The Future of Energy: Nuclear in New England

Apricot Torte at street cafe in Saumur, France

New England and France

I just returned from a trip to France, in honor of our 50th anniversary.

When I arrived home, I received an email about planning a meeting.  I am a member of a group that plans many meetings about energy. The group is supposed to be impartial.

 The email included the following words about the upcoming meeting:

 (Consider) ….discussing the emission impacts of using natural gas as the swing fuel for covering the intermittence of renewables, versus other fuels (oil, coal). 

The sentence jumped out at me.  I wrote the following response, slightly edited for this blog.

What about nuclear energy?

Dear group members:

Gardens at Chateau Villandry

In reviewing the correspondence about planning (and I know it was a VERY preliminary correspondence!) I noticed there was no suggestion for a comparison between "renewables-plus-gas" and nuclear power.

I know, I know, lots of people don't like nuclear, and I am not trying to persuade them.  But nuclear is 20% of U.S. electricity, and more than half of the low-carbon electricity produced in the U. S. Both the EPA and President Obama say nuclear needs to continue to be a part of our country's energy mix.  If our group doesn't mention nuclear when we are doing comparisons, we show ignorance.

Lots of people don't like wind turbines, but our group does comparisons that include wind turbines.  For our group, "not-liking" cannot mean "we pretend it doesn't exist and we don't mention it."  We can't appear ignorant.

D'accord?

I hope to see complete comparisons at the next meeting.  D'accord?

Yes, I just returned from more than two weeks in France, the country with one of the lowest CO2 emissions per capita in Europe, and one of the lowest electricity rates, too.  I don't understand why some Americans are so in love with the "German example" of wind, solar and lignite, and why they ignore the French success of nuclear energy.

No matter how individuals feel about different technologies, our group is a special group with a charter. As a group, I think we must compare all reasonable options, whether or not those options include our top-favorite technologies.

Best,
Meredith

Backup Links:

European electricity prices:

Germany: households   0.297 Euro per kWh,  industry  0.152 Euro per kWh ( 2014 numbers)
France: households  0.175 Euro per kWh, industry  0.091 Euro per kWh (2014 numbers)

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Half-yearly_electricity_and_gas_prices,_second_half_of_year,_2012–14_(EUR_per_kWh)_YB15.png

CO2 emissions per capita

Germany: 9.115 tonnes per capita, 2.2 % of world total
France: 5.556 tonnes per capita, 1.07% of world total

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

If I had looked a little harder for just the electricity sector, I am sure that the carbon emission differences between France and Germany would be even more in favor of France.

Manufacturing and Fuel Cycle in France: AREVA and Nuclear Communicators

A year ago this week, I was in France at an AREVA-sponsored trip for pro-nuclear bloggers. We saw the entire fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment, reprocessing, and waste vitrification. I was very glad to be invited to see these things with my own eyes.

The trip was inspiring. I began solid friendships with other pro-nuclear bloggers, and visited a country that embraces clean air, good food, and nuclear power. Here are some of the things I saw and learned on the trip.

Improved Manufacturing: Support Plates as Giant Jewelry

A PWR steam generator has tubes carrying water from the reactor: these tubes pass through support plates which hold them in place. The illustration above is a set of steam generator support plates, manufactured at AREVA's facility at Chalon.

Part of the time I worked in nuclear power, I was in the Steam Generator Owner's Group at EPRI. In those days, support plates were rather crude things built of relatively low-quality steel. The holes for the tubes were either "drilled" or "punched" and the quality control wasn't particularly good. These support plates caused problems for PWR reliability.

Now, steam generators are being replaced in many PWRs, and AREVA is building some of the new ones. Modern support plates are high quality steel, and each tube opening is carefully made, measured and polished. As one person on the trip described it: "These support plates are like huge pieces of jewelry." Yes. Precision jewelry.

We have not built new plants in this country, but the nuclear industry has made amazing progress in building new and better components for existing plants. I am glad I was able to see this.

Fuel Shipment: Porcupines Coming Down the Road

In America, we keep spent fuel in on-site fuel pools, and move it slowly into dry cask storage. In France, there's a huge central fuel pool at La Hague at the recycling facility (at left). The pool is in the facility where the spent fuel is processed into new fuel.

How does the used fuel got to that big facility? On my trip, I learned the simple answer: used fuel moves by road and by rail.

