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A Mitsubishi company has become the first wholly owned unit of a Japanese company to become a member of the Nuclear Energy Institute, Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Systems MNES, said Monday. The company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, is one of four reactor vendors that is a member of NEI. Noriyuki Kuwata, MNES executive vice president, said in a statement that the NEI designation "is a very important step for MNES because NEI recognizes our current performances in the US nuclear industry." The other three reactor vendors that belong to NEI are Areva, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, and Westinghouse Electric.

This is the last story in a three-part series related to the problems of spent fuel produced by the nation's nuclear power plants. BRATTLEBORO -- Is the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel the answer to the nation's nuclear waste storage woes? The nuclear industry contends reprocessing, or recycling as some in the industry call it, could reduce the amount of spent fuel that will one day need to be stored away and isolated from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. The nuclear industry doesn't consider spent fuel a waste product, said Thomas Kauffman, senior media relations manager for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry funded organization that promotes nuclear power around the world. "It can be recycled through reprocessing," he said. "It's an energy-rich resource that needs to be stored until the government decides how it wants to handle it." The NEI believes programs currently operating in countries such as Japan, France, Germany and Russia can serve as examples for the United States. The NEI also contends that new technology, including the development of breeder reactors that can consume spent fuel, might make spent fuel storage a thing of the past. And while it is true that strides have been made in the field of nuclear fuel reprocessing, it has a checkered history that includes contamination of land, pollution of water and huge clean-up costs. "Reprocessing would be a serious mistake with costs and risks that outweigh the benefits," said Jim Riccio, Greenpeace's nuclear policy analyst.

This is the last story in a three-part series related to the problems of spent fuel produced by the nation's nuclear power plants. BRATTLEBORO -- Is the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel the answer to the nation's nuclear waste storage woes? The nuclear industry contends reprocessing, or recycling as some in the industry call it, could reduce the amount of spent fuel that will one day need to be stored away and isolated from the environment for hundreds of thousands of years. The nuclear industry doesn't consider spent fuel a waste product, said Thomas Kauffman, senior media relations manager for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry funded organization that promotes nuclear power around the world. "It can be recycled through reprocessing," he said. "It's an energy-rich resource that needs to be stored until the government decides how it wants to handle it." The NEI believes programs currently operating in countries such as Japan, France, Germany and Russia can serve as examples for the United States. The NEI also contends that new technology, including the development of breeder reactors that can consume spent fuel, might make spent fuel storage a thing of the past. And while it is true that strides have been made in the field of nuclear fuel reprocessing, it has a checkered history that includes contamination of land, pollution of water and huge clean-up costs. "Reprocessing would be a serious mistake with costs and risks that outweigh the benefits," said Jim Riccio, Greenpeace's nuclear policy analyst.

"The nuclear energy industry made several policy recommendations today to the blue ribbon commission counseling the U.S. Department of Energy on future management of used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. These recommendations included the value of centralized temporary storage of used fuel assemblies, the continuing need for a geologic disposal facility even if used fuel is recycled, and a new management and financing structure for the entity that oversees the program. "The greatest service that the commission can render to the nation is to develop a used fuel management policy that will endure, define a process for implementing the policy, determine the timelines to be followed to achieve the policy, and delineate the legal and legislative changes needed to make the policy a reality," said Nuclear Energy Institute President and Chief Executive Officer Marvin Fertel in a presentation to the commission."

Like all new generating capacity, there is considerable uncertainty about the capital cost of new nuclear generating capacity. Credible estimates of overnight capital costs range from $2,400/kWe to as much as $4,540/ kWe. This wide variation in costs can be attributed to several factors:

The Nuclear Energy Institute has located two communities interested in hosting commercial interim nuclear waste storage facilities, but it won't identify them. The towns of Haddam and Waterford, past and present homes to nuclear-power facilities here in Connecticut, are not among several towns that have approached NEI voluntarily, said Marshall Cohen, NEI's senior director for government affairs.

