Building a Building

One of the issues in getting the nuclear renaissance rolling – but one that is particularly responsive to capitalist imperatives – is the manufacturing of pieces that make up a plant.

After all, it’s been a long time since an American nuclear plant has been built and a lot of the action moved overseas - to France and Japan, in particular. But it’s not as though America doesn’t have a work force with considerable skill at this type of work – hmm! where might that be?

Michigan needs to get on the nuclear power train because it's getting ready to leave the station -- and take the jobs with it.

No, this isn't a call to green-light yet another nuke plant here. It's a reminder that the Big Mitten still has the ability to make things. Climate-change politics and surging demand for electricity around the world are powering a nuclear renaissance, and states like Michigan -- deep in engineering expertise, surplus industrial capacity and an established transportation infrastructure -- could get a piece of that multi-billion dollar business.

This is from columnist Daniel Howes at the Detroit News. If he coined the term The Big Mitten, points to him. More points for an excellent, though very obvious, suggestion. But:

"I can't make Michigan become a key supplier of nuclear components," Dan Roderick, senior vice president for nuclear plant projects at GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Inc., told a "nuclear renaissance" seminar this week organized by DTE Energy Corp. "You can. How much of this do you want? Someone's going to come and get it."

Howes further makes the case:

The Environmental Protection Agency predicts the nation will need to build 187 new nuclear reactors, partly to replace existing ones that have reached the end of their functional lives and partly to meet the expanding power needs of a deeply electrified society. Add electrified transportation, and the demand grows even more.

"We've got available capacity and available skills" in Michigan, says Gerry Anderson, chief operating officer of DTE Energy. "If we want to stake a leadership position, we've got to move now."

DTE Energy certainly sees the opportunity, so we paid a visit over there to see what they’re up to. Here DTE makes the pitch:

Michigan has the transportation infrastructure to move parts anywhere in the world ... and we have the engineering and manufacturing capability to meet the needs of the nuclear power industry as it grows globally.  We need to leverage these resources now to stake a leadership position for Michigan as a supply hub to this industry.

And it looks like it wants to get the ball rolling:

If your Michigan business is interested in becoming a nuclear construction and/or maintenance supplier, we encourage you to complete and submit this pre-qualification survey.*

It’s a seven-page form, very detailed and seemingly aimed at retrofitting existing factories rather than building new ones. But you’ve got to start somewhere. Let’s see if – or rather, when - some ambitious entrepreneurs in Michigan step up.

The Detroit skyline.

Without You: Climate Change Bill Bypasses GOP

We can’t really call yesterday’s passage of the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee tainted, because the bill itself is almost pristine. No amendments were added to it, nothing was removed. But the process lacked a – certain – something:

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee reported out a climate change bill on Thursday despite a boycott by Republican members, who had required a complete analysis of the measure before participating in the committee debate.

The Republicans bailed out because they wanted a full EPA analysis of the bill before proceeding. Neither Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) nor ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) have put up press releases about Boxer’s maneuver yet. However, Inhofe did issue a statement:

"The Republicans offered a clear path forward to a bipartisan markup, but it was summarily rejected by Chairman Boxer.[Boxer] decided to ignore the entreaties of all 6 ranking members from Senate committees with some share of jurisdiction over climate change legislation, as well as leading moderates in the Senate. Her action signals the death knell for the Kerry Boxer bill," he added.

We’ll see about that death knell. After all, the Finance Committee will have a run at it – Max Baucus (D - Montana), who chairs that committee, was the one vote against it in the Energy committee – and all the Senators will be able to festoon it with amendments once it hits the floor.

But for now, the bill, including the rather empty nuclear title, is the same as when the committee presented it for hearings. We await the next move.

Sen. James Inhofe would like to make a point.

Beaming Through Grime

We have to give our friends in the coal industry credit – it has had a pretty good showing in the climate change bill, even if the goal of the bill builds on the hope that carbon capture and sequestration proves itself, and it survived the widespread attention given to the clean coal carolers, a well-intended Flash animation that was bound to bring down criticism.

However, here’s the thing: coal miners don’t deserve, and for most part haven’t received, the criticism that industry touts might receive. These are folks doing a job many would not consider doing and take a considerable amount of pride in the doing of it.

So we were delighted to see an initiative to celebrate coal miners, with West Virginia based photographer Thorney Lieberman putting together a show of photographic assemblages spotlighting these workers.

Here’s how he describes the project:

The project I am proposing would entail my travel to several mining communities, where I would set up a temporary studio in a community space – a school or church gym, for example - and photograph approximately 30 men and women who mine coal.

Initially, I envision making photographs of them in the clothes and equipment that they wear to work, but as my approach is often guided by the subjects themselves, this could vary. Similarly, while I see the images primarily in black & white, some could be done in color should that become desirable and is deemed appropriate.

