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House Committee Investigates Yucca Mountain Closure [08aPR11] - 0 views

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  • While the House of Representatives is embroiled in a dispute over the 2011 budget, the Energy and Commerce Committee also is investigating a controversial budget move made two years ago – the abandonment of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.Late last week, committee chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., mailed letters to the heads of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy demanding records related to the decision to end the project
  • The representatives said in a release that they initiated the investigation “after reviewing available evidence indicating there was no scientific or technical basis for withdrawing [Yucca Mountain’s license] application.”
  • For decades, the site beside a former testing ground for atomic weapons was to be the nation’s designated repository for high-level nuclear waste. Customers of utilities that use nuclear reactors paid a surcharge for the repository’s construction, but the 2010 federal budget cut off funding to the project and President Barack Obama has long voiced his opposition to it. A number of utilities have sued to recover the cost of dry storage for spent fuel at reactor sites after the 1998 deadline for the repository’s completion passed, and additional litigation soon followed the decision to abandon the project.
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Senator Lamar Alexander: "Nuclear Power Is the Most Reliable and Useful Source of Green... - 0 views

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  • U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, delivered a speech this week at the International V.M. Goldschmidt Conference in Knoxville.  Alexander serves on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and is the chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority Congressional Caucus.  His remarks as prepared follow:
  • When
  • in a speech in Oak Ridge in May of 2009, I called for America to build 100 new nuclear plants during the next twenty years.  Nuclear power produces 70 percent of our pollution-free, carbon-free electricity today.  It is the most useful and reliable source of green electricity today because of its tremendous energy density and the small amount of waste that it produces.  And because we are harnessing the heat and energy of the earth itself through the power of the atom, nuclear power is also natural.
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  • Forty years ago, nuclear energy was actually regarded as something of a savior for our environmental dilemmas because it didn’t pollute.  And this was well before we were even thinking about global warming or climate change.  It also didn’t take up a great deal of space.  You didn’t have to drown all of Glen Canyon to produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity.  Four reactors would equal a row of wind turbines, each one three times as tall as Neyland Stadium skyboxes, strung along the entire length of the 2,178-mile Appalachian Trail.   One reactor would produce the same amount of electricity that can be produced by continuously foresting an area one-and-a-half times the size of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in order to create biomass.  Producing electricity with a relatively small number of new reactors, many at the same sites where reactors are already located, would avoid the need to build thousands and thousands of miles of new transmission lines through scenic areas and suburban backyards. 
  • While nuclear lost its green credentials with environmentalists somewhere along the way, some are re-thinking nuclear energy because of our new environmental paradigm – global climate change.  Nuclear power produces 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity today.  President Obama has endorsed it, proposing an expansion of the loan guarantee program from $18 billion to $54 billion and making the first award to the Vogtle Plant in Georgia.  Nobel Prize-winning Secretary of Energy Steven Chu wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal about developing a generation of mini-reactors that I believe we can use to repower coal boilers, or more locally, to power the Department of Energy’s site over in Oak Ridge.  The president, his secretary of energy, and many environmentalists may be embracing nuclear because of the potential climate change benefits, but they are now also remembering the other positive benefits of nuclear power that made it an environmental savior some 40 years ago
  • The Nature Conservancy took note of nuclear power’s tremendous energy density last August when it put out a paper on “Energy Sprawl.”  The authors compared the amount of space you need to produce energy from different technologies – something no one had ever done before – and what they came up with was remarkable.  Nuclear turns out to be the gold standard.  You can produce a million megawatts of electricity a year from a nuclear reactor sitting on one square mile.  That’s enough electricity to power 90,000 homes.  They even included uranium mining and the 230 square miles surrounding Yucca Mountain in this calculation and it still comes to only one square mile per million megawatt hours
  • And for all that, each turbine has the capacity to produce about one-and-a-half megawatts.  You need three thousand of these 50-story structures to equal the output of one nuclear reactor
  • When people say “we want to get our energy from wind,” they tend to think of a nice windmill or two on the horizon, waving gently – maybe I’ll put one in my back yard.   They don’t realize those nice, friendly windmills are now 50 stories high and have blades the length of football fields.  We see awful pictures today of birds killed by the Gulf oil spill.  But one wind farm in California killed 79 golden eagles in one year. The American Bird Conservancy says existing turbines can kill up to 275,000 birds a year.
  • Coal-fired electricity needs four square miles, because you have to consider all the land required for mining and extraction.  Solar thermal, where they use the big mirrors to heat a fluid, takes six square miles.  Natural gas takes eight square miles and petroleum takes 18 square miles – once again, including all the land needed for drilling and refining and storing and sending it through pipelines.  Solar photovoltaic cells that turn sunlight directly into electricity take 15 square miles and wind is even more dilute, taking 30 square miles to produce that same amount of electricity.
  • , wind power can be counted on to be there 10 to 15 percent of the time when you need it.  TVA can count on nuclear power 91 percent of the time, coal, 60 percent of the time and natural gas about 50 percent of the time.  This is why I believe it is a taxpayer rip-off for wind power to be subsidized per unit of electricity at a rate of 25 times the subsidy for all other forms of electricity combined. 
  • the “problem of nuclear waste” has been overstated because people just don’t understand the scale or the risk.  All the high-level nuclear waste that has ever been produced in this country would fit on a football field to a height of ten feet.  That’s everything.  Compare that to the billion gallons of coal ash that slid out of the coal ash impoundment at the Kingston plant and into the Emory River a year and a half ago, just west of here.  Or try the industrial wastes that would be produced if we try to build thousands of square miles of solar collectors or 50-story windmills.  All technologies produce some kind of waste.  What’s unique about nuclear power is that there’s so little of it.
  • Now this waste is highly radioactive, there’s no doubt about that.  But once again, we have to keep things in perspective.  It’s perfectly acceptable to isolate radioactive waste through storage.  Three feet of water blocks all radiation.  So does a couple of inches of lead and stainless steel or a foot of concrete.  That’s why we use dry cask storage, where you can load five years’ worth of fuel rods into a single container and store them right on site.  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Energy Secretary Steven Chu both say we can store spent fuel on site for 60 or 80 years before we have to worry about a permanent repository like Yucca Mountain
  • then there’s reprocessing.  Remember, we’re now the only major nuclear power nation in the world that is not reprocessing its fuel.  While we gave up reprocessing in the 1970s, the French have all their high-level waste from 30 years of producing 80 percent of their electricity stored beneath the floor of one room at their recycling center in La Hague.  That’s right; it all fits into one room.  And we don’t have to copy the French.  Just a few miles away at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory they’re working to develop advanced reprocessing technologies that go well beyond what the French are doing, to produce a waste that’s both smaller in volume and with a shorter radioactive life.  Regardless of what technology we ultimately choose, the amount of material will be astonishingly small.  And it’s because of the amazing density of nuclear technology – something we can’t even approach with any other form of energy
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IEA - OECD: Nearly 25 Percent Of Global Electricity Could Be Generated From Nuclear Pow... - 0 views