"In a letter to Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko dated September 25, 2009, NEI, the petitioner, requested that the NRC undertake an expedited rulemaking to revise the compliance date for specific requirements within Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 73.55, ``Requirements for Physical Protection of Licensed Activities in Nuclear Power Reactors Against Radiological Sabotage.'' The NRC reviewed the request for rulemaking and determined that the request met the minimum sufficiency requirements of 10 CFR 2.802, ``Petition for Rulemaking'' and, therefore, was considered as a petition for rulemaking. Accordingly, the NRC docketed the request as PRM-73-14 and notified the petitioner of this decision by letter dated October 1, 2009. Due to the exigent circumstances associated with the request, the NRC did not prepare a notice of receipt and request for comment, and instead gave immediate consideration to the request, convening a petition review board (PRB) on November 9, 2009. "

This is the second in a series of stories dealing with the issue of spent fuel stored at the nation's nuclear power plants. BRATTLEBORO -- With spent fuel piling up at commercial nuclear power plants around the country and no permanent disposal site on the horizon, many power plant operators are hoping the federal government might soon endorse the interim storage of the waste at one or two locations in the nation. The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry-funded organization that promotes nuclear power around the world, is suggesting just that. "An interim facility wouldn't have to be huge," said Thomas Kauffman, senior media relations manager for NEI. If you were to put the 60,000 tons of spent fuel currently being stored in dry casks into one location, he said, "They would fit onto an area of about a square half-mile." No site has been identified yet for interim storage. "The industry has had some dialogue with volunteer communities," said Kauffman. Those communities include the sites of decommissioned power plants.

This is the second in a series of stories dealing with the issue of spent fuel stored at the nation's nuclear power plants. BRATTLEBORO -- With spent fuel piling up at commercial nuclear power plants around the country and no permanent disposal site on the horizon, many power plant operators are hoping the federal government might soon endorse the interim storage of the waste at one or two locations in the nation. The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry-funded organization that promotes nuclear power around the world, is suggesting just that. "An interim facility wouldn't have to be huge," said Thomas Kauffman, senior media relations manager for NEI. If you were to put the 60,000 tons of spent fuel currently being stored in dry casks into one location, he said, "They would fit onto an area of about a square half-mile." No site has been identified yet for interim storage. "The industry has had some dialogue with volunteer communities," said Kauffman. Those communities include the sites of decommissioned power plants.

One of the developing themes in the new Congress might well be a new openness in discussing nuclear energy as a way forward if the A-1 priorities in energy policy have become carbon reduction and - in terms of economic stimulus - infrastructure buildout and job creation. We credit this newfound radiance to the steady stream of positive statements that came out of the election - especially, admittedly, from John McCain - and the media's increased attention to the benefits of our friend the atom. But we can still be surprised. Here's a big chunk of the written testimony given by Karen Harbert of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The topic of the hearing was energy security:

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering the issues raised in a petition for rulemaking submitted by David J. Modeen, on behalf of the Nuclear Energy Institute, in the ongoing ``Performance-Based Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) Cladding Acceptance Criteria'' rulemaking (ADAMS accession no. ML020630082). The petitioner requested that the NRC amend its regulations to allow nuclear power plant licensees to use zirconium-based cladding materials other than Zircaloy or ZIRLO, provided the cladding materials meet the requirements for fuel cladding performance and have been approved by the NRC staff.

The government affairs arm of the nuclear industry today called for President Barack Obama to convene a blue ribbon nuclear waste commission, a move that could be a first step toward forming alternatives to burying radioactive power plant fuel at Yucca Mountain. With the future uncertain for the Nevada project, the Nuclear Energy Institute is endorsing a fresh look at nuclear fuel management, an NEI official told an audience of state utility regulators. Under the proposal, the Department of Energy would be allowed to continue pursuing a license to build the Yucca repository while the study was being conducted over a 12- to 24-month period.

