Happy New Year! Industry Beginnings and Some Blog Accomplishments

Dawn

Industry Beginnings

Let's start by referencing Brian Wang's post at Next Big Future: Ten new nuclear reactors were connected to the grid in 2015. Wang lists the new reactors (mostly, but not all, in China). Then he lists fifteen more reactors that should be connected to the grid in 2016 and another fifteen in 2017. Yes. That's a new nuclear plant approximately every month, from 2015 through 2017.

Another post about new nuclear, this one by Will Davis at Atomic Power Review: SEVMORPUT Completes Trials after overhaul: Signs for the Future. The Russians decided to overhaul a nuclear icebreaker rather than scrapping it.  Russia and China are building more nuclear ships, some of which are designed to provide power to neighboring land.  These ships are the traditional Small Modular Reactors. This type of reactor is having its own renaissance.

And there seem to be more and more blog posts like this one, about forward progress on new types of reactors and improved fabrication of all kinds.  This particular post, at the Areva blog,  describes cooperation between Areva and Washington State University students toward building a cart that can transfer uranium pellets between Areva buildings in Richland Washington. WSU Tri-Cities Senior Project Team Achieves Next Design Stage.

Blog Accomplishments

Six years of the Yes Vermont Yankee blog.  This year marks the sixth year of the Yes Vermont Yankee blog.  I started it in 2010 as a New Year's resolution. (I decided to blog because I was tired of writing lengthy emails to my friends.)  The blog was immediately welcomed by the blogging community, for which I am grateful.

Northwest Clean Energy Blog  I am proud to be an occasional blogger at the Northwest Clean Energy blog of Energy Northwest. It's a relatively new blog, but its Year In Review report by Wordpress showed some great  2015 accomplishments. These included 26,000 views, with viewers all over the world.   Here's the Northwest Clean Energy post on 2015 in Review.

Looking Forward

If we look at the Northeast (which I plan to do in the next few days), the nuclear view can get depressing. However, when we take a longer, broader view of nuclear, we can see significant new plants coming on-line in non-European areas, and many new initiatives in the Southeast and Northwest of this country.  Furthermore, pro-nuclear bloggers continue to grow in number, strength and influence.

I look forward to this year with some hope.  Especially when I look past the Northeast and into the bigger world. 

New Year's Post: For the Happiness In My Life

To say I have been miserable about Vermont Yankee going off-line is putting it mildly.  People laid off, Vermont importing power from the gas plants in the states next door, opponents crowing that nuclear is just too expensive and this proves it.  It's all too much.

Moving My Attention
As in other periods in my life when some event made me miserable, I have been shifting my attention by concentrating on areas of love and happiness.

Next year will be my 50th anniversary, G-d willing. Yes, I'm old.  On the other hand, we married as undergraduates, so I'm not THAT old. ;-)   I am deeply grateful for this happiness in my personal life.  I am deeply grateful for my years with George Angwin and for my family.

In honor of the new year, I embed two videos about long-term love:
Sting--Fields of Gold
Goo Goo Dolls-- Come to Me

May your new year be full of love and health and joy.

Sting


Goo-Goo Dolls

Happy New Year! Happy Hogmanay!

Happy New Year!

I have friends from Scotland who celebrate Hogmanay. An important part of the celebration is first-footing: the first person through the door in the new year is a bringer of good luck for the coming year.  As Wikipedia says: The first-foot usually brings several gifts, including perhaps a coin (silver is considered good luck), bread, salt, coal, or a drink (usually whisky), which respectively represent financial prosperity, food, flavour, warmth, and good cheer.  

Well, nothing like reading Wikipedia.  I know several people from Scotland, and I have been invited to Hogmanay celebrations.  Through Wikipedia, I learned that Greece and some parts of Russia have similar customs.

In a similar manner, this first blog post of the year is full of good wishes for the New Year. Starting off on the right foot, so to speak.

Happy New Year!  May it be a year of peace, health, prosperity, food, flavor, warmth and good cheer for everyone!

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P.S.  Yes, this post is a little late, but Wikipedia has saved me again.  According to Wikipedia, Hogmanay celebrations and visiting can last until mid-January. My own experiences with Hogmanay were one-night celebrations, but indeed...why stop a good thing while people are still having fun?

Looking Forward and Looking Back

A Podcast Overview of 2012

Yesterday, I took part in an Atomic Show podcast on Nuclear Wrap Up, 2012.  The participants were
Rod Adams (the show organizer) and blogger at Atomic Insights
Gwyneth Cravens, author of Power to Save the World
William Davis of Atomic Power Review and ANS Nuclear Cafe
Ben Heard of Decarbonize SA, and author of Zero Carbon Options: Seeking an Economic Mix for an Environmental Outcome, calling in from Australia

We discussed the sweep of nuclear energy, including Jaczko's resignation, the new builds in the United States, Vermont Yankee winning in court, progress toward nuclear energy in Australia, and the election of the pro-nuclear party in Japan. The conversation was wide-ranging and fun.

