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The Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee included extensive language in their FY 2012 committee report about nuclear energy.  They wrote of being “extremely concerned that the United States continues to accumulate spent fuel from nuclear reactors without a comprehensive plan to collect the fuel or dispose of it safely, and as a result faces a $15,400,000,000 liability by 2020,” called for the development of “consolidated regional storage facilities,” and mandated research on dry cask storage, advanced fuel cycle options, and disposal in geological media.  The appropriators provided no funding for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant program or Light Water Reactor Small Modular Reactor Licensing Technical Support.  In a separate section, they direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to contract with the National Academy of Sciences for a study on the lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and discuss beyond design-basis events and mitigating impacts of earthquakes. Language from the committee report 112-75 follows, with page number references to the pdf version of this document.

Nuclear Energy The FY 2011 appropriation was $732.1 million The FY 2012 administration request was $754.0 million The FY 2012 House-passed bill provides $733.6 million, an increase of $1.5 million or 0.2 percent from the current budget. The Senate Appropriations Committee bill provides $583.8 million, a decline of $148.3 million or 20.3 percent.

“The Committee has provided more than $500,000,000 in prior years toward the Next Generation Nuclear Plant [NGNP] program.  Although the program has experienced some successes, particularly in the advanced research and development of TRISO [tristructural-isotropic] fuel, the Committee is frustrated with the lack of progress and failure to resolve the upfront cost-share issue to allocate the risk between industry and the Federal Government. Although the Committee has provided sufficient time for these issues to be resolved, the program has stalled. Recognizing funding constraints, the Committee cannot support continuing the program in its current form. The Committee provides no funding to continue the existing NGNP program, but rather allows the Department to continue high-value, priority research and development activities for high-temperature reactors, in cooperation with industry, that were included in the NGNP program.”

Germany’s decision to close its reactors rejected as unrealistic

Since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit the six TEPCO reactors at Fukushima Japan, anti-nuclear groups have been on a roll.  Germany’s panic attack which will result in closing 17 reactors accounting for a quarter of its electricity is widely touted as a bellwether example for other countries.   The goal of post-industrial visionaries is to get the mainstream media and the public to accept a scenario of the inevitable end to the use of nuclear energy in as many places as possible. But is this trend really taking place?  Recent developments indicate it is not.  Here are some examples.

China to lift ban on new projects By early 2012 China will resume approving the start of new nuclear energy projects following completion of a national nuclear safety plan.  According to wire services, the China Securities Journal is reporting that in August the government completed the inspection of its existing fleet of nuclear reactors which provide about 11 Gwe of power.  It said that plants under construction, including four from Westinghouse and two from Areva, were also part of the review.  In an unexpected move, the Journal said the government would offer greater transparency on nuclear safety issues by making the results of the safety reviews available for public inspection.

SciDev.Net reporters from around the world tell us which countries are set on developing nuclear energy despite the Fukushima accident. The quest for energy independence, rising power needs and a desire for political weight all mean that few developing countries with nuclear ambitions have abandoned them in the light of the Fukushima accident. Jordan's planned nuclear plant is part of a strategy to deal with acute water and energy shortages.

The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) wants Jordan to get 60 per cent of its energy from nuclear by 2035. Currently, obtaining energy from neighbouring Arab countries costs Jordan about a fifth of its gross domestic product. The country is also one of the world's most water-poor nations. Jordan plans to desalinate sea water from the Gulf of Aqaba to the south, then pump it to population centres in Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa, using its nuclear-derived energy. After the Fukushima disaster, Jordan started re-evaluating safety procedures for its nuclear reactor, scheduled to begin construction in 2013. The country also considered more safety procedures for construction and in ongoing geological and environmental investigations.

The government would not reverse its decision to build nuclear reactors in Jordan because of the Fukushima disaster," says Abdel-Halim Wreikat, vice Chairman of the JAEC. "Our plant type is a third-generation pressurised water reactor, and it is safer than the Fukushima boiling water reactor." Wreikat argues that "the nuclear option for Jordan at the moment is better than renewable energy options such as solar and wind, as they are still of high cost." But some Jordanian researchers disagree. "The cost of electricity generated from solar plants comes down each year by about five per cent, while the cost of producing electricity from nuclear power is rising year after year," says Ahmed Al-Salaymeh, director of the Energy Centre at the University of Jordan. He called for more economic feasibility studies of the nuclear option.

