Corporate Voices for Working Families released a new study today covering important ground, especially given the state of the U.S. economy, the pressing need to create new and good jobs, and encouraging a broad-based American prosperity.

The study focues on several case studies describing how “several respected American employers invest in education, training, and the basic workforce readiness of their employees, with a particular focus on the needs of entry-level and lower-skilled associates.”

We were very honored to be one of those case studies highlighting our program in Virginia …

“AREVA, a global energy corporation, partners with Central Virginia Community College, on a training program through which employees pursue their higher education while working at the company. Successful candidates earn an associate degree in Nuclear Support Technologies, in a curriculum specially tailored to the labor market needs of AREVA.”

Corporate Voices for Working Families is “the leading national business membership organization shaping conversations and collaborations on public and corporate policy issues involving working families.” As an engaged corporate citizen, AREVA continues championing the perspective that U.S. energy policy choices are part of the much bigger picture impacting a revitalized 21st Century American workforce, and we are very proud to be listed along with the other great efforts described in the paper.

Read the full study here.

We here at the AREVA North America blog thought we should take a moment to share our thanks to all of you our readers. We appreciate your interest, insightful comments, and encouragement. And we are thankful for our fellow bloggers in the nuclear and energy blog community, which we consider ourselves very fortunate to be a part of. We wish you all very Happy Thanksgiving.

“Nuclear power now accounts for nearly 14% of electricity generated in the world with 440 active reactors in 30 countries…”

- From the AFP article, “The Role of Nuclear in the World”

Last week, AREVA announced the adoption of a common set of principles of conduct with the world’s other leading nuclear plant vendors. Crafted over the last three years and facilitated by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, this code reflects the best practices for the export of nuclear power plants to countries with existing nuclear programs as well as those interested in developing civilian nuclear power. In this video, Olivier Loubiere, AREVA’s Ethics Advisor, explains how this unprecedented effort came about and how the group is implementing these principles.

Blogger Ben Heard recently posted about solar power and AREVA on his Southern Australian blog, Decarbonize SA. He noted that AREVA Renewables, which was awarded funding under the Australian Government Solar Flagships Program for our 250-megawatt Solar Dawn concept, was part of the larger AREVA family (including nuclear power), and rhetorically asked if that put us in the category of “Saint” or “Sinner” or “Just Big Business.” Here’s where he settled:

Those who retain concerns that nuclear power is “big business”, and seek to buck the system by insisting on renewables, please just be aware of the following. Billion dollar energy investments, such as we need to decarbonise, whatever the technology, is nothing but big business.

Corporations are the vehicles for getting things like that done, be it solar, nuclear or other. In all cases, we deserve vigilant governance to ensure citizens get the best outcome. That is irrespective of the technology.

Indeed, we’ve long been clean energy fans; believing that large-scale, low-carbon power production with nuclear and renewables was both crucial and good for the planet, and good for jobs, the economy and business.

Read Ben’s entire blog post here, and be sure to view his detailed analysis in “Nuclear Power – From Opponent to Proponent.”

AREVA will begin making large components in the UK similar to this steam generator channel head emerging from the furnace at Creusot-Forge, France. AREVA / CARILLO GEORGES

Yesterday’s agreement announced between AREVA and EDF Energy shows the impact of clean energy in not only creating a low carbon power future, but also the near-term benefits of workforce expansion and job security.

In the agreement, AREVA will manufacture massive forgings for the first EPR™ reactor to be built at Hinkley Point, South-West England. Current estimates show a single EPR™ reactor project creates peak employment during construction of more than 3,000 direct jobs on the site, plus many more indirect jobs. Once the construction phase is completed, an AREVA EPR™ reactor facility requires highly-skilled workers to manage and maintain the facility, creating hundreds of high-paying permanent jobs.

If you’ve been tallying up the math, that’s an impressive amount of jobs and job security, especially when one considers that this is the first of perhaps eight EPR™ reactors under discussion in the United Kingdom.

The same job numbers are true on this side of the pond, and here are two numbers that apply to the U.S. economy: Throughout construction, a single project represents more than $800 million in federal, state and local taxes, and during operations generates annual tax revenues of nearly $100 million.

With four EPR™ reactors under construction world-wide and more in the works, how are we doing in the United States? AREVA continues working closely with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to certify the U.S. EPR™ design, and several companies have submitted license applications to the NRC based on this technology. We’re making progress on our own low-carbon future.

AREVA’s EPR™ reactor itself is an impressive mix of power and safety. Generating 1,600+ MW of clean, reliable electricity, a single modern Generation III+ EPR™ reactor also meets the highest safety standards, including four redundant safety systems, double-walled hardened container building, and the most reviewed design of any modern power plant.

Combining reliable nuclear energy with peak-load renewable energy is the winning combination for generating sustainable jobs and electricity in our clean energy future.