The 137th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is also up at Hiroshima Syndrome. Great nuclear blogposts, collected for your reading pleasure.

My Own Overview of 2012

My viewpoint tends to be very New England based, and heaven knows there was enough going on.

• Vermont Yankee won its lawsuit in Federal Court, mostly on the basis that the State was trying to pre-empt the federal regulation of nuclear safety.
• The two major Vermont utilities merged.  Green Mountain Power is owned by Gaz Metro of Quebec, and Green Mountain Power now owns Central Vermont Public Service.
• The State of Vermont issued a rapidly-written Comprehensive Energy Plan. This plan says Vermont will be 90% renewable power for everything (including heating and transportation) by 2050.  
• Vermont Yankee also needs a Certificate of Public Good from the Vermont Public Service Board, and the Public Service Board opened a new docket.  The old docket contained material about nuclear safety (a federally pre-empted subject).  Many people spoke in favor of Vermont Yankee at the two public hearings on the new docket.

There's more of course, but these were the main stories. I put up 220 blog posts in 2012, and they still don't cover everything. (I wrote most of the blog posts, but there were also many guest posts, especially of testimony at the PSB hearings.)

Not a major energy story, of course, but...

Howard Shaffer and I were awarded Presidents' Citations by the American Nuclear Society in June.  We are deeply grateful to the American Nuclear Society for this honor.


Looking Forward to 2013

Let's look at those four stories again

• The State and Vermont Yankee both appealed various parts of the ruling to the circuit court of appeals in New York.  The oral arguments will be presented Monday, January 14 in New York City.  
• In my opinion, the merged utilities are putting too high a reliance on short-term contracts, and assuming the price of natural gas will not go up rapidly.  (Of course, the merged utilities ARE part of Gaz Metro...) I wrote a December op-ed about that expresses my opinions on over-reliance on natural gas.
• The Comprehensive Energy Plan is running into trouble, as town after town objects to wind turbines and utilities and Vermont senators call for a wind moratorium. 
• In the Certificate of Public Good, one of the chief opponents of Vermont Yankee decided to file in Vermont Supreme Court for the plant to be shut down, thereby attempting an end-run around the Public Service Board hearings.  I don't think this tactic will work, but it is something that will work or not-work in 2013.

Looking Forward Personally

A week from today, I will begin leading my course Engineering Adventures with Nevil Shute. I didn't know this when I planned the course, but there's an international organization, the Nevil Shute society, and they plan to make videos of the course.  A woman from Boston will drive up to attend the course and make the videos.

(No pressure there, Meredith!)

Looking back at my own year...220 blog posts (plus op-eds and ANS blog posts) are just too many.  My New Year's resolution is to cut back some, especially since I have some paid writing lined up.  I have neglected my little company, Carnot Communications, but Carnot seems to be reviving itself without much effort on my part.  I am grateful.

I also plan to write some longer things such as white papers and ebooks. That's the plan, anyhow.  My commitment  is unwavering: to Vermont Yankee, nuclear energy, and a reasonable energy policy.  However,  I have no desire to write even more blog posts next year.

I wish all my readers a happy, healthy, peaceful and prosperous New Year!

A Good and Sweet Year

Traditional Rosh Hashanah foods
Including apples and honey

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year holiday, starts at sundown today.

May the year to come be as good and sweet as apples dipped in honey.

L'shanah tovah.

85th Carnival Of Nuclear Energy Bloggers: Right Here at Yes Vermont Yankee!

Looking to the Future: World-Wide

The 85th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers is being hosted by Yes Vermont Yankee. The Carnival is right here, right now. When I signed up to host the Carnival, I promised to post it this weekend. However, I wasn't sure whether I would post it this year or next year.

In a small burst of ambition, I'm putting the Carnival in place in 2011.

Fearless Predictions: Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat offers his annual "fearless predictions" for the global nuclear energy industry in 2012. His post, Predictions, Speculations and Raw Random Ideas for 2012, starts with a description of the future for Japan (of course). Until 2011, Japan and France were two stalwarts of the nuclear field. Now they face new challenges. China and India will move ahead, and the U.K. maintains progress for its new build.

The two big new deals in 2012 are the Czech Republic's Temelin project for up to five new reactors worth $28 billion and an expected tender by Saudi Arabia for up to 16 new reactors worth $112 billion.

New Directions: While she wouldn't quite characterize it as a New Year's projection, Gail Marcus of Nuke Power Talk considers New Directions in her post. She speculates that the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident in Japan may increase the pressure to continue the development of advanced reactor technologies, including some of the SMR designs, that hold the promise of being more robust in the event of a "Fukushima-type" accident. This would be any scenario that can lead to a prolonged loss of cooling water or backup power. However, she cautions people to heed the words of Admiral Rickover, who famously enumerated the differences between a "paper reactor" and a real reactor.

Moving Forward in the U.S. Margie Jepson blogs at Nuclear Clean Air Energy as part of Entergy's Nuclear Clean Air Energy education initiative. In The 2011 Year: So Long! Jepson looks back at the Year of Fukushima. Then she looks forward to the ways that 2012 will expand many of the excellent trends of 2011 in this country. Reactors are being built, capacity uprates have been granted by the NRC, and the uranium enrichment facility (planned for eastern Idaho) now has an NRC license.

