New York Times Endorses Nuclear Energy

In a New York Times Editorial running this morning, The Post-Bush Climate, we find this nugget,

His [McCain] plan differs in other respects, too. He decided at the last minute to delete from his speech a proposed tariff on countries like India and China that defy international agreements on emissions, partly because the tariff could be misconstrued as hostile to free trade, which Mr. McCain supports. The Senate bill contains such a provision. Meanwhile, Mr. McCain is much more enthusiastic, and in our view rightly so, about nuclear energy as a cleaner power source than the Senate sponsors or the two Democratic presidential candidates are.

Since 2005, we've been running a feature on this blog titled, "Another Blogger for Nuclear Energy." Perhaps it's time to start "Another Editorial Board for Nuclear Energy."

Welcome aboard, NYT.

Bush Sends U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Energy Pact to Congress

President George W. Bush has sent the agreement called Cooperation in the Field of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy to Congress for approval. Here is a description of the pact from President Bush's letter to Congress:

The proposed Agreement provides a comprehensive framework for peaceful nuclear cooperation with Russia based on a mutual commitment to nuclear non-proliferation. It has a term of 30 years, and permits the transfer of technology, material, equipment (including reactors), and components for nuclear research and nuclear power production. It does not permit transfers of Restricted Data, and permits transfers of sensitive nuclear technology, sensitive nuclear facilities, and major critical components of such facilities by amendment to the Agreement. In the event of termination, key non-proliferation conditions and controls continue with respect to material and equipment subject to the Agreement.

Congress has been quite dubious about this pact, particularly because of Russian aid to Iran's nuclear efforts. The best hope for the pact is for Congress to do nothing; if no action is taken in 60 days, then the pact takes force. But the House has already passed a measure that essentially forbids this pact and the Senate has a similar bill with 70 or so co-sponsors ready to go. Congress appears ready to weigh-in, and a perceived toughness toward Iran will play well to voters. Much more to come, no doubt.

We've written about this pact recently. Take a look there for more details and links.

Strange Bedfellow: Jonah Goldberg on Yucca Mountain

Jonah Goldberg tries to yoke two highly incompatible subjects into one column in the Los Angeles Times:

See, Yucca Mountain is where the government wants to keep incredibly dangerous substances -- nuclear waste -- until we figure out a better way to handle it.

And Guantanamo Bay is where the federal government keeps incredibly dangerous people -- jihadi enemy combatants -- until we figure out a better way to handle them.

Now that's original! Of course, associating people with inanimate objects risks dehumanization, but let's see how far he can carry the metaphor.

Here's his thoughts on Yucca Mountain:

But generating nuclear power produces radioactive waste, so we really should find a safe place to put it. Yucca Mountain, in the Nevada desert, is just such a place. But anti-nuclear environmentalists have done everything they can to keep it from opening, largely because having a safe waste repository would make nuclear power more attractive.

And on Gitmo:

"It is also among the most humane, complete with halal meals, a bursting library, lush recreation facilities, communal prayer breaks and even white-gloved U.S. soldiers -- Muslims only, please -- delivering to each detainee a Koran (U.S. government-issued, even though the inmates believe it commands them to kill Americans)." [Goldman is quoting writer Andrew McCarthy].

Oh, okay. Leave aside that I think his concern is more with Gitmo (and doesn't it sound like heaven on earth!) in this piece than Yucca Mountain. Both sides of his argument are badly flawed by not stating the issues fairly. Yucca Mountain has been victimized by NIMBY concerns in Nevada and Senate speaker Harry Reid's parroting of it - Reid is Nevada's Senator. Environmentalists have certainly played a part, but Nevada state politics have played a larger one.

As for Gitmo, we don't actually know what the gents in there might have done or how dangerous they are or anything, since everything there is enshrouded in secrecy. We do know that many inmates have been released without charge and some have returned to (or turned to) violence. McCarthy's description of it is more positive than any other I've seen - positive enough to be suspect.

But let's let Goldberg wrap up.

