Archive for the ‘Good News Monday’ Category

While Vermont officials play Russian roulette with the state’s electricity supply, officials and business leaders in nearby Connecticut have suddenly realized that they will be affected as well.

“The political and regulatory fight in Vermont over the continued operation of the 650-megawatt nuclear power plant in Vernon will have lasting impacts on New England’s electricity pricing and the reliability of the regional power grid,” writes the Hartford Business Journal in an analysis of what the move would mean to the rest of New England. ”As Connecticut is an importer of electricity, these out-of-state battles further cement the state’s notorious reputation for high electricity costs, which rank the second highest in the nation.”

“This system is not in the interest of Connecticut ratepayers,” State Sen. John Fonfara, D-Hartford told the Business Journal. Fonfara has been sponsoring legislation to try the change the New England grid’s pricing system to benefit his state.

To date the only other reaction to Vermont’s plans came from the New England Independent Systems Operator, which forbid Vermont Yankee from dropping out of an auction to supply power to the region in 2013-2014. The ISO said Vermont Yankee’s power was vital to the reliability of the grid. All of New England is on a single grid with prices set by supply and demand.

Removing Vermont Yankee’s 650 megawatts will have a large impact throughout the region. “Connecticut would have little control over the effects of the Vermont power drain,” writes Brad Kane, of the Business Journal. “The loss of Vermont Yankee would drop the grid beneath the reliability standards established by Congress in the wake of the August 2003 blackouts.”

Vermont Yankee’s 30-year license expires in 2012 and will have to be renewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Because of an arrangement struck when Entergy bought Vermont Yankee in 2002, the Vermont State Legislature has veto power over the relicensing. Last February the state senate voted 26-to-4 to close the reactor due to tritium leaks – but who knows what it will do when the day of reckoning arrives? 

Meanwhile, citizens of Brattleboro will have the opportunity to vote in a non-binding referendum on November 2 to condemn Entergy’s corporate offices in the city – although the company could probably move to another location. The reactor is located in the neighboring town of Vernon, where support for Vermont Yankee is the strongest in the state

Read more at Hartford Business
 

Deborah Deal-Blackwell is part of an ambitious brother-sister team that is shaking up the world of nuclear energy. Working hand-in-hand with the Los Alamos Laboratory’s Technology Transfer Division, Deal-Blackwell and her brother John “Grizz” Deal had already created several small spin-offs four years ago when they came in contact with Dr. Otis “Pete” Peterson, who had invented a small modular reactor he thought could be used in remote mining and tar sands development. Together they founded Hyperion Power Generation with Grizz serving as CEO and Deal-Blackwell as vice president for public policy and licensing.

 Deal-Blackwell immediately saw the possibility of wider applications for the reactor. She persuaded Peterson and Grizz, who was “entrepreneur-in-residence” at Los Alamos, to journey to Washington to make a presentation to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “At the time, the NRC didn’t even have anyone assigned to SMRs,” she recalls.

 What happened next is the stuff of legend. According to some stories, the NRC told them to go away until they found a customer. According to others . . . well, we’ll let her tell it. In any case, Hyperion has taken the small modular reactor idea and run with it, putting them on the map. Last March Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu wrote a Wall Street Journal editorial saying SMRs might be the future of nuclear energy in America.

 Now Hyperion has a customer. This month the company signed a memorandum of understanding with the Savannah River National Laboratory to employ a Hyperion Power Module to power its energy park. Tomorrow, after four years of effort, Deal-Blackwell and her co-founders will sit down with NRC officials in Washington to begin discussing how the Commission might begin regulatory review for the nation’s first small modular reactor.

 Here’s what Blackwell had to tell us about the effort:

 NTH:  What are the Hyperion Power Module ’s main features?

 DEAL-BLACKWELL:  It’s probably the smallest of the small reactors now heading toward licensure in the U.S. At 70 MWthermal / 25 MWelectric the HPM is really in the class of “mini”-reactors. Each reactor unit is 1.5 meters in diameter and 2.5 meters tall – about the size of two residential hot tubs stacked together. We wanted it to be small enough to fit on one truck, which is important because the unit is sealed at the assembly plant. It’s completely assembled off-site and buried in the ground in a specially designed vault. After that, it’s not to be opened or refueled. The whole assembly, including the electricity-generating component, sits on less than an acre. The entire plant can be constructed in just a few months. At the end of its useful life, which is around 10 years, we take the entire sealed reactor back to the factory where it can be refueled. We’ve got one of the few business plans that doesn’t involve leaving spent fuel on the customer’s site.

