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If Fukushima happened in the US? The people would pay the bill.

The French generate approximately 80% of their energy using nuclear power.  They have realized the long-term financial and environmental benefits to nuclear power and have continued supporting the industry and its growth within their country and abroad.  AREVA, the French nuclear engineering firm, continues to work with partner companies to license and construct new nuclear plants and fuel facilities, such as the uranium enrichment plant in Idaho.” But in other countries, “nuclear plants are trying to get by with fewer people,” Sewell explained.  However, the more safety mechanisms that are developed in the industry, the more financial support the nuclear energy industry will receive.  One big safety development is in regard to the nuclear reactors themselves.

The newest nuclear reactors (Generation IIIs) have additional layers of safety and technology to stave off a meltdown in the event of a power loss (as happened at Fukushima).  The first of the Generation III reactors is due to come online in 2016 at The Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, located in Georgia,” said Sewell. The more safety measures that are developed, the more proactive the nuclear energy industry can be in addressing problem areas before a catastrophe happens.  I'm sure this won't make everyone feel safe tonight though, will it?

The fund can be used regardless of fiscal years. Fukushima Prefecture had strongly demanded the financial support from the national government for its "special fund for dealing with the nuclear accident and for the recovery". The national government and the Fukushima prefectural government will use this fund to build medical centers and R&D centers for medical equipments that are of international standard.

The remaining 150 billion yen will be used by the national government to financially help small businesses and agricultural, forestry and fishery businesses, to build R&D centers for renewable energy, and to deal with the "baseless rumor" damages [suffered by businesses in Fukushima Prefecture].Financial help will be in the form of loans to businesses.Fukushima Medical University, where Dr. Shunichi "It's so safe that children can play outside in nuclear fallout" Yamashita resides, wants 100 billion yen (link is in Japanese) to build a world-class hospital to treat cancer.

And Iitate-mura, where the Ministry of Education belatedly admitted to the existence of plutonium (and others to come), wants over 300 billion yen just for the village for the "decontamination" work.The fiscal 2011 budget of the Fukushima prefectural government is about 903billion yen. Adding the supplementary budgets, the total tally for this fiscal year so far is about 1.43 trillion yen. This injection of 500 billion yen from the national government, which is likely to be open-ended, represents more than one-third of the entire budget for Fukushima.

“In these shale gas plays no well is really economic right now,” the geologist said in a previous e-mail to the same official on March 16. “They are all losing a little money or only making a little bit of money.”

Around the same time the geologist sent the e-mail, Mr. McClendon, Chesapeake’s chief executive, told investors, “It’s time to get bullish on natural gas.”

Aubrey McClendon, whose name is not terribly familiar to people outside of the energy industry, has an enormous financial interest in encouraging customers to become addicted to natural gas so that they will keep buying even if the price shoots up – like it did in the period from 2000-2008. During that time McClendon and his company rode a wave that resulted in growing a company from tiny to huge based on debt-financed investments in leases and drilling rigs designed to produce gas in the midcontinent region of the US. A high portion of the company’s wells were stimulated with hydraulic fracturing.

When the price of natural gas collapsed in 2008, mostly as a result of the contraction in demand caused by the financial crisis and resulting economic recession/depression, McClendon nearly lost control of his company. He had to sell “substantially all” of shares at a dramatically lowered price in order to pay off creditors and meet margin calls.

No U.S. chief executive officer has bought more of his own company’s stock in recent years than McClendon, even as the shares reached all-time highs. His appetite for Chesapeake stock made him “a darling of Wall Street,” Tulsa money manager Jake Dollarhide said. But his purchases were made on margin, meaning he used borrowed money. As the value of the stock fell, McClendon was forced to raise cash to meet margin calls. Recent losses — Chesapeake shares have plummeted 60 percent in the past three weeks — left him unable to fulfill those requirements.Read more: http://newsok.com/market-slide-wipes-out-ceos-chesapeake-holdings/article/3310107#ixzz1QSst9NnL

McClendon responded vigorously to the NY Times’s suggestion that the gas revolution was more mirage than miracle in a lengthy letter to Chesapeake Energy employees that was published on the company’s public Facebook page. (Note: The timing of this letter with regard to the NY Times article is telling. The article appeared in the Sunday edition of the Times on June 26, 2011. The letter to employees included a time stamp indicating that it was released at 8:37 pm on the same day while the Facebook page indicates that it was posted to the world by 11:27 pm. In other words – there is no rest for the weary in the Internet era.)

McClendon’s letter blamed the NY Times article on environmental activists that proclaim a desire to supply all of the US energy needs from wind and solar energy. It also issued a call to action for Chesapeake Energy employees:

We hope that every Chesapeake employee can be part of our public education outreach. At more than 11,000 strong, we are an army of “factivists” – people who have knowledge of the facts and the personal knowledge and ability to spread them. You can do this by talking to your families, friends and others in your spheres of influence (schools, churches, civic organizations, etc) about the kind of company you work for and the integrity of what we do every day for our shareholders, our communities, our states, our nation, our economy and our environment. You don’t have to be an expert to stand up and tell folks that Chesapeake is committed to doing what’s right – and that commitment is expressed every day by you and your colleagues across the company.