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  • 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.”
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  • Financing the construction of new nuclear plants is expected to be a major challenge in many countries
  • No major technological breakthroughs will be needed to achieve the level of nuclear expansion envisaged, the roadmap finds. However, important policy-related, industrial, financial and public acceptance barriers to the rapid growth of nuclear power remain. The roadmap sets out an action plan with steps that will need to be taken by governments, industry and others to overcome these. A clear and stable policy commitment to nuclear energy as part of overall energy strategy is a pre requisite, as is gaining greater public acceptance for nuclear programmes. Progress in implementing plans for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste will also be vital. The international system of safeguards to prevent proliferation of nuclear technology and materials must be maintained and strengthened where necessary.
  • 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.
  • For the longer term, the continued development of reactor and fuel cycle technologies will be important for maintaining the competitiveness of nuclear energy
  • The Nuclear Energy Technology Roadmap is the result of joint work by the IEA and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and is one of a series being prepared by the IEA in co operation with other organisations and industry, at the request of the G8 summit at Aomori (Japan) in June 2008. The overall aim is to advance development and uptake of key low-carbon technologies needed to reach the goal of a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050.
  • Nuclear generating capacity worldwide is presently 370 gigawatts electrical (GWe), providing 14% of global electricity. In the IEA scenario for a 50% cut in energy-related CO2 emissions by 2050 (known as the “BLUE Map” scenario), on which the roadmap analysis is based, nuclear capacity grows to 1 200 GWe by 2050, providing 24% of global electricity at that time. Total electricity production in the scenario more than doubles, from just under 20 000 TWh in 2007 to around 41 000 TWh in 2050.
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TVA's Environmental and Energy Future - Relies on Nuclear Power and Less on Coal [17Sep10] - 0 views