Likewise, Yucca Mountain is ridiculed as a white elephant by the same politicians who want to pour billions into ethanol and solar power. [Why join ethanol and solar energy? Solar is touted as another emission-free energy source and belongs in the mix, but ethanol is a different discussion altogether. There seems a logic slip here.]

The Yuccafication of Gitmo, or the Gitmoizing of Yucca Mountain, are two versions of the same story. Political elites passionately declare their total commitment to a desired end -- victory in this war or that -- but are feckless about providing means to those ends.

Beware anyone writing a column for a major newspaper calling anyone else an elite - and especially beware writers who make ridiculous comparisons where none really exists. Goldberg has created a procrustean bed into which two large subjects have been squeezed until they warp. The practical reality falls before ideological taint.

We like to think we'd take our friends where we can find them, but this isn't always the wise approach. Jonah Goldberg has his heart in the right place, but he's an awfully strange bedfellow.

Explaining the Costs of Nuclear Power Plants

Conferences, campaign speeches, and media all contributed to an especially busy NEI Monday. At Brookings, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) called for a bipartisan Manhattan project leading to "clean energy independence." The U.S. representative to the IAEA, Ambassador Greg Schulte, discussed nonproliferation initiatives at a Woodrow Wilson International Center event. Sen. John McCain (R) continued his policy tour, stopping in Oregon to deliver his address on climate change. And The Wall Street Journal published an article looking at the costs of new plant builds.

Mark Flanagan responded via the NEI blog. Scott Peterson took to the airwaves, citing industry and independent analysis that shows nuclear-generated electricity to be cost-effective and competitive. Peterson also emphasized the bipartisan support for new plants in statehouses and Congress.

Let the Battle Begin: The Wall Street Journal on the Expense of New Plants

The argument that building new nuclear energy plants will represent ruinous expense for anyone to undertake has percolated among nuclear opposition folks without much mainstream notice. Now, however, the Wall Street Journal has taken a crack at it. It's nicely researched and written up to WSJ standards, although you've heard the argument of the piece many times. Here's the lede:

A new generation of nuclear power plants is on the drawing boards in the U.S., but the projected cost is causing some sticker shock: $5 billion to $12 billion a plant, double to quadruple earlier rough estimates.

$5 to $12 million? That seems a pretty big spread. Here's a longer taster, with a soupcon of that "on the one hand, on the other hand" thing journalists use to cover all bases:

Several things could derail new development plans. Excessive cost is one. A second is the development of rival technologies that could again make nuclear plants look like white elephants. A drop in prices for coal and natural gas, now very expensive, also could make nuclear plants less attractive. On the other hand, if Congress decides to tax greenhouse-gas emissions, that could make electricity from nuclear plants more attractive by raising costs for generators that burn fossil fuels. Nuclear plants wouldn't have to pay the charges because they aren't emitters.

Coal and natural gas are not really rival technologies. They are part of the energy mix and will be for a long time. So-called clean coal and carbon emission sequestration may cause their stock to rise in the greenhouse-gas-reduction sweepstakes, but likely not at the expense or even benefit of nuclear energy. Likewise, the rise and fall of prices in those markets would have next to no impact on nuclear energy because nuclear energy solves different problems.

The second point  - that Congress will turn a fishy eye on fossil fuels - is widely perceived to be certain, which is what has led in part to the nuclear renaissance and also to the increased interest in solar, wind and tide technologies. (Other non-emitting energy sources are not mentioned at all in the article, an odd omission.)

What the article represents is what newspapers are actually good at, which is pushing back at orthodoxy. That nuclear energy now seems the orthodox way to address climate change is heartening; that the Wall Street Journal would want to push back at nuclear energy and try out the expense argument is inevitable - it gets the issue into the public sphere. Fine: it had to happen sooner or later and it's not that tough an argument.

The article treats nuclear energy as though it were an all-or-nothing proposition; it's not. Coal, gas, wind, solar, nuclear and all the usual suspects will feed the energy grid. Nuclear has a place at the table, but it won't scarf down all the food.