Lieberman picked up sponsors for the project, including Appalachian Power, Prichard Mining Co., the International Coal Group, A.T. Massey Coal Co., Natural Resource Partners, Petroleum Products, the United Mine Workers of America, the Bituminous Coal Heritage Foundation Museum and many others.

This is exactly the kind of project these organizations ought to support, if the value proposition is that it transmutes the stuff of work into art. That’s clearly Lieberman’s intention.

But let’s allow that such sponsorship carries a decided risk:

These monumental portraits reveal the human essence of the coal industry and their exhibition will celebrate and honor these men and women as contemporary American heroes.

Well, no, they’re not “contemporary American heroes,” any more than any other contemporary American.

Still, Lieberman really does capture the pride that goes into work, even if the work, as the photos show, leaves one caked in grime and soot. No one, anywhere along the ideological spectrum, would care to say that hard work that leads to a perceived positive outcome is not worth doing.

And because coal has become more controversial, the look of pride on these faces conjures up considerable ambiguity: because Lieberman has made these assemblages life size, you’re confronted with the whole person. So what do you say to them? What can you say? Your good intentions and their good intentions may not meet in the middle and, in any event, do not put you in a very good position. They’re the ones beaming through dirt. You may be left a little embarrassed.

As a photographer – and only seeing the work online – Lieberman seems a technically proficient but not extraordinary talent. But the idea is brilliant and very well executed. The project might qualify as coal industry agit-prop, but it’s a league beyond the clean coal carolers. So credit where it’s due.

Anita Cecil, one of the subjects of Thorney Lieberman’s Honoring America’s Coal Miners project.

Amory Lovins vs. Stewart Brand - Part One (The “Land Footprint Myth”)

Three weeks ago Mr. Amory Lovins released a very pointed critique of Stewart Brand’s chapter on nuclear in Brand’s new book, Whole Earth Discipline. After reading both Brand’s and Lovins’ pieces, I understood why Lovins was so critical of Brand. It was because Brand was quite critical of Lovins in his book (p. 99):

In early 2009, in Ambio magazine, Amory Lovins declared: “Nuclear power is continuing its decades-long collapse in the global marketplace because it’s grossly uncompetitive, unneeded, and obsolete.”

How can someone [Lovins] so smart be so wrong about a subject he knows so well? [Emphasis added]

Ouch. It’s now clear to us why Mr. Lovins came out with his critique of Brand when he did.

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been able to digest Mr. Lovins’ latest claims in his new study (pdf) and have generated quite a few thoughts to share. In Lovins’ response to Brand’s chapter on nuclear, Lovins takes Brand to task on four issues he believes are myths about nuclear: baseload energy, land footprint, the need for all options, and the role of government. Because there is a lot to discuss about each topic, we’re going to present blogposts addressing each of the myths to show how Lovins’ latest critique is nothing more than the usual cherry-picked junk that we’ve always seen from Lovins.

Lovins’ supposed “footprint myth”
One issue the Lovins clan has with Brand is the claim that wind and solar generating facilities need a tremendous amount of land to produce the same amount of electricity as nuclear plants. Here’s the quote from Brand (p. 81):

As for footprint, Gwyneth Cravens points out that “A nuclear plant producing 1,000 megawatts takes up a third of a square mile. A wind farm would have to cover over 200 square miles to obtain the same result, and a solar array over 50 square miles.”

Here’s what the Lovins study says in response after making their own calculations (p. 16):

windpower is far less land-intensive than nuclear power; photovoltaics spread across land comparable to nuclear if mounted on the ground in average U.S. sites, but much or most of that land (shown in the table) can be shared with lifestock or wildlife, and PVs use no land if mounted on structures, as ~90% now are. Brand’s “footprint” is thus the opposite of what he claims.

When comparing land footprints among the three technologies, the Lovins study used a total nuclear lifecycle footprint of 119 square meters/GWh from a study written by two national lab scientists (Fthenakis and Kim). As usual, the new Lovins study cherry-picked only one chart from F&K’s study and that was a chart showing the amount of land nuclear plants need during the entire life cycle of a nuclear energy facility (mining, power plant, etc.). F&K’s study, however, didn’t just look at nuclear, they also showed the amount of land needed for the life cycle of all other technologies. Below is the chart:
As can be seen from the chart highlighted in red, nuclear’s life cycle land use requirements come in several orders of magnitude lower than wind’s and solar’s. Yet this chart and the study’s conclusions are ignored in Lovins’ paper and only the number for nuclear is used.