You can also get involved by joining Chesapeake Fed PAC, our political action committee. Our opponents are extremely well funded and organized. We need to make sure our voice is heard in Washington, DC and with elected officials who are making decisions that affect our industry, our company and our ability to operate in the many states in which shale gas and oil have been discovered.

After describing how Chesapeake has 125 active drilling rigs and how it has developed a “swat team” with more than 100 employees that works with environmental groups to produce legislation designed to slow the development of new coal fired power plants and to hasten the closure of existing coal plants, Tom Price said the following:

“It’s been said before, but the demand side of the equation is extremely important right now. I mean this really is a zero sum game. I think that there are a number of very progressive utilities out there that recognize the challenges that they are facing with regard to climate change, but the Transport Rule, Clean Air Act and various others.”

I remain convinced that there is a market battle going on between natural gas and nuclear energy.

CPS didn’t just pull nukes out of a hat when it went looking for energy options. CEO Milton Lee may be intellectually lazy, but he’s not stupid. Seeking to fulfill the cheap power mandate in San Antonio and beyond (CPS territory covers 1,566 square miles, reaching past Bexar County into Atascosa, Bandera, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina, and Wilson counties), staff laid natural gas, coal, renewables and conservation, and nuclear side-by-side and proclaimed nukes triumphant. Coal is cheap upfront, but it’s helplessly foul; natural gas, approaching the price of whiskey, is out; and green solutions just aren’t ready, we’re told. The 42-member Nuclear Expansion Analysis Team, or NEAT, proclaimed “nuclear is the lowest overall risk considering possible costs and risks associated with it as compared to the alternatives.” Hear those crickets chirping?

NEAT members would hold more than a half-dozen closed-door meetings before the San Antonio City Council got a private briefing in September. When the CPS board assembled October 1 to vote the NRG partnership up or down, CPS executives had already joined the application pending with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. A Supplemental Participation Agreement allowed NRG to move quickly in hopes of cashing in on federal incentives while giving San Antonio time to gather its thoughts. That proved not too difficult. Staff spoke of “overwhelming support” from the Citizen’s Advisory Board and easy relations with City staff. “So far, we haven’t seen any fatal flaws in our analysis,” said Mike Kotera, executive vice president of energy development for CPS. With boardmember and Mayor Phil Hardberger still in China inspecting things presumably Chinese, the vote was reset for October 29.

No one at the meeting asked about cost, though the board did request a month-by-month analysis of the fiasco that has been the South Texas Project 1&2 to be delivered at Monday’s meeting. When asked privately about cost, several CPS officers said they did not know what the plants would run, and the figure — if it were known — would not be public since it is the subject of contract negotiations. “We don’t know yet,” said Bob McCullough, director of CPS’s corporate communications. “We are not making the commitment to build the plant. We’re not sure at this point we really understand what it’s going to cost.” The $206 million outlay the board will consider on Monday is not to build the pair of 1,300-megawatt, Westinghouse Advanced Boiling Water Reactors. It is also not a contract to purchase power, McCullough said. It is merely to hold a place in line for that power.

It’s likely that we would come on a recurring basis back to the board to keep them apprised of where we are and also the decision of whether or not we think it makes sense for us to go forward,” said Larry Blaylock, director of CPS’s Nuclear Oversight & Development. So, at what point will the total cost of the new plants become transparent to taxpayers? CPS doesn’t have that answer. “At this point, it looks like in order to meet our load growth, nuclear looks like our lowest-risk choice and we think it’s worth spending some money to make sure we hold that place in line,” said Mark Werner, director of Energy Market Operations.

Another $10 million request for “other new nuclear project opportunities” will also come to the board Monday. That request summons to mind a March meeting between CPS officials and Exelon Energy reps, followed by a Spurs playoff game. Chicago-based Exelon, currently being sued in Illinois for allegedly releasing millions of gallons of radioactive wastewater beneath an Illinois plant, has its own nuclear ambitions for Texas. South Texas Project The White House champions nuclear, and strong tax breaks and subsidies await those early applicants. Whether CPS qualifies for those millions remains to be seen. We can only hope.

CPS has opted for the Super Honkin’ Utility model. Not only that — quivering on the brink of what could be a substantial efficiency program, CPS took a leap into our unflattering past when it announced it hopes to double our nuclear “portfolio” by building two new nuke plants in Matagorda County. The utility joined New Jersey-based NRG Energy in a permit application that could fracture an almost 30-year moratorium on nuclear power plant creation in the U.S.

After Unit 1 came online in 1988, it had to be shut down after water-pump shaft seared off in May, showering debris “all over the place,” according to Nucleonics Week. The next month two breakers failed during a test of backup power, leading to an explosion that sheared off a steam-generator pump and shot the shaft into the station yard. After the second unit went online the next year, there were a series of fires and failures leading to a half-million-dollar federal fine in 1993 against Houston Power. Then the plant went offline for 14 months. Not the glorious launch the partnership had hoped for. Today, CPS officials still do not know how much STP has cost the city, though they insist overall it has been a boon worth billions. “It’s not a cut-and-dried analysis. We’re doing what we can to try to put that in terms that someone could share and that’s a chore,” said spokesman McCollough. CPS has appealed numerous Open Records requests by the Current to the state Attorney General. The utility argues that despite being owned by the City they are not required to reveal, for instance, how much it may cost to build a plant or even how much pollution a plant generates, since the electricity market is a competitive field.

