Nuclear Energy Blog Carnival 249: Here at Yes Vermont Yankee

Once again, we are proud to host the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers, right here at Yes Vermont Yankee.  The Carnival is a compendium of nuclear blogs that rotates from blog site to blog site, and it is always a pleasure and an honor to host it.

First, a Movie Review

The movie Blackhat was not nominated for any Academy Awards, but tonight is Academy Awards night. So the Carnival will start with a movie review.  And not just any old movie review: a review of Blackhat by Dr. James Conca, at Forbes.

Hollywood versus Reality – Nuclear Thrills In Blackhat

On the eve of the Oscars, it’s fascinating to see another nuclear scare movie, Blackhat, trot out the nuclear accidents/nuclear terrorists as the ultimate threat to the world, even though it’s safer to work in a nuclear facility than in a department store. Of course, nothing about the nuclear plant in Blackhat is correct. I mean, full-length windows in a reactor control room? Are you kidding?

Greenhouse emissions
NREL review
From Energy Reality Project Blog

Nuclear is Low-Carbon

Hollywood is not the only place that skirts the truth.  There's an often-quoted post that claims that nuclear is not low-carbon. This claim is carefully and fully refuted.

Energy Reality Project blog by Rick Maltese

Point Refuted a Thousand Times: Nuclear is not low carbon?

Lengthy, but necessarily long, rebuttal by guest Luke Weston who is responding to an often cited post about the carbon foot print of nuclear energy. 

Fast Reactors: Answers to Safety Questions

Atomic Insights by Rod Adams

How do metal alloy fuel fast reactors respond to rapid reactivity insertion events?

On numerous occasions when Atomic Insights has mentioned using fast spectrum reactors as an additional tool in our quest for improving society’s power options, there have been comments that question their response in the event of rapid reactivity insertion accidents. They fear that fast reactors can suffer failures that carry the risk of harming the public.

Some of the commenters pose their reservations in a credible way, suggesting that they have done some serious research and been unable to reassure themselves that there are good answers. Because they have been unable to find answers to questions that are worth worrying about if unanswerable, they are adamantly opposed to fast reactors.

Rod Adams has found answers to those questions for a specific metal alloy fuel design that I hope will reassure both the specific people who have expressed their concerns to me and anyone else who might have heard or read something about the issue from other people who have been unsuccessful in finding answers.

Fear of Radiation is Taken to Extremes  in Fukushima

The Hiroshima Syndrome's Fukushima Commentary  by Les Corrice

Fear of radiation the only thing stopping discharge of Fukushima wastewaters

For the fourth time…Tepco should do the right thing and dump the fully treated Fukushima wastewaters to the sea. The only impediment is radiophobia; a mortal fear of detectable radiation embraced by millions of Japanese. Tepco seems more concerned about catering to unfounded fears than releasing the entirely harmless wastewaters to the sea.

Decommission the Plant But Don't Spend Money

From Yes Vermont Yankee by Meredith Angwin

Entergy Uses Decommissioning Fund: State Officials Are Very Upset

Entergy has requested the release of $18 million dollars from its Vermont Yankee decommissioning fund.  The State of Vermont objects. Vermont wrote the NRC: Vermont wants to review such requests in detail, before any decommissioning  funds are released. 

New Reactors and New Fuel Designs

Neutron Bytes by Dan Yurman

NuScale hires Areva for nuclear fuel design and testing

NuScale Power, which is developing a 50 MW small modular reactor design, announced that it is hiring French state-owned nuclear giant Areva for help with design and testing services of nuclear fuel for the reactor. The company announced a long list of fuel design and testing services which address how the fuel will perform in the SMR.

Leader Leaves Nuclear Energy Institute

NEI Nuclear Notes post by Eric McErlain

Why Nuclear Energy's Loss is Warren Buffet's Gain

Armed with spreadsheets, an understanding of economics, and a clear mind (especially the clear mind), David Bradish of the Nuclear Energy Institute regularly crossed swords with vocal critics of the nuclear industry.  In blog posts and economic reports, Bradish demolished their arguments.  Now, however, he is heading back to Iowa so his children can be near their grandparents. He'll be working for Wells Fargo on big data analytics.  We all give a big thank-you to David Bradish, and wish him the best of luck in his new endeavors!

UPDATED: Nuclear Energy Blog Carnival 236: Here at Yes Vermont Yankee

Once again, we are proud to host the Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers, right here at Yes Vermont Yankee.  The Carnival is a compendium of nuclear blogs that rotates from blog site to blog site, and it is always a pleasure and an honor to host it.  Here we go!