As well, if we continue to use the 119 square meters/GWh land use for nuclear, other studies cited in the Lovins paper also show nuclear uses much less land than wind and solar. Below is a chart from the source the Lovins study uses for its solar number (pdf). Even using the lowest range of land needed per year from the last column shows that solar needs at least 42 times and wind needs more than 1,100 times the amount of land as a nuclear plant.
For wind’s footprint, the Lovins study cited “the Bush Administration’s 20% Wind Energy by 2030” study but again cherry-picked the data to support its claims. Here’s the full paragraph from the wind study (pdf) of which only the last half was mentioned in the Lovins study (p. 110-111):

Wind development also requires large areas of land, but the land is used very differently. The 20% Wind Scenario (305 GW) estimates that in the United States, about 50,000 square kilometers (km2) would be required for land-based projects and more than 11,000 km2 would be needed for offshore projects. However, the footprint of land that will actually be disturbed for wind development projects under the 20% Wind Scenario ranges from 2% to 5% of the total amount (representing land needed for the turbines and related infrastructure). Thus the amount of land to be disturbed by wind development under the 20% Wind Scenario is only 1,000 to 2,500 km2 (100,000 to 250,000 hectares)…

So, for 305 GW of wind, the required area of land is estimated to be 50,000 square kilometers or 19,300 square miles. Dividing 19,300 by 305 GW, we find that a wind farm requires 63 square miles of space per GW. If we multiply that area by three to account for wind’s 30% capacity factor compared to nuclear’s 90%, we find that a wind farm requires nearly 200 square miles of land “to obtain the same result as a [1,000 MW] nuclear plant.” Close to what Brand and Cravens said.

Yes, the actual land “disturbed” by a wind turbine is only 2-5% of that, however, a wind turbine needs a huge amount of open area to produce meaningful quantities of electricity. This requirement can’t be ignored, even though Lovins calls it “erroneous,” else wind turbines would be stacked right next to each other. It would be disingenuous to tell the Iowa farmers that a wind farm doesn’t take up much land when all they need to do is walk outside their homes and see their entire horizon blanketed by turbines.

Further, on closer look at Lovins’ sources, cherry-picking again appears. On pages 13 and 14, Lovins cites a study written by Spitzley & Keoleian (pdf) which Lovins picks a few convenient nuclear numbers and ignores the rest. Yet those authors also wrote a study analyzing all technologies, not just nuclear. Below is a picture of S&K’s page 31, which shows the amount of land needed for all technologies. Highlighted in red are the numbers that show nuclear uses much less land than wind and solar.
Three sources cited in the Lovins study concluded that nuclear uses much less land than solar and wind. Clearly, the authors of those studies consider the open areas between wind turbines and the large arrays for solar plants a requirement to function. Yet the Lovins study clearly manipulated the numbers from those sources to fit its own beliefs. Thus, it’s not Brand and Cravens who believe in a land footprint “myth”, it’s Mr. Lovins.

Stay tuned as we’ll get into what qualifies as baseload energy.

Constellation and EDF Form Nuclear Venture

Actually, Electricite de France (EDF) and Constellation Energy have been working together for awhile, including as partners in UniStar. But this is a different venture, lately approved by the Maryland Public Service Commission and, let us say, spectacularly good news:

EDF is seeking to acquire nearly half of Constellation's nuclear assets. Constellation has said the joint venture with EDF will enable it to build a third reactor at the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby in southern Maryland to meet future energy demands.

The Maryland Public Service Commission included several conditions to approving the deal on Friday in the venture's last regulatory hurdle. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the deal last month.

As one of the conditions, the PSC set a one-time, $110.5 million credit for customers of Baltimore Gas and Electric, a subsidiary of Constellation that is regulated by the commission. The credit will amount to about a $100 break for each BGE customer.

That’s sort of puzzling. We went over to the Maryland PSC to look at the decision – you can find it here (5 mb pdf) – and right away, on page 2, you’ll find this:

First, it is not enough for the Companies to prove that Transaction is “consistent with the public interest convenience and necessity” – they also must demonstrate that the Transaction will offer “benefits and no harm to consumers.” For the phrase “benefits to consumers” to have any meaning, the ratepayers of Baltimore Gas and Electric company (“BGE”) must receive benefits directly, in their capacity as BGE customers, not just their share of the Transaction’s impact on the public at large.

We’re not lawyers, of course, but we expect in this context the public at large and BGE customers are essentially the same. But we could easily be wrong about that. In any event, it is from this idea that the $110 million flows and it appears to be the last step in final approval. So what’s the result? Let Baltimore Sun financial blogger Jay Hancock pick up the story:

EDF will own 49 percent of Constellation's nuclear business, and they will operate it together. The PSC decision was the last regulatory hurdle that the partnership needed, U.S. federal authorities having already given it their blessing.

…

It also sets the stage for the construction of a third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs, which both companies have pledged to pursue. The project would be one of the biggest construction projects ever in Maryland and bring new supplies of electricity to a state that hasn't seen significant generation capacity built in more than a decade.

Lots of jobs, too, we hasten to add. This is a big win and can only be considered a boon for Maryland in difficult economic times. It took awhile to get here, but here we finally are.