 NTH:  Does the design of the HPM have anything to do with submarine reactors or is this completely different?

DEAL-BLACKWELL: The Soviet Union created submarines using lead-cooled fast reactors that were so fast the West was forced into revamping its own technology. A lot of inspiration comes from the Soviets’ Alfa class submarine but our design team at Los Alamos National Laboratory has made significant improvements on our own.

The HPM’s lead coolant is actually lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE), a mixture of 45 percent lead and 55 percent bismuth. It’s a liquid metal similar to the sodium in a sodium-cooled reactor except that it doesn’t have the disadvantages of sodium. Sodium burns on contact with air and reacts violently with water, while LBE does not.

LBE can operate at low pressure, which reduces the need for complex, emergency-coolant injection safety systems in high-pressure reactors. The chance of pipe rupture and loss of coolant accidents are reduced significantly. Also LBE has a much higher boiling temperature (1670o C) compared to sodium (883o C), which provides greater safety margins for coping with abnormal events.

NTH:  How do you envision these reactors being deployed?

DEAL-BLACKWELL:  Primarily for mining operations, manufacturing facilities, and military bases in the U.S. There is a potential for Homeland Security/ Emergency Response use as well. Overseas, the sky is the limit. With so much of the planet still without electricity, the opportunity to raise the standard of living for impoverished populations is vast. SMRs can provide the energy to irrigate farmland, desalinate water, mine in isolated areas, run small manufacture plants and electrify whole villages and towns.

NTH:  How much will they cost?  Is there a containment structure in there?  Would that change the cost projections?

DEAL-BLACKWELL:   We are projecting that each HPM (the reactor unit) will run about $50 to $75 million, plus another $25 to $50 million for the balance of the steam to electricity generating plant. The containment structure is included in those costs.

NTH:  What was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s initial response when you approached them four years ago?

DEAL-BLACKWELL:  Contrary to legend, no one said “This can’t be licensed – go away you strange red-haired woman.” On the whole, their response was positive. Everyone was excited about the “Nuclear Renaissance” at that point.  True, they were not ready to deal with SMRs, but they were gracious and encouraging.

On Capitol Hill, however, the idea met with more resistance. I remember being laughed at by people who are now consultants to other SMR vendors. To their credit, however, some Senators such as Jim Webb and George Voinovich were visionary. They were intrigued and saw the potential for U.S. manufacturing and jobs and for getting military bases off the vulnerable common grid. Amazingly, the hardest sell was within the nuclear industry. Some of the big names in the nuclear industry that advocate for SMRs today were against them nine months ago. All they knew were big light water reactors and they could not envision anything else. Few had a clue about the role small FAST reactors could play.

NTH:  Babcock & Wilcox has since indicated it is designing an SMR and of course the Japanese, Koreans and Russians are in the hunt, too. With the amount of investment required to go through NRC licensing, can a small company really compete in this field?

DEAL-BLACKWELL: Of course or we wouldn’t be in it. At the IAEA convention last week in Vienna, Secretary Chu asked me why we were pursuing an LBE fast reactor design. I told him because we believe it is absolutely the best design on the planet for this size range. It’s safer, more efficient, and more appropriate for many types of applications. Every day new stakeholders come to understand its advantages. We have enough advocates and committed customers now that we have secured a place in the emerging mix of nuclear energy providers. Keep in mind that many of the biggest advancements in technology have come from small companies, even start-ups. Could anyone have envisioned Microsoft or Apple? They have created entire industries.

NTH:  You’ve talked about having other options, meaning that there may be other ways to get your reactor up and running without going through NRC approval. What are the possibilities abroad?

DEAL-BLACKWELL:  Certainly a design certification and manufacturing license from the NRC is crucially important to us. We are not trying to “go around” the NRC. But yes, there are other opportunities abroad. All countries have their own regulatory authority and we look forward to working with them.

NTH: How did this renewed effort with the NRC come about? Did you initiate it or did they?

DEAL-BLACKWELL: It was a mutual decision that the time had come and we were ready.