A leading biophysicist has cast a critical light on the government’s reassurances that Americans were never at risk from Fukushima fallout, saying “we really don’t know for sure.”

When radioactive fallout from Japan’s nuclear disaster began appearing in the United States this spring, the Obama Administration’s open-data policy obligated the government to inform the public, in some detail, what was landing here.

Covering the story, I watched the government pursue what appeared to be two strategies to minimize public alarm:

The Tennessee Valley Authority on Thursday issued a draft of its Integrated Resource Plan, a comprehensive study that will help guide efforts to meet regional electricity needs over the next 20 years. Titled "TVA's Environmental and Energy Future," the study analyzes potential combinations of economic and regulatory trends in the coming years and provides recommendations for addressing them. The plan's main purpose is to help TVA meet the region's future energy challenges in ways that maintain reliable power supplies, competitive prices, improved environmental performance and continued financial strength.

TVA's yearlong analysis included input from numerous stakeholders including state agencies, power distributors, environmental groups, universities and the general public. The study yielded several likely probabilities for TVA, including: Nuclear expansion will continue, with the potential to eventually overtake coal as the leading electricity source; TVA may idle a portion of its coal generation fleet, as coal units become older and less economical under tighter regulations; Energy efficiency and demand response, as well as renewable generation, will play an increasing role in future resource options; Natural gas capacity additions will be a viable resource option and a key source of generation flexibility for TVA; The intensity of TVA's carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury emissions will continue to decrease.

Using the study's methodology, TVA examined seven possible long-term scenarios for the next two decades, based on factors such as economic growth, inflation, fuel prices and the regulatory environment. They are: Dramatic economic recovery Environmental focus becoming a greater national priority Prolonged economic malaise Introduction of game-changing energy-related technology Greater U.S. energy independence Carbon regulation creating an economic downturn Current approach/baseline

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2010) — after Fukushima, it is now imperative to redefine what makes a successful nuclear energy–from the cradle to the grave. If the management of nuclear waste is not considered by the authority, the public in many countries reject nuclear energy as an option, according to a survey appearing in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE.

According to Allison Macfarlane, Associate Professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University and a member of the Blue Ribbon for nuclear future of America, resulting in storage for nuclear waste, which is still a last-minute decision to a number of countries outside of Japan. It is surprisingly common for reactor sites for overburdened with spent nuclear fuel without any clear plan. In South Korea, for example, saving to four nuclear power stations in the nation is filled, leading to a crisis within the storage potential of the next decade.

United Arab Emirates broke the ground for the first of four nuclear reactors on 14 March 2011, but has not set the precedence of storage. Hans Blix, former head of the International Atomic energy Agency and current President of the UAE’S International Advisory Council, noted: “it is still an open question of a draft final disposal and greater attention should be spent on deciding what to do.”

Asia Pacific Journal reports:

Japan’s leading business journal Toyo Keizai has published an article by Hokkaido Cancer Center director Nishio Masamichi, a radiation treatment specialist.

Nishio originally called for “calm” in the days after the accident. Now, he argues, that as the gravity of the situation at the plant has become more clear, the specter of long-term radiation exposure must be reckoned with.

The government must establish long-term plans for a new generation of nuclear power plants so future generations are not left dealing with its legacy, experts urged on Thursday.Ministers must work with the industry to create a "holistic" strategy which deals effectively with reprocessing and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and does not treat it simply as "an afterthought", they warned.The new build programme must also take into account the UK's stockpile of civil plutonium - the largest in the world - created as a waste fuel from nuclear reactors but which can potentially be reprocessed into new nuclear fuel.

The warning comes as the government pushes ahead with a new generation of nuclear power stations in a bid to meet electricity demand and cut carbon emissions from the energy sector.In a report from the Royal Society, the group of experts said the handling of nuclear fuel throughout its working cycle must be considered to reduce security risks and the danger of proliferation of nuclear weapons.Research and development programmes are needed from the outset of the new build project to ensure fuel is managed properly, they added.Roger Cashmore, chairman of the Royal Society working group and head of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, said: "The last time any UK government articulated a coherent long-term plan for nuclear power was in 1955.