The National Journal's energy blog is asking "How Should America Handle Its Commercial Nuclear Waste?" So far, four experts have weighed in: Chuck Gray from the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, David Kreutzer from the Heritage Foundation, Thomas Gibson from the American Iron and Steel Institute, and NEI's new CEO Marv Fertel. Here's what Marv had to say:

"Nuclear power accounted for nearly 20 percent of the electricity generated in the United States in 2008. Oklahoman graphics illustration Multimedia Photoview all photos More Info By the numbers Nuclear power statistics * 19.6: Percentage of U.S. electric generation derived from nuclear reactors in 2008 * 14: Percentage of electricity generated by nuclear power worldwide in 2008 * 31: States with operational nuclear reactors * 6: States that derive the largest percentage of their electricity from nuclear power * 104: Number of operational nuclear reactors in the U.S. * 1982: Year Public Service Co. of Oklahoma canceled plans to build a nuclear plant near Inola Source: Nuclear Energy Institute, Oklahoman archives Advocates such as the Nuclear Energy Institute claim it is the country's "largest source of clean-air, carbon-free electricity, producing no greenhouse gases or air pollutants." Nuclear also has the lowest operations and maintenance costs of any fuel source, NEI spokesman Mitch Singer said. But none of that matters to Oklahoma's two largest power companies. "We have no plans to build or explore a nuclear option," Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. spokesman Brian Alford said. "It's cost prohibitive for utilities of our size.""

So how is Steven Chu playing as the purported candidate for Department of Energy secretary? Before we look at the developing narrative, let's remember the lesson of John Ford's movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Here's the question: Did Senator Ransom Stoddard begin his sterling Senatorial career and usher in statehood for Arizona by shooting bad man Liberty Valance? After we learn the truth, a newspaper editor sagely concludes, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." He had in mind the George Washington-cherry tree kind of legend, but it works equally well with, say, the Al Gore-internet kind of legend. Once a legend develops, it can be devilishly hard to shake loose of it. And it can warp the truth rather severely. So let's see what legend is developing around Dr. Chu.

The head of the nuclear industry's main lobbying arm is stepping down. Frank L. Bowman resigned as president and CEO today "after much deliberation about the right course of leadership for our industry and the Nuclear Energy Institute during this period of dramatic change in the Congress and the White House."

It's late summer in Washington at the tail end of a lame duck presidency. And that means one thing for Beltway insiders: open season for lobbying. The nuclear energy industry is one group in a good position to take advantage of the changing of the guard. And one of its biggest guns--former New Jersey Gov. and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman--is drumming up publicity for what might be a nuclear renaissance in the U.S. within the next few years.

On August 25, 2008, the Nuclear Energy Institute released a fact sheet for press at the Democratic National Convention claiming that "Nuclear power plants and the proliferation of nuclear weapons are not linked." This statement assumes that sensitive nuclear technologies will not spread. However, the Bush administration's current proposal to resume reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership has increased the risk that nuclear energy will result in more nuclear weapons-usable material in the United States and abroad. The Bush Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) proposes that the United States would separate plutonium from spent nuclear fuel through reprocessing. GNEP envisions that "receiver" countries would voluntarily give up nuclear enrichment and reprocessing technologies and, in exchange, and would send their nuclear waste to "supplier" countries for reprocessing. In practice, GNEP is a proliferation risk, exorbitantly expensive, and not a solution to the growing nuclear waste problem in the United States

The nuclear power industry is seeing its fortunes rise. "Seventeen entities developing license applications for up to thirty-one new [nuclear] reactors did not just happen," boasted Frank "Skip" Bowman. "It has been carefully planned."

WASHINGTON - In another sign of Congress' increasing frustration with the slow pace of the Yucca Mountain project, a longtime nuclear advocate today announced an effort to have the private sector help the Energy Department develop interim nuclear waste storage sites separate from Nevada. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, has put forward a bill that would allow $1 billion annually from the fund designated for Yucca Mountain to instead go for developing nuclear recycling and interim waste storage sites run by public-private ventures.

Fifty-nine percent of Americans said the US should "definitely" build more nuclear power plants, according to a survey released April 25 by the Nuclear Energy Institute.