Open Intelligence / Energy

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.

Germany announced plans in late May to close all the country's nuclear power plants by 2022 -- making it the largest industrialized nation to do so. Nuclear power supplies 23 percent of its energy grid. Since the Japan disaster it has permanently shuttered eight plants (including the seven oldest in the country). That leaves nine plants to go -- six of which, the government announced, will close up by 2021.

Italy Last month, Silvio Berlusconi's plans to return Italy to the nuclear club were dashed by a referendum that found 90 percent of Italians rejected the technology.

Switzerland No neutrality here -- the government announced in May it too was taking a side against nuclear technology, in response to Japan's disaster. Nuclear energy accounts for roughly 40 percent of Switzerland's energy supply. Its five nuclear reactors won't fully be phased out, experts estimate, until 2040. The move is popular with the Swiss citizens -- 20,000 of whom demonstrated against the technology before the government's decision

As a result the embattled prime minister said, "We shall probably have to say goodbye to nuclear [energy]." He noted that the government will instead shift its energies to developing renewable energy sources. Berlusconi had been trying to reconstitute an industry that was already abandoned once before -- back in 1987. Currently there are no nuclear plants, but the prime minister hoped to get nuclear power to account for a quarter of the country's energy needs and planned to begin building new plants by as early as 2013.

Mexico Despite the fact that nuclear energy only accounts for less than 5 percent of the market in Mexico, which has only one plant, a recent worldwide survey found that Mexico was one of the most anti-nuclear countries in the world, with about 80 percent of its population opposing the power source. That doesn't bode well for future nuclear development.

Mexico is one of only three Latin American nations that uses nuclear power. And last year the country delayed a decision until at least 2012 on whether to go ahead with plans to build 10 more plants, according to the country's energy minister. President Felipe Calderon has said he'd push to make sure "clean energy" accounts for at least 35 percent of the country's energy needs.

France Let's be clear, France is unlikely to ditch nuclear power completely anytime soon. A longtime champion of the technology, it accounts for 75 percent of the country's energy needs. But there are indications political leaders are falling out of love -- ever so slightly -- with the power source. On Friday, July 8 the government launched a study of energy technologies that included one potential scenario of completely doing away with nuclear power by 2040. It's the first time the government has ever even mentioned the possibility. A more likely result of the study will be cutting the nuclear share of the market. Indeed, France has increased its investment in wind energy lately. The government is likely responding to growing public pressure to do away with nuclear energy. A recent BBC survey found 57 percent of French respondents opposed the technology.

The study concluded, "This nationwide cohort study, adjusting for confounders and using exact distances from residence at birth and diagnosis to the nearest nuclear power plants, found little evidence for an association between the risk of leukaemia or any childhood cancer and living near nuclear power plants."   There are five nuclear power plants in Switzerland (Beznau I and II, Mühleberg, Gösgen and Leibstadt). About 1% of the population lives within 5 km of a plant and 10% live within 15 km.

The radioactive emissions in the vicinity of Swiss nuclear power plants are regularly monitored and the data are published by the Division for Radiation Protection of the FOPH. "The exposure due to emissions from nuclear power plants in the vicinity of these plants is below 0.01 millisieverts per year," the University of Bern said. "This corresponds to less than 1/500 of the average total radiation residents in Switzerland are exposed to, mainly from radon gas, cosmic and terrestrial radiation and medical investigations and therapies."

Assuming about five years for construction it can be expected that reactors will be coming online around 2012 at double today's rate of five per year, with this to rise to one per month around 2015.

Fukushima impact

Despite a return to form for nuclear power in 2010, the impact of the Fukushima accident, not only in Japan but around the world, will significantly reduce the amount of electricity generated by nuclear power plants in 2011.

According to data released by the Japan Atomic Industry Forum (JAIF), only 17 of Japan's 54 nuclear power reactors were in operation in mid-May. They represented around 15,500 MWe, or 31%, of the country's total nuclear generating capacity.

