"The White House is widely reported to be proposing additional billions of dollars in loan guarantees for the nuclear power industry. That would be a mistake, according to experts at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Following is the statement of Christopher Paine, Director of the Nuclear Program at NRDC:
"A massive increase in taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power would be a mistake.
"Energy sources should compete for public dollars based on how well they provide the clean, efficient and affordable power we need. On that basis, nuclear power has a long way to go. It remains a high-cost, subsidy-dependent, radioactive-waste generating, water-depleting, non-renewable energy source that still carries with it the low probability of a high-consequence accident."
Rising electricity prices and last summer's rolling blackouts in California have focused fresh attention on nuclear power's key role in keeping America's lights on. Today 103 nuclear plants crank out a fifth of the nation's total electrical output. And despite residual public misgivings over Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the industry has learned its lessons and established a solid safety record during the past decade. Meanwhile the efficiency and reliability of nuclear plants have climbed to record levels. Now with the ongoing debate about reducing greenhouse gases to avoid the potential onset of global warming, more people are recognizing that nuclear reactors produce electricity without discharging into the air carbon dioxide or pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and smog-causing sulfur compounds. The world demand for energy is projected to rise by about 50 percent by 2030 and to nearly double by 2050. Clearly, the time seems right to reconsider the future of nuclear power.
A new study puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour-triple current U.S. electricity rates!
This staggering price is far higher than the cost of a variety of carbon-free renewable power sources available today-and 10 times the cost of energy efficiency (see "Is 450 ppm possible? Part 5: Old coal's out, can't wait for new nukes, so what do we do NOW?"
According to a new report from the generally pro-nuclear organization, Climate Progress, nuclear power is just about the most expensive carbon-free option on the table today. In response, the organization is considering completely eliminating nuclear power from it's plan to make the world's power generation carbon free.
Nuclear power plants being built today are required to have strict safety measures as well as waste disposal plans that make them significantly more expensive than previous nuclear power plants. The result is that prices for nuclear power have increased, currently at around 30 cents per kW/h. Or, roughly three times the cost of today's average utilities, ten times the cost of reducing power use through efficiency and double the cost of solar thermal.
Areva, the French nuclear plant designer expected to be at the forefront of a British atomic power revival, has become embroiled in a war of words with a Finnish utility over delays at the site of Europe's first new nuclear station for 30 years.
The latest setback will worry ministers in London who are trying to convince sceptics that nuclear can deliver quickly and efficiently to meet the looming energy "crunch" after 2015.
Jarmo Tanhua, chief executive of Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO), the Finnish electricity provider, said he was "extremely disappointed" that Areva had told it that the Olkiluoto 3 facility was not going to be completed until 2012 - three years later than originally expected.
The U.S. Department of Labor today announced that it has paid more than $4.5 billion to 48,072 individuals under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). The EEOICPA provides compensation and medical benefits to employees who became ill as a result of working in the atomic weapons industry.
"We got this program up and running in eight months by July 31, 2001, and I'm very proud that the department has processed more than $4.5 billion in benefits to workers and their families efficiently and with compassion," said Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao.
Three groups are seeking to block plans to renew work on TVA's unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in northeast Alabama, where two old reactors could be completed and two new ones built.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, the Bellefonte Efficiency and Sustainability Team and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy asked federal regulators on Friday to suspend a request by the Tennessee Valley Authority to renew construction permits at Bellefonte.
In the first formal opposition to TVA's plans for nuclear power expansion, environmental groups have laid out their case against construction of two reactors at TVA's Bellefonte site in Jackson County, Ala.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and its chapter called the Bellefonte Efficiency and Sustainability Team, along with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which has its headquarters in Knoxville, filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission late last week requesting a hearing on TVA's license application for the Bellefonte reactors.
Greg Clary rightly asserts that "it's time for the anti-nuclear people to put their resources into figuring out real alternatives to nuclear power." ("Getting to the truth on Indian Point," Friday Earth Watch column). Yes, merely pointing out the problem is not enough. We should proceed with a plan of safe alternative energy, conservation, and more efficient use of electricity with no further delay.
