Pro-Nuclear Power Blogs

Without Nuclear, A Rube Goldberg Energy Policy

NEI — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:02:00 GMT

Larry Beahan is conservation chairman of the Sierra Club Niagara Group, so he likely has some tart things to say about nuclear energy. But that’s not his direct goal in his op-ed in the Buffalo News. His purpose is to synopsize and endorse a plan by Cornell Professor Robert Howarth to completely move New York state from fossil fuels and nuclear energy to renewable energy. Professor Howarth’s paper, published in the journal Energy Policy, is clearly a serious work. It has practical guidance as to how New York might proceed with his ideas, but is largely intended, I think, as an explication of its efficacy.

I was amused by a table he created of “plants or devices” needed to achieve his goal – about 16,000 windmills and almost 5 million residential PV systems all told. That’s a lot of windmills that all have moving parts to keep in order. And a lot of buy-in will be required to induce people too install PV systems on their roofs.

But I imagine it could be done.

The real fun comes in how to deal with the intermittency of renewable energy, because it sounds like Rube Goldberg gone berserk. There is no real way to stow significant levels of electricity, which sends Beahan (and Howarth) skittering across the possibilities.

He [Howarth] deals with the problem of variability of wind and sun by building over-capacity and storing the excess energy. It would be stored both where it is produced and where it is used, in batteries, thermal media, pumped water, compressed air, fly wheels, in the batteries of our new fleet of all electric vehicles and in the form of hydrogen for burning where high temperatures are needed.

In bathtubs, crock pots and fish tanks, where ever electricity can be stuffed. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with the electricity stored in an electric car except use it to power the car, but the other possibilities probably can not get you where you need to go – the technology is all over the place.

Here’s how Howarth presents the same issue:

A) combining geographically-dispersed WWS [wind water sunlight] resources as a bundled set of resources rather than separate resources and using hydroelectric or stored concentrated solar power to balance the remaining load; (B) using demand-response management to shift times of demand to better match the availability of WWS power; (C) over-sizing WWS peak generation capacity to minimize the times when available WWS power is less than demand and provide power to produce heat for air and water and hydrogen for transportation and heating when WWS power exceeds demand; (D) integrating weather forecasts into system operation; (E) storing energy in batteries or other storage media at the site of generation or use; and (F) storing energy in electric-vehicle batteries for later extraction (vehicle-to-grid).

So that’s how you’d use the cars – or perhaps just banks of their batteries. But it’s still an ungainly hodgepodge. Howarth doesn’t describe how all this would be mediated, but it’d be tough. I’d say when you include “integrating weather forecasts into system operation” as a suggestion, you’re not moving forward anymore.

The complete loss of baseload energy is a sort of utopia for a fair number of environmentalists and they should be cheered by Professor Howarth’s work. I’m going to trust that what he proposes can be done, even if in a Rube Goldberg kind of way and even if the main interest here is showing how it can be done not whether it should be done.

Howarth is off the hook, but his report is a trap for the dogmatic. It puts a carbon free utopia on a foundation of sand and fog. Nuclear energy gets you to a emissions free energy profile and you don’t have to put the electricity in a trunk – and renewable energy still has a significant role. It’s not either/or. Let’s call Professor Howarth’s paper a worthy exercise and leave it at that.

Moniz takes office

WNN — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:53:00 GMT

Ernest Moniz was sworn in yesterday as the 13th US Secretary of Energy at a ceremony in Washington, DC.

Taishan 2 steam generator ready

WNN — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:52:00 GMT

The first Chinese-made steam generator for an EPR has been completed and is being transported to unit 2 of the Taishan plant in the country's Guangdong province.

The Unofficial Guide to Pandora's Promise, a Documentary Film About Nuclear Energy by Robert Stone Premiering in New York City on June 12 and Nationwide on June 14

NEI — Wed, 22 May 2013 12:44:00 GMT

Editor's Note: Here at NEI, we're keeping a close eye on Pandora's Promise, a documentary film about how many prominent environmentalists have changed their minds about nuclear energy because of concerns about climate change. To see the least, I'm looking forward to seeing the film, but haven't had the opportunity to do so as of yet.

As we near the official premiere in New York on June 12, I'll be collecting all of the online coverage about the film in this space. Every time I make a major update to the content below, I'll bump this post back to the top of the blog. When I finally see the film myself, I'll write a review of my own that I'll link to below. As always, our readers are an important part of this conversation, so please don't hesitate to send us links and suggestions as to how we might improve our coverage of the film.

