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Trump administration is using an obscure law to save the coal and nuclear industries

An Obscure Statute Is Helping Trump Save U.S. Coal, Nuclear, Bloomberg ,By Catherine Traywick and Jim Polson 

  • Rule would allow certain plants to recover operating costs
  • Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has 60 days to respond

  • The Trump administration is taking advantage of an obscure 30-year-old statute to make good on a promise to help America’s ailing coal industry

    Rick Perry is using an authority granted to him as U.S. energy secretary to call on the independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to change its rules and help coal and nuclear plants compete in wholesale power markets. Perry said he’s seeking to ensure dependable power plants recover “a fair rate of return.” Those capable of storing 90 days of fuel supplies at their sites, such as coal and nuclear generators, would be eligible.

     The move underscores the Trump administration’s determination to aid fossil fuels and rescue money-losing coal and nuclear power plants that have seen their profits squeezed by cheaper natural gas and renewables. Federal Register filings show a U.S. energy secretary hasn’t used this authority to direct the energy commission’s work since at least 1994……..
    The energy commission, an independent agency under the Energy Department, has authority over power markets, though the energy secretary may propose rules to the commission. Perry is seeking final action within 60 days.

    New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman vowed on Friday to fight the proposal, saying it “puts the interests of special interests ahead of the health, safety, and wallets of New Yorkers.”

    The American Petroleum Institute said it was concerned that the Energy Department had “mischaracterized” the lessons learned from severe weather events that have taken down power resources in the U.S. in the past.

    “We need to be careful that government doesn’t put its thumb on the scale,” said Marty Durbin, executive vice president at the institute, which represents oil and gas producers. “It’s better to let markets choose.”

    — With assistance by Ari Natter, Joe Ryan, Naureen S Malik, and Tim Loh https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-29/perry-moves-to-aid-coal-nuclear-generators-with-pricing-rule

October 2, 2017 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Controversy lives on, 10 years after the death of Edward Teller – the “father of the hydrogen bomb”

Edward Teller: the Real-Life Dr. Strangelove https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/zm3wej/edward-teller-the-real-life-dr-strangelove

In this documentary, Motherboard explores the life and legacy of the father of the hydrogen bomb.  According to North Korea’s Foreign Minister, Kim Jong-un is considering testing its hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean in response to rising tensions with President Trump. But in order to understand the significance of the hydrogen bomb, you need to understand the people who created it.

In a 2013 video documentary, Motherboard explored the life of Edward Teller: the father of the hydrogen bomb, and the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick’s character Dr. Strangelove.

According to Ralph Moir, Teller’s student and eventual colleague, Teller believed that scientists bear no responsibility for the use of their creations.

“He wanted to make a contribution to mankind, but he’s also very interested in science and anything new,” Moir told Motherboard in 2013. “It was patriotic to have a strong defense. But also, it was fascinating science.”

However, not everyone agreed with Teller. In the 1940s, this gave way to an ethical debate that split the world into two groups: Those who sided with Robert Oppenheimer, creator of the atom bomb, believed that a stronger successor to the atom bomb was dangerous and unnecessary. Those who sided with Teller believed in a benefit to building a weapon so destructive that it exists only in obsolescence.

The scientific community almost entirely sided with Oppenheimer, but President Truman sided with Teller. In 1952, the US successfully detonated the first hydrogen bomb.

Later in his life, Teller would help launch Plowshare, a US experiment for nuclear weapons use in building and construction. Teller also believed the US should invest in geoengineering, nuclear engines for spacecrafts, nuclear testing in space, and nuclear reactors powered by thorium rather than uranium. None of these ideas have yet come to fruition.

It’s been over a decade since his death, but Teller’s name remains controversial.

October 2, 2017 Posted by | history, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

America’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) should reject Rick Perry’s outrageous plan to bail out coal and nuclear industries

DOE Proposes Outrageous, Massive Coal and Nuclear Bailout https://www.nrdc.org/experts/miles-farmer/doe-proposes-outrageous-massive-coal-and-nuclear-bailout

September 29, 2017 Miles Farmer 

Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Rick Perry just proposed a massive bailout for coal and nuclear power plants. The radical and unprecedented move is couched under a false premise that power plants with fuel located on site are needed to guarantee the reliability of the electricity system. The proposal relies on a mischaracterization of DOE’s own recent study of electricity markets and reliability (discussed here), which if anything demonstrated that this kind of proposed action is not justified.

If adopted, the proposal would essentially ensure that coal and nuclear plants in regions encompassing most of the country continue to run even where they are too expensive to compete in the energy market. It would saddle utility customers with higher costs, while posing obstacles to the electricity system integration of cleaner and less risky energy sources such as solar and wind.

NRDC is still carefully analyzing the proposal, but below is a very preliminary take:

The proposal would bail out expensive and uncompetitive coal and nuclear plants

The proposal asks the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to take action within 60 days that would financially prop up “fuel-secure resources,” which must have “a 90-day fuel supply on site enabling [them] to operate during an emergency, extreme weather conditions, or a natural man-made disaster.” This requirement is aimed squarely at coal and nuclear power plants, which would generally be able to satisfy these criteria.

Many coal and nuclear units are very expensive and are having trouble competing in the wholesale electricity market (as discussed here). So the proposal asks FERC to bail out these power plants by essentially guaranteeing them profits and insulating them from competitive market forces. The proposal amounts to a massive subsidy that would ensure the plants continue to operate, rather than being economically retired when they are more expensive than other units (including wind and solar) that sell electricity at lower cost.

The proposal would radically reshape electricity regulation for most of the country

The rule would have a massive scope, covering regional wholesale markets where electricity is bought and sold to serve most of the nation’s customers. It would apply to areas where the electricity system is operated by regional entities known as Regional Transmission Operators (RTOs) or Independent System Operators (ISOs), which administer competitive markets for electricity. The RTOs tell the more expensive plants not to operate when there’s cheaper electricity available from other plants.