How do we usher in this new utopia of decentralized power? First, we have to kill CPS and bury it — or the model it is run on, anyway. What we resurrect in its place must have sustainability as its cornerstone, meaning that the efficiency standards the City and the utility have been reaching for must be rapidly eclipsed. Not only are new plants not the solution, they actively misdirect needed dollars away from the answer. Whether we commit $500 million to build a new-fangled “clean-coal” power plant or choose to feed multiple billions into a nuclear quagmire, we’re eliminating the most plausible option we have: rapid decentralization.

A 2003 study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates the cost of nuclear power to exceed that of both coal and natural gas. A U.S. Energy Information Administration report last year found that will still be the case when and if new plants come online in the next decade. If ratepayers don’t pay going in with nuclear, they can bet on paying on the way out, when virtually the entire power plant must be disposed of as costly radioactive waste. The federal government’s inability to develop a repository for the tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste means reactors across the country are storing spent fuel in onsite holding ponds. It is unclear if the waste’s lethality and tens of thousands of years of radioactivity were factored into NEAT’s glowing analysis.

The federal dump choice, Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, is expected to cost taxpayers more than $60 billion. If it opens, Yucca will be full by the time STP 3&4 are finished, requiring another federal dump and another trainload of greenbacks. Just the cost of Yucca’s fence would set you back. Add the price of replacing a chain-link fence around, let’s say, a 100-acre waste site. Now figure you’re gonna do that every 50 years for 10,000 years or more. Security guards cost extra. That is not to say that the city should skip back to the coal mine. Thankfully, we don’t need nukes or coal, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a D.C.-based non-profit that champions energy efficiency. A collection of reports released this year argue that a combination of ramped-up efficiency programs, construction of numerous “combined heat and power” facilities, and installation of on-site renewable energy resources would allow the state to avoid building new power plants. Texas could save $73 billion in electric generation costs by spending $50 billion between now and 2023 on such programs, according to the research group. The group also claims the efficiency revolution would even be good for the economy, creating 38,300 jobs. If ACEEE is even mostly right, plans to start siphoning millions into a nuclear reservoir look none too inspired.

To jump tracks will take a major conversion experience inside CPS and City Hall, a turning from the traditional model of towering plants, reels of transmission line, and jillions of dependent consumers. CPS must “decentralize” itself, as cities as close as Austin and as far away as Seattle are doing. It’s not only economically responsible and environmentally sound, but it is the best way to protect our communities entering what is sure to be a harrowing century. Greening CPS CPS is grudgingly going greener. In 2004, a team of consultants, including Wisconsin-based KEMA Inc., hired to review CPS operations pegged the utility as a “a company in transition.” Executives interviewed didn’t understand efficiency as a business model. Even some managers tapped to implement conservation programs said such programs were about “appearing” concerned, according to KEMA’s findings.

While the review exposed some philosophical shortcomings, it also revealed for the first time how efficiency could transform San Antonio. It was technically possible, for instance, for CPS to cut electricity demand by 1,935 megawatts in 10 years through efficiency alone. While that would be accompanied with significant economic strain, a less-stressful scenario could still cut 1,220 megawatts in that period — eliminating 36 percent of 2014’s projected energy use. CPS’s current plans call for investing $96 million to achieve a 225-megawatt reduction by 2016. The utility plans to spend more than four times that much by 2012 upgrading pollution controls at the coal-fired J.T. Deely power plant.

In hopes of avoiding the construction of Spruce 2 (now being built, a marvel of cleanliness, we are assured), Citizen Oversight Committee members asked KEMA if it were possible to eliminate 500 megawatts from future demand through energy efficiency alone. KEMA reported back that, yes, indeed it was possible, but would represent an “extreme” operation and may have “unintended consequences.” Such an effort would require $620 million and include covering 90 percent of the cost of efficiency products for customers. But an interesting thing happens under such a model — the savings don’t end in 2012. They stretch on into the future. The 504 megawatts that never had to be generated in 2012 end up saving 62 new megawatts of generation in 2013 and another 53 megawatts in 2014. With a few tweaks on the efficiency model, not only can we avoid new plants, but a metaphorical flip of the switch can turn the entire city into one great big decentralized power generator.

Even without good financial data, the Citizen’s Advisory Board has gone along with the plan for expansion. The board would be “pennywise and pound foolish” not to, since the city is already tied to STP 1&2, said at-large member Jeannie O’Sullivan. “Yes, in the past the board of CPS had been a little bit not as for taking on a [greater] percentage of nuclear power. I don’t know what their reasons were, I think probably they didn’t have a dialogue with a lot of different people,” O’Sullivan said.

For this, having a City-owned utility offers an amazing opportunity and gives us the flexibility to make most of the needed changes without state or federal backing. “Really, when you start looking, there is a lot more you can do at the local level,” said Neil Elliott of the ACEEE, “because you control building codes. You control zoning. You can control siting. You can make stuff happen at the local level that the state really doesn’t have that much control of.” One of the most empowering options for homeowners is homemade energy provided by a technology like solar. While CPS has expanded into the solar incentives field this year, making it only the second utility in the state to offer rebates on solar water heaters and rooftop panels, the incentives for those programs are limited. Likewise, the $400,000 CPS is investing at the Pearl Brewery in a joint solar “project” is nice as a white tiger at a truck stop, but what is truly needed is to heavily subsidize solar across the city to help kickstart a viable solar industry in the state. The tools of energy generation, as well as the efficient use of that energy, must be spread among the home and business owners.