In this guide you will find:

Synopsis
Official Trailer
Where to See Pandora's Promise
Bios of Film's Principals
Reviews and Other Coverage
Videos
Social Media

Synopsis (from the official web site):

Impact Partners and CNN Films present PANDORA’S PROMISE, the groundbreaking new film by Academy-Award®-nominated director Robert Stone. The atomic bomb and meltdowns like Fukushima have made nuclear power synonymous with global disaster. But what if we’ve got nuclear power wrong? An audience favorite at the Sundance Film Festival, PANDORA’S PROMISE asks whether the one technology we fear most could save our planet from a climate catastrophe, while providing the energy needed to lift billions of people in the developing world out of poverty.

Official Trailer:

Where to See Pandora's Promise:

The film opens in New York City on June 12 at Sunshine Cinema on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Two days later, on June 14, the film will open in an additional 16 cities nationwide (Atlanta, Berkeley, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Irvine, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Washington, DC) with another five cities being added on June 21 (Austin, Charlotte, Dallas, Portland, Scottsdale). Tickets should also be available online through Fandango and MovieTickets.com. Consult the film's web site for a complete list of theaters. On April 30, 2013, CNN Films announced that it had acquired cable television broadcast rights to the film and intended to air it sometime in November 2013.

Principals:

Robert Stone, Director:

Robert Stone is a multi-award-winning, Oscar-nominated and Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker. Born in England in 1958, he grew up in both Europe and America. After graduating with a degree in history from the University of Wisconsin/Madison, he moved to New York City in 1983 determined to pursue a career in filmmaking. He gained considerable recognition for his first film, “RADIO BIKINI” (1987) which premiered at Sundance and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. Multi-tasking as a producer, director, writer, editor and cameraman, he has over the last 25 years developed a steady international reputation with a range of unique and critically acclaimed feature-documentaries about American history, pop-culture, the mass media and the environment.

Michael Shellenberger, The Breakthrough Institute:

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger are leading global thinkers on energy, climate, security, human development, and politics. Their 2007 book Break Through was called "prescient" by Time and "the best thing to happen to environmentalism since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring" by Wired. (An excerpt in The New Republic can be read here.) Their 2004 essay, "The Death of Environmentalism," was featured on the front page of the Sunday New York Times, sparked a national debate, and inspired a generation of young environmentalists ...

Stewart Brand, Editor, The Whole Earth Catalog and Co-Chair and President of The Long Now Foundation:

Stewart Brand is co-founder and president of The Long Now Foundation and co-founder of Global Business Network. He created and edited the Whole Earth Catalog (National Book Award), and co-founded the Hackers Conference and The WELL. His books include The Clock of the Long Now; How Buildings Learn; and The Media Lab. His most recent book, titled Whole Earth Discipline, is published by Viking in the US and Atlantic in the UK. He graduated in Biology from Stanford and served as an Infantry officer.

Richard Rhodes, Author, The Making of the Atomic Bomb:

RICHARD RHODES is the author or editor of twenty-four books including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award ...

Gwyneth Cravens, Author, The Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy:

as contributed articles and op-eds on science and other topics to Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She has published five novels. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, where she also worked as a fiction editor, and in Harper’s Magazine, where she was an associate editor. She grew up in New Mexico and now lives on eastern Long Island.

Mark Lynas, Environmentalist and Climate Change Activist (also writing a companion book to the film):

frequent speaker around the world on climate change science and policy, focusing in particular on how carbon neutral targets can break the international logjam on climate mitigation, and how emissions reduction should be seen as an opportunity not a sacrifice. He is also a Visiting Research Associate at Oxford University’s School of Geography and the Environment.

Reviews and Other Coverage:

Tim Wu, Slate:

A good, politically charged documentary often seizes on what the audience already believes and throws fuel on the fire (see, e.g., the work of Michael Moore). A better such documentary tries to convince its audience that what it takes for granted is flat-out wrong. Pandora’s Promise, which premiered at Sundance, does just that. It makes the utterly convincing case that anyone who considers themselves an environmentalist or takes climate change seriously should favor more nuclear power.

Kate Briemann, Rolling Stone:

After sifting through the anti-nuclear choruses and the considerably smaller pro-nuclear groups in an attempt to find the truth about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy, Stone found his answer with Michael Shellberger, the president and co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute: "We can have a world living modern lives without killing the climate."

John Anderson, Variety:

Can one be committed to the environment, and still be against nuclear power? Most issue docs are propaganda, and Robert Stone’s latest is a formidable sales pitch for nukes, yet the film’s points are well reasoned and urgent, and should attract viewers who have been drawn to the director’s earlier work(such as “Earth Days,” a history of the environmentalist movement).