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Leave it to our friends at the Heritage Foundation to have a go of their own at the WSJ article:

The simple fact is that energy prices are increasing and if the nation wants to limit CO2 emissions, then nuclear must be part of the answer. So the question for policy makers is two-fold. First, what can be done to reduce energy prices overall and second what can be done to reduce the construction costs of nuclear power plants.

Heritage lists six proscriptive points, some of which reiterate our own, some of which are new:

...Commit to the free trade of commodities. Simply lifting tariffs on the products, like steel and cement mentioned by the WSJ would reduce construction costs. The U.S. would have the added benefit of gaining access to the resources to build the energy plants, of whatever source, to meet its energy demands.

And some of which are conservative boilerplate we could take or leave:

Sixth, minimize regulation. The nuclear energy industry is one of the most heavily regulated in the country. At best, it will take nearly four years before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will give approval to build a new plant. Furthermore, regulatory mandates have drastically increased the amount of construction materials needed to build a plant despite experience showing that such reinforcements were unnecessary.

Minimizing regulation has done this country so much good, hasn't it?

But read the whole thing - and the WSJ article too - and watch the fur fly.

Monday Morning Breakfast

...nuclear energy news you may have missed this weekend.

The Washington Post reports that at least 40 developing countries have approached U.N. officials about starting nuclear energy programs....According to the AP, Senator McCain will call for the expansion of nuclear power while speaking at a Vestas wind turbine plant in Portland, Oregon....The Wall Street Journal looks at the economics of new plant builds....UK hedge fund, The Children's Investment Fund (TCI), will seek sanctions against the Japanese government over its decision barring TCI from doubling its stake in J-Power. Per columnist William Hutchings, "The firm said the government's decision was damaging Japan's reputation as an open capital market."...The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, the local that covers Luzerne County, PA (Susquehanna), is publishing a two-part series titled "Nuclear Reaction." Part one, "Powering Up," ran on Sunday....The Lawrence Journal-World's man-on-the-street asks its readers, "Would you prefer that the Legislature pursue nuclear or coal power in Kansas?" (They prefer nuclear.)...Diane Farsetta from PR Watch doesn't.

The Rise of Carly Fiorina

It's been a good few months for Carly Fiorina; the once-embattled former president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard is now an advisor and leading surrogate for the McCain presidential campaign. Fiorina has recently been mentioned as a possible running mate with Senator McCain. Today she appeared in the "B" segment on ABC's This Week. Here she is on McCain and nuclear energy,

There's no question that Senator McCain has said over and over again that we have to incent innovation. So that we are building these new green technologies. We have to incent innovation around things like clean coal. And by the way, we also have to incent innovation around nuclear power. Which is clean. It's abundant. Yes, there are issues. But nuclear power, if we would step up, and adopt nuclear power in this country, that's potentially many millions of jobs.

Note: Transcript is not yet available. Quotation appears at 3:43 in the video clip.

Everything Old Is New Again: Westinghouse Steps Forward

For a lot of folks, Westinghouse is a name associated with the  washing machines, TV sets and vacuum machines that graced their suburban tract homes growing up. Even at the time, though, the brand seemed a little old-fashioned, something with the ordure of musty velour.

But Westinghouse was then a powerhouse almost as broad based as General Electric. In recent years, as a division of Toshiba, Westinghouse Electric Company (the electronics and appliance maker still exists as Westinghouse Electric Corporation, owned by CBS) has largely focused on the nuclear market. Here's how they've spent the last several years:

For the past few years, amid a resurgence of the nuclear power industry, Westinghouse's Engineering Services group has been furiously upgrading and refurbishing aging plants—and minting money along the way.

But that work is almost done, and Business Week's Brian Hindo documents what Westinghouse is doing to move forward and retain its relevance:

Last fall the company won a contract to make repairs to Alloy 600, a metal that is found in old reactors. It had never done that before. Nor had it serviced a type of reactor that uses boiling, rather than pressurized, water to generate steam. Now it has a satellite office in San Jose, Calif., dedicated to such jobs.