Joel Serface, with bulb-polished pate and heavy gaze, refers to himself as a “product of the oil shock” who first discovered renewables at Texas Tech’s summer “geek camp.” The possibilities stayed with him through his days as a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and eventually led him to Austin to head the nation’s first clean-energy incubation center. Serface made his pitch at a recent Solar San Antonio breakfast by contrasting Texas with those sun-worshipping Californians. Energy prices, he says, are “going up. They’re not going down again.” That fact makes alternative energies like solar, just starting to crack the 10-cent-per-killowatt barrier, financially viable. “The question we have to solve as an economy is, ‘Do we want to be a leader in that, or do we want to allow other countries [to outpace us] and buy this back from them?’” he asked.

To remain an energy leader, Texas must rapidly exploit solar. Already, we are fourth down the list when it comes not only to solar generation, but also patents issued and federal research awards. Not surprisingly, California is kicking silicon dust in our face.

An insurance system based on the Act on Compensation for Nuclear Damage allows 120 billion yen of that amount to be covered by the government. TEPCO soon plans to ask the government for the payment. Although TEPCO can receive government funding for compensation payments, it has to procure its own financial resources to cover the cost of fuel for thermal power generation, which is expected to increase because of suspended nuclear reactors. This may also hurt the utility's financial state. It has, therefore, been proposed that the Compensation Facilitation Corp. could fund TEPCO to help increase its capital. Nishizawa, however, is cool to that idea. "We will revamp our management through streamlining as a private enterprise," he said. "We will make every effort to get along without receiving (the injection of public funds)."

Dip in revenue predicted by Solco Solco, the solar company based in Washington, foresees a sudden dip in revenues for the financial year 2011. However, Solco sales figures bounced back up in September following a prominent fall in July and August 2011, and the company looks at it as a continual occurrence. But owing to the speedy expansion of its national division of solar products, Solco anticipates a fall in revenues to as low as USD 41 million in the year 2011/12, post a 56 percent jump hitting the mark of USD 53.7 Million in 2010/11.

t Solco’s record making profit figures in 2010/11 has stabilized the company’s financial standing which would take them safely across the deteriorating market phase. Solco says that it is acquiring several mid-sized projects across the country,

Predictions for solar panels Solar Panel makers are mostly expected to be faced with huge heaps of excess material in the next year, as many analysts predict considerably lower sales in 2012 following a rise of 40 percent in this year. According to this week’s report of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, prominent dips in the major European market subsidies translate into lower buying capacity in next year as compared to the current year. In contrast to 24.5 GW in 2011, installations would be very low to the tune of 23.8 GW in 2012, thereby increasing pressure on companies burdened with dipping prices and piling stocks.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Martin Simonek said that greater demand in 2011 as compared to last year has sustained many nations. It would be a different scenario in 2012. However, then again, different people predict differently. According to Simonek, 2011 installations could rise as high as 29.4 GW, whereas, 2012 could see installations from as low as the basic 23.8 GW to the towering 31.8 GW mark.

Goldman Sachs predicts a dip by 10 percent in 2012, bringing annual additional installed capacity down to 20.8 GW as compared to 19.6 GW predicted this year. While Vishal Shah, an analyst from Deutsche Bank predicts 21GW in 2011 and 25GW in 2012, silicon manufacturer Wacker Chemie foresees between 22GW to 26GW in 2011. Solar panel maker Yingli Green estimates it to be between 18 to 19 GW in 2011. Simonek of Bloomberg forecasts an increased demand in 2013, when developing and promising nations see a healthy competition in solar energy by way of introduction of low priced panels.

Hope In The Desert

Desertec, a highly anticipated and venturesome project that endeavours to aid the power industry in Europe with solar power deduced from the Sahara desert is expected to kick off its first ever power plant, worth USD 800 million, in Morocco.

Desertec will launch the first solar thermal 150 MW plant, the first one in the entire network worth USD 400 million. This would also mark the launch of solar PV, and wind provisions, spanning from Egypt to Morocco. The CEO of the project management company Dii, Paul van Son said in a Bloomberg interview that he is very certain that firm and permanent measures would be adopted in 2012. Owing to its stability, government support for expansion of renewable energy and connectivity to Europe through two cables running in the sea all throughout the Strait of Gibraltar, with free power of as much as 1000MW, Morocco would be tested for the first development.

many other nations in North Africa are far ahead of Desertec in executing projects of their own. There are some plants located in Egypt while others are being planned somewhere.