NTH: Considering the potential of nuclear energy and the degree to which public fears have been exaggerated, does it seem possible that 20 to 30 years hence someone could be selling nuclear “batteries” at Wal-Mart?

 DEAL-BLACKWELL:  I don’t see that happening in 30 years. Maybe 300 years! The nuclear industry moves at a conservative pace, particularly in this country. This is appropriate because the industry cannot make even the smallest mistake. Coal and oil-based technologies may cost many lives every year but when it happens, the public does not demand that we shut down all operations. But even the smallest incident with no fatalities or discernable injuries at a nuclear reactor can have dire consequences for the industry. No, retail sales of fission technology is not likely in the foreseeable future, but check back with me in 300 years and we’ll see who’s right!

NTH: Thanks very much for your time.

Half the nation’s fleet of 104 reactors have now had their original 40-year lifespans extended to 60 years by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Now, a new possibility has opened – could their operating life be extended to 80 years?

"Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials, Energy Department counterparts, utility executives and research leaders are scheduled to meet in February for a ‘tabletop’ conference on the technical and regulatory issues that could confront a new wave of relicensing applications by reactor owners," according to an excellent report by Peter Behr of Energy and Environment.

At DOE’s request, technicians from Constellation Energy will make a special effort to look for signs of aging in the steel and concrete components of two upstate New York reactors, Ginna and Nine Mile Point, when they close for refueling next year.

"DOE is supporting research into extended reactor life, as are nuclear plant operators through the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), an industry research and development organization," according to E&E. "An industry-created international research program, the Materials Ageing Institute, based in France, is also stepping up."
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In a way, the DOE/NRC effort is one bell weather with respect to the U.S. Renaissance.  Just a decade ago, there were projections that new reactors might be coming online by 2014 – which, according to current projections, is when demand may be picking up again with a recovering economy. However, Vogtle, in Georgia, is the only project that has received approval for early site clearance and the reactor to be built there – the Westinghouse AP1000 – hasn’t yet been accorded approval from the NRC. (There are several AP 1000s, on the other hand, under construction in China.)

Extending reactor life beyond 60 years also has its challenges. Aging reactors can be subject to pipe leaks and concrete deterioration.   And as Vermont Yankee and Oyster Creek demonstrate – notwithstanding Gold Standard safety and quality and high capacity operations as a whole — issues with the current fleet of operating reactors can be used by detractors as ammunition against a U.S.nuclear energy expansion.

Still, developing new techniques for extending the life of reactors could bring us closer to Alvin Weinberg’s vision that nuclear reactors can can be made permanent. "We’ve built Medieval cathedrals that have lasted 700 years," Weinberg used to say.  "Why can’t we do the same with nuclear reactors."

Read more at  http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2010/09/20/1

To anybody surveying the landscape of nuclear energy right now, it’s becoming more and more obvious that small modular reactors are quickly emerging as a viable and necessary option.

With Progress Energy effectively suspending their reactor initiative last week and with many "First Mover" projects grinding along, it seems plausible that building a full-scale U.S. reactor could be a 10-year, $10-billion undertaking unless the current paradigm changes.

Having licensed designs on the shelf will help; however, few American utilities may willing to run this triathlon without carbon pricing in an projected era of sustained low natural gas prices.  Small reactors, however, could offer a different dynamic if developers are able to consummate their designs and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission responds accordingly.

Last week the good news was that Hyperion, the New Mexico company and leading mini-SMR pioneer, signed a memorandum of agreement with the Savannah River National Laboratory to explore the possibility of building a demonstration reactor on the site.

This week the good news is that the project is finding favorable review in South Carolina. In a column in "The State", business columnist Andrew Shain expresses enthusiasm for Hyperion’s business-like attitudes. “Hyperion impressed Savannah River National Solutions officials because the company came showing the technology first instead of asking for money,” reports Shain. 

“They were not looking for a hand out from us or the government,” Pete Knollmeyer, vice president of strategic planning at Savannah River National Solutions, tells Shain.

Comments from South Carolina readers are what you’d hope to hear:  “Sounds like a Common Sense idea that should have been explored a long time ago.”  “The Navy has been running ships the size of cities for years with small nukes.” 

It’s good to hear so much hope outside-the-beltway when sometimes there is so little inside.