But waiting for the solution means more unneeded suffering. My presentation of new data on thyroid cancer, obtained from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (http://statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov/) at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing last week in Cortlandt Manor is just the latest in a series of findings that cancer rates near Indian Point are unusually high. Thyroid cancer rates in Orange, Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester counties are among the highest in the U.S., according to the CDC.
For the third straight year, against all odds, a national grassroots No Nukes campaign has stripped out of the federal budget a proposed $50 billion boondoggle for new atomic reactors.
The victory gives a giant boost to solar, wind, efficiency, mass transit and other Solartopian technologies that can solve global warming, sustain real economic growth and bring us a truly green-powered Earth.
This latest victory came Wednesday, February 11, as a top-level Congressional conference committee ironed out the last details of the Obama stimulus package. The loan guarantee scam was slipped into the Senate version by Republican Bob Bennett (R-UT) in cooperation with Democrat Tom Carper (D-DE). The loan guarantees would have backed a Department of Energy program supporting new reactor construction, despite a report from the Government Accountability Office warning that such projects would bankrupt more than half the utilities that might undertake them.
Darren Johnson, Green Party spokesman on trade and industry and member of he London Assembly, has published a new report which claims there's "no rationale" in looking to nuclear power to help the country's economy or tackle climate change.
In Nuclear Power? No Point! Johnson argues that the 4% of power provided by the UK's nuclear capacity is far less than could be saved by energy-efficiency measures that would cut people's fuel bills.
He also claims that the time needed to construct a new generation of nuclear power stations means they will not help the fight against climate change because major CO2 reductions are needed in the next ten years.
The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant was originally built to last 20 years, then they extended it to 40 years and now they want to extend it to 60 years. There is a preponderance of evidence showing there are great risks at stake in keeping this facility going.
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A rally will be held in Huddy Park in Toms River from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday to protest the relicensing of the plant.
It has been proven it is hazardous to the environment and is an accident waiting to happen. In this day and age when we are seeking more efficient and sustainable alternatives to energy, it is unconscionable that this plant be allowed to continue.
Beyond ecological imperialism
Climate change isn't just a battle between rich and poor - it shows how an obsession with economic growth is a dead end
o guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 December 2009 12.30 GMT
So the Copenhagen summit did not deliver any hope of substantive change, or even any indication that the world's leaders are sufficiently aware of the vastness and urgency of the problem. But is that such a surprise? Nothing in the much-hyped runup to the summit suggested that the organisers and participants had genuine ambitions to change course and stop or reverse a process of clearly unsustainable growth.
Part of the problem is that the issue of climate change is increasingly portrayed as that of competing interests between countries. Thus, the summit has been interpreted variously as a fight between the "two largest culprits" - the US and China - or between a small group of developed countries and a small group of newly emerging countries (the group of four - China, India, Brazil and South Africa), or at best between rich and poor countries.
The historical legacy of past growth in the rich countries that has a current adverse impact is certainly keenly felt in the developing world. It is not just the past: current per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world are still many multiples of that in any developing country, including China. So the attempts by northern commentators to lay blame on some countries for derailing the result by pointing to this discrepancy are seen in most developing countries as further evidence of an essentially colonial outlook.
But describing this as a fight between countries misses the essential point: that the issue is really linked to an economic system - capitalism - that is crucially dependent upon rapid growth as its driving force, even if this "growth" does not deliver better lives for the people. So there is no questioning of the supposition that rich countries with declining populations mu
Beyond ecological imperialism
Climate change isn't just a battle between rich and poor - it shows how an obsession with economic growth is a dead end
o guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 December 2009 12.30 GMT
So the Copenhagen summit did not deliver any hope of substantive change, or even any indication that the world's leaders are sufficiently aware of the vastness and urgency of the problem. But is that such a surprise? Nothing in the much-hyped runup to the summit suggested that the organisers and participants had genuine ambitions to change course and stop or reverse a process of clearly unsustainable growth.
Part of the problem is that the issue of climate change is increasingly portrayed as that of competing interests between countries. Thus, the summit has been interpreted variously as a fight between the "two largest culprits" - the US and China - or between a small group of developed countries and a small group of newly emerging countries (the group of four - China, India, Brazil and South Africa), or at best between rich and poor countries.