4. Brief Overview of Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing (from June 16 hearing charter)  Nuclear reactors generate about 20 percent of the electricity used in the U.S. No new nuclear plants have been ordered in the U.S. since 1973, but there is renewed interest in nuclear energy both because it could reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and because it produces no greenhouse gas emissions.  One of the barriers to increased use of nuclear energy is concern about nuclear waste. Every nuclear power reactor produces approximately 20 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste every year. Today, that waste is stored on-site at the nuclear reactors in water-filled cooling pools or, at some sites, after sufficient cooling, in dry casks above ground. About 50,000 metric tons of commercial spent fuel is being stored at 73 sites in 33 states. A recent report issued by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that this stored waste could be vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Under the current plan for long-term disposal of nuclear waste, the waste from around the country would be moved to a permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which is now scheduled to open around 2012. The Yucca Mountain facility continues to be a subject of controversy. But even if it opened and functioned as planned, it would have only enough space to store the nuclear waste the U.S. is expected to generate by about 2010.  Consequently, there is growing interest in finding ways to reduce the quantity of nuclear waste. A number of other nations, most notably France and Japan, ''reprocess'' their nuclear waste. Reprocessing involves separating out the various components of nuclear waste so that a portion of the waste can be recycled and used again as nuclear fuel (instead of disposing of all of it). In addition to reducing the quantity of high-level nuclear waste, reprocessing makes it possible to use nuclear fuel more efficiently. With reprocessing, the same amount of nuclear fuel can generate more electricity because some components of it can be used as fuel more than once.

The greatest drawback of reprocessing is that current reprocessing technologies produce weapons-grade plutonium (which is one of the components of the spent fuel). Any activity that increases the availability of plutonium increases the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.  Because of proliferation concerns, the U.S. decided in the 1970s not to engage in reprocessing. (The policy decision was reversed the following decade, but the U.S. still did not move toward reprocessing.) But the Department of Energy (DOE) has continued to fund research and development (R&D) on nuclear reprocessing technologies, including new technologies that their proponents claim would reduce the risk of proliferation from reprocessing.

The report accompanying H.R. 2419, the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006, which the House passed in May, directed DOE to focus research in its Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative program on improving nuclear reprocessing technologies. The report went on to state, ''The Department shall accelerate this research in order to make a specific technology recommendation, not later than the end of fiscal year 2007, to the President and Congress on a particular reprocessing technology that should be implemented in the United States. In addition, the Department shall prepare an integrated spent fuel recycling plan for implementation beginning in fiscal year 2007, including recommendation of an advanced reprocessing technology and a competitive process to select one or more sites to develop integrated spent fuel recycling facilities.''

During floor debate on H.R. 2419, the House defeated an amendment that would have cut funding for research on reprocessing. In arguing for the amendment, its sponsor, Mr. Markey, explicitly raised the risks of weapons proliferation. Specifically, the amendment would have cut funding for reprocessing activities and interim storage programs by $15.5 million and shifted the funds to energy efficiency activities, effectively repudiating the report language. The amendment was defeated by a vote of 110–312.

But nuclear reprocessing remains controversial, even within the scientific community. In May 2005, the American Physical Society (APS) Panel on Public Affairs, issued a report, Nuclear Power and Proliferation Resistance: Securing Benefits, Limiting Risk. APS, which is the leading organization of the Nation's physicists, is on record as strongly supporting nuclear power. But the APS report takes the opposite tack of the Appropriations report, stating, ''There is no urgent need for the U.S. to initiate reprocessing or to develop additional national repositories. DOE programs should be aligned accordingly: shift the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative R&D away from an objective of laying the basis for a near-term reprocessing decision; increase support for proliferation-resistance R&D and technical support for institutional measures for the entire fuel cycle.''  Technological as well as policy questions remain regarding reprocessing. It is not clear whether the new reprocessing technologies that DOE is funding will be developed sufficiently by 2007 to allow the U.S. to select a technology to pursue. There is also debate about the extent to which new technologies can truly reduce the risks of proliferation.

 It is also unclear how selecting a reprocessing technology might relate to other pending technology decisions regarding nuclear energy. For example, the U.S. is in the midst of developing new designs for nuclear reactors under DOE's Generation IV program. Some of the potential new reactors would produce types of nuclear waste that could not be reprocessed using some of the technologies now being developed with DOE funding.

5. Brief Overview of Economics of Reprocessing

The economics of reprocessing are hard to predict with any certainty because there are few examples around the world on which economists might base a generalized model.  Some of the major factors influencing the economic competitiveness of reprocessing are: the availability and cost of uranium, costs associated with interim storage and long-term disposal in a geologic repository, reprocessing plant construction and operating costs, and costs associated with transmutation, the process by which certain parts of the spent fuel are actively reduced in toxicity to address long-term waste management.

Costs associated with reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-powered plants could help make nuclear power, including reprocessing, economically competitive with other sources of electricity in a free market.

 It is not clear who would pay for reprocessing in the U.S.

Three recent studies have examined the economics of nuclear power. In a study completed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003, The Future of Nuclear Power, an interdisciplinary panel, including Professor Richard Lester, looked at all aspects of nuclear power from waste management to economics to public perception. In a study requested by the Department of Energy and conducted at the University of Chicago in 2004, The Economic Future of Nuclear Power, economist Dr. Donald Jones and his colleague compared costs of future nuclear power to other sources, and briefly looked at the incremental costs of an advanced fuel cycle. In a 2003 study conducted by a panel including Matthew Bunn (a witness at the June 16 hearing) and Professor Steve Fetter, The Economics of Reprocessing vs. Direct Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel, the authors took a detailed look at the costs associated with an advanced fuel cycle. All three studies seem more or less to agree on cost estimates: the incremental cost of nuclear electricity to the consumer, with reprocessing, could be modest—on the order of 1–2 mills/kWh (0.1–0.2 cents per kilowatt-hour); on the other hand, this increase represents an approximate doubling (at least) of the costs attributable to spent fuel management, compared to the current fuel cycle (no reprocessing). Where they strongly disagree is on how large an impact this incremental cost will have on the competitiveness of nuclear power. The University of Chicago authors conclude that the cost of reprocessing is negligible in the big picture, where capital costs of new plants dominate all economic analyses. The other two studies take a more skeptical view—because new nuclear power would already be facing tough competition in the current market, any additional cost would further hinder the nuclear power industry, or become an unacceptable and unnecessary financial burden on the government.