"We need to ensure that government and industry work together now to develop a long-term, holistic strategy for nuclear power in the UK."This must encompass the entire nuclear fuel cycle, from fresh fuel manufacture to disposal. Indeed, spent fuel can no longer be an afterthought and governments worldwide need to face up to this issue."He added: "While the government has made some positive moves towards an integrated approach to nuclear power, more must be done."The call comes after the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, signalled that a new generation of nuclear power plants would go ahead after a government-ordered review into the Fukushima disaster in Japan found no reason to curtail the use of reactors in the UK.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was on her high horse, and the California Democrat wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to disparage nuclear power. As head of a Senate panel that controls spending on energy technology, Sen. Feinstein zeroed in on a new program that would design small modular reactors over the next five years, striking it from the Department of Energy (DOE) budget for the coming fiscal year. Yet it happens to be precisely the sort of “Made in America” program with great commercial potential that President Obama called for in his jobs speech.

Feinstein prefers renewable energy sources, favoring government financial support for solar energy. Never mind that Solyndra Inc., a California-based maker of solar panels that received a $535 million U.S. loan guarantee, recently went bankrupt, along with two other solar firms. By contrast, small modular reactors are affordable and practical. They could be built in U.S. factories for a fraction of the cost of a large nuclear plant and exported for use in generating electricity around the world. In fact, small reactors have been used successfully for more than a half-century to power the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarines. And the U.S. Army used small reactors during the 1950s and 1960s to provide electricity at remote military installations in Wyoming, Alaska, Greenland, Antarctica and other locations.

Several other countries with nuclear programs see great commercial potential in modular reactors; France, China, Japan and Korea are developing simplified, cheaper designs for a global market. “Our choice is clear: Develop these technologies today or import them tomorrow,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said recently.

A senior Iranian lawmaker stressed that Tehran will block its oil supplies to the European Union for the next 5 to 15 years as part of its strategy to punish the EU for its oil ban against Tehran.

"We will change the threat into an opportunity for Iran and cut Iran's oil supplies to the Europeans for five to 15 years," member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Karim Abedi told FNA on Sunday.

He pointed to a bill drafted in the parliament to cut oil exports to the EU, and noted, "We will not leave enemies' sanctions unanswered and we will impose other sanctions on them in addition to closing Iran's oil supplies to Europe." Abedi also said that Iran will use the banned oil in its refineries and petrochemical complexes to turn it into more valuable products.

The latest reactor designs, now under construction around the world, build on over 50 years of technology development. The roadmap notes that these designs will need to be fully established as reliable and competitive electricity generators over the next few years if they are to become the mainstays of nuclear expansion after 2020

Almost one quarter of global electricity could be generated from nuclear power by 2050, making a major contribution to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This is the central finding of the Nuclear Energy Technology Roadmap, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). Such an expansion will require nuclear generating capacity to more than triple over the next 40 years, a target the roadmap describes as ambitious but achievable.

Speaking from the East Asia Climate Forum in Seoul, IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said: “Nuclear energy is one of the key low-carbon energy technologies that can contribute, alongside energy efficiency, renewable energies and carbon capture and storage, to the decarbonisation of electricity supply by 2050.” NEA Director General Luis Echávarri stated: “Nuclear is already one of the main sources of low-carbon energy today. If we can address the challenges to its further expansion, nuclear has the potential to play a larger role in cutting CO2 emissions.”

Near the end of 2010, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a summary of a report titled The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle as part of its MIT Energy Initiative. The complete report was released a few months ago. The conclusions published that report initiated a virtual firestorm of reaction among the members of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) Study group who strongly disagreed with the authors.

the following quote from the “Study Context” provides a good summary of why the fast reactor advocates were so dismayed by the report.

For decades, the discussion about future nuclear fuel cycles has been dominated by the expectation that a closed fuel cycle based on plutonium startup of fast reactors would eventually be deployed. However, this expectation is rooted in an out-of-date understanding about uranium scarcity. Our reexamination of fuel cycles suggests that there are many more viable fuel cycle options and that the optimum choice among them faces great uncertainty—some economic, such as the cost of advanced reactors, some technical such as implications for waste management, and some societal, such as the scale of nuclear power deployment and the management of nuclear proliferation risks. Greater clarity should emerge over the next few decades, assuming that the needed research is carried out for technological alternatives and that the global response to climate change risk mitigation comes together. A key message from our work is that we can and should preserve our options for fuel cycle choices by continuing with the open fuel cycle, implementing a system for managed LWR spent fuel storage, developing a geological repository, and researching technology alternatives appropriate to a range of nuclear energy futures.