But even this isn't the full point. That comes through Westinghouse's determination to push itself forward though taking on a culture of risk aversion and reversing it to allow the company to think outside hidebound assumptions and discover what else it could do and how it could do them:

[Engineering Services head Nick Liparulo] needed to send a strong signal that risk-taking wouldn't be a ticket out the door. At [University of Virginia's Darden School of Business professor Jeanne] Liedtka's suggestion, he took nine of his best managers and made them "growth leaders." Their sole responsibilities would be to chase down new technologies and markets.

As Liedtka's involvement suggests, this has more than a whiff of an academic business theory given form - expect many pop business books to come out about it if they haven't already - but the results are good and it has pushed Westinghouse forward. Read the whole article - it's a good, positive one and gets the weekend going right - and see if Westinghouse hasn't blown the dust off the velour and made it plush again.

Pennies from Heaven: A Nuclear Stock Fund

For those of you more engaged with your financial portfolios than we are, take a look at this, courtesy of Kiplinger:

Investors who want to ride nuclear's revival without betting on individual stocks have a new option. Invesco PowerShares last month launched an exchange-traded fund called the Global Nuclear Energy Portfolio (symbol PKN). The ETF tracks the performance of the World Nuclear Association (WNA) Energy Index, which contains 64 companies that design, construct and operate nuclear power reactors. The shares closed at $27.08 on May 8.

And the fund is jam packed with the usual suspects, minus of course Keyser Soze:

The ETF's biggest holding, at 8.5% of assets, is Areva (ARVCF.PK), a French company. "Areva is one of just a handful of publicly traded companies in the world that both designs and builds reactors," says Phillips.

Other big holdings include Japan's Toshiba (TOSBF.PK), Emerson Electric (EMR) and Canada's Cameco (CCJ), a leading producer of uranium, the raw material that becomes fuel for nuclear reactors.

Writer Amy Bickers reviews the reasons nuclear has sprung back to life and offers a definition of an ETF:

ETFs are funds that track a particular index and trade on exchanges just like stocks. ETF prices move up and down, in line with the value of the securities they hold. ETFs contain mechanisms that keep the share prices close to the value of their holdings.

Whether the electricity market in general is responsive to this kind of financial instrument, we have no idea. If you took our advice on stocks, you'd have only yourself to blame if your next home was a giant-screen TV box in a low traffic corner of your local public park.

Perhaps the more financially savvy members of our readership can weigh in on the virtues and vices of this kind of offering. For us, it's interesting that outfits creating such offerings find nuclear energy something that might appeal to potential buyers.

The CBO Study on Nuclear Energy

Your rainy weekend reading suggestion: the Congressional Budget Office's just released study,"Nuclear Power's Role in Generating Electricity." The pull quote:

In the long run, carbon dioxide charges would increase the competitiveness of nuclear technology and could make it the least expensive source of new base-load capacity. More immediately, EPAct incentives by themselves could make advanced nuclear reactors a competitive technology for limited additions to base-load capacity. However, under some plausible assumptions that differ from those CBO adopted for its reference scenario—in particular, those that project higher future construction costs for nuclear plants or lower natural gas prices—nuclear technology would be a relatively expensive source of capacity, regardless of EPAct incentives. CBO’s analysis yields the following conclusions:

• In the absence of both carbon dioxide charges and EPAct incentives, conventional fossil-fuel technologies would most likely be the least expensive source of new electricity-generating capacity.
• Carbon dioxide charges of about $45 per metric ton would probably make nuclear generation competitive with conventional fossil-fuel technologies as a source of new capacity, even without EPAct incentives. At charges below that threshold, conventional gas technology would probably be a more economic source of base-load capacity than coal technology. Below about $5 per metric ton, conventional coal technology would probably be the lowest cost source of new capacity.
• Also at roughly $45 per metric ton, carbon dioxide charges would probably make nuclear generation competitive with existing coal power plants and could lead utilities in a position to do so to build new nuclear plants that would eventually replace existing coal power plants.
• EPAct incentives would probably make nuclear generation a competitive technology for limited additions to base-load capacity, even in the absence of carbon dioxide charges. However, because some of those incentives are backed by a fixed amount of funding, they would be diluted as the number of nuclear projects increased; consequently, CBO anticipates that only a few of the 30 plants currently being proposed would be built if utilities did not expect carbon dioxide charges to be imposed.
• Uncertainties about future construction costs or natural gas prices could deter investment in nuclear power. In particular, if construction costs for new nuclear power plants proved to be as high as the average cost of nuclear plants built in the 1970s and 1980s or if natural gas prices fell back to the levels seen in the 1990s, then new nuclear capacity would not be competitive, regardless of the incentives provided by EPAct. Such variations in construction or fuel costs would be less likely to deter investment in new nuclear capacity if investors anticipated a carbon dioxide charge, but those charges would probably have to exceed $80 per metric ton in order for nuclear technology to remain competitive under either of those circumstances.

The study was written by Justin Falk, an analyst with the CBO's Microeconomic Studies Division, under the supervision of Joseph Kile and David Moore. Hat tip to the CBO Director's blog (?!), for the pointer to the study. You have to believe that when the Director of the CBO is blogging, this medium is here to stay.

Go West, Young Power Plant: Nuclear Energy in Alberta

We've noted Ontario's interest in nuclear energy and now Alberta  takes a crack at it (courtesy of The Prairie Post):

The debate about nuclear energy and whether it will have a future in Alberta has officially begun as Bruce Power Alberta begins the planning to build the first nuclear power plant in western Canada and the Alberta government appoints a committee to research whether nuclear energy should be pursued in the province.

That sounds like two stories, doesn't it, since Bruce Power is not going to get very far if the government research goes against it. Here's what Bruce Power has in mind:

Bruce Power, based in Ontario, purchased the assets of Energy Alberta Corporation and in March filed an application with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to prepare a site for the potential construction of the plant on Lac Cardinal near Peace River.

Peace River sounds kind of nice, but Bruce Power! Are all the boys in Canada named Bruce (who are not named Doug, that is)?

And here is what the provincial government is up to:

The [government-selected expert] panel will be asked to provide a comprehensive examination of: environmental, health and safety issues; waste management; comparing nuclear energy with other electricity generation technologies; current and future nuclear power generation being used in Canada and around the world; and Alberta's future electricity needs.

Naturally, writer Rose Sanchez rounds up opposition:

Mary Griffiths, a senior policy analyst with Pembina, says nuclear energy isn't the answer. Instead the greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands [?] should be dealt with through carbon capture and storage technologies.

Well, that would be good, we guess, if carbon capture and storage technologies were actually ready to be implemented. Curiously, the Pembina Institute sells wind power. Sanchez doesn't mention this, a bit of a journalistic breach - a reporter should come clean when a source might have a financial interest in zinging a competitor.

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Here's a description of a Pembina Institute book called "Nuclear Power in Canada: An Examination of Risks, Impacts and Sustainability."

In addition to the fact that nuclear power is not itself a [greenhouse gas (GHG)] emission free energy source, a future path based on nuclear energy would simply replace one problem (GHG emissions) with a series of different, but equally unacceptable impacts and risks. These encompass everything from facility reliability and waste management to the potential for catastrophic accidents and nuclear weapons proliferation.

<rant> Feh! This sounds like the building-a-plant-produces-greenhouse-gas thing again plus long discredited arguments. You can download the whole book as a pdf on their site if you want. And hey, Pembina, windmills don't magically erect themselves - we have to assume there's some heavy machinery involved that's less than enviro-friendly. </rant>

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Ahem! Let's see how what expert panel finds out and wish Bruce Power luck. Alberta seems likely to join the atom club, especially if they lean on the work already done in Ontario and elsewhere to vet nuclear energy.

Thanks to Trails Canada for the map.