Maxine Segarnick, Poughkeepsie Journal:

The film strives to debunk several nuclear myths, such as the reportedly high radiation level and death toll caused by the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. Environmental activists continue to use Chernobyl as an example of the potential danger of nuclear development. However, the film shows a radioactivity monitor at Chernobyl, as well as at other sites in America and Europe, and demonstrates that the level of radioactivity in Chernobyl in 2012 is nearly identical to that of Central Park in New York City.

Natalie Rooney, VoxTalk:

In a world where most people think nuclear plants are dangerous, Pandora’s Promise challenges viewers to see the benefits of nuclear energy. Despite this daunting challenge, the most admirable aspect of Pandora’s Promise is director Robert Stone’s commitment to presenting both sides of the nuclear energy argument.

Joe Bendel, Libertas:

Stone made his name with the anti-nuclear doc Radio Bikini and would further burnish his green credentials with Earth Days. Very concerned about global warming, Stone could no longer accept the environmental movement’s unrealistic claims about solar and wind power. As his primary POV experts argue, any power plan with a significant wind or solar component will by necessity be heavily dependent on big, dirty fossil fuel plants as a back-up. The simple truth is that the sun does not always shine and the wind does not always blow, but coal burns 24-7.

Stephanie Novak:

Pandora’s Promise has the immensely difficult task of changing people’s mindsets about nuclear energy—a task that became extraordinarily more difficult after the nuclear explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. Knowing that the film was in favor of nuclear energy, I was surprised that during the beginning of the documentary, arguments against nuclear energy were explained—I almost thought that I was wrong and that the film might be anti-nuclear energy. But in my opinion, this was one of the strongest points of the film. I thought that by clearly laying out reasons why people would be against nuclear energy ultimately made the film’s pro-nuclear stance stronger, as I understood arguments on both sides of the debate by the time the film finished.

Videos:

Q&A at the IFC Center's Stranger Than Fiction Series (click here for additional interview):

Interview With Ondi Timoner of Bring Your Own Doc:

Robert Stone Interview with GenConnect:

BMI Sundance Composer/Director Roundtable:

Robert Stone and Mark Lynas Interviewed by Tara Hunnewell:

Mark Lynas Interview with Hedgerly Wood Trust:

Social Media:

Follow Pandora's Promise on Twitter and Facebook. Folks on Twitter seem to be using #PandorasPromise to organize conversations around the film. You can also subscribe to the film's YouTube Channel. If you've seen the film already, consider posting your review at the Internet Movie Database. In response to critiques of the film by anti-nuclear activists, Nick Touran, a recent Ph.D. graduate of the nuclear engineering program at the University of Michigan published a defense of the film.

IAEA to designate capacity building centre in Fukushima for emergency preparedness and response

IAEA — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:58:00 GMT

The IAEA, supported by the Government of Japan, will designate a new Response and Assistance Network (RANET) Capacity Building Centre in the city of Fukushima next week. The Centre will be home to several IAEA activities aimed at enhancing emergency preparedness and response capacity, both in Japan and worldwide, in light of the March 2011 [...]

Replace price of carbon with price on carbon

Rod Adams — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:46:00 GMT

While browsing

The post Replace price of carbon with price on carbon appeared first on Atomic Insights.

Green Nuclear Junk – reposted from DecarboniseSA

Rod Adams — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:06:00 GMT

Ben Heard and Geoff Russell collaborated on a post for DecarboniseSA titled Green Nuclear Junk that takes careful aim at an antinuclear meme that is mostly based on a series of false assumptions that include a table of mortality figures made incorrect by dividing by 8.76 instead of multiplying by that same number. With Ben’s [...]

The post Green Nuclear Junk – reposted from DecarboniseSA appeared first on Atomic Insights.

Forward-Looking Energy Vision for U.S.

AREVA — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:35:00 GMT

AREVA Inc. CEO Mike Rencheck sat down with Chris Newkumet from Platts TV on Sunday, May 19, to share his perspective on the nuclear industry and AREVA’s Forward-Looking Energy vision. This vision articulates the company’s outlook through a discussion of growth, people and responsibility. “AREVA is at the forefront of a daily nuclear energy renewal [...]

Korean nuclear plants renamed

WNN — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:06:00 GMT

Two South Korean nuclear power plants - Yonggwang and Ulchin - have been renamed in response to pressure from local fishermen who claimed that problems at the plants had damaged the image of their traditional catches.

AKME licensed to build

WNN — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:40:00 GMT

Russia's AKME-Engineering is now licensed to provide construction services for nuclear power plants, in preparation for the construction of a pilot heavy metal-cooled reactor.

