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Climate change – hot weather is bad for nuclear reactors

Hot weather, hot water pose challenges for TVA nuclear, local utilities
By Brian Lawson, The Huntsville Times  , June 30, 2012, “….   Browns Ferry’s operator, the Tennessee Valley Authority, faces the same paradox every summer: the plants are designed to help meet the valley’s power demand amid the swelter, but when it gets too hot the plants may have to scale back.  Under TVA’s water discharge permits with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, the water temperature downstream from the plant cannot be higher than upstream when the water reaches a temperature of 90 degrees….. David Lochbaum, a former engineer at Browns Ferry who now works with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said last week that nuclear power plants are about 33 percent efficient, so two-thirds of the waste heat they generate has to be cooled using water. Lochbaum said increasingly hot water in the Tennessee River places another potential burden on Browns Ferry operations.

Lochbaum was part of a conference call last week with area environmental advocates who said electricity generation poses an ongoing strain on water resources, especially in times of drought or the reduced rainfall levels being experienced in North Alabama this year.

A study by the River Network, released last week, found that it takes on average 40,000 gallons of fresh water to produce a megawatt of electricity. The water is used, polluted or consumed in making the electricity, said Wendy Wilson, national director of the River Network’s energy and climate programs.

July 2, 2012 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear company finds it unaffordable to decommission reactor

Company dismantling Zion nuclear plant under financial stress
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-01/business/chi-company-dismantling-zion-nuclear-plant-under-financial-stress-20120630_1_nuclear-plant-nuclear-fuel-chief-financial-officer July 01, 2012|By Julie Wernau |EnergySolutions, the company dismantling Exelon’s Zion nuclear plant, is struggling financially just as it nears the riskiest phase of the project — moving the nuclear fuel into storage casks.

Last month, the company suddenly replaced its chief executive and chief financial officer for the second time in two years, causing its stock to plunge 55 percent and its credit ratings to fall two notches amid a weak earnings forecast. In March, EnergySolutions revealed that
it underestimated by about $100 million the cost to dismantle Zion piece by piece, and ship the material to Utah for disposal The financial problems call the future of the company and the project into question. Though David Lockwood, the new president and chief executive of EnergySolutions said the company intentionally underbid the work to gain publicity that would help it snag similar work around the world.

“We undertook Zion for strategic, not financial reasons,” Lockwood said.

July 2, 2012 Posted by | decommission reactor, Reference, USA | Leave a comment

USA joining with China to develop thorium nuclear reactors

What’s not clear is what, exactly, the U.S. will get from the collaboration….

U.S. partners with China on new nuclear, By Mark Halper Smart Planet  June 26, 2012 E Pluribus Thorium? U.S. Assistant Energy Secretary Peter Lyons and Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Jiang Mianheng have joined forces for thorium development. What’s in it for the U.S.?

The U.S. Department of Energy is quietly collaborating with China on an alternative nuclear power design known as a molten salt reactor that could run on thorium fuel Continue reading →

June 30, 2012 Posted by | China, politics international, Reference, Uranium, USA | Leave a comment

Some respect entering in USA-Iran practical talks

Silver lining in Iran nuclear talks, Asia Times Online By Kaveh L Afrasiabi 27 June 12 Despite the deadlock at last week’s talks in Moscow between Iran and world powers on the former’s nuclear ambitions, it seems not all hope is lost.

The glimmer of progress lies in the support building for a technical agreement on a nuclear fuel swap, which is the subject of a technical follow-on meeting for July 3 in Istanbul, as well as in improved confidence-building measures between the US and Iran. Continue reading →

June 30, 2012 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Distributed renewable energy is now a mainstream commercial factor in USA

The data submission forms the EIA uses do not catch every last TWh, and indeed, don’t include solar photovoltaic generation from systems less than 1 megawatt in size. This smaller capacity segment includes most residential and commercial distributed PV systems.

renewable energy is clearly moving beyond “niche” status. It’s a mainstream source that will increasingly challenge existing electricity generation and provision business models, particularly as distributed solutions (electric vehicles, demand response, PV, etc.) take off

Renewable Energy Supplies 7% US Electricity, Has Anyone Noticed? SustainableBusiness.com News, by Dan Seif, Rocky Mountain Institute, 29 June 12,  Between April 2011 and March 2012, the US generated 5% of its annual electricity from renewable sources, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

To be exact, the US generated 204 terawatt-hours (TWh) out of 4,070 TWh from non-hydro renewables – solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and small hydro.

Putting this annual total of non-hydro renewable generation in context, this is:

More than the total electrical use of 197 nations (92% of all nations), including Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, and Thailand.
More than the combined electrical use of the Philippines, Switzerland, and Malaysia.
Enough electrical energy to power about 16 million American homes, deducting about 10% for transmission and distribution losses. Continue reading →

June 30, 2012 Posted by | decentralised, USA | Leave a comment

USA’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gives a big boost to solar energy to

Big News for Renewable Energy: FERC Rules for Wind, Solar, Storage, Forbes, 29 June 12 “.…. A year ago, Wellinghoff told me: “[North American Electric Reliability Corporation] projects in its 2010 Long-Term Reliability Assessment that approximately 60 percent of all new resources expected to be added to the bulk power system by 2019 will be new wind and solar resources.”

