyl was not insured. Significantly, because Chernobyl was of a design that would not have been an acceptable risk at the time, notably the lack of a containment vessel, the accident had no impact on premium rates for Western plants.

"The structure of insurance of nuclear installations is different from ordinary industrial risks. It involves international conventions, national legislation "channelling" liability to the operators, and pooling of insurance capacity in more than twenty countries. The national nuclear insurance pool approach was particularly developed in the UK in 1956 as a way of marshalling insurance capacity for the exotic perils of meltdown, etc. Other national pools that followed were modelled on the UK pool - now known as Nuclear Risk Insurers Limited, and based in the City of London."

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Liability for Nuclear Accidents - WNA paper
Nuclear Risk Insurers

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Radiation Fears Exaggerated

2006-11-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

An Oxford physicist says that public fears driving excessive regulation of ionising radiation are not founded in reality. Professor Wade Allinson was giving a Colloquium series lecture on 24 November at Oxford University.

"Current environmental regulations that attempt to keep variations in radiation exposure to a fraction of the natural level are over-cautious by a factor of about 500 to 1000. This factor is unnecessary and unafforadable. In no other field is such a safety factor applied."

While the public is happy to accept the benefits of high doses of radiation in medicine, fears of radiation associated with a civil nuclear power programme are disproportionate. He said there is good evidence to demonstrate that life has evolved immunity to the dangers of radiation up to a certain threshold. Below this, any damage is completely repaired. There is not a linear relationship between dose and harm at low doses and low dose rates.

Professor Allison said: "Members of the public tolerate radiation exposures for their own health which are 1000 times higher per day than those that are currently deemed barely acceptable in the environment per year. A far greater tolerance to radiation in the environment is needed if the health of the planet is to be treated with the same respect and judgment as personal health."

www.physics.ox.ac.uk/nuclearsafety

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Radiation & Nuclear Energy

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