How a Questioning Attitude Encourages Safety

U.S. NRC — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:41:00 GMT

Maria E. Schwartz Office of Enforcement Senior Project Manager Are we there yet? Why is the sky blue? Why is rain wet? Children have an endless list of questions as they discover the world around them. But as we grow older, most people tend to ask fewer questions. This may be due, at least […]

IAEA Head Calls On Nuclear Plants To Ask For Osart Missions

NucNet — Tue, 21 May 2013 08:14:00 GMT

21 May (NucNet): Requests by International Atomic Energy Agency member states for Operational Safety Review (Osart) missions “do not appear to have increased” since Fukushima-Daiichi and several countries have still not requested an Osart missions, the agency’s director-general has said.

JAEA head resigns following Monju lapses

WNN — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:35:00 GMT

Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) president Atsuyuki Suzuki has resigned after the country's nuclear regulator blocked the restart of the Monju prototype fast breeder reactor due to inspection deficiencies.

Why Building Too Much Natural Gas Capacity to Generate Electricity Could Come Back to Haunt Florida

NEI — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:27:00 GMT

NEI VP Richard Myers

About a week ago, the Tampa Bay Times published an analysis by Ivan Penn claiming that ratepayers in Florida would be better served if Duke Energy built a natural gas plant in place of a proposed nuclear energy facility in Levy County. Over the weekend, that same paper published a letter to the editor by NEI's Richard Myers taking issue with that conclusion:

Nuclear plants offer benefits

The May 12 article "Levy nuclear plant more costly than a natural gas facility" fails to account for the economic and environmental benefits the two nuclear plants would bring to Florida. Progress Energy Florida, now Duke Energy Florida, determined in 2008 that the Levy nuclear plants would benefit the state by providing fuel diversity and price stability for consumers while avoiding air emissions.

In 2012, Florida generated 68 percent of its electricity from natural gas, a significant increase from 47 percent in 2008. Floridians may recall that in 2008 and 2009, the state endured its highest-ever electricity costs when natural gas prices were hitting all-time highs. Five years later, Florida relies even more on natural gas.

Just like a diversified financial portfolio is important for investors, so is a diversified energy portfolio for consumers. By relying ever more heavily on natural gas, Florida is putting itself in an increasingly vulnerable position if and when natural gas prices change.

Further, if natural gas plants are built instead of the two Levy nuclear plants, the gas plants will consume nearly 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and emit more than 500 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over 60 years.

The Levy nuclear plants will help Florida manage and balance any future that includes changes in carbon regulations and natural gas fuel costs, and an overreliance on any one form of electricity generation.

Richard Myers, vice president, Nuclear Energy Institute

This isn't the first time Richard has addressed this issue. Back in January, he took issue with a piece in the Wall Street Journal that concluded that the natural gas boomlet we're currently experiencing might undo nuclear energy. The key takeaway here: nothing is forever, and that goes double for natural gas prices.

Gift of salt for Czech research program

WNN — Mon, 20 May 2013 15:04:00 GMT

A Czech nuclear research institute has received a shipment of fluoride salt from the US Department of Energy. The Řež research institute is conducting studies into the use of the salt as a coolant in high-temperature nuclear reactors.

Dounreay waste retrieval deal

WNN — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:59:00 GMT

UK-based engineering company James Fisher Nuclear has won a £5 million ($7.6 million) contract for the retrieval and processing of radioactive waste from a 65-metre deep shaft and a wet silo at the Dounreay site.

Director General Amano speaks at WANO gathering

IAEA — Mon, 20 May 2013 10:49:00 GMT

The following is the text of a speech by Director General Yukiya Amano to the Biennial General Meeting of the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) in Moscow today: Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, When I addressed the last WANO Biennial Meeting in Shenzhen, China, in October 2011, we were still in the direct aftermath [...]

Belgian Regulator Approves Restart Of Doel-3 And Tihange-2

NucNet — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:21:00 GMT

20 May (NucNet): Belgium’s nuclear safety regulator has given approval for GDF Suez to restart two nuclear reactors closed last year over safety concerns, it said in a statement.

Obama's EPA Makes A Rad Decision

Jim Conca — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:43:00 GMT

The Obama Administration made a bold and correct scientific decision last month to allow risk-based decisions to guide responses to radiological events like a dirty bomb attack or a nuclear reactor accident. And not to treat it like a superfund site. This is very important because, in such events, the normal response can be worse than the event itself for many of those affected.

Risks to American nuclear workers from “nonproliferation” excesses

Rod Adams — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:09:00 GMT

Elaine Grossman has published a piece on Nextgov.com titled Former Defense Brass Object to ‘More Restrictive’ Nuclear Trade Policies that is critical of an effort led by John Hamre to question recent deliberations by the Obama Administration. The end result of the talks has the potential to complicate rules for US based organizations that want [...]

The post Risks to American nuclear workers from “nonproliferation” excesses appeared first on Atomic Insights.