As shown in the map, [on original] RTOs cover most of California, the Midwest and southern states in the middle of the country, as well as the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is not subject to FERC jurisdiction and would not be covered by the proposed rule, if adopted.

Secretary Perry’s proposal would be a radical departure from the way FERC currently regulates electricity prices in these regions. Under FERC’s system, electricity prices in RTOs are governed by competitive market forces. A power plant is only insulated from this system by FERC under extremely limited circumstances, where a detailed examination of the grid reveals that the plant is needed for reliability purposes. The plant is then guaranteed its costs of operating, but only on a temporary basis, until a replacement can be constructed.

The proposal would lead to higher energy bills and more pollution

Customers across the country would ultimately foot the bill for supporting these more expensive plants. While no credible analysis has been conducted of the costs (which can’t even be done given the vagueness of the proposed rule), it is safe to assume that the toll would be many billions of dollars.

The proposal also would favor more expensive and risker power plants over cleaner and safer energy sources such as wind and solar power. Coal power plants emit a massive amount of pollution. They are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases causing climate change. Coal plants also cause an array of other problems, such as acid rain and asthma. And while low-carbon, nuclear energy poses myriad health and safety risks (discussed here).

The proposal is unjustified

The purported basis for the proposal is that “[t]he resiliency of the nation’s electric grid is threatened by the premature retirements of power plants that can withstand major fuel supply disruptions caused by natural or man-made disasters.”

But DOE’s own reliability report found that all regions of the country have excess supply of energy resources needed to meet demand. Furthermore, while it included a brief discussion of the potential benefits of on-site fuel supply, it also highlighted examples of power plants with on-site fuel supply failing, such as coal plants that could not operate during the 2014 Polar Vortex when their fuel supplies froze in the extreme cold.

The lesson that no type of power plant is immune to weather-related disruptions was clear during the recent hurricanes. Nuclear power plants had to be taken off-line in preparation for Hurricane Irma. Natural gas plants and pipelines suffered disruptions during Hurricane Harvey, and the onsite coal pile at a W.A. Parish plant in Texas became so saturated with rainwater that the coal could not be delivered into storage silos, forcing the plant to switch to natural gas for the first time in eight years.

Ultimately, the proposal’s justification is as flimsy as Secretary Perry’s initial suggested basis for subsidizing coal and nuclear—that “baseload” is necessary for the system, a myth that has been thoroughly debunked (as discussed here and here).

DOE is asking FERC to rush to judgment

FERC has already adopted detailed regulations to ensure the reliability of the grid, and follows established processes to consider any necessary tweaks. As DOE’s own report explained, these systems have worked to meet the industry’s high reliability standards even as the mix of generation serving customers’ needs has changed dramatically.

DOE is asking FERC to sidestep that normal process by adopting its radical proposal in a mere 60 days, a timeline that would make it impossible to conduct any of the rigorous analysis that would surely be necessary before making such extreme changes. DOE’s proposal is so vague that FERC could not possibly adopt it as is, making it hard to see how FERC could possibly advance it in a manner that complies the procedural requirements for a formal rulemaking proposal.

FERC should reject Secretary Perry’s proposal

Perhaps the only silver lining in Secretary Perry’s proposal is that DOE has no independent authority to adopt this proposed rule, which is already eliciting pushback from leaders like NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. As discussed here, FERC, not DOE, is the agency primarily responsible for regulating electricity markets. FERC should reject Secretary Perry’s outrageous and poorly thought out request.

September 30, 2017 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Prediction of collapse in roof at nuclear Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)

Expected WIPP roof collapse raises anxiety, http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/expected-wipp-roof-collapse-raises-anxiety/article_65046e20-42f8-50ee-80e3-5322957484f9.html, By Rebecca Moss | The New Mexican, Sep 28, 2017 

In the coming weeks, deep inside the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, large blocks of salt rock are expected to collapse inside a room containing six irradiated vehicles, each holding gasoline. The room is packed with radioactive waste, and the entrance has been sealed to prevent workers from entering.

It is expected to be the fifth rock fall event in the last year in an area of the underground storage facility, Panel 7, where maintenance has been neglected since a waste drum breached on Valentine’s Day 2014. The accident released radiation into parts of the waste facility and closed the site for nearly three years.

Officials from the U.S. Department of Energy said Thursday they are closely monitoring increasing movement in the walls and ceiling and keeping employees who work in the area informed about developments.

 The collapse is predicted in four to six weeks.

The salt mine is expected to “creep” over time and slowly encase radioactive waste inside. Rock falls are not uncommon. But unlike previous anticipated collapses — one of which was measured at half the length of a football field and 8 feet wide — this one threatens to occur as waste shipments have resumed in the area, increasing the number of workers present and the amount of waste being handled.

“Right now we are evaluating our work processes to get a better understanding of when the roof potentially could fall and take appropriate action for our workforce,” said Todd Shrader, manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office, during a WIPP town hall meeting Thursday evening.

“It is not an exact science,” he said.

All workers in Panel 7 are wearing protective clothing and respirators because of existing contamination.

But Don Hancock, with the Southwest Research and Information Center in Albuquerque, said WIPP should be taking more measures to protect workers.

“They can’t prevent the ceiling from collapsing,” he said. “That is going to happen. But they should be keeping workers out around the time they expect it to happen, and until after it happens.”

WIPP is composed of a maze of carved salt tunnels, each with an offshoot of rooms used to permanently place transuranic waste. This includes materials like soil, gloves, tools and other equipment that have been contaminated by radioactive materials heavier than uranium at the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons sites.

Since WIPP opened in 1999, Panel 7 has been one of the most problematic regions of the facility. It was there, inside Room 7 of Panel 7, that an improperly packed drum of transuranic waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory burst in 2014.