The Governors and Energy: Chris Christie

As opposed to Bob McDonnell below, governor-elect Chris Christie of New Jersey tilts rather away from the national Republican party on energy issues. Might not mean anything: It may just be that he has a genuine desire to move New Jersey to solar energy and will clear away hurdles to make it happen.

Why the push for solar? Well, the Garden State has an image problem, though one not actually confirmed by the data: while most of the state justifies its nickname handily, what travelers though New Jersey see – driving up I-95 or taking Amtrak to New York – are monstrous-looking industrial plants that spew – something – into the air, making the night sky a sickly bright orange. It’s like one of Dante’s lower circles of Hell.

Yet nuclear energy supplies 50% of the electricity in New Jersey – see here for the EIA stats for the state – so Christie’s plan has the effect of working with the other 50%. (Natural gas is the number two generator, at 30% or so. It’s really not a massively polluting state, though it often gets wrongly tarred as such.)

We don’t expect those plants along the freeway to go anywhere soon, but Christie’s tilt is notably green and very notably solar:

As part of the New Jersey Partnership for Action, "Renew NJ" will focus exclusively on the promotion of New Jersey resources and the development of renewable energy manufacturing.

The Christie Plan will move all economic development efforts related to renewable energy from the Board of Public Utilities, which is not in the business of growing jobs, to "Renew NJ."

And:

New Jersey will create higher-paying clean energy production jobs in the first four years of the Christie Administration. While many renewable energy efforts focus mainly on the creation of lower paying, efficiency jobs, such as solar panel installers, the Christie Plan is committed to a 5/1 ratio of production jobs.

Okay. Here comes solar energy:

Considering there are currently over 800 active and closed landfills covering over 10,500 acres in our state, what better way to utilize this space more effectively than with solar farms. The Christie Plan requires that all New Jersey landfills regulated by the New Jersey Department of Environment Protection install solar farms as part of their closure plans and on-going maintenance permits.

Hmm! We’re not sure solar farms are the best use of the landfills, since they will raise issues of reliability vs. cost and will require a build out of transmission lines and stations – landfills not having direct access to the grid. It could get pretty expensive for a less than ideal electricity return. We’ll have to see where this one goes.

But Christie really likes solar power:

Solar applications should not have to seek use variances or zone changes. A Christie Administration will make it easier for prospective solar developers to site and build these facilities.
Removing the uncertainty and delays inherent in local land use approvals would greatly incentivize landowners and potential solar developers.

And:

Keeping with New Jersey's commitment to preserve and protect our natural resources, the Christie Plan will allow Permanently Preserved Farmland to use up to 20% for solar panel installation.

He doesn’t mention any other energy source in his campaign materials. We poked around a bit to see if nuclear sprang up in the debates, but no.

Governor-elect Chris Christie.

The first movie studio was in West Orange, New Jersey. Called the Black Maria, because it was as stuffy and cramped as a police paddy wagon, also called Black Marias, it was built by Thomas Edison in 1893. It had a retractable glass ceiling, to allow sunlight to provide a light source, and was used primarily to create the 10-30 second films of the day – often vaudeville acts visiting New York. When Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show paid a visit in 1894, poor Annie Oakley didn’t have enough space in the studio to perform her skeet act successfully (film here.) Edison tore down the studio in 1903, though a reconstruction is now in West Orange.

Edison set up his laboratory in Raritan, NJ, in a failed real estate tract that would have been called Menlo Park (hence, The Wizard of Menlo Park). In 1954, the citizens of Raritan voted to change the town name to Edison.

Here's a film of Edison having a little fun on his 84th birthday (in 1931).

The Governors and Energy: Bob McDonnell

The governors-elect in this case being Bob McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey. We’ll let the political blogs worry about what the win of two Republicans in previously Democratic-run states means (and that means no partisanship in the comments, please) and take a look at their energy policies.

Let’s start with Bob McDonnell. Of the two, he comes closest to adapting the general tone struck by the national Republican party regarding energy, meaning he’s all in on all sources:

Bob McDonnell supports the safe offshore exploration and drilling for oil and natural gas 50 miles off the coast of Virginia. This is not only an issue of energy independence and national security, but the development of Virginia’s offshore energy reserves will mean thousands of new jobs, billions of dollars in new investment, and hundreds of millions in new tax revenue to the Commonwealth.

And:

In 2006, the economic impact of the coal mining industry in Virginia was nearly $2.4 billion, creating 11,082 jobs, 8,884 of which are located in Southwest Virginia. Bob McDonnell will continue to support Virginia’s coal plants that use modern technology to offer a balance between cost, reliability and environmental impact.