6. Background

Upcoming Events A July 28 public Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting will focus on the agency’s near-term task force recommendations for safety enhancements at U.S. nuclear energy facilities after the Fukushima accident. The Foundation for Nuclear Studies will host a July 29 briefing and discussion on the status of Fukushima Daiichi for congressional staff in Washington, D.C. The briefing will be conducted by Lake Barrett, former NRC site director for Three Mile Island and former acting director of the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

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Alistair Phillips-Davies, a spokesman for SSE, told financial wire services is was the money, and not politics, that drove the decision. "We have concluded, that for the time being, our resources are better deployed on business activities and technologies where we have the greatest knowledge and experience." SSE had put money on the table to get into the nuclear game. With its two partners at NuGen, in 2009 the alliance bought the government approved site for the planned reactors for £70 million ($109 million). At a 25% share, that works out to a commitment of about £18 million or around $27 million. This may sound like a lot of money, but SSE has a market cap of just over £12 billion which makes the site acquisition costs a sneeze on a summer day.

This entity is to collect funds by issuing special government bonds and collecting contributions from other utilities that run nuclear power plants in Japan. The content of the panel's report will be reflected in Tepco's special operating plan, which is to be compiled with the entity this month. "Including the streamlining suggestion from the report in the special operating plan is like a minimum requirement for Tepco," said Kazuhiko Shimokobe, the lawyer who headed the panel. The report also points out that restarting the reactors at the sprawling Kashiwazaki-Kariwa power plant in Niigata Prefecture, the world's largest nuclear power plant, will be crucial to Tepco's medium term plan. Simulations in the report link the timing of the restarts and rate hike to Tepco's cash flow.

According to one simulation, if Tepco doesn't raise prices or restart the reactors in the next 10 years, it will face a cash shortage of about ¥8.6 trillion in fiscal 2020. Another says that if Tepco restarts the reactors by the end of fiscal 2014 and raises prices 10 percent, it will cut the shortage to ¥790 billion in fiscal 2020. First policy review The government was convening the first meeting of a panel of experts Monday to review the nation's energy policy in light of the Fukushima nuclear crisis. The panel, set up under the trade ministry's energy advisory panel, is tasked with reviewing Japan's basic energy plan, revised last year, which calls for building more than 14 new reactors to boost national reliance on nuclear energy to 53 percent by 2030 from about 30 percent. Its talks will likely differ from past ones as around 10 of its 25 members oppose nuclear power. A previous panel had few opponents because the ministry was promoting atomic power. The panel, headed by Nippon Steel Corp. Chairman Akio Mimura, plans to hold one or two meetings a month to compile a new energy plan by next summer.

However, in 2010 the NDA and ten Japanese utilities agreed on a plan to refurbish the SMP "on the earliest timescale" using technology from France's Areva. A new rod manufacturing line was being installed which, as well as improving overall performance, was meant to ultimately replace the existing one. The NDA's Sellafield site – including the SMP - is managed by Nuclear Management Partners, a consortium of URS of the USA, AMEC of the UK and Areva of France. Taking the back-end forward

The two major elements in the UK's strategy for the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle were SMP and the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp), at which used nuclear fuel is reprocessed to separate uranium and plutonium from wastes that go on to be vitrified ready for permanent disposal. A document released in March 2010 highlighted that Thorp would require refurbishment or replacement to handle the complete inventory of used nuclear fuel it was built to process - all that coming from the fleet of Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors (AGR) as well as international contracts. Some 6600 tonnes of AGR fuel remains outstanding, with options for storing it unclear until a permanent repository is available in about 2030.

Simultaneously, the UK is considering the future of some 100 tonnes of civil plutonium, which is currently classified as a 'zero value asset'. A public consultation on this ran from February to May. In late March the former science advisor to Tony Blair, Sir David King, presented a range of options which in essence showed it makes sense to produce MOX fuel from the plutonium. The question for the UK is whether it wants to offset the cost of this with extra savings and revenues from the potentially expensive return to the full nuclear fuel cycle that would come with a refurbishment of Thorp.

A cost-benefit analysis of a new MOX plant has been commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and a decision based on that is expected before the end of this year.

Most nuclear blogs have a “blog roll”which list other publishers of information on the nuclear energy field.  Areva has done this on its North American blog. Areva handles the issue of avoiding any appearance of endorsement by noting that the list with more than two dozen entries is one of “blogs we read.” Areva also has several years of experience reaching out to the nuclear blogger community with monthly conference calls. The blog of the Nuclear Energy Institute, NEI Nuclear Notes,  lists a wide range of nuclear blogs including this one as well as the blogs published by independent analysts.

