Group items tagged

The municipality and public are likely to have continued input on plans to remove historic low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) in Port Hope, after asking the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) that its involvement be a condition of the project moving forward. "We've had an excellent cooperative consultation program and we look to that to continue," said Mayor Linda Thompson. "The comments of the CNSC staff reassured us." The commission spent Wednesday, Aug. 26 and half of Thursday, Aug. 27 listening to local concerns about Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's (AECL) application for a nuclear waste substance license to operate a long-term low-level waste management facility.

"Utah's radiation programs have new leaders. The new director of the Radiation Control Division is Rusty Lundberg, who has worked in the state's solid waste and sustainability programs. Lundberg replaces Dane Finerfrock, who has led radiation programs for the past seven years and retires at the month's end. "Rusty has excellent management and leadership skills," said Utah Department of Environmental Quality Director Amanda Smith, "and will do an outstanding job in the Division of Radiation Control." Lundberg has been with DEQ for 25 years, serving for more than 15 years as the branch manager overseeing solid waste for the Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste."

Parsons has been awarded a two-year contract by LES to "provide engineering, construction management, and construction services" for the expansion phase of the National Enrichment Facility, Parsons announced February 3. The value of the contract was not disclosed. Parsons, a California-based engineering and construction firm, said it was awarded the contract "based on its approach, engineering excellence, and ability to partner and develop the project in a fast-track manner while meeting [NRC] licensing requirements." LES announced in November that it plans to expand the annual capacity of its centrifuge uranium enrichment facility under construction in Eunice, New Mexico from 3 million SWU to 5.9 million SWU. That will push the plant's predicted completion date to the end of 2014, resulting in a total construction cost of more than $3 billion, LES said last year. When completed, the facility will be able to provide 50% of all enriched fuel for the 104 operating power reactors in the US, Parsons said.

PETER A. BRADFORD, adjunct professor, Vermont Law School, and former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: * For an even-handed recent overview of most nuclear power issues, see "Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding," a June 2007 report by the Keystone Center, a non-profit organization that brought together a cross section of parties interested in nuclear energy - including environmentalists and consumer advocates, industry representatives and government officials - to create a base of agreed-upon knowledge about the costs, risks and benefits of nuclear power. www.keystone.org/spp/documents/FinalReport_NJFF6_12_2007(1).pdf * For a responsibly skeptical look at nuclear power's rapidly rising costs in comparison to available low carbon alternatives, see "The Nuclear Illusion" by Amory Lovins and Imram Sheikh in the November 2008 Ambio, the Journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. https://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E08-01_AmbioNuclIlusion.pdf The Journal Report * See the complete Energy report. * The Web site of the Nonproliferation Education Center, maintained by WSJ op-ed contributor Henry Sokolski, features an ongoing collection of thoughtful conservative pieces skeptical of nuclear power. http://www.npec-web.org/ * For an excellent short critique of reprocessing and the Bush Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, see Victor Gilinsky and Alison Macfarlane's Minority Opinion from the National Academy of Science's Review of DoE's Nuclear Research and Development Program, http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11998&page=73 * For an even-handed look at how nuclear construction went astray in the U.S. in the 1970s, the best book remains "Light Water: How the Nuclear Dream Dissolved, Irvin C. Bupp and Jean-Claude Derian. * Another good overview text is Megawatts and Megatons, Richard Garwin and Georges Charpak.

U.S.-based Bechtel Power Corp is leading a shortlist of firms and consortia bidding to design Egypt's first nuclear power station, an official at the ministry of electricity said. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the other firms on the shortlist included Australia's WorleyParsons, Sweden's AF Consult, a consortium of Spain's Iberdrola and Empresarios Agrupados, a consortium of Finland's Poyry and Invap of Argentina, a consortium including Belgian Tractebel, and a group of U.S. companies with Egypt's Excel.