The radiation compromised the facility’s ventilation system, hampering workers’ maintenance efforts. As a result, regular repairs to the large bolts and steel mesh cage used to hold the salt mine in place have not been completed, making collapses more likely and frequent.

Hancock said there is a risk of further radiation exposure when Room 6 collapses, as well as the potential for fuel inside the vehicles to cause a small fire.

 There are six vehicles in Room 6 that were irradiated when the drum burst next door, and they hold a collective 527 gallons of fuel.

WIPP officials initially planned to drain the fuel, Shrader told the New Mexico Environment Department, but the plan was abandoned when officials decided the risk of collapse was too great to re-enter the room.

Bruce Covert, president of Nuclear Waste Partnership, which manages WIPP, said during Thursday’s town hall that cloth and metal in the room should contain most of the radiation after the collapse, but officials anticipate some contamination to spread.

Meanwhile, officials said they planned to move forward with waste storage work in the area and hoped to begin mining a new panel by late October, with the assistance of a temporary ventilation system.

Since waste acceptance restarted in April, WIPP has received 68 shipments, and it anticipated taking 258 more shipments between August 2017 and August 2018.

WIPP has reached about 52 percent of its capacity and is expected to be full by 2026, according to a September report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. But the Department of Energy is considering a plan to expand the type of waste WIPP can take, as well as a physical expansion of the plant.

Given past events, Hancock said, “I expect more problems. You have a dangerous situation and you have a contractor who has demonstrated that are not capable of operating this facility safely.”

Contact Rebecca Moss at 505-986-3011 or rmoss@sfnewmexican.com.

September 30, 2017 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Rick Perry’s push to promote America’s coal and nuclear inudustries

Rick Perry proposes sweeping new steps to support coal and nuclear plants, WP, By Steven Mufson and Chris Mooney September 29 2017, Energy Secretary Rick Perry took sweeping steps on Friday to buttress a pair of financially-strapped nuclear plants under construction and redefine how coal and nuclear plants are compensated for the electricity they provide — a move that, if agreed to by independent federal energy regulators, could tilt some of the nation’s complex power markets away from renewables and natural gas.

Perry announced the Energy Department would provide $3.7 billion in loan guarantees to three Georgia utilities struggling to complete a pair of nuclear reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle generating plant. These loan guarantees come on top of $8.3 billion in loans the department has already given to the project, but they still might fall short of what will be required to complete the costly reactors.

The nuclear project has been running far over-budget and behind schedule, and the utilities have been scrambling to come up with financing after the main engineering company, Westinghouse, declared bankruptcy earlier this year.

The nuclear industry has urged the federal government to help, saying the AP1000 reactors are part of a new generation of nuclear plants. “I believe the future of nuclear energy in the United States is bright and look forward to expanding American leadership in innovative nuclear technologies,” Perry said……… https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/09/29/rick-perry-proposes-sweeping-new-moves-to-support-coal-and-nuclear-plants/?utm_term=.030c3d11ad8a

September 30, 2017 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Natural Resources Defense Council’s analysis of USA’s nuclear energy and climate future

NRDC Analysis: Nuclear Energy and a Safer Climate Future Natural Resources Defense Council ·

September 29, 2017 Matthew McKinzie 

This is part of a series of blogs on NRDC’s new report, “America’s Clean Energy Frontier: The Pathway to a Safer Climate Future”

NRDC’s report America’s Clean Energy Frontier: The Pathway to A Safer Climate Future lays out a clean energy pathway for cutting U.S. greenhouse gas pollution 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. These emissions cuts are necessary to avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change. Our analysis shows that the U.S. can reach its 2050 carbon goals even with a steep decline in U.S. nuclear power as American reactors age and the economics of new nuclear reactors remain extremely challenging.

NRDC’s plan relies on existing technologies to cost-effectively achieve a clean, low-carbon future. Energy use is cut by 50 percent through efficiency and electric investments, with our cars achieving an average of 100 mpg. Wind and solar energy grow 13-fold from today’s levels, with renewables providing at least 80 percent of our power, allowing us to electrify buildings and cars to run with renewable energy. And a stronger, smarter and more resilient electricity grid supports the integration of these clean energy resources. By 2050, nuclear power provides just 3% of U.S. electricity, down from about 20% today, as aging U.S. nuclear power plants reach the end of their operating licenses.

Modeling a Potential for U.S. Nuclear Decline

The reduced role of nuclear power in NRDC’s pathway model primarily stems from the economic challenges facing the nuclear industry and the aging of the existing U.S. nuclear fleet. Our core scenario has only 20 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power plant capacity operating in 2050: an 80 percent decline from today. Due to the high cost of constructing new nuclear power plants and the current wave of nuclear retirements before the expiration of their Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-issued licenses, NRDC’s modeling assumed that only four nuclear reactors would be built between now and 2050 (and that may be optimistic).

The United State has 99 operating nuclear power reactors, but early retirement plans have been announced for seven reactors because of economic pressures. In addition, most U.S. nuclear power plants were built in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. These reactors have 60-year extended operating licenses, most of which will have ended by 2050—the target date for reaching an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Some may be able to get and to use an additional 20-year extension—but we assumed that only about one in five existing plants would operate beyond 60 years due to economic and safety challenges. Our plan shows increased renewable energy deployment more than makes up for the lost low-carbon benefit of nuclear generation.We are also skeptical of the role of what is called “advanced nuclear” for generating the electricity to run our homes and businesses in the time frame to mid-century—acknowledging that other researchers have projected a significant contribution from advanced nuclear in their modeling of 80% carbon reduction by 2050. We believe that a crucial challenge for advanced nuclear is that no working prototypes of such reactor designs exist or are firmly planned, and thus deployment at scale is generally uncertain but highly unlikely in the first half of this century.