Duke’s Web site is a completely modern effort set up like a blog, with new entries on a frequent basis. On the right column, the site has a list of other places to get nuclear energy information, including the American Nuclear Society (ANS), the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The Nuclear Information Center announces right at the top that “In this online space, you will find educational information on the nuclear industry and the nuclear stations operated by Duke Energy. We will feature insights into radiation, new nuclear, emergency planning and more . . . allowing readers to get an inside view of the industry.” That’s a big step for a nuclear utility. The reason is that like many publicly traded electric utilities, it generates electricity from several fuel sources, including coal, natural gas, solar, wind, and nuclear. Because these utilities have huge customer rate bases and supply chains, they are inherently conservative about the information they publish on their Web sites. Also, there are significant legal and financial reasons why a utility might or might not put information out there for public consumption. Press releases receive scrutiny from the general counsel and chief financial officer for very important reasons having to do with regulatory oversight and shareholder value.

Idaho National Laboratory, Areva, and recruiter CoolHandNuke.

Taken together, the four blogs that reported monthly page views represent 100,000 visits to online information pages on nuclear energy or an effective rate of well over 1 million page views per year. These are real numbers and the data are just for a small sample of the more than two dozen blogs on nuclear energy that update at least once a week. Another interesting set of statistics is who reads North American blogs overseas? It turns out that the international readership is concentrated in a small group of countries. They include, in alphabetical order for the same sample of blogs, the following countries: Australia Canada France Germany India Japan United Kingdom

Who reads nuclear energy blogs? So, who is reading nuclear blogs? On the ANS Social Media listserv, I asked this question recently and got some interesting results for the month of May 2011. Here’s a sample of the replies: Michele Kearny, at the Nuclear Wire, a news service, reports for the month of May 18,812 page views. Michele’s blog is a fast-moving series of news links that keeps readers coming back for updates. Will Davis, at Atomic Power Review, who has been publishing high quality, in-depth technical updates about Fukushima, reports 31,613 page views for the same month. Rod Adams, who recently updated the template at his blog at Atomic Insights, reported his numbers in terms of absolute visitors. He cites Google Analytics as reporting 10,583 unique visitors for May. Rod emphasizes commentary and analysis across a wide range of nuclear subjects. At my blog Idaho Samizdat, I can report 6,945 visitors and 24,938 page views for May 2011. The blog covers economic and political news about nuclear energy and nonproliferation issues. At ANS Nuclear Cafe, this blog uses WordPress to track readers, reporting 24,476 page views for the same four-week period as the other blogs. During the height of the Fukushima crisis on a single day, March 14, 2011, the blog attained over 55,000 page views as people poured on to the Internet in search of information about the situation in Japan.

5,000 people interact on LinkedIn, moderated by nuclear industry consultant Ed Kee. It is called “Nuclear Power Next Generation” and is one of dozens of such groups related to nuclear energy on the professional networking site.

Nuclear energy is not so widely represented on Facebook as on LinkedIn, despite its enormous popularity, and isn’t conducive to the kinds of technical dialogs that populate other nuclear social media sites. While the Facebook format is attractive to lifestyle information such as dating and the promotion of entertainment, sports, and consumer packaged goods, it doesn’t seem to work as well for business and engineering topics. It turns out Facebook is a good way to offer a “soft sell” for recruitment purposes to drive traffic to nuclear energy organization recruitment pages. It can answer the questions of what’s it like to work for an organization and the attractive amenities of life in the employer’s home town. Videos and photos can help deliver these messages.

On the other hand, Twitter, even with its limits of 140 characters, is enormously useful for the nuclear energy field. Twitter users who follow the output of nuclear bloggers number in the tens of thousands, and many nuclear energy organizations, including the major utilities such as Entergy, have invested in a Twitter account to have a presence on the service. The American Nuclear Society “tweets” under @ans_org and posts updates daily on the situation at Fukushima

Web sites maintained by NEI and the World Nuclear Organization had to make fast upgrades to their computer servers to handle millions of inquires from the media and the public and on a global scale. Getting out the facts of the situation to respond to these inquiries was facilitated by this online presence at an unprecedented scale. Even so, newspapers often had anti-nuclear groups on speed dial early in the crisis and their voices reached an unsettled public with messages of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. In response, ANS used technical experts on its social media listserv to information media engagements, which reached millions of views on network television and major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post.

This useful mix of free form communication on the listserv and excellent outreach by Clark Communications, working for ANS, made a difference in getting the facts about Fukushima to an understandably anxious public. Margaret Harding, a consulting nuclear engineer with deep experience with boiling water reactor fuels, was one of the people tapped by ANS to be a spokesperson for the society. She wrote to me in a personal e-mail that social media made a difference for her in many ways.

In summary, she said that it would have been impossible for her to fulfill this role without many hands helping her from various quarters at ANS. She pointed out that the ANS Social Media listserv group “provided invaluable background information . . that helped me keep up-to-date and ready for the question from the next reporter.” In fact, she said, she might not have even started down this road if the listserv hadn’t already proven itself as a source of information and expertise.

Another take on the news media’s shift into anti-nuclear skepticism following Fukushima comes from Andrea Jennetta, publisher of Fuel Cycle Week.  Writing in the March 17 issue, she said that this time the “bunker mentality” that has characterized communications in prior years by the nuclear industry gave way to something new. “But instead of rolling over, the nuclear community for once is mobilizing and fighting back. I am impressed at the efforts of various pronuclear activists, bloggers, advocates and professional organizations.