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  • 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
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  • The Integrated Resource Plan process also developed various possible strategies that TVA might use to meet the region's future power needs. Each strategy was analyzed to create 20-year power generation portfolios -- or combinations of electricity resources -- for TVA to consider. Each portfolio was rated using factors such as cost, risk and environmental impact
  • "TVA's Integrated Resource Plan process is a rigorous one that is supportive of TVA's renewed vision and will guide the corporation as it leads the region and the nation toward a cleaner and more secure energy future, relying more on nuclear power and energy efficiency and less on coal," said Van Wardlaw, TVA's executive vice president of Enterprise Relations, who is leading the Integrated Resource Plan effort
  • The TVA Board of Directors has adopted a renewed vision for the federal corporation to be one of the nation's leading providers of cleaner low-cost energy by 2020, increasing its use of nuclear power and energy efficiency and improving its environmental performance
  • TVA completed its previous Integrated Resource Plan, titled "Energy Vision 2020," in 1995. The new plan will update the earlier study, based upon changes in regulations and legislation, the marketplace for electric generating utilities and customer demand.
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South Korea's 15 Year Power Demand Forecast Includes More Nuclear Power Plants [08Dec10] - 0 views

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  • South Korea, which currently has 20 operational nuclear reactors, will build 14 new facilities to make atomic power the biggest source of energy by 2024, said Ministry of Knowledge Economy in a statement Tuesday. As a result, nuclear energy will provide 48.5% of the nation's energy consumption by the target year from the current 32%, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in a long-term national energy development plan
  • Coal is currently the biggest source of energy in South Korea that meets 42% of the nation's energy needs
  • Renewable energy sources like solar and wind power will also provide 8.9% of the nation's energy needs by 2024 compared with the current 1.3%, it said.
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  • Asia's fourth-largest economy imports 97% of its energy needs from overseas and has moved to cut dependence on fossil fuels and to diversify energy sources.
  • In October Seoul unveiled a five-year plan to spend 36 billion dollars developing renewable energy as its next economic growth engine, with a goal to become one of the world's five top players in the sector.
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WNA Director: Nuclear Reborn? [11Mar10] - 0 views

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  • In Europe and the United States, signs of the long-discussed “nuclear renaissance” are increasingly positive. But it’s in China (which now has 21 out of the 53 reactors under construction around the world) that the initial boom is occurring. Increasing mentions of nuclear power in the mass media, often with a generally positive slant, are very welcome, but the industry now needs to build new reactors in great volume. China, with its vast requirements for clean power generation, is therefore the key
  • An important element has been public statements from respected third-party advocates for nuclear, many of whom were previously either strongly opposed or seen as agnostic. Some of these come from the environmental movement, notably Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, but the support of James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia Theory of the Earth as a self-regulating organism, has been particularly important.
  • The industry has recognised that securing public buy-in is critical and conditional upon in-depth dialogue. It accepts that concerns over safety, waste and non-proliferation will continue to impose a strict regulatory regime on the industry and that this is necessary, despite it costing a great deal of valuable time and money. 
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  • One possible barrier to renewed industry growth is the 20-year mummification of the industry’s supply sector. However, this is changing, with membership of the UK Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) booming as companies realise that there will be many new opportunities in this sector as the UK returns to building reactors. Another possible negative, namely the need to ensure a strict world non-proliferation regime, has been reinforced by the North Korean and Iranian cases, to which endless column inches and analyses have been devoted.  On the other hand, three highly important factors have moved very strongly in the industry’s favour: the industry’s own operating performance, the greenhouse gas emissions debate and concerns over energy security of supply
  • The 435 reactors around the world generate electricity very cheaply and earns significant profits for their owners, irrespective of the power market, whether it is liberalised or regulated. The challenge for the industry is to cut the capital investment costs of new reactors to enable many new reactor projects to go forward. Concerns over climate change and the perceived need to moderate greenhouse gas emissions has worked strongly in the industry’s favour and, at the very least, have opened an opportunity for the industry as a viable mitigation technology. The argument for more nuclear power as a means of securing additional energy security of supply has also become increasingly important, particularly in those countries who perceive themselves as becoming increasingly reliant on supplies from geopolitically unstable or otherwise unattractive countries. It is important to recall that this was the main argument that prompted both France and Japan, now numbers two and three in world nuclear generation, to go down this path in the 1970s in the aftermath of two “oil shocks”.
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Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Teams With IBERDROLA On EU-APWR Nuclear Power Plants [03Jun10] - 0 views