Over the last few years the nuclear industry has used concerns about climate change to argue for a nuclear revival. Although industry representatives may have convinced some political leaders that this is a good idea, there is little evidence of private capital investing in nuclear plants in competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple: nuclear power is uneconomical. In an excellent recent analysis, "The Nuclear Illusion," Amory B. Lovins and Imran Sheikh put the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant at 14¢ per kilowatt hour and that from a wind farm at 7¢ per kilowatt hour. This comparison includes the costs of fuel, capital, operations and maintenance, and transmission and distribution. It does not include the additional costs for nuclear of disposing of waste, insuring plants against an accident, and decommissioning the plants when they wear out. Given this huge gap, the so-called nuclear revival can succeed only by unloading these costs onto taxpayers. If all the costs of generating nuclear electricity are included in the price to consumers, nuclear power is dead in the water.

HEAL Utah Outreach Director Job Description HEAL Utah is seeking a full-time Outreach Director to expand and strengthen our grassroots base, and to help ensure that the public has a voice in nuclear waste and energy policy issues in Utah. Potential candidates should be self-motivated and strategic thinkers, excellent communicators, and passionate about protecting the public health and environment of Utah.

Over the last few years the nuclear industry has used concerns about climate change to argue for a nuclear revival. Although industry representatives may have convinced some political leaders that this is a good idea, there is little evidence of private capital investing in nuclear plants in competitive electricity markets. The reason is simple: nuclear power is uneconomical. In an excellent recent analysis, "The Nuclear Illusion," Amory B. Lovins and Imran Sheikh put the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant at 14¢ per kilowatt hour and that from a wind farm at 7¢ per kilowatt hour.

Neil Craig (Letters, 23 October) gives a figure of 1.3p per kilowatt hour for the cost of French electricity. This is as dishonest as many of the statements of nuclear advocates. The French tariff is complicated and depends on your connection rating, the time of day and three different day "colours" announced day to day, depending on expected demand. An excellent explanation can be found on Google. For the typical example of 3000kWh at the cheap rate, 2000kWh normal rate, plus the connection charge for 9kW, the total was 0.11 per kilowatt hour in 2004 . Can Mr Craig say where he got the 1.3p figure?

President George W. Bush has selected nine senior managers at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for either Distinguished or Meritorious Executive Rank Awards for 2008. "These recipients have consistently demonstrated their strength, integrity, and commitment to excellence as public servants for the agency and for our fellow Americans," said Chairman Dale Klein.

I just completed reading your excellent editorial "Nuclear Waste - Radioactivity In The Backyard" [Monday] and said to myself: "Oh, no! Please tell me that Polk County will not be considered to be the dumping ground for nuclear waste in Florida." Those who say "It has to be in somebody's backyard" are unanimously those whose backyards are not being considered for garbage dumps - whether it's commercial, household or even nuclear.

Two lethal words went thankfully unspoken in President Obama's address to the nation this week - atomic energy. Unfortunately, two others - "clean coal" - were included. An increasingly desperate reactor industry just tried to sneak a $50 billion loan guarantee package into the stimulus bill. But for the third time since 2007, it got beat by a powerful national grassroots movement and key Congressional leaders. Nuke pushers now want reactors painted "green" in a renewable standard Congress may soon set.

Welcome, to this 21st Regulatory Information Conference. There are a few thousand people here, so as you can imagine, this is the biggest event we sponsor every year. I want to begin, therefore, by thanking all the staff for their enormous hard work in putting this together. The NRC has been hosting the RIC for 21 years, and each year it seems to get bigger, which means of course, that it is a bit more challenging to plan and organize. But the staff always seems to rise to the occasion and make sure everything goes smoothly. Speaking of the NRC staff, many of you know that the agency has undergone significant changes in our senior leadership in the past year. Luis Reyes, our former EDO, is now Regional Administrator in Atlanta. He wanted to retire, but we twisted his arm to stay. And Bill Borchardt moved up from the Office of New Reactors to become the new EDO. Several other senior positions also changed. But despite those changes, there has been very good continuity, because the agency has benefitted from an excellent depth of talent.