This isn’t ideological hostility to nuclear power; it is pragmatic skepticism. NRDC is not opposed in principle to nuclear power, and acknowledges its beneficial low-carbon attributes in a warming world. However, we take seriously the significant safety, global security, environmental, and economic risks that use of this technology imposes on society. They include: environmental harms from uranium mining; safety and security of nuclear plant operations; nuclear weapons proliferation impacts; and spent fuel disposal. This demands more stringent, improved policy and regulation of the complete nuclear fuel cycle, beginning with the mining and milling of uranium and ending with the final disposal of radioactive wastes. Until these risks are properly mitigated, expanding nuclear power should not be a leading strategy for diversifying America’s energy portfolio and reducing carbon pollution.

Reinforcing this perspective, nuclear power is uneconomical compared to alternate forms of low-carbon electricity generation—even without considering those risks. Faced today with the seemingly irreversible decline of nuclear energy in the United States, and the enormous potential to scale up energy efficiency and renewable energy on a stronger electric grid, NRDC’s analysis concludes we can meet our U.S. climate goals even with a much-reduced nuclear fleet…..

Conclusion

NRDC’s analysis and recommendations focus on the time period from today to 2050. Between now and 2050, it is likely that the majority of today’s nuclear power plants will retire based on economics and license expiration alone. NRDC’s modeling and analysis shows that, if such is the case, we can replace nuclear generation with clean, renewable energy instead. Nevertheless, deep geologic storage of spent fuel and nuclear weapons proliferation will remain important problems for the United States along a pathway to a safer climate future in 2050. Whether new forms of nuclear power emerge and play a role after 2050 remains to be seen. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/matthew-mckinzie/nrdc-analysis-nuclear-energy-and-safer-climate-future

September 30, 2017 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

USA Energy Secretary Perry out to force Americans to buy costly nuclear and coal power, not renewables

Perry is trying “to essentially end competition in U.S. power markets in order to force customers to pay billions of dollars for uneconomic coal and nuclear plants they don’t want or need,” Mark Kresowick, an expert on FERC rules, told ThinkProgress. Kersowick called the move “unprecedented.”
Perry wants to stop cheaper, cleaner renewables like solar and wind from shutting down more dirtier and more expensive plants like coal (and nuclear).
Significantly, Germany has one of the most reliable electric grids in the world, with 10 times fewer minutes of grid outages a year than the United States. In the morning of May 8, 2016, a whopping 95 percent of Germany’s electricity was provided by renewables.
Rick Perry proposes law to force Americans to buy dirtier, costlier power
Energy Secretary ignores his own grid study to make good on his threats to punish renewables https://thinkprogress.org/perry-ferc-proposal-reliability-ecbd1e54409c/

JOE ROMM, In a brazen move, Energy Secretary Rick Perry has ignored the findings of his own grid study and proposed a new federal rule that would effectively force Americans to buy dirtier, more expensive power.The Department of Energy (DOE) announced Friday morning that Perry has “formally proposed that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) take swift action to address threats to U.S. electrical grid resiliency.” FERC oversees the U.S. grid and regulates interstate electricity transmission.To make his case, Perry has fabricated an economic threat to U.S. grid reliability from cheap renewables and then proposed a rule to account for the imaginary reliability benefit of other electricity sources — all the while ignoring the actual health and environmental costs of carbon pollution from burning coal that aren’t priced in to the market yet.

Perry is trying “to essentially end competition in U.S. power markets in order to force customers to pay billions of dollars for uneconomic coal and nuclear plants they don’t want or need,” Mark Kresowick, an expert on FERC rules, told ThinkProgress. Kersowick called the move “unprecedented.”

Oops: Rick Perry may have stumbled upon the solution to going 100 percent renewable

Buried in his grid study is how electric cars and smart control systems will enable deep penetration of solar and wind energy

In the notice of proposed rule-making, Perry says FERC should “issue a final rule requiring its organized markets to develop and implement reforms that would fully price generation resources necessary to maintain the reliability and resiliency of our nation’s grid” within 60 days. FERC is an independent commission and not obligated to take up Perry’s proposal.

In the simplest terms, Perry wants to stop cheaper, cleaner renewables like solar and wind from shutting down more dirtier and more expensive plants like coal (and nuclear).

This is an especially brazen move because Perry’s own grid study, the one he asked DOE staff for back in April, totally undercuts any rationale for such a move. That study concluded that renewables have not harmed grid reliability and that myriad strategies exist to allow deep penetration of renewables.

In fact, the leaked draft of the staff report (before political appointees were able to massage it) had actually pointed out that “the power system is more reliable today”– even with far greater use of renewables — and that “high levels of wind penetration can be integrated into the grid without harming reliability.”

Trump officials rewrite Energy Dept. study to make renewables look bad, fail anyway

Rick Perry-commissioned study finds renewables don’t hurt grid reliability but do help stabilize prices.

Even the final version of the study, which was cut back, found that renewable energy “performs a price stabilizing roll” and can “improve the month-to-month manageability of customer bills.” But Perry apparently doesn’t want US consumers to enjoy stable prices.

Perry’s move is also brazen because it is an attempt to literally fight the future. All the other major countries in the world are shifting towards renewables (see chart   – on original).

Bloomberg New Energy Finance chair Michael Liebreich reported on the remarkable surge in non-hydro renewables around the world in his “state of the clean energy industry” keynote last week at BNEF’s Future of Energy Summit in London.

As you can see from the chart, while the United States has tripled the penetration of new renewables from 3 percent to 9 percent in the past decade, Japan is at 12 percent, the UK is at 25 percent and Germany is at 29 percent. These are, respectively, the world’s third-largest, fifth-largest. and fourth-largest economies. Even China has more renewables than we do.