Well, hey, what about nuclear? McDonnell wants more of it:

Bob McDonnell strongly supports the North Anna Unit 3 nuclear power plant development. As a reliable provider of more than 20 percent of Virginia’s electricity, the North Anna Power Station generates more than $710 million in economic benefits to the state. The direct economic benefit of electricity production at North Anna’s two reactors is $600 million. The secondary economic benefits to the state are another $111 million, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. The power station is an integral part of the local economy, employing nearly 1,000 people. The direct and indirect compensation from the power plant – in the form of employee compensation and labor income for other workers within the state – totals more than $150 million annually. A third unit at North Anna would benefit the state and local economies by creating well-paying jobs, approximately 4,000 to 5,000 jobs during construction and approximately 700 permanent positions once in operation.

We agree with that assessment.

McDonnell does not leave out our renewable cousins, but they definitely take second seat:

Currently, Virginia is the second largest importer of electricity behind California. This is unacceptable. While we have made great strides in the Commonwealth to form a comprehensive energy plan – we are in the infancy stage of creating a plan to provide affordable renewable energy in the future. Green energy must be cultivated to make it commercially practical and affordable. Renewables will certainly play an integral role in our energy future, but now we must take a comprehensive approach.

We thought McDonnell may have missed an opportunity here.

“Let’s put ideology aside and be comprehensive when it comes to our energy future.  Yes, we must develop new technologies for wind, solar, biomass, and other renewables.  But we also need oil and natural gas, and to speed up the approval and permitting process for nuclear and clean-coal plants.

That’s better, although it’s clear that renewables are considered nascent technologies in the state (remember, too, that Virginia governors only get one four-year term, which encourages thinking in the near-term so as to compile some achievements in a short time.)

We’ll take a look at Chris Christie’s energy plan a little later today.

Governor-elect Bob McDonnell with daughter Jeanine. Congratulations to him!

Virginia is one of four states to call itself a commonwealth – the others are Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. The word is self-defining – the wealth of the state is held by the commons (i.e., everyone).

Virginia is unique in that all its cities – 39 of them – are free standing entities with no county apparatus. Only Baltimore and St. Louis are similarly incorporated.

Finally, Maryland and Virginia both contributed land to create Washington DC. However, Virginia took back its portion in the run-up to the Civil War but, um, didn’t return it later.

Who [Else] is Advertising with the NHL?

When NEI announced its corporate sponsorship with the Washington Capitals one month ago, we knew that our advertising neighbors on the dasher at Verizon Center would be Papa Johns and Geico. Naturally, we were curious to know what other advertisers were trying to reach hockey fans across the league via this medium. As the NHL doesn't publicly provide this information, we dutifully watched hockey games in all thirty National Hockey League arenas (24 in the U.S. and a half dozen in Canada) in order to identify some of these advertisers. (Tough gig, eh?)

The findings below are admittedly inexact; they represent a snapshot in time, taken at individual games over several weeks. More caveats:

• Only dasherboard ads were tracked. 
• Digital dasherboard ads with multiple advertisers were not included.
• The NHL has 44 ad positions available at each rink - only ads that were visible via the television camera at center ice were tracked. (Positions #40 - #21, left-to-right on a TV screen.)
• Team category exclusivity agreements with advertisers are not known.

Qualifiers in place, what did we find out? The Energy sector is well-represented in NHL rinks, ranking 11th in the league - ahead of Healthcare, Financial Services and IT. Seventeen different Energy/Utility companies are advertising with the NHL.

The top 10 advertiser categories:

1. Telecom
2. Insurance
3. Alcohol-Malt Beverage
4. Restaurant
5. Consumer Services
6. Beverage
7. Consumer Goods
8. Banking
9. Gaming
10. Automotive-Maker
    

The top 10 advertisers:

1. Bud Light (20 arenas)
   
2. State Farm (17)
   
3. Geico (16)
   
4. Coca-Cola Zero/Coke Zero (8)
   
5. Tim Hortons (8)
   
6. Air Canada (7)
   
7. AT&T (7)
   
8. Molson (7)
9. Toyota (7)
   
10. Verizon (7)
    

A few observations:

• With franchise ownership in flux, the Phoenix Coyotes, unsurprisingly, lead the league in house ads.
• State Farm is a +1 over Geico. The insurance companies are going head-to-head in nine markets: Atlanta, Buffalo, Dallas, Long Island, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay.
• There are coffee/doughnut wars brewing in New York state: Tim Hortons and Dunkin' Donuts are both fighting for cruller consumers in Madison Square Garden and HSBC Arena.
• Searching for a geographical explanation for this one: Coca-Cola appears to have re-branded its calorie-free version, now marketing it nationally as Coca-Cola Zero. But not in Atlanta, Detroit, NYC and LA, where it remains Coke Zero.
• The one-market advertiser that seems completely random and a head-scratcher at first, but may be inspired: Starkist Tuna advertising in Pittsburgh's Mellon Arena. (Penguins eat tuna.)
• The one-market advertiser that seems completely random and remains a head-scratcher: Lemonhead candies as a corporate sponsor of the Chicago Blackhawks. Yes, the manufacturer, Ferrara Pan, is a Chicago-based company, but one would think they would've chosen a more appropriate candy of theirs to market to a hockey audience. Say, Jaw Busters?
  