The conference is the 3rd Annual Nuclear Construction Summit and has already generated masses of interest from major utilities and key organisations in the USA and globally. The meeting comes at a truly critical time for the nuclear renaissance in North America.

Dave Frantz will join key representatives from the NRC, Duke, Dominion, Progress Energy, SCANA, OPG, Bruce Power, USEC, Areva NP, Westinghouse and many other key organisations in the nuclear industry. This year’s conference will discuss how companies can develop a strong nuclear strategy based on experience from key construction projects that mitigates risk and reduces project costs. The meeting promises to be the key construction meeting for the industry in 2011 with 300+ senior level executives involved in nuclear construction expected across the 3 days. Event organiser Nuclear Energy Insider stated “This conference has come at a hugely important time for the nuclear industry in North America. With knowledge-sharing from all of the key construction projects across the region, the meeting will be an essential platform to discuss best practice and ensure that the industry approaches future challenges head-on.”

For more information on the 3rd Annual Nuclear Construction Summit which is taking place in Charlotte, North Carolina on October 25-27 visit http://www.nuclearenergyinsider.com/nuclear-construction-summit

Representatives of member states of the Arab Atomic Energy Agency (AAEA) placed emphasis, on Sunday, on the need to attach utmost importance to the issue of safety of nuclear power stations, particularly following the disaster of Fukushima, Japan, this year.

Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Refaat Chaabouni told TAP news agency that the creation of a nuclear station to produce power in Tunisia is a political decision that Tunisia can take in light of results of a study conducted by the Tunisian Electricity and Gas Company (STEG) on the economic and technical viability of the said station by 2018.

He added that the disaster of Fukushima does not mean abandoning the use of nuclear energy for power production and its peaceful uses in Arab countries but should rather encourage countries to better control the “safety” aspect and strengthen human resources specialised in this area. Director General of the Arab Atomic Energy Agency Abdelmajid Mahjoub said the accident of Fukushima requires more work to control nuclear energy, preserve the environment and protect people, in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

With Poland evaluating two GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) reactor models for the country’s first nuclear power plant projects, GEH today announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Warsaw-based engineering firm Energoprojekt Warszawa, S.A. (EW) to discuss the feasibility of partnering on future reactor projects.

The MOU with Energoprojekt Warszawa is the latest in a series of preliminary agreements that GEH has signed with Polish suppliers as the government prepares to develop Poland’s first two nuclear generating stations to diversify the country’s energy supplies. Under the new MOU, both companies will explore how EW could provide specific engineering services to GEH for the potential development of new nuclear power plants in Poland.

“This initial action shows the future possibility of creating jobs and cooperation related not only to Polish suppliers of fixtures, construction and installation works, but to Polish planning and engineering during the plant’s construction process.”

This week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) re-launched its website, Energy.gov, to provide tools to help individuals and businesses better understand how to save energy and money. You can type your zip code into the site and get hyper-local information about your city, county and state, including information on tax credits, rebates and energy saving tips.

The site presents DOE data visually using the open source MapBox suite of tools, and localized data and maps can be shared or embedded on any website or blog. Other data sets the DOE is mapping include alternative fuel locations and per capita energy usage. Anyone can now compare how his state’s energy usage compares with others across the country. In addition to making the data more palatable for the public, the DOE is offering open data sets for others to use.

Our goal is simple — to improve the delivery of public services online. We’re using government data to go local in a way that’s never been possible before. We’re connecting the work of the Energy Department with what’s happening in your backyard,” says Cammie Croft, senior advisor and director of new media and citizen engagement at the DOE. “We’re making Energy.gov relevant and accessible to consumers and small businesses in their communities.”

Russia’s economy remains one of the world’s most energy-intensive.

Russia is an energy-dependent and energy-productive region.  Each unit of production in Russia is using roughly twice as much energy as it would in China and six times the amount in the United States, according to the U.K.’s Financial Times.  Bringing this number down would save the country billions while also creating big business for companies selling green technology. 