Significantly, Germany has one of the most reliable electric grids in the world, with 10 times fewer minutes of grid outages a year than the United States. In the morning of May 8, 2016, a whopping 95 percent of Germany’s electricity was provided by renewables.

Somehow, the U.S. needs “swift action” to address the imaginary problems associated with a mere penetration of new renewables of 9 percent.

September 30, 2017 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Natural Resources Defense Council Recommendations on Nuclear Energy

NRDC Analysis: Nuclear Energy and a Safer Climate Future Natural Resources Defense Council ·September 29, 2017 Matthew McKinzie   “……….NRDC Recommendations on Nuclear Energy

Our report puts forward three nuclear-related recommendations that logically follow from NRDC’s climate and energy policy analysis and projections:

Regulators should explore approaches for replacing retiring nuclear units with zero-carbon resources and protecting the livelihoods of workers and host communities. As U.S. nuclear plants reach the end of their operating licenses or becomes uneconomical to run, growing numbers of reactors are likely to be retired. Regulators and other stakeholders will need to avoid abrupt closures, which could result in carbon emission increases from replacement generation. They should instead plan for shutdowns with sufficient time to ensure the lost power is reliably replaced with clean energy, and the livelihoods of workers and nearby communities are protected. The Joint Proposal to replace California’s only remaining nuclear power plant, the two Diablo Canyon reactors in San Luis Obispo, provides a model of an appropriate transition plan.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), NRC, and states should address existing nuclear safety and fuel issues. The EPA and NRC should adopt stronger regulations to address the environmental impacts of uranium mining as well as the safety and security risks associated with nuclear plant operations. The federal regulations governing the decommissioning of nuclear power reactors need to be fundamentally overhauled. Rather than relitigate unworkable ideas like the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, the federal government should develop a scientifically defensible and publicly accepted consent-based siting process for geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel. Accordingly, Congress should amend the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 to remove its express exemptions of radioactive material from environmental laws, thus creating a regulatory role for the EPA and the states in nuclear waste disposal.

The federal government should continue to fund research into nuclear energy. Long-term federal investment in energy technologies is a key aspect of federal energy policy, including DOE programs that support R&D for nuclear fuel cycle and reactor designs. Government spending on advanced nuclear R&D must prioritize the analysis of severe accident scenarios and security vulnerabilities. While cost estimates for advanced nuclear designs should be rigorously examined early in their R&D cycle, the cost and reliability assessments can only be realistically understood based on the performance of an advanced nuclear prototype and a first-of-a-kind commercial reactor. Highly expensive projects should be evaluated as public-private partnerships to judge market viability for a given advanced nuclear design. Nuclear weapons proliferation impacts should also be addressed early in the R&D cycle; advanced nuclear designs that require a closed nuclear fuel cycle to reprocess spent nuclear fuel should be rejected outright given the associated proliferation risk, high cost and production of secondary nuclear wastes…………https://www.nrdc.org/experts/matthew-mckinzie/nrdc-analysis-nuclear-energy-and-safer-climate-future

September 30, 2017 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Now time for a clean power rebuild in Puerto Rico

Dirty energy is not only dirty, it is very expensive for an island. Nuclear power is expensive everywhere. Neither are resilient to extreme disaster.

Renewables are fast, clean, resilient, cheap — and getting cheaper every year. They are exactly what Puerto Rico’s grid needs.

Trump officials have no clue how to rebuild Puerto Rico’s grid. But we do.http://reneweconomy.com.au/trump-officials-no-clue-rebuild-puerto-ricos-grid-66781/, By Joe Romm on 29 September 2017 Think Progress With Puerto Rico’s dirty, costly electric grid wiped out by Hurricane Maria, now is the time for a clean power rebuild.

Microgrids built around cheap renewable power and battery storage are now the fastest and cheapest way to restore power — while at the same time building resilience into the grid against the next disaster.

That’s been proven by Florida after Hurricane Irma, Japan after the tsunami that caused the Fukushima meltdown, and India after recent monsoons.

Unfortunately, the anti-renewable Trump administration appears unlikely to pursue this winning strategy. Indeed, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Tuesday that small nuclear power plants being researched at national labs are the kind of “innovation” he’d like to “expedite” for Puerto Rico’s rebuild.

“Wouldn’t it make abundant good sense if we had small modular reactors that literally you could put in the back of C-17 [military cargo] aircraft, transport it to an area like Puerto Rico, and push it out the back end, crank it up, and plug it in?” he said at an event in Washington, D.C. for National Clean Energy Week. “Hopefully, we can expedite that.”

It would be quite an effort of expedition. Such small nuclear power plants are not expected to be commercialized until the mid-2020s, and even if they are, they are projected to be wildly expensive — just like current reactors — and not that small (650 tons). Nobody’s going to be “literally” putting one in a C-17 and pushing it out the back end on a small island ready to go.

The U.S. territory doesn’t have time for such political pipe dreams.

Right now, Puerto Rico’s desperate lack of power — for hospitals, water and sewage facilities, and air-conditioning in the sweltering heat — is at the center of the ongoing humanitarian crisis for the 3.4 million U.S. citizens in Puerto Rico.

Hurricane Maria destroyed 55 percent of the transmission towers that support high-voltage power lines and wrecked 90 percent of the distribution network, according to utility experts who have assessed the damage, Reuters reported.

Reuters put together this remarkable graphic on “power restoration after major U.S. hurricanes.”

But this tragedy does open an opportunity. The old grid was an antiquated, expensive, polluting disaster. Mired in debt, the local utility declared bankruptcy in July. (For a useful history, see the Huffington Post’s “Puerto Rico’s Colonial Legacy Doomed It To Dirty Electricity — And Now Darkness.”)

Only 2 percent of the sunny and windy Caribbean island’s electricity comes from renewables, while all the rest comes from fossil fuels. In 2016, an astounding 47 percent of electricity came from petroleum, especially from dirty, inefficient diesel generators. By comparison, the U.S. as a whole generates under 1 percent of its power from petroleum and 15 percent from renewables.