The Zeal and the Zealots

While reading The Chicago Tribune's coverage of the super-important, fun-and-sun drenched Nuclear Energy Assembly, this paragraph stuck out:

Dave Kraft, director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service in Evanston, views this as further evidence that the free components of a summer weekend—sunshine and a cool breeze—will be better energy sources.

"Those are far superior choices and they can come online much faster than new nukes," Kraft said. "The nuclear industry is well overplaying their hand."

We've got nothing against our friends in the solar and wind business, but "far superior?" I guess the article - which is more a roundup of what prominent attendees are thinking about nuclear these days rather than direct coverage of the conference - demanded a he-said, she-said approach, but from our perspective, it felt like the writer, Joshua Boak, had dropped a spider on the valentine.

So what is the Nuclear Energy Information Service? Here's a bit from their latest action alert:

The nuclear industry has never met a law, regulation or agreement it was not willing to ignore or actively seek to overturn if the opportunity or need suited them. That is perhaps why NEIS has never been willing to "negotiate" with Exelon and its predecessors; negotiating anything with them is a lose-lose proposition. The only language they understand is to be defeated -- utterly, wholly and without compromise -- and in no uncertain terms.

Yikes! All that's missing is a denouncement of Exelon's employees as jack-booted thugs. If you want to see what else they're up to, you can watch their video:

In cooperation with CAN-TV, NEIS produced a 30-minute DVD and cable TV segment on GNEP entitled "GNEP:  Nuclear Wolf in Sheep's Clothing."  This program can be viewed on Google TV at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1498918502264826711

Actually GNEP (Global Nuclear Energy Partnership) is a nuclear wolf in wolf's clothing - it doesn't try to hide anything. It isn't even terribly wolfish.

NEIS seems more than a collection of anti-nuclear kooks but less than a crowd of folks engaging an issue. This is a pretty zealous bunch - nothing wrong with that, of course, except that zealots tend to have steel trap minds that have snapped shut. There's just nothing to be said to them that constitutes an argument.

I may have overlooked something on their exceptionally dense web site, but I didn't see any engagement at all with the nuclear energy industry - in fact, their action alert indicates Exelon is, at best, pushing down old ladies and kicking dogs. That's a real shame, though, because a distaste for nuclear energy - or anything - can be better honed if pitted against its opposite. And, of course, if it can survive the experience of being challenged.

I do sincerely hope that Dave Kraft pays a visit to NEA. He may find some of his attitudes confirmed, some shaken, some stirred.

Update on Georgia Power, Vogtle

Georgia Power, plurality owner of the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, announced today it did not receive any bids in response to its 2016-2017 base load capacity RFP. From the press release,

...Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) rules require market bids to be compared with self-build proposals, but no market bids were received.

The company's self-build nuclear proposal will be reviewed by the Georgia PSC's Independent Evaluator before the company submits a final recommendation to the Georgia PSC on August 1, 2008 for approval. A final certification decision is expected in March 2009.

If certified by the Georgia PSC and licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the two Westinghouse AP1000 units, with a capacity of 1,100 megawatts each, would be constructed at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant site near Waynesboro, Georgia and would be placed in service in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

Also Heard from the NEA Podium, Day 2

“Building a coal plant has more risk now than a nuclear plant. … With possible carbon constraints and [natural] gas prices going up, we can’t meet our electricity needs going forward without nuclear energy.”
- Michael J. Wallace, Vice Chairman, Constellation Energy Nuclear; Chairman, UniStar

“This country is going to need new nuclear power plants.”
- Robert Malone, Chairman and President, BP America Inc.

”I think nuclear could be an important part of energy supply for the United States and the world, but there are tough challenges ahead. Nuclear is not a silver bullet for global warming. If there is one, it’s energy efficiency.”
- Jessica Tuchman Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

“Nuclear power is the only technology we have that can be deployed over the next two decades to address global warming. It is our best hope in the short term until we get to renewables and efficiency.”
- William Johnson, Chairman, CEO and President, Progress Energy

“You are in the catbird’s seat. If we see carbon legislation, we will see more nuclear.”
- Ned Helme, President, Center for Clean Air Policy

JoAnn Sperber