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  • Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI) has agreed with IBERDROLA Ingenieria y Construccion, S.A.U. (IBERDROLA Engineering & Construction), a Spanish engineering company, to collaborate for the bidding of constructing potential nuclear power generation plants (NPP) in some European countries
  • The two companies have already signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to cooperate on an exclusive basis for the qualification process to a European utility. Through this collaborative initiative MHI aims to accelerate market penetration of its EU-APWR, one of the world's largest - 1,700 MWe (megawatts of electricity) class - advanced pressurized water reactors (APWR) targeted at major European utilities. The agreement marks MHI's first collaborative partnership with a European company relating to the EU-APWR
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    advanced pressurized water reactors
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European Nuclear Energy Forum Confirms competitiveness Of Nuclear Energy As EU Baseload... - 0 views

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  • The Forum was created by the European Commission in 2007. It represents a unique platform for a broad discussion within European Union on all nuclear energy issues. It gathers all relevant stakeholders in the nuclear field: Governments, European Institutions (Commission, European Parliament, European Economic and Social Committee), academics, nuclear industry- electricity consumers and vendors- and representatives of the civil society
  • Its main objective is to establish a road map for the responsible use of nuclear energy within European Union.
  • These conclusions are drawn by ENEF which annual plenary meeting took place in Bratislava, on June 25 and 26, 2010.
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  • The Forum was created by the European Commission in 2007. It represents a unique platform for a broad discussion within European Union on all nuclear energy issues. It gathers all relevant stakeholders in the nuclear field: Governments, European Institutions (Commission, European Parliament, European Economic and Social Committee), academics, nuclear industry- electricity consumers and vendors- and representatives of the civil society
  • "Nuclear energy offers the best relative economical performance compared to other sources of energy when used for base load electricity generation. It contributes to the EU’s security of supply, emitting practically no greenhouse gases and thus combating climate change."
  • Three working groups are dedicated to respectively: opportunities, risks transparency issues. The first one is chaired by Jean-Pol Poncelet, AREVA, Senior Vice President, Sustainable development. On his initiative, a group headed by Didier Beutier, AREVA, Deputy Vice president, Marketing, analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of nuclear energy today and at 2020 based on, economical as well as environmental and social performance indicators.
  • The survey covers the whole life cycle of nuclear energy and alternative energy technologies, limited to plants in operation or commercially deployed in the near future. It includes views and knowledge of different stakeholders: Industry (consumers and vendors), Associations, Member States, and Academics. It represents the first part of a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), strategic analysis. The second part to be completed by 2011 and will be based on energy scenarios timeline 2030-2050.
  • The scope of the ENEF work encompassing the three dimensions of sustainability and the diversified background of its contributors make that report a real reference survey for discussing the attractiveness of nuclear power in Europe on its way to a more sustainable, less carbon intensive and secure electricity production
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U.S., Europe Expand Nuclear Security Cooperation [03Nov11] - 0 views