Bringing fuel to an island is expensive. The commercial price of electricity on Puerto Rico is an astounding 21.4 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to 11 ¢/kwh for the mainland. The industrial price of electricity on the island is an unheard of 18 ¢/kwh, compared to 7 ¢/kwh for the mainland.

No wonder the utility is bankrupt, and the island is economically uncompetitive.

In terms of speed of recovery, nothing beats solar with storage. As Inside Climate News reported, Florida homes with solar panels and batteries that lost power from Irma in the early hours of Monday, September 11 were able to restore power in a few hours when the sun came up. Long before others, they could use lights, refrigerators, and wifi.

Coral Springs Florida used solar plus batteries to quickly restore 13 major traffic lights. Although it’s worth noting that solar homes without storage are out of luck in Florida. The utility, FPL, does not allow grid-connected systems without batteries to be used during an outage. And the state coderequires you to be connected to the grid even if you could be grid free.

Case studies from Japan, India, and Hawaii also make clear the only technologies that can simultaneously deliver the fastest, cheapest, cleanest, and most disaster-resilient rebuild possible are micro-grids built around renewables and storage.

When northeast India was ravaged by an unprecedented deluge this summer, causing widespread blackouts, buildings with solar roofs were able to keep the lights on, even after the sun set. DESI Power has been installing the solar across the region. Panels are mounted either on the roof or a few feet off the ground so they can survive flooding. The battery box is typically portable, so it can be can be moved in case of flood. “Despite the heavy flooding, we were pleasantly surprised to find that nearly 75 percent of our power systems remained functional,” DESI’s chief operating officer told NexusMedia. 

In less than a decade, more than half a million people in India who had lacked electricity now have off-grid solar. As one expert on distributed solar in the region said, “Solar power has changed people’s lives, improved their health and enhanced their livelihood opportunities while benefiting the environment.”

Japan has gone even further following the 2011 tsunami that caused the Fukushima meltdown. In what Reuters described last week as a “quiet energy revolution,” dozens of cities have gone off grid or built renewable micro-grids with the help of Japan’s “National Resilience Program,” which had $33 billion in funding this year.

Higashi Matsushima, a city of 40,000 that lost 75 percent of its homes and 1,100 people in the 2011 catastrophe, built microgrids and decentralized its power generation “to create a self-sustaining system” that can meet a quarter of its electricity demand.

Such a micro-grid can allow basic needs to be met even if the region suffers a cascading grid failure. The city “built its own independent transmission grid and solar generating panels as well as batteries to store power that can keep the city running for at least three days.”

As for cost, the Hawaiian island of Kauai now produces some 90 percent of its midday peak power from only solar and batteries. Tesla has a 20-year contractwith the island’s utility to provide power at 13.9 ¢/kwh. That compares with the utility’s electricity cost for diesel power of 15.5 ¢/kwh — and it’s nearly half the 27.7 ¢/kwh that Hawaiians paid last December for electricity.

Dirty energy is not only dirty, it is very expensive for an island. Nuclear power is expensive everywhere. Neither are resilient to extreme disaster.

Renewables are fast, clean, resilient, cheap — and getting cheaper every year. They are exactly what Puerto Rico’s grid needs.

September 30, 2017 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

North Korean threats – very good for the underground nuclear bomb shelter sales

Nuclear bomb shelter sales are soaring due to North Korean threats, Yahoo Finance Daniel Howley Technology Editor,  the saber rattling, coupled with North Korea’s stated objective of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, have plenty of people on edge.

And nowhere is that clearer than in the number of nuclear fallout shelters being purchased here in the U.S.

“We’re probably upwards of 1,000% from this time last year,” Gary Lynch, general manager of Rising S Company said of the number of bunkers his company has sold in 2017.

A size for everyone (sort of)

Texas-based Rising S Company, whose tagline is “Safe until the rising sun,” a nod to the Christian belief that the Second Coming of Christ will precede the end of the world, offers bunkers in a variety of price ranges. The base model is an 8 x 12-foot mini bunker for $39,500 while the top-of-the-line “The Aristocrat” luxury bunker, which features a bowling alley, gym, gun range, green house, pool and garage, goes for $8,350,000.

Sharon Packer, CEO of Utah-based Underground Shelters USA, says her company has seen sales of bunkers triple this year, with a significant increase taking place in the last six months. Packer, a nuclear engineer, says her company’s shelters can survive  being within 1/4 of a mile from the blast crater of a 1-megaton nuclear bomb.

Underground’s best-selling shelter costs about $70,000 and gets you about 32 x 10 feet of space. Packer says you’d be able to stay in one of her company’s shelters for as long as you have access to clean water.

Brian Duvaul, sales manager with American Safe Room, a bunker company based in Oregon, explained that sales generally slow down around fall and winter as the ground becomes difficult to dig, but that so far this fall, sales are looking up…….

Japan is buying more

Of course, the fear of nuclear war is far more real closer to North Korea, particularly in Japan, which has seen two missiles from the communist country pass through its airspace and is the only nation to ever be attacked with nuclear weapons.https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nuclear-bomb-shelter-sales-soaring-due-north-korean-threats-135828041.html

September 30, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Private equity bids on bankrupt nuclear power player Westinghouse

Private equity bids on bankrupt nuclear power player https://www.axios.com/private-equity-bids-on-bankrupt-nuclear-power-player-2490581123.html     Private equity firms Apollo Global Management and The Blackstone Group are bidding on the business of Westinghouse Electric Co., the bankrupt U.S. nuclear power plant company that is currently owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp., as reported by Reuters and confirmed by Axios.