The letter of intent also specifies the division of responsibilities between GmP and TVA for the preparation and NRC review of a construction licence application. The letter also describes the timing of the projects activities for successful completion of major EPC milestones.   Ali Azad, GmP president and CEO, said, "We have been working with TVA for some time to evaluate the technical and regulatory requirements associated with constructing B&W mPower SMRs at its Clinch River site."   In a statement, B&W said, "GmP remains on track to deploy the first B&W mPower reactor by 2020 at TVA's Clinch River site."   The mPower Integrated System Test (IST) facility in Virginia is expected to soon begin a three-year project to collect data to verify the reactor design and safety performance in support of B&W’s licensing activities with the NRC. TVA plans to submit a construction permit application to the NRC in 2012, while GmP plans to submit a design certification application in 2013.   B&W claims that the "scalable nature of nuclear power plants built around the B&W mPower reactor would provide customers with practical power increments of 125 MWe to meet local energy needs within power grid and plant site constraints."

India had declared plans of spending $175 billion by 2030 on nuclear generation. In December, India had signed an agreement with France last December, which assigned $9.3 billion towards building two nuclear plants with the help of Areva, a Paris-based company. However, following the earthquake, concerned officials said that they would need to “revisit the entire thing” including their plans for setting up the new reactor plans.

Though California is somewhat on the ball regarding testing for radiation in foods, other states appear to be asleep at the switch with this issue. Yet broad-leaf vegetables including spinach and kale are accumulating radiation from rain and dust. Some spinach, arugula and wild-harvested mushrooms have tested positive for cesium 134 and 137 according to UCB, as have strawberries.

Doctor Alan Lockwood MD echoes this. “Consuming food containing radionuclides is particularly dangerous. If an individual ingests or inhales a radioactive particle, it continues to irradiate the body as long as it remains radioactive and stays in the body.”

The Tea Association of the US's chairman said, "There's nothing in the world like green tea from Japan. If we upload the data [that the governor has given us] to our homepage, the sale of green tea will be back to normal."

Answers to the question of what's wrong with the governor's statement:1. Shizuoka is far away from Fukushima, so what? That does not change the fact that radioactive materials have been falling in Shizuoka since the Fukushima blowup, and hasn't stopped at the prefectural border (although initially some people in Shizuoka actually claimed that the Hakone Mountains blocked the radiation).2. The statement that "the levels of radioactive cesium were below the safety limit" is plain wrong. French authorities confiscated the green tea grown and processed in Shizuoka Prefecture when that tea tested over 1000 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium, twice the loose safety limit of Japan and the EU. Also, the tea from Warashina District tested higher than the 500 becquerels/kg limit, which was first discovered by Radish Boya, an online grocer in Tokyo.

3. Standard? What standard? The radiation safety limit for food in the US is 170 becquerels/kg. Of all teas from Shizuoka's tea growing regions, only 4 would be considered safe, being below 170 becquerels/kg. The data is right there in the Shizuoka prefectural government website.

If the governor tries to get away by saying the radioactive materials in the brewed tea in a teacup tested below the safety limit, that's also wrong. The Shizuoka government website also has that data, which shows between 1.6 and 14 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium. Since it is water that is used to brew the tea, we can translate this as having 1.6 to 14 becquerels/liter of radioactive cesium. It sure clears the Japan's extremely loose standard after Fukushima, which is 200 becquerels/liter.

However, the US standard for drinks is 0.11 becquerels/liter. None of the Shizuoka tea, even when brewed, would pass the safety standard of the US. Several would fail the WHO standard, which is 10 becquerels/liter.Maybe the Tea Association chairman didn't know about the standards in the US. Or maybe the strict standards have been modified quietly in the US just like the EU did.

Japan is already sweltering in the summer heat as it seeks to save electricity and avoid blackouts

only 19 of Japan's 54 reactors are now operating. The Ooi shutdown -- to be completed Saturday evening -- will bring the number to 18, with further reactors soon due to shut down for regular checks