The historical legacy of past growth in the rich countries that has a current adverse impact is certainly keenly felt in the developing world. It is not just the past: current per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world are still many multiples of that in any developing country, including China. So the attempts by northern commentators to lay blame on some countries for derailing the result by pointing to this discrepancy are seen in most developing countries as further evidence of an essentially colonial outlook.
But describing this as a fight between countries misses the essential point: that the issue is really linked to an economic system - capitalism - that is crucially dependent upon rapid growth as its driving force, even if this "growth" does not deliver better lives for the people. So there is no questioning of the supposition that rich countries with declining populations mu
"* Entergy to reduce Enexus' debt to $3 bln
* Entergy to restrict Enexus' dividend policy
NEW YORK, March 3 (Reuters) - Entergy Corp (ETR.N), in an effort to win New York's approval for the proposed spinoff of its non-regulated nuclear reactors, this week offered to give the state up to $300 million for energy efficiency funds, among other things.
The New York Public Service Commission planned to consider Entergy's latest offer at a meeting on Thursday."
"While officials in Washington continue to pass the political hot potato of nuclear waste production and disposal, the Palmetto State has been left holding the bag. The issues on the ground surrounding the nuclear industry in South Carolina are as perplexing as the national policies at the heart of the debate. On one hand, the Savannah River Site and the two new slated nuclear reactors in Jenkinsville and Cherokee County provide jobs and utilities; on the other hand we face the necessary evil of nuclear waste production and storage, a prospect made grimmer after the federal government recently backpedaled on plans to open the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada.
The good news: the four new nuclear reactors slated to be built in our state will be constructed using a state of the art, efficient design, but the bad news: a recent (still disputed) study found a potential flaw in the design that could spew radioactive particles to the four winds. Good news: the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) has rescinded an order to triple waste canister density at SRS, but the bad news: the waste that was supposed to be temporary is still there indefinitely… sort of a black mushroom cloud with a silver lining."
The Limerick nuclear power plant in Montgomery County is about to undergo a major facelift. Improvements the company says are designed to increase the amount of electricity the plant puts out.
The first phase of the upgrade or in industry terms "uprate" involves installing equipment to get better readings and allow the plant to operate closer to its legal capacity. Exelon officials say that could yield an improvement of up to two percent.
Limerick communications manager Joe Szafran says the industry is focused on getting as much electricity as it can from the reactors that are out there and doing it more efficiently:
The Limerick nuclear power plant in Montgomery County is about to undergo a major facelift. Improvements the company says are designed to increase the amount of electricity the plant puts out.
The first phase of the upgrade or in industry terms "uprate" involves installing equipment to get better readings and allow the plant to operate closer to its legal capacity. Exelon officials say that could yield an improvement of up to two percent.
Limerick communications manager Joe Szafran says the industry is focused on getting as much electricity as it can from the reactors that are out there and doing it more efficiently:
"There is growing anger at proposals to build a new nuclear power station on the site of the second-oldest wind farm in Britain.
Wind farm climate change global warming
The site is just 100 metres away from the Lake District border
Situated just 100 metres from the Lake District border, the small community-owned Haverigg wind farm in Kirksanton is one of the most efficient in the country.
The land has made the Government shortlist of 10 sites judged potentially suitable for new nuclear build.
Wind farm co-owner, Colin Palmer, told Sky News the turbines would have to be demolished if the plans go ahead because of underground cables."
"Uranium nitride, a nuclear fuel that might one day offer a more efficient alternative to the uranium and plutonium oxides now used, has been given a boost by research that has illuminated its reactive properties.
The threat of climate change and uncertain fossil fuel prices have made nuclear power a tempting option for meeting some of the world's future energy needs. The nuclear industry today uses oxides of uranium and plutonium, but some chemists think they could one day be replaced with uranium nitrides."
The plan addresses the department's excess inventory of highly enriched uranium, depleted uranium, natural uranium and low-enriched uranium. That includes 67.6 metric tons of surplus HEU (stored at Y-12 in Oak Ridge) that currently is unallocated for any purpose.
In a statement released by DOE, Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis Spurgeon said, "The plan will promote an efficient disposition approach that seeks to limit adverse material impacts on the domestic uranium mining, conversion and enrichment industries while maximizing the return to the U.S. government on sales of this valuable uranium."