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  • The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) today announced that it has signed a new agreement with the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) to promote greater cooperation in nuclear security and nonproliferation. NNSA Assistant Deputy Administrator for Nonproliferation and International Security, Mark Whitney, and Dr. Roland Schenkel, Director General of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), signed the agreement at a nuclear safeguards symposium at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria
  • The agreement provides a framework for greater technical cooperation between the United States and Europe in areas such as nuclear safeguards, border monitoring, nuclear forensics, export controls, and physical protection of nuclear materials facilities. It also calls for closer collaboration on research and development of nuclear security and nonproliferation technologies, and for enhanced coordination of outreach to third countries
  • “This agreement is an important step in achieving President Obama’s goal of securing vulnerable nuclear material, preventing nuclear smuggling, and strengthening the international nuclear nonproliferation regime.”
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  • The United States and Euratom have a long and productive history of cooperation on nuclear security and nonproliferation that dates back more than 30 years. The cooperative work under this agreement will be managed by NNSA’s Next Generation Safeguards Initiative (NGSI). NGSI is a robust, multi-year program to develop the policies, concepts, technologies, expertise, and international infrastructure necessary to strengthen and sustain the international safeguards system.
  • Euratom was created in 1957 to establish the conditions for the development of nuclear energy in Europe by sharing resources, protecting the general public, and associating other countries and international organizations with this work.
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UPDATE: Chinese, European Nuclear Industries Faces Further Setbacks [16Mar11] - 0 views

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  • --China's State Council halted all new reactor construction Wednesday, pending revised safety regulations. The country also ordered a comprehensive inspection of its plants. China's current energy plan sets aside $10.7 billion annually for nuclear plant construction over the next decade. Some two dozen reactors are under construction in China, according to Reuters
  • The European Commission decided all 143 power plants in 27 European Union countries will be tested for emergency preparedness. Following radiation releases and core damage still unfolding at a Japanese nuclear plant brought on by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, European officials have said they will reevaluate EU plants’ preparedness for emergencies like floods, tsunamis and terrorist attacks
  • According to a report in the New York Times, an estimated 110,000 people protested against nuclear power in some 450 German towns Monday. The newspaper reported that nuclear plants supply a third of the electricity in the EU.
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  • Outside Europe, some developing nations like India and China remain committed to nuclear power, while others are giving it more scrutiny. Chile was expected to sign a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. on nuclear power next week, but the Chilean energy minister indicated the country is reconsidering whether it will use the technology.
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Mandatory Stress Tests but No Reactor Moratorium Emerge from European Parliament Delibe... - 0 views

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  • Nuclear supporters got some positive news from Europe last week. Although Germany has pulled its oldest plants out of operation and countries across the continent continue to debate the future of the industry in light of the Japanese reactor crisis, the European Parliament has excluded a moratorium on new reactors from nuclear safety legislation.
  • A construction moratorium failed in a vote Thursday, with 300 voting against the measure, 264 for it and 61 abstaining, according to Bulgarian newspaper Novinite
  • The moratorium would have been in effect at least until “stress tests” were conducted. The tests, approved earlier, will assess nuclear plants’ ability to withstand natural and man-made disasters. While some legislators argued the tests should be overseen at the European-Union level, the legislation directs regulators in individual EU countries to carry them out.
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GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy's CEO Caroline Reda to Promote Nuclear Energy as Part of US-I... - 0 views

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  • GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) president and CEO Caroline Reda is the top U.S. nuclear industry executive participating in a trade mission to India February 6-11. Reda will join U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, who is leading the mission, and senior officials from the Export-Import Bank (EX-IM), the Trade Development Agency (TDA), and executives from almost two dozen other U.S. companies
  • This trade mission seeks to further President Barack Obama’s goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2015, supporting economic growth and creating several million new jobs. In 2010, U.S. exports to India increased to $19.3 billion, a nearly 18 percent increase from 2009’s level of $16.4 billion.
  • The group will be visiting several cities in India, among them New Delhi and Mumbai, in order to explore export opportunities in a broad range of advanced industrial sectors including civil nuclear power generation, trade, defense and security, civil aviation, information and communications technologies.
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  • Reda is participating in her first mission to India since becoming GEH’s CEO in July 2010
  • “Exports are leading the U.S. economic recovery, spurring future economic growth and creating jobs in America,” Locke said when the administration first announced its plans for the trade mission in late 2010. “Increasing trade between the U.S. and India will help drive innovation and create jobs in both countries. As trading partners, U.S. companies can help India meet the ambitious economic and social goals laid out by its government, while the Indian market holds enormous potential for U.S. exporters.”
  • Joining Reda for GE is Timothy Richards, GE Energy’s managing director for energy policy and a veteran of several previous missions to India. Those previous missions focused on civilian nuclear cooperation as a means to help modernize India’s industrial infrastructure and support future economic growth.
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India Starts Construction of New Nuclear Power Plants [18Jul11] - 0 views