Nuclear power is not the answer to climate change (Guilty greens admit they could do more, 2 September). Indeed it could well undermine the development of the real solutions - energy efficiency and renewable energy. And yet the Labour government has moved from a position of supporting a programme of replacing older nuclear plants to one of a radical expansion, with talk of a UK nuclear contribution of 35-40% "beyond 2030". Currently the UK gets 13% of its electricity from nuclear sources. The government has also indicated that it saw a major role for exporting UK nuclear technology and expertise. Gordon Brown has indicated that he believes the world needs 1,000 extra nuclear power stations and has argued that Africa could build nuclear power plants to meet growing demands for energy. In 2009 a new UK Nuclear Centre of Excellence was announced to "promote wider access to civil nuclear power across the world", with an initial budget of £20m.

Gary Gilmartin, executive director of the Oak Ridge Energy Parks Initiative, is the speaker at the June 25 membership meeting of ETEBA (Energy, Technology and Environmental Business Association). According to info distributed by ETEBA, Gilmartin will speak on the Tennessee Valley Nuclear Energy Coalition, a partnership of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, ORNL, Y-12 and TVA. "The partners plan to make the Tennessee Valley Corridor a center of excellence for nuclear research, technology and power generation," the ETEBA release said. Gilmartin, in his role as executive director of the Energy Parks Initiative, is working with CROET to develop a pilot energy park in Oak Ridge.

The Department of Energy has picked a new contractor to administer its workers' compensation program for employees of Hanford nuclear reservation contractors. Penser North America Inc., a small business in Lacey, has been awarded a two-year contract worth about $1.5 million. Three one-year extensions could increase the value to about $3.4 million over five years. Penser will replace Contract Claims Services Inc., or CCSI, which has a contract that expires Sept. 30. The transition is expected to begin in August or September, with Penser taking over as third-party administrator on Oct. 1. Penser will be paid per claim processed plus an award fee to provide an incentive for good customer service, innovation and overall excellence.

Last week, POGO sent a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu challenging the decision to bestow upon the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) an award for "Project Management Excellence" for the performance of what is ironically one of its most poorly managed projects, the National Ignition Facility (NIF).

There has been significant discussion in The Tribune recently regarding the energy policy positions of some of our congressional delegates, especially Rep. Rob Bishop and Sen. Bob Bennett. It is time to bring consideration of hard realities to bear on these topics, realities that are often overlooked by elected officials. Both Bishop and Bennett call for the construction of 100 new nuclear power plants, roughly doubling current U.S. capacity. Nuclear power certainly has its benefits, chief among them low to zero CO2 emissions, and modern plants have excellent safety records. There are multiple problems, however.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission moved too quickly to license too many reactors in the years before the March 1979 Three Mile Island-2 accident, former NRC commissioner Peter Bradford told a Senate panel March 24. Bradford, now an adjunct professor at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at the Vermont Law School, testified that one of the lessons from the accident was that "nuclear power is least safe when complacency and pressure to expedite are highest." Other witnesses told the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety that the industry and regulators must remain vigilant and guard against becoming complacent. NRC Chairman Dale Klein and the other three commissioners said revisions to emergency preparedness planning, modifications to plant control room equipment, better operator training and changes to the agency's enforcement authority have improved safety conditions in the industry. Marvin Fertel, the president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said the creation of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations nine months after the accident helped the industry to "strive for excellence" in plant operations rather than just meet the minimum regulatory requirements.

"If you want to understand why the U.S. hasn't built a nuclear reactor in three decades, the Vogtle power plant outside Atlanta is an excellent reminder of the insanity of nuclear economics. The plant's original cost estimate was less than $1 billion for four reactors. Its eventual price tag in 1989 was nearly $9 billion, for only two reactors. But now there's widespread chatter about a nuclear renaissance, so the Southern Co. is finally trying to build the other two reactors at Vogtle. The estimated cost: $14 billion. And you can be sure that number is way too low, because nuclear cost estimates are always way too low. That's why no Wall Street moneyman in his right mind would finance a new reactor. But President Obama has located an alternative financier: you. On Tuesday he announced an $8.33 billion loan guarantee for the new Vogtle reactors, the first step in the Administration's push to jump-start the nuclear construction industry. Obama also urged Congress to set aside political differences and triple the budget for nuclear loan guarantees. "