June, 2012

A few weeks back, we asked our readers to participate in an LA Times poll on the continued operation of the San Onofre nuclear power plant . Earlier today, the San Diego Union-Tribune posted their own poll on the ultimate fate of the facility: If you support the continued operation of the plant, please...

The Third Way’s report on the future of nuclear energy, which we excerpted yesterday, focuses a good deal on trade issues and how to  ensure that the United States retains its primacy as a exporter of nuclear technology, goods and services. Bolstering that subject, NEI’s Everett Redmond has offered...

Earlier today, the Washington think tank Third Way issued a major public policy paper on how government and industry can work together to support the nation's global leadership position in nuclear energy. To shed some additional light on the paper, we asked Robert Walther , a Senior Policy Advisor...

Nothing much to add to this : The construction of a new fleet of nuclear power plants in the U.K. could boost the economy by five billion pounds a year, said a report published Tuesday. Investment in new nuclear plants could also create more than 32,000 additional jobs a year while giving a significant...

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that electricity generated by nuclear energy in the United States is projected to increase 10 percent by 2035 over 2010 totals if current laws and regulations remain unchanged. This scenario, deemed the “reference case,” is one of the EIA’s 30...

We haven’t looked at editorial punditry lately, but there have been some thoughtful entries lately. The Washington Post  weighed in on the restart of two of the reactors at Japan’s Ohi site over the weekend. The Post editorial is largely about trust and how the nuclear energy here and abroad depends...

Industry/Regulatory/Political Tokyo Electric Power Co. last week released its final report of the company’s internal investigation of events at Fukushima Daiichi following the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. Japanese media say that in the report TEPCO says it failed to adequately prepare for...

Consider this: when Lithuania closed its nuclear plant in 2009, it lost access to a whopping 70 percent of its total electricity generation – enough to allow it to be a net exporter of electricity, especially to its Baltic neighbors, Estonia and Latvia. The reason one nuclear plant could so dominate...

The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. NEI has sent the NRC information on the industry’s Severe Accident Management Guidelines (SAMGs) for managing extreme events at nuclear power plants, in response to the agency’s advance notice of proposed rulemaking for emergency...

When I first got into the office this morning, the headline that jumped out at me immediately was the news the security team at the Ringhals nuclear plant in Sweden had foiled an attempt to smuggle explosives into the facility. The bottom line here: plant security functioned exactly as it should have...

Nine U.S. congressional leaders from Washington state penned a letter to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu this week to urge the federal agency to consider the state as a possible location for small nuclear reactors . The letter, signed by both of the state’s U.S. senators and seven U.S. representatives...

We promise not to beat the horse until it starts beating us – and we’re probably close to that point – but say, how is that shift to renewable energy going in Germany ? The country’s third-largest aluminum producer, Voerde Aluminium GmbH , filed for bankruptcy amidst trade groups advocating affordable...

South Carolinian and Missourian leaders came forward this week to tout the economic benefits of new nuclear reactors, a sign of their growing support for further developing new plants in their states. The positive statements come at a time when the bidding continues to heat up for investment funds from...

There is an unofficial poll being conducted by The Los Angeles Times regarding the future of San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station . If you support the continued operation of San Onofre nuclear plant, please click here , scroll down to the bottom of the page, and vote to: "Reopen them and seek a...

Industry/Regulatory/Political Japan’s government has approved restarting two reactors at the Ohi nuclear power plant in the Fukui prefecture in central Japan. The government decision came after the governor of Fukui told Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda that he approved the restart. All 50 of Japan...

Outside Japan, it seemed inevitable : Japan has given final approval for the restart of two nuclear reactors, a move that will end a total shutdown of the atomic power sector caused by safety fears raised by last year’s crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Inevitable because the Prime Minister Yoshihiko...

NEI held a friendly Facebook contest last week to see who could tell the best nuclear energy-related joke. With more than a dozen people submitting entries and many others voting on their favorite jokes, NEI revealed late Friday afternoon that the winning entry came from Mark Reed, a research and teaching...

As a dedicated young leader in the nuclear energy industry, Kristine Madden, a reactor engineer at Entergy’s Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan, is actively involved in collaborating with colleagues to keep the plant safe. Besides pursuing a joint master’s degree in business administration and engineering...

James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia Theory and a prominent pro-nuclear environmentalist was interviewed by the Guardian today. He was a provocative as always, and had this to say about Germany's planned phase-out of nuclear energy: "It looks to me as if the green ideas they have picked...

I got a surprise this morning as I opened my email: the news that the U.K. affiliate of Friends of the Earth (FOE), one of the world's leading environmental organizations, may drop its long-time opposition to the use of nuclear energy. The word comes from author, journalist and climate activist Mark...

An interesting comment by NRC Chairman-designate Allison Macfarlane at her confirmation hearing yesterday – which was very uncontentious, by the way – was the comment that only the United States has a deep geologic repository for nuclear materials – The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad...

The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview. NEI is urging the NRC to remain focused on the high-priority recommendations from the agency’s Fukushima task force before proceeding with implementation of the lower-priority items. “Preliminary industry assessments indicate that...

Since I came to the nuclear industry five years ago, I have heard my fair share of nuclear energy-related jokes (I used to keep a running tally to see how many I’d hear in a day!). Inspired by a joke we saw by NRC Commissioner Kristine Svinicki, posted in today’s Environment & Energy Daily , we decided...

This is called overselling your story : Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Facility in Lusby, Maryland recently began a lengthy roof replacement process, due to take over a year. During such renovations, it is common for dust and debris to become a menace, quickly covering all the surfaces in the building below...

One of the blogs we regularly monitor is All Things Nuclear , the blog on commercial nuclear energy sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists . It was impossible to miss this passage in a post published there yesterday by David Lochbaum. He wrote the following after participating in a panel discussion...