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  • Reactors are scheduled to be completed in the year 2016-17 Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd's (NPCIL) second pair of 700 MW Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) – RAPP-7&8 (Rajasthan Atomic Power Project- 7&8) – achieved first pour of concrete last week at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan, India. The First Pour of Concrete (FPC) is an important milestone in the construction of a nuclear power project and signifies the start of the construction (zero date). The reactors are scheduled to be completed in the year 2016-17. On their completion, 1400 MW capacity will be added to the Northern Electricity Grid, of which 700 MW will be allocated to the state of Rajasthan. Designed in India, the 700-MW PHWR is the latest nuclear power reactor, which has been designed by NPCIL by scaling up its 540-MW PHWRs (TAPS-3&4) that are under successful operation at Tarapur in Maharashtra since 2005. Two more 700-MW PHWRs are also under construction at Kakrapar in Gujarat.
  • The 700-MW PHWRs have advanced safety features, including passive safety systems that work on natural principles like gravity, natural convection, etc. and do not need operator intervention or motive power to ensure reactor safety under any state of operation.
  • There are two independent and diverse systems to shut down the reactor, a ‘Passive Decay Heat Removal System’ to ensure cooling of the reactor core even in conditions of total loss of power, and steel-lined inner containment to contain the entire radioactivity within the reactor building even in a severe accident scenario
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  • Currently, there are 20 nuclear power reactors with a capacity of 4780 MW in operation and 7 reactors with a capacity of 5300 MW under construction in the country. On progressive completion of these reactors, the installed nuclear power capacity will reach 10080 MW by the year 2017. More reactors are planned to take the installed capacity to 20000 MW or more by the year 2020.
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L-3 MAPPS Attains Major Milestone on Ling Ao Phase II Simulator Project [20Jul11] - 0 views

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  • L-3 MAPPS announced today that the Ling Ao Phase II nuclear power plant full scope simulator (FSS), the first-ever simulator for a CPR1000 plant, has attained another significant milestone. In a ceremony held in Paris on 28 June 2011 marking the issuance of the provisional acceptance certificate (PAC), L-3 MAPPS joined AREVA, Siemens, Daya Bay Nuclear Power Operations and Management Company (DNMC) and China Nuclear Power Engineering Company (CNPEC) to formally hand over the simulator to DNMC on behalf of the Ling Dong Nuclear Power Company
  • In cooperation with AREVA and Siemens, L-3 MAPPS successfully delivered and installed the FSS in August 2009. The first plant license operator examinations were successfully carried out on the FSS and witnessed in January 2010 by China's nuclear regulatory authority, the National Nuclear Safety Administration. Unit 1 of the Ling Ao Phase II complex entered commercial operation in September 2010 and Unit 2 is planned for August 2011
  • To achieve PAC, the simulator was updated to account for all plant changes since the August 2009 simulator delivery, including commercial operation results. A simulator availability test was performed, which demonstrated a simulator availability of 99.42 percent. With this milestone achieved, the simulator’s warranty period is now underway.
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  • “With the plant and digital control systems (DCS) designs being firmed up in parallel with the simulator’s development, the supplier and customer teams faced tremendous hurdles to complete this project,” said Peter Dawson, president of L-3 MAPPS. “We are extremely proud of what the team has accomplished on the Ling Ao Phase II program and are grateful to so many contributors, including representatives from DNMC, CNPEC, AREVA and Siemens for their outstanding collaboration.” 
  • Integrated with AREVA- and Siemens-supplied DCSs, replica control room panels, and a stimulated human-machine interface, the FSS features L-3 MAPPS’ advanced instructor station capabilities and a proven Windows-based graphical simulation environment. Advanced plant models have been deployed and validated for the reactor, thermal-hydraulic, balance of plant, electrical, and I&C for the turbine control and other miscellaneous systems not controlled by the AREVA/Siemens DCSs. The safety systems DCS is AREVA’s Teleperm XS, and the operational I&C DCS system is Siemens’ SPPA-T2000 with OM690 human-machine interface. 
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EDF Starts a New Plan for Flamanville Unit 3, France [20Jul11] - 0 views