While it’s gotten a horrible rap in the months following the massive earthquake and tsunami that devastated areas of Japan and killed thousands, damaging the nuclear power plant we all now know as Fukushima, from an environmental perspective, nuclear energy still can’t be beaten (and yes, it’d be good to build nuclear plants away from bodies of water in territories that aren’t plagued by tsunamis). 

The Tennessee Valley Authority says that it is committed to the nuclear revitalization program that it began a few years ago. Despite criticisms from opponents, it is positioning the strategy as necessary to reduce its coal portfolio.

The federally-owned wholesale distributor of electricity is in a quandary: It says that cutting its pollution is a top priority and that the most effective way to do so is by building clean base-load nuclear generators that can feed its expanding territory. But even before the Fukushima accident in Japan, the utility had opponents and now, they are even more strident.

“TVA is possibly about to embark on one of the greatest financial gambles in the history of the agency,” says Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

A new government energy panel, with nearly half of member experts critical of nuclear power generation, began discussing Monday revising Japan's national energy policy in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis. The panel's deliberations are important as they will "probe a road Japan will take over the next 100 or 200 years," Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano told the first meeting of the group.

The panel, newly created under the energy advisory committee of the industry ministry, is tasked with reviewing Japan's basic energy plan that calls for greater reliance on nuclear energy, revised just last year. It envisages nuclear power accounting for 53 percent of all electricity generated in Japan by 2030 from about 30 percent before the March 11 disaster. With around 10 of the 25 panel members opposing nuclear power generation, opinions both for and against nuclear energy were presented during the panel meeting. It differed from similar meetings in the past. A previous panel contained few opponents of nuclear energy, with the ministry playing an important role in promoting nuclear power generation. The panel, headed by Nippon Steel Corp. Chairman Akio Mimura, plans to compile a new energy plan by around next summer.

Edano asked panel members to promote discussions to sufficiently explore how the nation's energy policy should be, without being constrained by the current energy situation, saying, "Since the (Fukushima) accident, citizens' opinions and their trust on nuclear power have changed substantially." Since the start of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the government has shifted its stance to reducing the nation's reliance on nuclear power. The panel experts differ on how quickly to reduce Japan's reliance on nuclear power, as well as ways to introduce renewable energy.

In July 2011 the NRDC Nuclear Program submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) twelve 10 CFR 2.206 petitions for immediate agency action and six 10 CFR 2.802 petitions for rulemaking that track the nuclear safety recommendations in the NRC Task Force's recently-released 90 day report on the lessons from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. The 10 CFR 2.206 petitions ask the Commission to directly issue orders to nuclear power plant license holders on specific reactor safety upgrades. And the 10 CFR 2.802 rulemaking petitions request the NRC to commence a public process to alter specific rules that govern the nuclear industry's safety requirements. Prior to our petitions, the New York Times recently discussed the NRC's Near Term Task Force Review and also provided an explanation of the different processes that we have invoked. Here are brief descriptions of the specific petitions we filed.

10 CFR 2.206 Petitions nuc_11081201a.pdf 2.1 Order licensees to reevaluate the seismic and flooding hazards at their sites against current NRC requirements and guidance, and if necessary, update the design basis and SSCs important to safety to protect against the updated hazards.[p.30] nuc_11081201b.pdf 2.3 Order licensees to perform seismic and flood protection walkdowns to identify and address plant-specific vulnerabilities and verify the adequacy of monitoring and maintenance for protection features such as watertight barriers and seals in the interim period until longer term actions are completed to update the design basis for external events. [p.30] nuc_11081201c.pdf 4.2 Order licensees to provide reasonable protection for equipment currently provided pursuant to 10 CFR 50.54(hh)(2) from the effects of design-basis external events and to add equipment as needed to address multiunit events while other requirements are being revised and implemented.[p.39]

nuc_11081201i.pdf 8.1 Order licensees to modify the EOP technical guidelines (required by Supplement 1, “Requirements for Emergency Response Capability,” to NUREG-0737, issued January 1983 (GL 82-33), to (1) include EOPs, SAMGs, and EDMGs in an integrated manner, (2) specify clear command and control strategies for their implementation, and (3) stipulate appropriate qualification and training for those who make decisions during emergencies.[p. 49] nuc_11081201j.pdf 8.3 Order licensees to modify each plant’s technical specifications to conform to the above changes.[p.50]