Bottom line: The buyer universe could be fairly limited. Many foreign financial sponsors or strategics — particularly from China — would have trouble passing U.S. regulatory muster, while the U.S. nuclear services space is so small that domestic rivals could face antitrust scrutiny.

 Behind the deal: Westinghouse is the only U.S. company to receive U.S. building permits for new nuclear power plants since the Three Mile Island incident nearly four decades ago – even though cost overruns on those plants helped cause the Chapter 11 filing (and also led to Toshiba having to put its memory chips biz on the block). The Apollo and Blackstone bid would not include exposure to those still-unfinished facilities or their liabilities, instead focusing on a nuclear power plant services business that reportedly generates around $400 million in annual EBITDA.

Details: A sale could be valued at around $4 billion, with other private equity firms reported to be picking the tires. PJT Partners is managing the process.

Connections: Apollo already is tied into this deal via a debtor-in-possession financing, while Blackstone owned a nuclear power plans more than a decade ago via its purchase of Texas Genco.

September 30, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

India-USA civil nuclear cooperation agreement is really just a weapons marketing deal

Indo-US Nuclear Agreement Is An Arms Deal: Ex-US Senator Larry Pressler https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/indo-us-nuclear-agreement-is-an-arms-deal-ex-us-senator-larry-pressler-1756557 Former US Senator Larry Pressler said the focus of Indo-US bilateral partnership should be on ‘agriculture, technology and health care’ All India | Press Trust of India   September 29, 2017 NEW DELHI:  The civil nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the US is more of an “arms deal”, but the focus of the bilateral partnership should be on “agriculture, technology and health care”, former US Senator Larry Pressler said today. Mr Pressler, who has served as chairman of the US Senate’s Arms Control Subcommittee, also had a word of caution for Pakistan.

 He said if Pakistan did not act on terrorism, the Trump administration could declare it “a terror state”. “I would love to see peaceful use of nuclear energy, but I am worried that so far it (nuclear agreement) has mostly been an arms deal. It seems to me that much of the new agreement is a large arms sale to Indians,” Mr Pressler said.

The former US Senator was speaking during the launch of his book.

India and the US signed the nuclear cooperation agreement in October 2008, ending India’s isolation by the West in the nuclear and space arena. The deal has given a significant boost to India’s nuclear energy production.

 Mr Pressler said former US President Barack Obama’s visit to New Delhi was “largely an arms sale trip”. On whether the US could declare Pakistan a “terror state”, he said, “Unless Pakistan does not change certain things, it may happen. Moreover, the Trump administration is making sounds that they are getting near this. And I hope they do.”
Mr Pressler is known for advocating amendments in the 1990s which banned most of the economic and military assistance to Pakistan, unless the US President certified on an annual basis that Islamabad did not possess nuclear explosive devices.

September 30, 2017 Posted by | climate change, India, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Lawsuit names 12 top SCANA nuclear officials, seeks to recover over $21 million in bonuses

New nuclear lawsuit goes after SCANA officials’ bonuses, The State,  BY JOHN MONK jmonk@thestate.com, SEPTEMBER 27, 2017  A new lawsuit filed this week in state court by a SCANA stockholder names 12 top SCANA officials and seeks to recover more than $21 million in bonuses top executives got during the 10 years that a now-failed nuclear project was under construction.

This is the first of some half-dozen lawsuits filed against SCANA to date that names individual top SCANA executives and board members as defendants. It seeks to hold them individually responsible for “willfully violating their fiduciary duties,” or failing to act in the best financial interests of the company.

The lawsuit is also the first of the lawsuits filed by a stockholder. The others have been filed by SCANA customers, ratepayers who allege their monthly bills were unlawfully inflated by the company to pay for the bungled nuclear project.

“While driving SCANA to the brink of financial disaster, the Board (of directors) simultaneously rewarded SCANA executives with millions of dollars of bonus compensation, based upon their performance related to the (nuclear) project and other short-term performance metrics …,” the lawsuit alleges.

Three top SCANA officials – CEO Kevin Marsh, executive vice president Jimmy Addison, and executive vice president Steven Byrne – “totally failed to perform their duties owed to the company and its shareholders,” the lawsuit said……….

DEFENDANTS

Defendants in the lawsuit are:

▪ Kevin Marsh, SCANA board chair and CEO since 2011. He also served as president of SCANA’s principal subsidiary, SCE&G, from 2006-11.

▪ Gregory Afliff, a SCANA director since 2015. Afliff, a Virginia resident, is a certified public accountant.

▪ James Bennett, a SCANA director since 1997. Bennett, a Richland County resident, is chair of the board’s compensation committee, and an area executive for First Citizens Bank & Trust.

▪ John Cecil, SCANA director since 2003, a former president of Biltmore Farms and a North Carolina resident.

▪ Sharon Decker, SCANA director from 2005-13 and from 2015 to the present who serves on the nuclear oversight and compensations committees. A North Carolina resident, she is chief operating officer of Tryon Equestrian Partners.

▪ Maybank Hagood, SCANA director since 1999. A Charleston County resident, he is head of Southern Diversified Distributors.

▪ Lynn Miller, a SCANA director since 1997. A resident of Virginia, she is an environmental consultant.

▪ James Roquemore, a SCANA director since 2007. He is chair of the board’s nuclear oversight committee and sits on the compensation committee. An Orangeburg County resident, he is general manager of a company that produces and markets turf grass and sod.

▪ Maceo Sloan, a SCANA director since 1997. He is a member of the compensation and nuclear oversight committees. A North Carolina resident, he is president of a financial holding company in Durham.

▪ Alfredo Trujillo, a SCANA director since 2013. A member of the nuclear oversight committee, Trujillo is an investment advisor and president of the Georgia Tech Foundation.

▪ Jimmy Addison, SCANA executive vice president and SCE&G president. A Lexington County resident, he is responsible for nuclear financing.