nuclearstreet.com/...-flamanville-unit-3-07212.aspx
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  • This updated project, worth now some 6 billion euros, will give EDF valuable feedback and a tried and tested approach to organization for future EPR reactors, particularly in the United Kingdom. "We are faced with the demands of a major site, and we have had to put together an appropriate industrial framework for us to succeed with this ambitious project. That is what has led us to introduce a new approach to the organization of the site today" explained Hervé Machenaud, EDF's Group Senior Executive in charge of Production and Engineering, Philippe Bonnave, Deputy CEO of Bouygues Construction.
  • EDF has decided to introduce a new approach to organization with its partners, including: the definition of a new, more reliable industrial schedule incorporating all of these points. the launch of regular public "site" meetings to assess the progress of the project as well as the key advances made (positioning of the dome in 2012). the establishment of new practices in terms of management and supervision of the site. the coordination of teams and partners with, for example, the creation of the "F10 committee", bringing together the 9 main companies working on the site. the consolidation of requirements in terms of safety and preparation for intervention operations. This updated project, worth now some 6 billion euros, will give EDF valuable feedback and a tried and tested approach to organization for future EPR reactors, particularly in the United Kingdom.
  • EDF has decided to introduce a new approach to organization at the Flamanville EPR in response to recent events that have slowed down progress on the work site. As a result, the first KWh produced by the EPR will be sold by EDF in 2016.
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  • This delay is linked to both structural and economic reasons. Flamanville 3 is the first nuclear power plant to be built in France for 15 years. It is also the first EPR.
  • In terms of industrial management, EDF has had to review its assessment of the extent of the work to be done, particularly in terms of civil engineering (iron reinforcements and anchor plates, much higher than initial estimates, etc.).
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Phase-Out Hurdle: Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap [21Jul11] - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,774203,00.html
shared by D'coda Dcoda on 23 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Nuclear Phase-Out Related articles, background features and opinions about this topic. Print E-Mail Feedback 07/13/2011   Phase-Out Hurdle Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap dapd Germany might need to switch a nuclear power plant back on. Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also   using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants. For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol. Nuclear energy, as has become abundantly clear this year, has no future in Germany. For once the government, the parliament and the public all agree: Atomic reactors in the country will be history a decade from now. Before that can happen, however, the country has to find alternate power sources. In fact, amid concerns that supply shortages this winter could result in temporary blackouts, Germany's Federal Network Agency on Tuesday indicated that one of the seven reactors shut down in the immediate wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan could be restarted this winter to fill the gap . "The numbers that we currently have indicate that one of these nuclear energy plants will be needed," said agency head Matthias Kurth on Tuesday in Berlin. He said that ongoing analysis has indicated that fossil fuel-powered plants would not prove to be adequate as a backup.
  • Nuclear Phase-Out Related articles, background features and opinions about this topic. Print E-Mail Feedback 07/13/2011   Phase-Out Hurdle Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap dapd Germany might need to switch a nuclear power plant back on. Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also   using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants. For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol. Nuclear energy, as has become abundantly clear this year, has no future in Germany. For once the government, the parliament and the public all agree: Atomic reactors in the country will be history a decade from now. Before that can happen, however, the country has to find alternate power sources. In fact, amid concerns that supply shortages this winter could result in temporary blackouts, Germany's Federal Network Agency on Tuesday indicated that one of the seven reactors shut down in the immediate wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan could be restarted this winter to fill the gap
  • Nuclear Phase-Out Related articles, background features and opinions about this topic. Print E-Mail Feedback 07/13/2011  Phase-Out Hurdle Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap dapd Germany might need to switch a nuclear power plant back on. Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants.
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New Reactor in Tennessee: Safety Concerns Cloud US Nuclear Renaissance [22Jul11] - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,775209,00.html
shared by D'coda Dcoda on 23 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Watts Bar 2, the US's newest nuclear power plant, is being built in Tennessee and is expected to go online next year. It has a history of safety concerns that goes back decades. Nevertheless, many local people support nuclear power and are welcoming the reactor with open arms.
  • Mansour Guity was the chief witness against the American nuclear industry. He crippled entire power plants almost single-handedly. But now the 30-year war he has been waging is coming to an end. They are now putting the finishing touches on the second reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in the Tennessee River valley, less than 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Guity's house. After construction was stopped more than two decades ago and resumed in 2007, the reactor is now expected to go online next year. Mansour Guity isn't doing too well at the moment.
  • In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, he gradually discovered that so many shortcuts were taken, and some of the work was so shoddy, during the construction of the nuclear plants along the Tennessee River that it made a mockery of any notion of nuclear safety. Guity was a nuclear engineer at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a large, long-established government-owned company that operates the Browns Ferry, Sequoyah, Bellefonte and Watts Bar nuclear power plants. When the plants were built, there was talk of thousands of clear violations of plans and building regulations, with the most serious infractions occurring at Watts Bar.
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  • A nuclear engineer who was born in Iran in 1942, Guity is a disappointed American today. "Time bombs," he says, sounding very bitter. "We are sitting on a bunch of ticking time bombs."
  • Not Up to Standard
  • The plant's two units were built at the same time in the 1970s and 80s. Only Unit 1 was placed into operation, after a dramatic delay, while Unit 2 remained unfinished until construction was resumed a few years ago. If Guity had his way, the entire plant, including both units and everything else associated with it, would disappear from the map as soon as possible.
  • The reason Guity still has trouble sleeping at night is his belief that all of these old mistakes and violations can never be completely corrected.
  • One of the reasons Guity is so upset is that there is no public debate in the United States over Watts Bar, or nuclear energy in general. It is a non-issue throughout the country, even though, according to Guity, there are plenty of reasons that it should be discussed. The United States has 104 nuclear reactors in operation, more than any other country in the world. Many plants are alarmingly dated -- some are 40 years old or even older. Some 65,000 tons of nuclear waste have accumulated over the decades. As unbelievable as it sounds, the country doesn't even have a long-term plan for the storage and disposal of the nuclear waste being generated every day.
  • If the second unit at Watts Bar, America's last reactor still under construction, really does go online next year, almost 40 years after building work began, parts of the unit will still date from the time when so many criteria were being violated. In fact, no one, not even the TVA, knows exactly the nature and scope of these violations.
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Lessons Learned from Fukushima: part I - the Technical [24Jun11] - 0 views