To jump-start construction of modular reactors, the administration proposed a cost-sharing program of $500 million over five years to help two companies develop designs and obtain Nuclear Regulatory Commission licenses. The DOE funds would be equally matched with industry money. There are those who maintain the government should not be involved in energy development, and that it should be left to the marketplace to determine which technologies emerge in America’s energy future. That’s an understandable sentiment, given the Solyndra scandal. But nuclear power, which has enabled the nation to meet its energy needs for more than a half-century without polluting the air or depending on the whims of foreign rulers, got its start with government financial backing. The first nuclear plants were built with government funds.

Like conventional nuclear plants, small modular reactors could produce electricity around the clock, day in and day out, without being subject to weather conditions. But what’s especially appealing about small reactors is their affordability. Instead of having to pay the capital cost of a new nuclear plant, which can run $8 billion or more, a utility would have the option of ordering small modular reactors for construction in a series, as funds become available and the need for electricity arises. The Tennessee Valley Authority recently signed a letter of intent to buy six small modular reactors using conventional light–water reactor technology, each with the capacity to produce 125 megawatts of electricity, from Babcock & Wilcox, a Virginia-based nuclear manufacturer. A small reactor is expected to take three years to build instead of five years or more for a conventional 1,200-megawatt nuclear plant. Experts say that a prototype reactor would cost about $500 million.

Small modular reactors — known as SMRs — would be shipped from a factory by rail or truck to a nuclear site and situated side-by-side. They would be hooked to the same electric-power grid but operate independently of one another. One module could be taken off line for refueling and maintenance while the others produce electricity. At some locations, modular reactors could be situated beneath the ground for security. What’s more, SMRs are air-cooled. They don’t have to be located on the oceanfront or near lakes and rivers, an important feature in large parts of the world where water resources are scarce.

The question is whether, in the face of opposition from Sen. Feinstein and some other members, Congress will make funds available for developing SMRs. At least 10 U.S. nuclear companies have done preliminary design work. They include such well-known names as Westinghouse, General Electric, General Atomics and Babcock & Wilcox. And a number of start-up companies are part of the competition. “SMRs could change the game and restore U.S. leadership in nuclear power,” said Vic Reis, a senior adviser in the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. “Nuclear power is essential to the administration’s commitment to clean energy.”

But if our reactor designs are going to be competitive in the global marketplace, it is essential that American companies be able to compete on a level playing field. Foreign reactor manufacturers have the backing of their governments in the form of subsidies and grants. Our companies, on the other hand, are cut off from government support. Congress can and must make this a turnaround decade in building a more affordable modular reactor for electricity generation. A factory-built small reactor should be the cornerstone of our government’s energy strategy.

I hope my colleagues in the nuclear business will stop repeating the mantra an accident anywhere is any accident everywhere. We are the ones who make that a self fulfilling prophesy. I also hope that sufficient numbers of key decision makers in government and in the financial/insurance industry will do the math to recognize that nuclear energy related risk is manageable.Additional InformationDr. Bernard Cohen – Indoor Radon, Lung Cancer, and the No-Threshold Linear Hypothesis. YouTube video of a talk presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness held in San Diego, California; June 1997. (Please note the discussion about Muller’s fruit fly experiments near minute 10 of the video.)

The decision yesterday by TVA's board brings to an end some five years of deliberation by the non-profit firm that manages power, water and other resources in the US state. Bellefonte 1 is a Babcock & Wilcox pressurized water reactor currently considered 55% complete. A $4.9 billion project should see it begin operation by 2020 to generate 1260 MWe.   At the same time, TVA will purchase a 900 MWe combined-cycle gas power plant from a subsidiary of Kelson Energy. It is also going to fit sulphur dioxide and particulate control systems to its older Gallatin and Allen coal power plants to bring them up to "clean standards."

TVA's president and CEO, Tom Kilgore, said completing Bellefonte 1 was cheaper on a per-MW basis than the cost of replacing any of its fossil plants. The $4.9 billion project works out at a cost of $3888 per kilowatt of installed capacity. As essentially a brand-new reactor, the sale of Watts Bar 2 will be unprecedented and the price is impossible to predict. In the last decade prices seen in the US for old reactors, normally after some 30 years of service, have trended upwards from less than $400 to over $874 per kilowatt. Exceptionally, EDF paid some $2253 per kilowatt overall for its shares in Calvert Cliffs, Nine Mile Point and RE Ginna plants in 2009 when investing in Constellation Energy.

The situation is totally out of control. Government has been stating they were going to make the best to settle it down, but it doesn’t seem to be their “best”. Tepco requested 1 trillion yen of financial support from government. Now that government is a sponsor of Tepco, they should take more lead of them.

Tepco still hasn’t paid their sub-contract companies or makers for the past / current construction cost. Most of the stakeholders will have to withdraw soon. If major earthquake or tsunami hit the plants, it will be the real catastrophe. That is why we need to be in hurry.

The coastal levee is not endurable enough, the pipes of water purifying system will be cluttered everywhere. The buildings may fall apart. Even if they keep the emergency power, it will be nothing if they lose the buildings. Because the core problem has not been solved, decontamination will be a total waste of energy. We need to think more about how to solve the problems.