Read more at The State

The small modular revolution may be gaining traction. After years of frustration, Hyperion Power Generation of California has secured a memorandum of understanding that could lead to building a demonstration model of its 75-MW small modular reactor (SMR) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

Hyperion, and spin-off from the Sandia National Laboratory, has had a gazebo-sized reactor on the drawing boards since 2006 but has been frustrated by the uncertainty of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensee review.

The NRC has since tried to initiate some new procedures, however, approval of SMRs is seen by most analysts as still five-to-ten years away. 

“This is one of the first in a series of steps that can put this region in an active role toward transforming America’s energy future,” said Garry Flowers, CEO of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, which operates SRNL under contract from the DOE. “Small and modular reactors can become the primary base of new, clean power for the world. SRS is an ideal place to develop and demonstrate this exciting technology.”

Senator Lamar Alexander has also suggested that Babcock & Wilcox could demonstrate its SMR by building one to power the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. At present, Oak Ridge – a leading nuclear research center since the Manhattan Project – is powered almost entirely by coal.

Read more at NEI Magazine

Before the end of the 2010s is over, the Tennessee Valley Authority will be able to lay claim to the distinction of successfully launching:

·       The last commercial U.S. nuclear power plant to come on-line in the 20th Century (Watts Bar Unit One)
·       The first U.S. plant to come on line in the 21st Century (Browns Ferry Unit One); and
·       The first nuclear power to come on-line in the first chapter of the U.S. Nuclear Renaissance era (Watts Bar Two). Watts Bar Unit Two is projected to add 1,180 megawatts to the TVA nuclear fleet in 2013.
 
On Friday, these impressive achievements were bolstered by an announcement that the TVA Board of Directors has blessed investing about $250 million toward the potential completion of the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant Unit 1 in Alabama.  TVA is envisioning a 1,260-megawatts reactor with completion costs ball-parked between $4 billion and $5 billion.
 
These projects collectively are creating thousands of  jobs and have put TVA on the frontlines of the U.S. Nuclear Renaissance.  TVA has also shown that nuclear power plants can be built at projected costs and schedules.
 
Purists will point out that the new Browns Ferry and Watts Bar plants were either shut-down or mothballed projects – not new nuclear units.  In this vein, baseball fans may remember that in the middle of Roger Maris’ historic chase in 1961 to beat Babe Ruth’s historic home run record, Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick announced there would be a distinction in the record books if Maris took more games to break the Bambino’s record, which was achieved in 154 games.  In fact, it took Maris 162 games.   Well, after a decade or more of steroids induced home runs, both Babe Ruth’s and Roger Maris’ achievements are looking appropriately Herculean these days as are TVA’s initiative, jobs and clean energy leadership.
 
Hats off to TVA — the unheralded U.S. Nuclear Renaissance trailblazer – on its latest milestone. 
 
Read more at CoolHandNuke.com

In a week when comprehensive energy legislation with meaningful nuclear provisions craters, the next round of loan guarantees look shaky and the completion of Areva’s flagship Flammanville plant is delayed, there isn’t too much in the way of good news.

One glimmer of hope, however. According to Scientific American, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may be laboring toward approval of the Westinghouse AP1000 by September 2011. The NRC has been fiddling around since 2005 with a huge concrete-and-steel shield that is supposed to protect the reactor from airplane attacks.

Apparently the Department of Energy test in the 1990s showing that an F-4 traveling at 500 miles an hour would disintegrate if it hit a containment wall has not been sufficient. Westinghouse originally had the shield at ground level. Then after concerns about terrorist hijacked airplane crashes arose, it voluntarily lifted the shield to a more elevated position. After considering the new design for two years, however, the NRC decided it was not earthquake rigorous and sent Westinghouse back to the drawing boards.

Westinghouse has not yet submitted a new design, but Scientific American reporter Robynne Boyd ventures a guess that its design approval may come by next year. The date is significant because it marks the time China is expected to start its second round of AP1000 construction at Sanmen. The first two reactors are well underway and expected to be completed in 2013. Toshiba, which now owns Westinghouse, and the Shaw Group, of Baton Rouge, are participating in the projects. After units 3 and 4, however, China plans to build the next two units without foreign help.

To the swift goes the race.

Read more at Scientific American

Senator George Voinovich, a dedicated nuclear supporter, may be retiring but he is determined to leave nuclear energy with a label that could mean the difference in whether or not reactors get built – “clean energy.”