The FERC aims to remove regulatory barriers to ensure that all of these resources can get access the grid and play a competitive role in the energy markets.

To that end, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission passed a rule last week to make it easier for solar and wind providers to distribute their power to the grid…. FERC says the ruling also benefits electric consumers by ensuring that services are provided at
reasonable rates. Continue reading →

June 30, 2012 Posted by | Reference, renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Stuxnet computer malaware affected USA too

When Stuxnet Hit the Homeland: Government Response to the Rescue abc News 29 June 12, An Iranian nuclear facility may have taken the brunt of the cyber superweapon Stuxnet believed to be built in part by the U.S., but the American government was concerned enough with its spread to a facility back home that a fast response team was deployed to deal with an infection, according to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security.
The report , released Thursday by the DHS’s Industrial Control Systems Computer Emergency Readiness Team (ICS-CERT), gives scant details on the incident, except to say that after Stuxnet was discovered on thousands of computer systems around the world in 2010, a DHS team “conducted an onsite incident response deployment to a manufacturing
facility infected with the Stuxnet malware and helped the organization identify all infected systems and eradicate the malware from their control system network.”

The worm was found on “all their engineering workstations as well as several other machines connected to the manufacturing control systems network,” the report said….
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/06/when-stuxnet-hit-the-homeland-government-response-to-the-rescue/

June 30, 2012 Posted by | Reference, technology, USA | Leave a comment

Danger in relicensing Indian Point nuclear plant, says Connecticut Attorney General

Mr. Jepsen said that continued operation of the plants would “result in the accumulation of two more decades’ worth of spent nuclear fuel at a facility that is already overloaded.”
Without a federal long-term storage facility, the spent fuel will remain on site indefinitely.

Attorney general opposes relicensing Indian Point nuclear plant Ridgefield Press,  by Susan Kinsman, , 29 June 2012   Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said Thursday he opposes relicensing two Indian Point nuclear reactors in Buchanan, N.Y. until a thorough and complete investigation is made of environmental impacts from continuing their operation for 20 years, including spent fuel storage, the potential threat to public drinking water supplies and relocating large numbers of people in the event of an accident. Continue reading →

June 30, 2012 Posted by | safety, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear company Entergy suddenly cutting out health benefits for Pilgrim nuclear workers

The Louisiana-based Entergy is slashing benefits as part of a hard-line lockout, while inexperienced and lesser trained replacements try to manage the 40-year-old plant’s complex operations.

“Our members have literally risked their lives time and again to keep this community safe and to help Entergy make $1 million a day in profits,”

Entergy’s Countdown to Cruelty: 48 hours until Pilgrim Nuclear workers and families lose healthcare Just days after Supreme Court Upholds Healthcare for all, Louisiana-based Entergy Corp. set to end medical coverage for workers and families facing surgery, cancer treatment, childbirth and other healthcare issues

The Sacramento Bee, By Utility Workers Union of America Local 369 , Jun. 28, 2012 PLYMOUTH, Mass., June 29, 2012 —  Locked-out Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant
workers and their families are bracing for a devastating blow as Entergy Corp. prepares to end their healthcare coverage at midnight on Saturday, June 30. Continue reading →

June 30, 2012 Posted by | employment, USA | Leave a comment

Southern California’s electrical grid might not need nuclear power – ever!

San Onofre: Do we really need it?   UT San Diego, 28 June 12, This summer may be just a test run for operating Southern California’s electrical grid without a nuclear plant.

The latest report on the outage at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station shows the replacement of four massive steam generators was accompanied by serious design flaws, with no clear solution in sight.

Both stakeholders in San Onofre and critics of nuclear power say the start of a summer without the twin-reactor plant has forced a new accounting for its costs and benefits.

The utility industry and the state’s main grid operator are “considering a range of existing and new alternatives for mitigating the impacts of a long-term or permanent shutdown at San Onofre,” said Stephanie McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the California Independent System Operator….. the grid operator foresees only the remote chance of rolling outages during hot weather in the next three months — when San Onofre is needed the most.

That assessment alone has changed perceptions of the plant as indispensable, said Dan Sullivan, president of San Diego-based Sullivan Solar Power, which employs 65 workers designing and installing solar arrays.

The plant shutdown — along with California’s aggressive renewable-energy policies and a newly completed transmission line into San Diego — have shifted the conversation about nuclear power. The day is coming, Sullivan said, when “we can just say, ‘We’re done.
We don’t need it anymore.’ ”….

June 29, 2012 Posted by | business and costs, renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Shock horror for the nuclear lobby, Southern California can get by without San Onofre nuclear energy

Officials urge conservation as California prepares for summer sans San Onofre nuclear plant 89.3 KPCC, By Ed Joyce | Jun 27, 2012 Utility officials in Southern California say conservation is more important than ever as the San Onofre nuclear plant sits dormant, but anti-nuclear activists are insisting that the plant’s energy isn’t needed…… anti-nuclear activists say the summer will show the region can get by without San Onofre.