www.4factorconsulting.com/...part-i-%e2%80%93-the-technical
shared by Dan R.D. on 23 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • 1)     Natural disasters
  • In the U.S. this is an ongoing effort. Every time something happens through the INPO reporting systems and the NRC assessments, the entire industry looks at each facility and assesses any lessons learned or changes that need to be made.However, it is clear that we need to remain vigilant against complacency while balancing cost vs. risk assessments of these potentials.
  • 2)   Long term Station Blackout (SBO)
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  • Generally two issues stand out. Either the possibility of common cause failure needs to be eliminated, or the facility needs to be able to manage for a longer period before regaining power. The inherent issue here is how long is long enough and the fact that batteries aren’t really a practical option for driving pump power.
  • 3)   Ultimate Heat Sink
  • The underlying issue of SBO is one of maintaining the ultimate heat sink during those early critical hours when the decay heat in the reactor is significant and can cause major fuel failure. Loss of the heat sink is the ultimate reason for the catastrophic failure of the fuel in core. Whether a solution separate from the SBO issues is required isn’t clear, but the issue is one to consider.
  • 4)   Spent Fuel Pools
  • The issues with the spent fuel pools are still evolving. Claims made internationally regarding the status of the pools in the early days of the event have been clearly proven false. However, at a minimum these pools represented a significant diversion of resources for TEPCO that could have been better spent elsewhere.
  • 5)    Hydrogen
  • aside: I’ve been told that many believe that hydrogen explosion to be like a hydrogen bomb. That is not the case. The explosion we’re talking about here is that of hydrogen and oxygen recombining rather violently to make water. It is the same mechanism that caused the explosion of the Challenger Shuttle in the 1980’s :end aside.
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