The used-fuel shipment containers are shown at the right. These containers are extremely sturdy, can be hit by locomotives without breaking, etc. The French hold used fuel at the reactor site for less than two years (usually). Therefore, French shipping containers carry fuel which is physically hot. The container looks a bit like a porcupine. Vanes stick out to promote cooling and heat transfer.

In this country, we tend to get tunnel vision. We think that fuel cannot possibly be moved until it has cooled in a local fuel pool for at least five years. When I went to France, I realized that is just a choice we have made. Fuel is moved much sooner in France, and very safely.

Meeting People and Friendship

I have to finish with a view of the group in front of the Melox facility which manufactures MOx fuel. To the left is our guide from Melox: then Steve Aplin (wearing shades) of Canadian Energy Issues: Jack Gamble of Nuclear Fissionary: Rod Adams (also wearing shades) of Atomic Insights: Gwyneth Cravens, author of Power to Save the World: Jarret Adams of AREVA and the AREVA North America Next Energy blog, and me.

Friendship was the greatest gift of the trip.

Post Script about the Anniversary:

I keep a Levenger five-year journal. Among other things, that means I always know what I was doing on the same day last year. I find the five-year-journal's short format very informative. It helps me understand what I wanted, what I did, and how I succeeded or failed. It's also useful for figuring out when my favorite flowers are likely to bloom.

I used to do more elaborate journaling, but I never wanted to re-read the stuff I wrote. While the extensive writing helped me at some level, it didn't inform me as I moved forward in my life. In contrast, a five-year journal is more like a log book, and I thoroughly recommend having one. If you buy a five year journal, buy a good one, like the Levenger journal. After all, it has to last five years. (I get no money from Levenger from this endorsement!)

All illustrations on this post are courtesy of AREVA.

Update: Thanks for the link, Jarret! A Trip Down Memory Lane at the AREVA blog.

September 11 and Some Notes

September 11

I can't forget it happened. I don't want it to be a call to war. So I fall back on what I did on the first anniversary of September 11.

I had volunteered to teach a noon yoga class once a week at TIBCO software while they looked for a more qualified teacher. About a dozen people came to my class regularly, including six or seven people from India. Most of the Indian class members were Hindu, but there was one Sikh. He wore a simple headcovering in yoga class, not his turban.

When I first realized that I was going to be teaching on the anniversary, I almost cancelled class. I didn't know what to do. Ignore it? Moment of silence? What?

Finally, I decided to remember the day by using Gandhi's favorite hymn, Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram which he and his followers sang on the Salt March. The original hymn was dedicated completely to Rama. Gandhi added a healing reference to Allah. (That's the kind of thing he would do.)

Beloved, praise Sita and Rama,

God or Allah is your name, (meaning that the supreme can be called by many names)

Lord, bless everyone with this wisdom.

It worked out well in the yoga class that day. All the people from India knew this song and its meaning and its connection to Gandhi. I started the class terrified of singing in public. But when everyone joined in, the lifted voices were warm and loving. One woman in particular had a beautiful voice, and I learned that she had studied Hindu chanting for many years. After the September 11 class, I began asking her to lead a chant near the end of each yoga class.

If I hadn't decided we would sing Raghupati, I would never have known about her voice and her knowledge.

May today be a day of healing for all, and of openness to learning from others.

A Few Notes

The 18th Carnival of Nuclear Energy is now posted at the new blog, ANS Nuclear Cafe. I am particularly fond of Charles Barton's post about pro-nuclear activists: we are people with a viewpoint, not "shills." Steve Aplin of Canadian Energy Issues also reviews anti-nuclear propaganda, a post with the intriguing title Poisoned Rats Aren't Ham. Visit the Carnival! Always something new! Always something interesting!

I also want to point Rod Adams blog today. Rod challenged Mark Cooper of Vermont Law School in a conference call. Cooper, a sociologist, writes papers containing slanted economics of nuclear power. (Cooper often quotes Mr. Lovins, that famous economist.) In this call, Rod asks Cooper one question and he is supposed to be able to ask a follow-up after receiving an answer. He can't ask the follow-up. It doesn't happen. He tries to get back in the queue, he tried everything. No dice.

A technical glitch, no doubt, which was peculiar to Rod's connection.

I also like Rod's post because there's a picture of me in it. It's the jolly group of bloggers in France. In the picture, we are standing in front of the new construction at Flamanville. As I disclosed earlier, Areva paid the majority of my expenses on the trip to France.