▪ Steven Byrne, executive vice president. He helped oversee the construction at the abandoned nuclear plant site. http://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article175696531.html

September 30, 2017 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

V.C. Summer Nuclear Project Disarray – a $9 Billion Nuclear Scrapyard

$9 Billion Nuclear Scrapyard: New Aerial Photos of SCE&G’s Abandoned V.C. Summer Nuclear Project Reveal Disarray

Reactor Building and Components Left Unprotected; Most Cranes Removed, Friends of the Earth, 27 Sept 17  COLUMBIA, S.C. – Newly obtained aerial photographs of the abandoned V.C. Summer nuclear reactor construction site reveal that there is no protection of installed reactor components from the weather. (See notes on original  for links to photos.)

The photos provided to Friends of the Earth are being released in the middle of the political firestorm in South Carolina about the terminated project. It has become clear that South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) and its partner, Santee Cooper, withheld key information for years about the faltering project and were finally forced to simply walk away from on-going construction with no site shut-down plan in place.

The photos of the debacle, on which $9 billion was wasted, confirm that when work was abruptly halted on July 31, no preparation had been made to protect buildings and key components associated with reactor units 2 and 3. One existing reactor, visible in the photos, has operated at the site since 1982.

The photos, taken on September 18, reveal that nuclear reactor modules installed inside the open containment vessels are exposed to the weather. The partially finished ‘shield buildings,’ in which the reactors are located, lack roofs and sit fully exposed to the elements. Construction was only about 37% complete when the work was halted and had been continuing at a snail’s pace.

“Almost two months after the project was halted the V.C. Summer reactor construction site still looks like it was abruptly abandoned with no shut-down plan,” said Tom Clements, senior adviser to Friends of the Earth. “Not only was SCE&G grossly negligent during construction of the project, but the photos of the site reveal that the company also exhibited imprudent behavior in abandoning the project without proper closure plans. The forlorn site looks like a nuclear ghost town best suited for a Hollywood movie set,” added Clements. (Duke Energy’s abandoned nuclear reactor project in Cherokee County, South Carolina, was used as a set for the science fiction film The Abyss in 1989.)

Years of weathering will ravage the unprotected reactor components and partially constructed shield buildings and turbine buildings, according to Friends of the Earth. The turbine buildings, located adjacent to the reactors, sit without roofs and with open walls. A large number of white tent-like temporary buildings are visible and, according to information provided by site workers to Friends of the Earth, protect unused components. The short lifespan of the shelters will necessitate long-term plans if components are to be retained and not sold off.

The photos were taken by High Flyer, an anonymous pilot who for years has provided photos of V.C. Summer. The photos were taken in compliance with regulations of the Federal Aviation Administration and have been provided to Friends of the Earth for distribution in the public interest, including for regulators and law enforcement investigators. The photos can be used with credit to High Flyer (e.g. Courtesy of High Flyer © 2017). SCE&G has not provided photos of the abandoned site……… https://foe.org/9-billion-nuclear-scrapyard-new-aerial-photos-scegs-abandoned-v-c-summer-nuclear-project-reveal-disarray/

September 30, 2017 Posted by | decommission reactor, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Puerto Rico could go 100% renewable energy

Above – solar rooftop keep power going, in flooded Indian city 
In Maria’s Wake, Could Puerto Rico Go Totally Green?, Progressive, by Harvey Wasserman, September 28, 2017 The ecological and humanitarian destruction of Puerto Rico has left the world aghast. But there is a hopeful green-powered opportunity in this disaster that could vastly improve the island’s future while offering the world a critical showcase for a sane energy future.

By all accounts Hurricane Maria has leveled much of the island, and literally left it in the dark. Puerto Rico’s electrical grid has been extensively damaged, with no prospects for a return to conventionally generated and distributed power for months to come.

In response Donald Trump has scolded the island for it’s massive debt, and waited a full week after the storm hit to lift a shipping restriction requiring all incoming goods to be carried on US-flagged ships. (That restriction is largely responsible for the island’s economic problems in the first place.)

The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is a state-owned operation that hosts a number of solar and wind farms, as well as a network of hydroelectric dams. But the bulk of its energy supply has come from heavy industrial oil, diesel and gas burners. It also burns coal imported from Colombia at a plant in Guyama.

The fossil burners themselves apparently were left mostly undamaged by Maria. But the delivery system, a traditional network of above-ground poles and wires, has essentially been obliterated……..

With solar panels and battery backups, every one of those hospitals could be energy self-sufficient. Throughout the U.S. such technology is now being applied at medical facilities, data processing and storage facilities, and other critical units.

According to Mark Sommer, a California-based energy expert, Puerto Rico could safeguard such critical facilities and far more quickly restore its power by letting go of the old paradigm of central-generated and distributed electricity, and moving instead to a decentralized network of green-based micro-grids.

Micro-grids are community-based networks that power smaller geographic and consumer areas than the big central grids like the one that served Puerto Rico. Mostly they are based on decentralized generation, including networks of roof-top solar panels. As Sommer puts it: “renewably powered microgrids are a relatively simple and already mature technology that can be deployed in months rather than years and once the initial investment is recovered deliver dramatically lower energy bills.”

Because Puerto Rico is mountainous and hosts many small, remote villages, the island’s best hope for a manageable energy future is with decentralized power production in self-sustaining neighborhoods. Built around small-scale wind and solar arrays, with battery backups protected from inevitable floods and hurricanes, Puerto Rico could protect its electricity supply from the next natural disaster while building up a healthy, low-cost energy economy……

Puerto Rico’s best hope for a safe, prosperous, sustainable energy future is to take control of its power supply with a mix of renewable generation, protected backup storage, and a decentralized, local-based network of community-owned microgrids. http://progressive.org/dispatches/could-puerto-rico-go-totally-green/

September 30, 2017 Posted by | climate change, renewable, USA | Leave a comment

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