A breakout of all 30 teams and their advertisers can be found here.

[Updated: November 5, 2009]

In Small Packages

The plausibility of using small nuclear reactors in situations where a full-scale reactor might be seen as overkill is an idea pushed, as you would imagine, by vendors with such reactors in their portfolios. In fact, a group of those vendors travelled around Washington during the early fall months scaring up as much interest in their wares to anyone who wanted to listen. Not just think tanks, but the NRC has hosted a presentation on small units.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko told the NRC forum on small reactors in mid-October that his agency needs to ensure it has adequate resources to plan for detailed review of small and medium reactors. Among the issues needing resolution is focusing on specific technical designs.

“We need to hear from the industry about the demand for these reactors, and the industry’s development and deployment priorities,” Jaczko said.

Rod Adams has a terrific discussion of the NRC forum up at Atomic Insights.

Jaczko sounds measured but open, about what one would expect. It’s not exactly kick the can, but the can still ended up in the offices of Sen. Mark Udall (D-Col.) who decided to move the conversation forward a bit. He’s submitted an amendment to the Energy Act of 2005 to allocate $250 million to the Department of Energy to investigate ways to lower the cost of building new reactors.

Now, the small reactors are not the meat of the bill. Here’s how he describes its purpose:

To amend the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to require the Secretary of Energy to carry out a research and development and demonstration program to reduce manufacturing and construction costs relating to nuclear reactors, and for other purposes.

And here’s what he wants to be researched:

(A) modular and small-scale reactors

(B) balance-of-plant issues [that is, the elements of electricity generation not including nuclear reactors – things like turbines];

(C) cost-efficient manufacturing and construction;

(D) licensing issues; and

(E) enhanced proliferation controls.

So a bundle of thing, but this is the first mention of small reactors we’ve seen in legislation to date.

---

Interestingly, stories we’ve seen about this and the speech Udall gave on the floor of the Senate introducing it all fasten on the small reactors, though he didn’t mention them at all in his speech.

According to a report in the examiner, Colorado's senior U.S. senator has proposed a bill that would give the federal government authority to research whether small-scale, modular nuclear reactors are a feasible contributor to the nation's energy supply.

That’s from Nuclear Street. Our friend Dan Yurman over at Idaho Samizdat also focused on it:

Colorado Senator Mark Udall, has introduced a bill to authorize federal R&D for small, modular reactors. Udall said in a speech on the Senate floor he believes nuclear energy is an important part of the nation's response to global warming.

Here’s video of his speech if you want to take a listen.

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It seems churlish to talk of small reactors and not provide a way for you to learn about them. So visit NuScale Power, Babcock & Wilcox, even the still-incubating TerraPower. That’ll get you started.

Sen. Mark Udall. We suspect every western politician has photos like this.

After the Ball Is Over

We provided you with some of the nuclear energy highlights from last week’s hearings on the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill. Now comes the finagling that makes politics so engaging for those who like to follow it, so frustrating for everyone else. This story from the Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin explains:

The climate-change bill that has been moving slowly through the Senate will face a stark political reality when it emerges for committee debate on Tuesday: With Democrats deeply divided on the issue, unless some Republican lawmakers risk the backlash for signing on to the legislation, there is almost no hope for passage.

Now, if you’ve followed the health care reform debate, you know such a definite statement to be indefinite until something definite happens – if you know what we mean.

And in the meantime, haggling goes on to see if a more attractive bill can be created via amendment for those who consider it unattractive. Here’s the nuclear takeaway:

So Democratic leaders, with the support of the Obama administration, are trying to sway at least half a dozen Republicans by offering amendments to speed along their top priority: building nuclear power plants.

[Sen. Lindsey] Graham [R-S.C.] has suggested provisions on nuclear power and offshore oil drilling that could win his support for a cap-and-trade climate bill. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) has established a bipartisan working group of 17 Senate offices that is close to producing a detailed amendment aimed at hurrying the construction of U.S. nuclear reactors.

We have no idea what “hurrying” means and will not speculate. (We’re also not sure about “Senate offices.” Might mean Senators, might mean their staffs.) But we’ll be very intrigued to see what Lieberman and crew come up with, it could be what throws that definite statement above off kilter.

And here’s the arithmetic from Graham:

"There is nowhere near 60 votes for a nuclear power bill on its own. There's not 60 votes for a cap-and-trade bill as it's currently constructed," Graham said in an interview. He said combining the two measures is "the only way you'll get to 60 votes."

This is a very unusual blow for bipartisanship in the Senate – not a hotbed of it in recent days. (Remember, Graham co-wrote with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) the much discussed op-ed in the New York Times that stressed a bipartisan solution to this legislation. So he’s in it all the way.)