Voinovich is anticipating what many other observers are as well – that when the “limited” energy bill reaches the floor of the Senate this week, Democrats will quickly try to amend it with a “renewable energy standard” that will set the nation on a fallacious path of mandating wind and solar energy to the exclusion of everything else.

Voinovich would change the “renewable” standard to a “clean” standard that would include carbon-free nuclear. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and a few Northwestern Senators are moving to have large hydroelectric dams included as a “clean” source as well. Environmentalist activists are expected to urge opposition to both motions.

How advocates ended up supporting “renewable energy” as a panacea for climate change is something of a mystery. The original intent was to reduce carbon emissions, so carbon-free energy should be the standard. But instead, the concept of “renewable” took over, even though it is not the same thing. As a result, substituting wood for coal could be deemed “renewable” and part of the mandate – even though it produces more carbon emissions and threatens forests. (Massachusetts is currently trying to undo its wood-burning mandate.)

In addition, wind and solar account for less than 7 percent of our carbon-free energy while nuclear accounts for 70 percent (and hydro provides 23 percent). Without encouraging nuclear construction there isn’t much hope of reducing carbon emissions.

Last week Voinovich introduced his “legacy” legislation (S. 3618) that would provide incentives and investment in new build including needed infrastructure while encouraging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to accelerate the licensing process. The bill is not given any chance of passing in this Congress.  But Voinovich’s move to have nuclear declared “clean energy” may get a much better hearing.

From the Editors
It’s been perhaps the greatest lesson the world has had in how far we’ve come with nuclear medicine in the 21st Century.
 
Forty percent of all diagnostic procedures in this country now involve radioactive isotopes. It’s an $8 billion industry. Yet it all came to screeching halt last year when the Chalk River Reactor in Canada – the sole source of all our nuclear isotopes – developed structural thinning of the vessel wall.
 
Hospital suppliers were sent scrambling to a Dutch reactor for replacement supplies. Then the Dutch reactor closed down for maintenance and there was a five-week “dark side of the moon” period last March before Chalk River was scheduled to reopen. But the Canadian reactor missed its own deadline as engineers wrestled with the problem of welding key portions of the reactor vessel remotely with robots. Meanwhile, hospitals were forced to cut back on diagnostic procedures and suppliers searched as far away as Australia.
 
Now the good news is Chalk River is about to go back in business. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has given the okay and the restart will probably come before the end of July. National Research Universal, which runs the reactor, say it has identified the source of corrosion – water and air leaking into the vessel head. It will tighten procedures and do more frequent maintenance shutdowns to keep the problem in check.
 
That’s the good news from Canada. The bad news is, why hasn’t the United States been able set up our own medical isotope production facility to capture a part of this $8 billion business?

The below is the first of a continuing Nuclear Townhall series — Good News Monday — which will focus on not necessarily prime time positive news emanating from the 'Renaissance'. As always, ideas, suggestions and submissions for Good News Monday are welcome. Please send to info@nucleartownhall.com.

By Bill Tucker
The Pacific Northwest still has nightmares about “WPPS!” – the Washington Public Power System, which set out to build five new reactors in the 1970s and ended with the biggest municipal bankruptcy in history.
 
Now even the Northwest is reconsidering nuclear. In the Covington and Maple Valley Reporters, two papers published in King County, 50 miles southeast of Seattle, columnist Don Brunell has made a strong case for nuclear as a replacement for several hydroelectric dams that may soon be retired.
 
Almost exactly half of the electricity in the Northwest is generated by hydroelectric dams along the Columbia and Snakes Rivers and their tributaries. In terms of carbon emissions, Washington and Oregon are among the lowest.
 
But the environmental movement’s national campaign to close down large hydro is having its effect. “There is pressure to remove the four lower Snake River dams that produce enough electricity to light and power the Seattle metro area,” writes Brunell. “That would be counterproductive."
 
Remarkably, the environmentalists want to replace the dams with natural gas – even though that would expose the Northwest to the vagaries of gas prices and create a huge burst in new carbon emissions.
 
“The good news is as the economic, technology and energy landscape changes, people and politicians are beginning to re-embrace nuclear power,” concludes Brunell. We couldn’t agree more.

Read more at the Covington Reporter