Nuclear Plants to Fight Climate Change: At Canadian Energy Issues, Steve Aplin writes Extreme heat, electrical load, and political stability: the connection and the solution. 2011 was a year of record extreme weather in North America. The extreme episodes were fueled by the higher temperatures in the earth’s atmosphere, which gave extra energy to the heat waves and wind storms that ravaged the continent. It is an alarming trend. One upshot is that there will be huge demand for electricity for summer air conditioning. Aplin argues that this demand must be met by CO2-free nuclear plants, not by CO2-belching natural gas-fired ones.

By the way, I like the energy tracker on Aplin's blog, displaying real-time electricity data for Ontario. I include a screen shot of the tracker. Double-click to enlarge the graphic.

Fusion Power Moves Closer: Brian Wang of Next Big Future truly looks to the future with a blog post on how fusion power moves closer, due to results from a lab in Germany. A gamma ray laser and a Bose-Einstein Condensate could help make it happen.

Fire Put Out: Wang also reports on a Russian submarine which caught fire. The fire was successfully extinguished. (To me, this is the scariest story of the bunch. The Russians do say the ICBM's were not on the ship at the time of the fire.)

Students are the Future: What questions do young people have about nuclear power? Recently, Howard Shaffer and Meredith Angwin had opportunities to hear their questions. Meredith Angwin discusses the questions as well as the answers, and the implications for nuclear education. The post, Young People and Nuclear Power, is at ANS Nuclear Cafe.

Fukushima Update and Japanese Nuclear Future: For many people within the nuclear industry and outside of it, 2011 will be remembered as the Year of Fukushima. Will Davis of Atomic Power Review posts Fukushima Tepco Update for December 28. This post provides a set of updates on situations relative to Fukushima Daiichi: An announcement by Fukushima Prefecture with wide implications; a report by TEPCO on core, pressure vessel, and containment damage; and TEPCO's announcement of an attempt to "scope" No. 2 containment. In this post, Davis has provided his own illustrations to explain the information from TEPCO. I believe his excellent use of graphics is one of the reasons that Atomic Power Review is so widely read.

Scientists Punch Holes in the Linear Non Threshold Theory. Leading researchers at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, including a leading cancer researcher, designed an innovative experiment in which they could see cells repairing themselves after irradiation. As you might expect (but they showed) repair was much quicker and better after low doses of radiation. Another hole in the LNT theory. I blogged about it in the controversial post Will a Little Bit of Radiation Hurt You? Berkeley Scientist Break the Hold of Linear Non Threshold Reasoning.

Here's to a great 2012, for the Nuclear Industry and for the entire world!

To all my friends, and to everyone who reads this blog:

Have a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year!

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Update: Happy New Year! On this morning of January 1, 2012, I also want to say "Happy Birthday to Yes Vermont Yankee." I started this blog as a New Year's resolution on January 1, 2010.

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Photo from Wikipedia of New Years fireworks in London

A Good And Sweet New Year

I always find it interesting that the Jewish New Year starts in the fall. The timing made more sense in California, where the New Year coincided with the start of the rainy season, as it does in Israel. When the brown land becomes green, the year feels new!

In Vermont, the New Year comes at a very festive season: foliage season, harvest season. A time for enjoying the cool weather and the beautiful trees. A time for going apple-picking or at least buying local apples. I include a picture from my local farmstand: Killdeer Farms of Norwich.

Still, compared to brown-land-becoming-green, sometimes it doesn't feel quite like a New Year in the fall. This year, however, New Year in Vermont feels very new. We are recovering from Hurricane Irene. The roads are open. People are planning again, holding meetings, holding rallies. It feels like getting over an illness. A feeling of exuberance and joy.

May all my readers have a healthy and joyful year. A good and sweet year. A good and peaceful life.

L'Shana Tova.

Top photo: Traditional Rosh Hashanah foods, from Wikipedia. Apples, honey, wine, and pomegranates. Also, a shofar (ram's horn), a traditional part of the holiday celebration.

Bottom photo: Vermont Apples, from Killdeer Farm Facebook page.

A Good and Sweet Year

For the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, I wish everyone a good and sweet year of health, happiness and peace.

Friends in Israel, one of whom is a professional photographer, sent me this picture yesterday. It was part of their New Year's email of good wishes. It shows a Sea Daffodil, flowering in August despite temperatures in the 90s and months without rain. (Months without rain is standard for a Middle Eastern summer.) The flower is in the amaryllis family, and many people believe it may be the Rose of Sharon, since Sharon is on the coast of the Mediterranean. It is so beautiful that I wanted to share it on my blog.

May we all have joy, health, and unexpected beauty this year.

And to everyone who reads this, I send the traditional greeting for a good year:

L'Shana Tova.

Photograph Copyright to Elisheva Werner-Reiss, and used with her permission.