Gene Stone, with a San Clemente-based anti-nuclear group, says conservation can meet energy demand even with a permanent shutdown of the plant. He says Edison should use the “half-billion dollars” it’s collected from customers for energy conservation to create a useful
substitute.

“That money should be divided up between the appropriate county and city agencies and do some real effective conservation,” said Stone.

The agency which manages the state’s power grid says that, even without the nuclear plant’s energy (enough for 1.4 million homes), Southern California will get by this summer without major blackouts. http://www.scpr.org/news/2012/06/27/33000/officials-urge-conservation-state-prepares-summer-/

June 29, 2012 Posted by | ENERGY, USA | Leave a comment

No protection for whistleblowers at San Onofre nuclear power station

Paul Diaz is not protected by California’s whistle-blower laws – among the strongest in the nation — because San Onofre sits on federal land ceded to Southern California Edison back in the 1960s. “What’s unusual here is that if Mr. Diaz was working off the actual four corners of the San Onofre property and reported the same acts, he would be protected,” Seversen said. “But because he happens to set foot on the federal enclave, those protections are not available.”

San Onofre Workers Lack State Whistleblower Protections Safety Complaints High At Crippled Plant June 28, 2012 KPBS, By Amita Sharma  For the past four years, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station has had the highest number of safety complaints of any nuclear plant in the country.

“That’s not the list you want to be on top of,” said nuclear power expert David Lockbaum of theUnion of Concerned Scientists.

“I don’t think there is any doubt whatsoever that right now the workforce at San Onofre doesn’t trust management and when they have safety concerns they’re either not raising them at all or they’re raising them to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the only option they have available,” he added. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. The workers are basically the canaries in the coal mine. They’re the first ones who see the problems. Their voices need to be heard, not ignored.” Continue reading →

June 29, 2012 Posted by | civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Public participation eliminated, as Nuclear Regulatory Commission ‘streamlines’ nuclear licensing

David Lochbaum, director of the Union of Concerned Scientis’s  said “The old Soviet system was efficient, too,”  arguing that the streamlining sets up a system that approves an entire plan’s construction and operation upfront, a step that happens entirely based on blueprints and that offers fewer opportunities to contest a new project.

“It’s a paper battle – you’re looking at things that are done in cyberspace, and there’s no real evidence to point at,” Lochbaum said. “It has the effect of eliminating public participation.”

Streamlining Nuclear Regs, Energy Biz 28 June 12, AGENCY SEEKS TO
REMOVE IMPEDIMENTS  FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been in the process of implementing new, streamlined licensing procedures, and this spring the first new nuclear projects in decades were approved – two new reactors at the SCANA-owned V.C. Summer Plant, and two others at the Southern Company-owned Plant Vogtle. Continue reading →

June 29, 2012 Posted by | Legal, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

NRC keeping mum about their investigations into Palisades nuclear power plant

Nuclear cops snoop around Palisades, NRC team began investigation this week, Wood 8 TV , 28 Jun 2012, By Henry Erb GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) – When something goes wrong at the Palisades nuclear facility, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does a technical review. Now, a team of nuclear cops is investigating the nuke plant in Covert Township.

Many of the people in the NRCs Office of Investigations are former agents of the FBI, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Agency or have backgrounds with other law enforcement agencies. They’re not looking for things that have just gone wrong.
Their job is to look for deliberate wrongdoing, things that could result in criminal prosecution.

In the 2011 annual report from the NRC, the agents investigated 227 cases and turned 77 over to the Justice Department. It’s unclear how many actually ended up in prosecution. ….. This week, the nuclear cops began looking into the year-long leak from an emergency water tank that shut down Palisades on June 12. NRC inspectors at the plant knew about the slow leak since May 2011, and their spokesman said it wasn’t them who turned the case over for special investigation.

The Office of Investigations began the probe on its own this week, but a spokesman at their Chicago office said the agents are not saying why. http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/news/local/sw_mich/Nuclear-cops-snoop-around-Palisades

June 29, 2012 Posted by | safety, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Affordable solar energy racing ahead in Californian homes and businesses

This list shows undeniable solar growth in a diverse range of cities, debunking the common misconception that solar is only for the wealthy,” notes Stephen Torres, founder and managing director of PV
Solar Report. “Key to this diversification is third-party-owned solar, which makes solar affordable for a wider range of homeowners.”

California Residential Solar Market Has Grown 80% So Far This Year http://solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.10611 27 June 2012 Thirteen cities helped the California residential solar market grow 80% so far this year, according to a new report from SunRun.

According to the report, the top cities reflect solar adoption in median-income communities rather than in the wealthiest areas of the state.

The high-growth cities were evaluated by percent growth through May 31 as compared to the same time frame last year. While solar adoption continues to surge in traditional solar hot beds like Fresno and Bakersfield, new solar leaders like Santa Clarita, Castaic and Palmdale are also leading the charge.

The top California cities for home solar installations were as follows:  Continue reading →

June 28, 2012 Posted by | decentralised, USA | Leave a comment

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