At Fukushima, Radiation Decreases in Turbine Building Basements
From the Hiroshima Syndrome's Fukushima Commentary - Leslie Corrice

Fukushima Wastewater: Some Good News

The Japanese Press routinely reports on sudden increases in wastewater radioactivity at F. Daiichi. However, they fail to report on what is going right. For at least a year, the activity levels in the turbine basements of units #1-4 have been steadily dropping. This is definitely a success story, but it does not seem newsworthy enough for the Japanese Press.

Yucca Post-Closure Safety Report Finally Released

From ANS Nuclear Cafe - Jim Hopf 

NRC Releases Yucca Post-Closure Safety Evaluation Report (finally)

 Jim Hopf details the recent release of the Safety Evaluation Report on Yucca, what it means, and more importantly what's likely to be done and not likely to be done as a result of it.  Nuclear waste is an entity we're prepared to deal with, Hopf argues, and for that reason Yucca should be opened and utilized to satisfy the Federal Government's legal obligation to take spent fuel from nuclear plant sites. 

Time for a Battle and an Update on Radiation Risk
Atomic Insights - Rod Adams

Shaping public perceptions of radiation risk

An epic struggle with important health, safety, cost and energy abundance implications is shaping up with regard to the way that the officially sanctioned science and regulatory bodies treat the risks and benefits associated with using ionizing radiation at low doses and dose rates for medical uses, industrial uses and power production.

We must make sure that this battle for science, hearts and minds is not as asymmetrical as the one fought in the period between 1954-1964. During that battle, a very interested Rockefeller Foundation provided the funding and numerous key influencers during a successful campaign to firmly establish the myth that radiation is dangerous even at the lowest possible doses.

More Battles: The Supposed "Clean Power Plan"

Carbon Dioxide

From ANS Nuclear Cafe - Nicholas Thompson

 The Details of the Clean Power Plan: So You Want to See the Numbers

Nick Thompson gives the details you need to know about the EPA Clean Power proposal, and why it's not the boon for nuclear energy some have lauded it as.  Includes background links for more information.  Includes links for submitting YOUR comments on the plan this weekend. Comments due by December 1!

Vermont Yankee: Consequences of a Battle We Lost

From NEI Nuclear Notes - Meredith Angwin

Pain from Vermont Yankee Closing Spreads Far and Wide

Meredith Angwin documents the spreading pain of Vermont Yankee's closing--starting with the plant employees who will be laid off, and pain propagating through the local towns, on to the grid, and up to the state level. Her post, at NEI Nuclear Notes, is part of an NEI report on closing the plant, a report that includes the effect of the plant closing on New England's energy crisis and on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.  The full report: Closing Vermont Yankee: Carbon, Market Impacts of Closing the Vermont Yankee Plant.

Existing power plants
at Hinkley Point
Wikipedia

Finances and Risk in Europe
Neutron Bytes - Dan Yurman

Areva’s financial crisis gets worse. Is Hinkley Point at risk?

The financial future of the French state-owned nuclear giant has become less certain and some worry it may threaten the viability of the UK’s Hinkley Point 3200 MW new nuclear build.

A Nuclear Opponent and His Lack of Credibility
Northwest Clean Energy - Meredith Angwin
Why Do They Listen to Alvarez?
At the Northwest Clean Energy blog, Meredith Angwin notes that Robert Alvarez has now written a report about Columbia Generating Station. This report rehashes the testimony he gave in Vermont about Vermont Yankee in 2013.  She reviews his qualifications and his report and asks: Why Do They Listen to Alvarez?

Safety Culture Everywhere

Graphic from Wikipedia

Nuke Power Talk - Gail Marcus
Trains and Boats and Planes...and Nuclear Power Plants
Gail Marcus writes at Nuke Power Talk about her presentation on safety culture at a meeting in Chicago, and her subsequent experience with a failure of safety culture. Yes, on her way home from the meeting, she had a first-hand experience with a safety culture failure.  (Gail...did you ever find out how the plane's wing hit a barbed wire fence?)  All's well that ends well, but her trip home pointed out how important safety culture is, whether on trains, boats, planes or in nuclear power plants.

Monazite (thorium mineral)

Nuclear Power and Noah's Ark
Energy Reality Project - Rick Maltese
Noah Nuke Advocate
Rick Maltese's parable begs the question: Will we wake up to the reality in time? Obviously the warnings were there for Noah but when will we know? We know what we've been doing wrong but do not know how to change. Time to act. Alone or collectively.