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And here’s an issue that more nuclear energy cannot solve, via ClimateWire’s Christa Marshall:

"There's 34 states with significant economic leverage to coal, either by mining it, burning it or shipping it," said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners. He said only Vermont and Rhode Island lack any financial connection to coal.

So there’s that.

“After the ball is over, after the break of morn, / After the dancers' leaving, after the stars are gone, / Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all.” A mammoth success in 1892, Charles Harris’ After the Ball sold over two million copies of the sheet music – how people enjoyed popular music then, around a piano – in its first year, a record at the time. (I used to hear it whistled or hummed with regularity growing up in the South – I’m not that old, so that’s musical longevity.)

The Kerry-Boxer Hearings: Day 3

And day last. We’re going to focus today on John Rowe, Exelon CEO. As we said over the last two days, the focus of the hearings has been general in nature, alighting on nuclear energy and other energy generators only occasionally. But Rowe dove straight into provisions that should be considered if the bill is to be responsive to the nuclear industry.

Now, there were also representatives from the coal, natural gas, wind and hydro industries present at the hearing yesterday (solar was included earlier), so do not let our monotonic focus confuse you into thinking nuclear was overstressed at the hearing at the expense of others. Not at all.

Finally, this story is taken from Nuclear Energy Overview, our news service for NEI members. What you may not know that NEI’s member will know is that 1. John Rowe is a very prominent figure in the industry, so his words carry considerable weight with the Senators. He speaks to the interests of the industry and, as you’ll see, he’s very frank and realistic in his assessments. 2. Rowe was chairman of NEI (and other industry associations, too, over his long career) for a spell. Members know that, but for our purposes, so should you. (And he said so in his testimony – no need for it to be repeated in the story.)

So, without further ado:

Exelon CEO John Rowe brought nuclear energy front and center Thursday in the marathon three-day hearings being held by the Senate Environment and Public Works committee. Rowe offered his perspective on the potential role of nuclear energy in the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill (S.1733) and provided his viewpoint on elements in the bill that would help the expansion of nuclear energy.

Asked by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) what incentives should be in the bill “to get 150 new nuclear plants up and running in the coming decades,” Rowe provided a list of elements.

“First,” Rowe said, “supporting at least uprates, or better yet … new nuclear plants as part of a low-carbon energy package would have a positive impact. A legislative finding that on-site storage or surface storage of spent nuclear fuel is an acceptable long-term solution to the used nuclear fuel issue would be an important step. Obviously, increasing amounts of loan guarantees would be valuable.”

But Rowe wanted to ensure that as a “believer in the free market,” the best solutions would be chosen over time as according to the circumstances. “We have to look at some long-term things—like solar or like next-generation nuclear plants as things we want to get jump-started, but we don’t want to go too far.”

He continued, “As many people here have suggested, what we’re ultimately looking for is to include the cost of climate protection into the marketplace then let the market make choices from decade to decade that none of us are wise enough to make today.”

Rowe provided an assessment of how many nuclear plants will be built in the short and mid-term. “I believe that the six or eight units that are supported by the existing federal loan guarantee program will ... be in operation by 2020. I do not think there will be a significantly larger number than that. If those units are successful, I believe there will be more on line by 2030 but I doubt it will be many tens let alone one hundred.”

Rowe agreed with Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) that the continued low price of natural gas “haunts” hopes for new nuclear plants. “The low-cost solution for the next decade is often natural gas, and that takes pressure off to work on either new nuclear or the more advanced forms of renewable energy.”

Rowe also strongly agreed with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) that nuclear energy should be considered equivalent to renewable energy sources in terms of the renewable standard. “A carbon-free goal or set of subsidies would be preferable to renewable-only subsidies,” he affirmed to Alexander.

Other panelists included Preston Chiaro, CEO of Rio Tinto; Willett Kempton, professor of marine policy at the University of Delaware; Bob Winger, president of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Local 11; Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund; Mike Carey, president of the Ohio Coal Association; and Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

John Rowe.

The Kerry-Boxer Hearings: Day 2

As you might expect, the second of three days of the hearings on the climate change bill saw some themes emerge. First, the tenor more-or-less avoids talking about specific energy generators even when representatives of relevant companies are present. Natural gas probably picked up the most traction and even that was fairly muted.

Second, many of the participants worry that Congress will not act and carbon reduction will be mandated instead via Environmental Protection Agency regulations. Some say waiting for either a legislative or regulatory remedy causes enough uncertainly to forestall investment. Here’s Ralph Izzo, Chairman, CEO and President of the Public Service Enterprise Group  (PSEG), on this issue (our transcipt):

Some companies are now making low-carbon investment choices, particularly those like PSEG that are already subject to carbon regulation. But uncertainty about a national program slows our transition to a green economy, complicating investment decisions about whether to retrofit coal plants to reduce emissions, pursue development of new nuclear or invest in offshore wind.”