Yes, you read that correctly– the local community around Oyster Creek generating station has come out in support of the plant in their New Jersey community during a recent public hearing.

Located near Barnegat Bay, the facility that provides low-carbon energy for nearly 600,000 homes continues to have the strong support of its neighbors:

“The nuclear plant has been an excellent neighbor here,” said Neil Marine, a Lacey resident who said he has seen no evidence of radiation of chemical contamination leaving the plant.

“We hear a lot of pseudoscience here,” he said. “We have the best fishing on the East Coast in my lifetime right here — with the nuclear plant. A little bit of warm water is not killing our bay.

“I swim in that outflow,” he said. “I eat the fish. I eat the crabs. I live the life.”

While there is a push from organizations opposed to nuclear power to have the facility closed, community members have come asking the plant’s operator, Exelon, to extend the life of the plant past its 2019 agreed shut down with the state. This includes mayor of neighboring Waretown, Peter Lachawiec, who said:

“I’m a proponent of nuclear energy,” he said. “I want a new nuclear plant. I also want cooling towers. I think they should be here for the next 50 years. Build a new nuclear plant, build the cooling towers, you can make all the money you want, and we still all have our jobs.”

Read the entire piece here.

Yesterday on All Things Considered, Richard Harris covered the progress that is being made at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. As the main effort to keep the damaged reactors cool, workers have been continuously pumping water into the plants. While this has been a positive effort to mitigate the current conditions, it has created a significant amount of radioactive water. Now to access and begin the clean-up work at the facility, workers must treat this water.

So how is this being done? Here is an excerpt from the report:

“The challenge is to remove radioactive cesium and other elements that are dissolved in the water. The water is being pumped from the flooded basements into holding tanks. From those tanks it will go through a filtration system, something like a charcoal filter, and that captures some of the radioactive material.

Next, the water will run into a system built by the French nuclear company Areva. They use a chemical reaction to turn the dissolved cesium into a solid material. “In our step of the process, the radioactive material precipitates out like rain and settles in the bottom of the tanks, where it forms a radioactive sludge,” says company spokesman Jarret Adams. “And that sludge can be removed from the tanks and sent for long-term storage.” They use this process at other nuclear facilities, and Adams says it works quite well.

And then what happens?

Cleaning up all this water is likely to take a couple of months. If the water is clean enough, Japanese officials could decide to dump some of it into the ocean. But in the short term, they plan to run it back into the plant. That will keep the cores relatively cool. And as long as they stay cool, they won’t ooze more radioactive cesium into the water.

“I think this is an important step forward because once they begin treating this water, then they’ll be able to get into the plant and start doing significant repairs,” Adams says.

Read the rest of the story and listen to the piece “Fukushima Workers Tackle Highly Radioactive Water,” here.

As part of the conversation on the ongoing situation in Japan, there have been some questions about MOX (Mixed Oxied) fuel. A brief released yesterday from the American Nuclear Society (ANS) specifically concludes that:

“Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel has been used safely in nuclear power reactors for decades, and the presence of a limited number of MOX fuel assemblies at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 has not had a significant impact on the ability to cool the reactor or on any radioactive releases from the site due to damage from the earthquake and tsunami.”

A clear explanation of the situation can be found below in the summary of the brief prepared by the ANS Special Committee on Nuclear Nonproliferation below:

At the time of the magnitude 9.0 earthquake, Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 was operating with 32 mixed oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies and 516 low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel assemblies in its reactor core. In other words, less than 6% of the fuel in the Unit 3 core was MOX fuel. There were no other MOX fuel assemblies (new, in operation or used) at the Fukushima Daiichi plant at the time of the accident.

MOX fuel assemblies were loaded into Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 for the first time in the fall of 2010. The MOX fuel had been used for less than five months at the time of the accident. Differences in initial fuel composition between MOX and LEU fuel can lead to differences in consequences (prompt fatalities and latent cancers) following a core damage event with releases to the environment.

There are indications that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 suffered damage to some of its core. The core damage resulted from a loss of core cooling due to damage to plant systems from the tsunami that followed the earthquake. The damage was not related to the presence of MOX fuel.

There have been no prompt fatalities as a result of radiation exposure from Fukushima Daiichi. Prompt evacuation has minimized radiation exposure to the public, so long-term public health consequences from radiation exposure are expected to be small. Given the small number of MOX fuel assemblies at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 at the time of the event, coupled with the short time of irradiation of the MOX fuel, it can be concluded that MOX fuel has had and will have no perceptible impact on any consequences from the event.

Continue reading the rest of the document here for even further background information.

On CNN Money, Jacques Besnainou, AREVA INC CEO, discusses why modern nuclear facilities are safe:

And on the ABC affiliate in Lynchburg, Va. Mike Rencheck, AREVA INC COO talks about the impact on the American nuclear industry.