We would like to spotlight a post from the blog “Into the Breach” about recent presentation by Jacques Besanainou, CEO of AREVA North America.
The blog’s author Kendall Miller writes:
“Reviving the nuclear power industry is key to true energy security. When France faced the problem of energy security they decided to go nuclear as fast as they could…
AREVA is making major investments in the US nuclear industry. They are building a fabrication facility for large steel components at Newport News. They are building an enrichment facility in Idaho. And they are building a Mixed-Oxide fuel plant in South Carolina. When they started doing these things they found that the pool of nuclear-qualified suppliers has dried up over the years. Now they are having vendor fairs in order to attract new vendors into the nuclear industry supply chain.
Nuclear power is CO2-free, power secure, and creates jobs, jobs, and more jobs.”
“We’ve essentially fallen 10 years behind the rest of the world in nuclear technology, but the Obama administration’s decision to support nuclear will finally get the ball rolling. Within a decade we may very well catch up with the rest of the world in developing the energy technology of the 21st century.”
- William Tucker, Author “Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America’s Energy Odyssey“
Yesterday, Radio WHYY from Philadelphia, Pa., featured a conversation on nuclear power renaissance in the United States. Alan Hanson, AREVA Executive Vice-President for technologies and used fuel management, and Sharon Squassoni, Senior Fellow and Directors of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, debated key nuclear energy issues and its potential for expansion following recent support from the Obama administration.
To learn more about the nuclear energy debate and critical questions, listen to the program, Radio Times, here.
By Lisa Peterson, Marketing Specialist, AREVA Federal Services
AREVA is the only company in the world to work in every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle, from mining uranium, enrichment and fuel fabrication to reactor construction and maintenance, and recycling used fuel. What’s more, AREVA’s expertise extends to developing solutions for safely and effectively packaging and transporting nuclear material.
AREVA Federal Services is part of AREVA’s back end business which manages a wide range of operations focused on the latter part of the nuclear cycle, from recycling used fuel to developing packaging and transportation solutions for used fuel. Remediating former weapons production sites, such as the Hanford and Savannah River are central parts of our business. This work together with the renaissance of nuclear power will increase demand for innovative packaging and transportation solutions. read more…
In the first op-ed, “Nuclear Power’s Time has come,” CNN interviews author and environmentalist, Stewart Brand, on his support of nuclear energy.
Looking for a surefire way to cut greenhouse gases, Brand said the alternative to burning coal became clear: “We already had a very good supplier of …electricity. It worked like mad and was as clean as it could be — and that was nuclear.”
Brand concludes: “Look, you’re not going to cure greenhouse gases with nuclear, but curing greenhouse gases without nuclear is approximately impossible.”
In the contrasting opinion piece, Mark Z. Jacobson, a Stanford University professor, discusses why “Nuclear Power is Too Risky.”
Jacobson writes on how the planet can be powered by renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and geothermal alone, saying “If our nation wants to reduce global warming, air pollution and energy instability, we should invest only in the best energy options. Nuclear energy isn’t one of them.”
Both pieces debate the current issues concerning nuclear energy. We’ll let you compare the “nuclear argument” yourself.
There are two items to highlight from the Washington Post today. First, here is this quote from an op ed piece we like a lot:
“The merits of nuclear power have been debated for years. Such power has drawbacks, not least the waste that reactors produce and that the government cannot decide where to store. But given that nuclear power produces essentially no carbon emissions, it’s an appealing option for consistent and relatively clean electricity generation….the president is right to signal that he will unfreeze the regulatory process, which, in concert with public discomfort, has stymied the industry for decades. And there is a reasonable argument that nuclear should get this federal push. Though nuclear may well be more cost-efficient than its critics allege, huge upfront construction costs scare off investors. If loan guarantees for the first batch of new plants help demonstrate that reactors can be built without the delays and cost overruns that have characterized some nuclear projects, capital will come to nuclear without as much governmental support in the future and without taxpayers actually spending much.”
And in a separate section of the WashPost site, blogger Ezra Klein posts this chart, explaining in part why the Administration is supporting Nuclear over other dirtier electiricity generation technologies…
President Obama’s recent support for nuclear energy has ignited a genuine discussion on the issue. No longer can nuclear energy’s benefits be ignored or scare tactics employed to shut down discussion, the American media is getting behind the facts.
“Absent nuclear power, any clean-energy policy is largely decorative since the more talked about elements – wind, solar – can only supply power at the margins. Nuclear plants generate 20 percent of U.S. power now and 70 percent of the power considered to come from clean sources.”
On Feb. 13, the Discovery Channel aired an episode of “The Green Room,”
hosted by John Holden which provided a great look at AREVA’s La Hague
facility and the process of recycling used nuclear fuel.
Check out the clip below that features AREVA Executive V.P. Alan Hanson
as he walks through the key facts about recycling and the facility
itself.
President Obama’s announcement yesterday was a great boost for nuclear energy in the United States. The Obama Administration’s support of nuclear energy also represents his ability to move beyond traditional political divisions and work for a genuine solution.
Obama said “even when we have differences, we cannot allow those differences to prevent us from making progress. On an issue that affects our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we can’t keep on being mired in the same old stale debates between the left and the right, between environmentalists and entrepreneurs….
But investing in nuclear energy remains a necessary step. What I hope is that with this announcement, we’re underscoring both our seriousness in meeting the energy challenge and our willingness to look at this challenge not as a partisan issue but as a matter that’s far more important than politics — because the choices we make will affect not just the next generation but many generations to come.”
A piece from the The Huffington Post by Tamara N. Holder echoes this thought saying the “one issue that both sides need to support and must support: nuclear energy.”
We welcome todays historic announcement from the President’s announcment of an initial 8.3 Billion dollars in nuclear loan guarantees. We agree that this decision is key both to the nuclear industry, and to the overall US economy.
We also agree with the President that “to meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It’s that simple.” And we share the vision that the President described of “a future in which we’re exporting homegrown energy technology instead of importing foreign oil. And it’s a future in which our economy is powered not by what we borrow and spend but what we invent and what we build.”
“The merits of nuclear power have been debated for years. Such power has drawbacks, not least the waste that reactors produce and that the government cannot decide where to store. But given that nuclear power produces essentially no carbon emissions, it’s an appealing option for consistent and relatively clean electricity generation….the president is right to signal that he will unfreeze the regulatory process, which, in concert with public discomfort, has stymied the industry for decades. And there is a reasonable argument that nuclear should get this federal push. Though nuclear may well be more cost-efficient than its critics allege, huge upfront construction costs scare off investors. If loan guarantees for the first batch of new plants help demonstrate that reactors can be built without the delays and cost overruns that have characterized some nuclear projects, capital will come to nuclear without as much governmental support in the future and without taxpayers actually spending much.”