And here he makes the case explicitly:

“Congress can avoid this costly and cumbersome path by enacting strong cap-and-trade legislation that obviates the need for EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.”

Third, the expansion of nuclear energy, when it does enter the conversation, seems a foregone conclusion. We noted in the comments on Day 1 that some of our readers think the Obama administration will stifle the development of new nuclear energy facilities. We don’t agree, but would add that Congress has a hand here, too.

Here’s David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy, making the case most forcefully in opening testimony:

Three new nuclear power plants by 2020, while an important first step in the right direction, does not a nuclear renaissance make. If you assume that all 104 nuclear reactors currently operating in the United States have been retired by 2050, that means we need approximately 75 new nuclear units over the next 41 years simply to keep nuclear power’s share of electricity production near 20%. If we want to double the nuclear share of power production to 40% in order to accommodate demand growth and realize a greater carbon benefit, we are going to need to build about 150 new nuclear units.

There is a big gap between the three to four new plants currently working their way through the system to construction now and 150. In my view, we have no hope of getting anywhere near 150 new units over the next 41 years unless we have an effective nuclear title as part of comprehensive climate change legislation in 2009.

That title must embrace new nuclear as a fundamental building block of our 21st century national energy policy, and provide the pragmatic, essential policy tools that are needed to realize the laudable intentions laid out for new nuclear power in the Kerry- Boxer bill -- tools that are needed in addition to a price on carbon for nuclear to succeed. Those tools must address the key commercial constraints to a nuclear renaissance, and include worker training, expanded domestic manufacturing capability, transitional loan guarantees for project financing for a second wave of new plants, and efficient and safe regulatory approval processes capable of handling a much larger volume of projects.

And consider this exchange between Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Dustin Johnson of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission (our transcript):

Whitehouse: I think you’ll be happy with what comes out on nuclear. There’s a new nuclear era coming and we just need to be sure we do it right and that we work as hard as we can to make nuclear byproducts be manageable and there is technology that allows used nuclear fuel and we need to be sure that we develop that because that’s the hazard.

Johnson: Well, Senator, thank you and you do give me reason for optimism that it’s going to be better, as right now I think the nuclear title is rather weak. But I’ll take your word for it that it will get better.

We choose the theme behind door three.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

The Nuclear Title and the Fourth Estate

The industry’s release of the nuclear title has multiple goals. One, of course, is to provide information to Congress as it considers the Kerry-Boxer climate change legislation, to indicate how the industry can help government achieve its goals.

But that information is fully public, so it has a role in the public discourse, too. As important as the other estates is the fourth estate, those outlets looking for useful data to add into their editorials and news stories, blog posts and tweets. The material is trustworthy enough to inform discussion.

Here’s Steve Mufson in the Washington Post:

The elements of a nuclear package under discussion include investment tax credits, a doubling or more of the existing $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees for new plants, giving nuclear plants access to a new clean energy development bank, federally financed training for nuclear plant workers, a new look at reprocessing nuclear fuel, and a streamlining of the regulatory approval process, according to corporate, congressional and administration sources.

And what response does Mufson find?

Asked how many Republicans could be won over to a climate bill with a substantial nuclear power provision, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said: "At least half a dozen, depending on how this issue comes out. Maybe more." And, he added, "you're not going to get a bill without meaningful Republican participation."

Graham may become as essential to this legislation as Olympia Snowe was to the health reform bill, if bipartisanship becomes as large an issue this time. Interestingly, nuclear energy may be the – or at least a – key in achieving that bipartisanship – and that’s not to mention its usefulness in reducing greenhouse gasses.

In fairness, the story also takes in the downside, so do read the whole thing.

ClimateWire’s Katherine Ling references the industry effort directly:

The NEI proposal echoes nuclear energy language and provisions laid out over the past year by several key moderate Republicans -- including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John McCain of Arizona -- for whom a "robust" nuclear title is necessary, if not sufficient, to vote for a climate bill.

We’d say it’s a double echo, but okay.

Now, a news story by its nature will balance upside and downside and let you decide which is more compelling (the flaw is that this can make sides seem co-equal when they may actually be quite lopsided – see articles about global warming for a recent extreme example of this). Editorials, though, are a different beast.

This status quo is unacceptable. Nuclear energy is far and away one of the most powerful weapons in our arsenal for cutting emissions. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, constructing 180 new reactors would cut emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

This comes from the Harvard Crimson. Maybe we’d advise a different word choice, but the editorial makes a lot of sense.

A statue in Brookgreen Gardens, S.C. The first estate, in case you’re curious, is the Church, the second the upper chamber of government and the third the lower chamber. If that sounds somewhat non-American, it is – the French coined the first three and English writer and political philosopher Edmund Burke the fourth (“the estate of Able Editors”), as reported by Thomas Carlyle in 1837. That’s a lot of history for a simple phrase.