Fundraiser: Crowd Funding for a Pro-Nuclear Presence at AGU
ThoriumMSR - Rick Maltese
Renewed efforts to spread the word about MSRs bigger than ever
Rick Maltese plans to go to the annual AGU (American Geophysical Union) Conference.  Approximately 24,000 scientists and policymakers come to this conference in San Francisco, which runs from Monday December 15 to Friday December 19. Rick will be representing the Thorium Energy Alliance of Silicon Valley (TESV), and his own Energy Reality Project.   Join him at TESV booth 2617: this booth sits directly across of the booth of the Union of Concerned Scientists.  Contribute to crowdfunding Maltese's important effort.

Nuclear Good News on New Builds
Next Big Future - Brian Wang

South Korea approved 4 new nuclear reactors other global nuclear approvals and completions

Brian Wang reports on new builds, commissioning tests and more in South Korea, Vietnam, China and Russia.

China's 2020 Energy Plans

Next Big Future - Brian Wang

China's 2020 energy plans include quite a bit of nuclear energy.

Brian Wang reviews China's plan for its energy mix by 2020.  This includes deepwater oil drilling, reducing coal use to 62% of electricity generation, and considerable new nuclear coming on-line.  According to Chinese planning documents, fast reactors will be an important part of the energy mix in the future.

MOX and Hearings in Chattanooga

Plutonium pacemaker battery,
circa 1974

MOX and Meetings

Today in Chattanooga, the NRC is holding hearings on the possible use of MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel in Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plants.  MOX fuel consists of plutonium and uranium oxides.  In the Tennessee reactors, the plutonium in the fuel will come from warheads: they will be blended down to reactor fuel.  The Megatons to Megawatts program that did the same sort of thing with uranium in warheads. Similarly, using MOX fuel in power reactors will move us toward non-proliferation and sustained peace.

MOX fuels have been used all over the world, for at least twenty years. Widespread use of MOX fuels began in the 1980s: currently, thirty reactors in France are using MOX fuel (data from the World Nuclear Association).  Also, as Howard Shaffer points out, all light water reactors use MOX fuel: some plutonium is made and used within the reactor, even though the fuel started as 100% uranium.

Naturally, some people are against using MOX.

The MOX fuel hearing in Chattanooga may be contentious, and the American Nuclear Society has encouraged its local members to come to the hearing and tell the fact-based, pro-nuclear side of the story.  They will be tweeting about it using the hashtag #MOXchat.  I will be doing a lot of retweeting this evening!

More about MOX

Dan Yurman writes about the meeting and the issues at Idaho Samizdat: Calling Out Red Herrings about MOX fuel.

ANS Nuclear Cafe has a Call to Action about the meeting:

David Pointer of the ANS Public Information Committee has a post on ANS Man vs the Anti-Nuclear Zombie Plague.  Pointer is the cartoon character in the post, as well as the superhero.  I mean, when he's Pointer in the illustrations, he has his actual red mohawk hair.  When he's ANS Man, he looks more like a conventional superhero. (Pointer went to school in Tennessee).

At Atomic Insights, Rod Adams posts about Plutonium Power to the People.

There's a video about MOX fuel at the ANS Nuclear Cafe post: Dr Ivan Maldonada presents ANS comments to TVA 

Areva has been making MOX fuel for French reactors for twenty years or so.  Areva has a very informative post: Can you talk MOX? Ten things you should know about MOX Nuclear Fuel.

William Tucker at Nuclear Townhall on MOX on the Witness Stand in Chattanooga.

Happy reading!  Happy weapons-to-clean-power transformations!

Sending my support and respect to my nuclear friends in Tennessee!

92nd Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers at ANS Nuclear Cafe

The Vermont Yankee Edition

The 92nd Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at ANS Nuclear Cafe. This one is of special interest to the readers of this blog. At the top of the Carnival post, compiler Dan Yurman writes that we might as well call the Carnival the "Vermont Yankee" edition because of all the news coming out of that state about that reactor.

The 92nd Carnival includes links to the three excellent NEI Nuclear Notes blog posts on the hatchet-job CNN program. It includes ANS Nuclear Cafe posts by Tamar Cerafici on a Plain English review of the Court Decision, and the post by Howard Shaffer on the politics of States Rights in Vermont and other states. There are links to some recent Yes Vermont Yankee posts, including the Vermont AG's appeal of the court's ruling. Will Davis, at Atomic Power Review debunks the Vermont Yankee CNN program. Yes, a large part of this Carnival is the Vermont Yankee edition.

Beyond Vermont

Of course, there's a wide world beyond Vermont. Brian Wang of Next Big Fugure reports on nuclear generation figures world-wide, and on the Areva Anteres reactor. Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat reports on the Areva HTGR design for process heat applications. He also reports the result of a face-to-face meeting between U.K. Prime Minister Cameron and French President Sarkozy. The meeting led to a deal involving Areva reactors to be built in the U K. Rod Adams of Atomic Insights looks at the relationship between M I T and natural gas money. and Cheryl Rofer of Nuclear Diner explores the music of the (very little) spheres in the gammaphone. You read that right, the gamma-phone. She also describes the nuclear technology NASA needs for space exploration. Meanwhile, at Nuke Power Talk, Gail Marcus describes the relationship between regulators and regulated in Japan. It's not a pretty sight, unless you think regulators should depend on the regulated for...their own next job.

Come to the Carnival! Learn about Vermont Yankee! Learn about Areva! Learn about Japan! The Carnival is great reading all the time, and especially when it is the Vermont Yankee edition.

Two Vermont Yankee Links From Today

Last night, many of us watched the twenty minutes of direct lies and half-truths that CNN is showing about Vermont Yankee. Today, two of the top nuclear bloggers wrote about the CNN show, and I encourage you to read their posts:

At Idaho Samizdat, Dan Yurman writes: Vermont Yankee in the Spotlight. It is cast as the central figure on CNN horror flick.

At Atomic Insights, Rod Adams posts CNN's carefully timed attack on nuclear energy and NRC credibility. Among other things, Rod figures out how CNN managed to make the NRC look so very unresponsive.

Enjoy the Carnival and these recent posts, too.

71st Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers at NEI Nuclear Notes

The 71st Carnival of Nuclear Enegy Blogs is now posted at NEI Nuclear Notes. David Bradish has assembled a thoughtful and very readable Carnival, with the subheading: Critical Reviews, History and Future Stuff.

History includes understanding Siemen's exit from the nuclear industry, courtesy of Dan Yurman's Idaho Samizdat. Siemens claims that they left the industry because of Fukushima, but maybe they just didn't want to compete with Areva? In another historical article, Will Davis at APR Atomic Journal uses newly-discovered information to describe the Elk River Nuclear Plant, built in the late 50s and early 60s. This was one of the earliest power reactors in the world, and an early pioneer in a uranium thorium fuel cycle. However, in my mind, the true historical block-buster article was Brian Wang at Next Big Future, showing that an early nuclear researcher knowingly lied, claiming that even low levels of radiation were dangerous. This researcher suppressed data that low levels of radiation are benign. His aim was to help stop above-ground atomic testing. This was a good thing to do. However, suppressing data has consequences, and one of the consequences of this choice was the early adoption of the LNT (linear no threshold) model of harm from radiation.

The Future includes upbeat information on the continuing builds in China (Next Big Future), nuclear-powered cruise ships (Margaret Harding at Four-Factor Consulting) and cost-effective Generation IV Nuclear Technology (Charles Barton at Nuclear Green). The future of nuclear looks pretty darn good!

The Review section is full of interesting stories. Steve Skutnik at Neutron Economy reviewed the book Uranium, and had a comment on his blog from the book's author. Rod Adams considers the companies and individuals who benefit from higher fossil fuel prices, and Steve Aplin reviews the Canadian Auto Workers alliance with a renewable energy association. The auto workers think renewable energy will create jobs: Steve begs to differ. Gail Marcus at Nuke Power Talk takes an inside look at the EIA's energy projection process. Considering how often I personally refer to EIA data as a gold standard, this is not a pretty sight. On my own blog, I review the Vermont Energy Plan. Since the plan has little content and almost no numbers, it was a quick job to review it.

NEI has hosted a fascinating Carnival. Enjoy it in the comfort of your own home. No pitchmen will attempt to sell you anything! The information is carefully prepared and free!

Come to the Carnival!

64th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

The 64th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is up at Atomic Power Review.

Will Davis has done a great job of posting a well-organized Carnival. It includes Margaret Harding on nuclear politics, Gail Marcus on the Japanese Nuclear system (and its problems. Marcus worked in nuclear regulation in Japan.). Brian Wang announces that Kirk Sorensen, one of the main driving forces behind the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, now has a regular blog on the Future of Energy at Forbes. Wang also updates us on the Chinese and South Korean reactor builds. Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat contemplates Areva's future, while Fred Moore at ANS Nuclear Cafe feels that the High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor will be a game-changer. The Nuclear Energy Institute considers "Musicians United for Safe Energy" in California (they don't know a lot about energy) while Rod Adams plans to spread Calm, Certainty and Reassurance instead of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

There's a couple of my posts in the Carnival, too.

Will Davis, once again, frames the Carnival with a guessing game. How appropriate! What is Will holding in his hand in the picture at the head of the blog post? You have to read the post to find out.

Come to the Carnival! Take your chances at the guessing game! Learn about World-Wide Nuclear! Have a good time!