We want to hear what you think or would like to see as the big news in 2011. Please post your thoughts and comments on the major events for next year.

The Indian Point Energy Center in Westchester County produces 2,000 megawatts of electricity – about one-third of the metro area’s needs. It powers Metro-North and the subway system, which transport an average weekday ridership of 5.1 million. Like the circus strongman at the base of a human pyramid, Indian Point supports the statewide grid of high-voltage transmission lines that protects against power failures. An economic engine for the state, Indian Point directly provides about 2,500 jobs. Unlike the fossil fuel plants that produce most U.S. energy, Indian Point emits no air pollution, and it keeps the lights on at a low cost.

So why does Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo want to shut it down? He says it’s unsafe, a target for terrorists and that replacement power can be found without short- or long-term consequences.

These claims are untrue.

Letting real science and clear facts refute Cuomo’s claims, they point out real problems that closing the facility would cause.

Closing the twin reactors means more illnesses and deaths thanks to increases in ozone and smog from additional fossil fuel combustion as well as more electricity-supply problems – brownouts and blackouts that would affect services like transportation and life-sustaining air conditioning during heat waves. Oh, and your electric bill will soar.

Check out the whole piece on the daily’s site.

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat asks some good questions about Copenhagen, climate change issues, and nuclear power:

If you want to pursue a strategy of decarbonization, and you don’t want to sacrifice economic development goals, then the nations of the world have only one form of electricity generation for base load demand to use to make that switch in one generation. Nuclear energy is the answer. Need evidence? Take a look at what India and China are doing.
Climate change is a challenge to the survival of the human species. We created this mess and, if we don’t want to turn into crispy critters on the only planet we have, then we have also have to fix it. To use an analogy from the military, you don’t fight a war with the weapons you wish you had, you fight it with the ones you’ve got.

Al Gore can preach all he wants about renewables, but battery storage technologies to support solar and wind aren’t likely to change in the next decade or so. In short, his plan, however popular with the press and green groups, is a sure fire path to reducing economic growth if relied on as a sole strategy to achieve significant change from fossil fuels.

The nuclear energy industry has some serious challenges ahead to explain itself in these terms. On the other hand, the big U.S. utilities are realists who see uprates to nuclear reactors as being competitive responses to combined cycle natural gas plants. None of the nuclear utilities are going to commit to building a new nuclear reactor until the government stops its denial that it has an obligation to leverage the future of the industry with loan guarantees.

It will be interesting to hear what the U.S. delegation says this coming week about nuclear energy. We’re either going to get more political fig leafs or maybe some real straight talk about what it will take to reduce the growth of greenhouse gases. I’ll be listening. I hope you will too.

While the mainstream news media panel was dissecting their coverage of the nuclear energy industry, a group of 45 people met Tuesday Nov 17 to discuss how social media is making an impact.  One of the themes of the evening round table discussion is how nuclear bloggers are taking myths out of the debate. 

…Areva is the only major nuclear energy firm in the U.S. that has paid any attention to social media in terms of people outside the firm who develop independent content.

The blogger meeting was organized by Rod Adams, Atomic Insights; Dave Bradish, NEI; John Wheeler, ThisWeekInNuclear, and Dan Yurman, Idaho Samizdat.  Corporate support for the conference room and refreshments was provided by Areva and CoolHandNuke.

There’s a lot more detail in the full post… go read the whole thing!

The meetup will be held this coming Tuesday night, November 17, from 6:30-8:30pm at the OMNI Shoreham Hotel on Calvert St NW. We’ll be providing some refreshments. We’re looking forward to meeting in person a lot of people we’ve only known through our blog interactions and on our monthly blogger conference calls. If you’re going to be at the ANS Winter Meetings, please be sure to stop by! All are welcome!

(Thanks to Dan Yurman of Idaho Samizdat for starting the ball rolling on this!)

From Dan Yurman’s write-up on the panel discussion at The Energy Collective, an excellent summary of how nuclear energy bloggers are changing the nuclear energy news landscape:

There are not many serious bloggers in the U.S. who cover the nuclear industry on a full time basis. There are perhaps fewer than a dozen who do blog frequently about the topic. The difference for this group is a commitment to consistent high quality content and in-depth analysis despite not being part of the nuclear trade press. That doesn’t mean we’re not capable of heavy lifting when it comes to explaining the key issues of the nuclear industry. . . .

What has happened with nuclear energy and the new media is that substantive news and analysis, often with industry thought and opinion leaders, is now available online without having to come up with the equivalent of several months of car payments. This means that some of the news and the “so what” analysis is now reaching an audience composed of mostly of the general public. What’s interesting is that according to Google Analytics, most of the same utilities and EPC firms are also reading the blogs.

The rest of the write-up includes some very interesting thoughts on the differences between nuclear energy bloggers and the future of nuclear energy blogging… but we couldn’t pass up a favorable mention of this blog by John Wheeler:

Wheeler noted that Areva’s recent forays into outreach to bloggers may cause other large nuclear firms to take a look at their efforts toward public transparency. According to Wheeler, these firms may decide they don’t need to talk to bloggers and are perfectly satisfied with how they are interacting with the public.

We’re glad our efforts in reaching out to the blogging community are being recognized, and we’re especially glad to be part of the nuclear energy blogging community. You can read the rest of Dan Yurman’s write-up on the panel here.

Rod Adams at Atomic Insights:

At the risk of overloading you with new posts from Atomic Insights – three in one day is a bit much – I have to share one more story that kind of caught me by surprise. Apparently there is going to be a major announcement staged at Piketon, Ohio, the site of a former enrichment facility, on Thursday, June 18. When I first saw the link to the story in my Google Alert, I thought there must have been a misunderstanding by the journalist at the Columbus Dispatch. That does not appear to be the case . . .

All of the publications have pointed to the importance of creating as many as 4,000 new construction jobs in southern Ohio, a region that has been hit hard by the economic recession since it was already having challenges before our current crisis began.

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat:

If you want to know how serious Areva takes this project, consider the fact that Anne Lauvergeon, the CEO of Areva, was in Ohio for the announcement. She said in a telephone interview with the NYT that nuclear power was the only choice for reliable, low-carbon energy.

From World Nuclear News

A new energy project was launched today based around a new nuclear power reactor on the site of the former uranium enrichment plant at Piketon, Ohio.

The plant is being proposed by a group dubbed the Southern Ohio Clean Energy Park Alliance which consists of site owner USEC, the utility Duke Energy, Areva and UniStar Nuclear Energy.

Thanks for the notice, folks!

Areva North American President Jacques Besnainou is like a starship captain. This past week he went where no reactor vendor CEO has gone before by opening up, unfiltered by corporate PR, to a group of nuclear energy bloggers. The company has claimed it will practice “transparency” in its communication with the public and the press. This week it got a chance to prove it and it did a pretty good job. . . .

Our hour was up so that ended the first “Jacques talk” session with bloggers. The company is making progress from its assessment a year ago that it had a “blind spot” when it comes to nuclear energy bloggers. The firm promised future sessions with Besnainou and he reportedly came away from the session enthusiastic about the vigorous give and take of the conversation. Hopefully, there will be more of it.

And the write up from Steve Aplin:

The conference call, as I mentioned in my May 14 post, is part of Areva’s groundbreaking North American outreach effort. And I say groundbreaking because the company is not shy about going on the record about some pretty controversial issues.

We had a great time, as did Jacques Besnainou, and we’re finding a good date for the next call that he can attend again. Stay tuned. Also, if you’re a blogger and you’d like to be in on our monthly conference calls, let us know in the comments or send us an email.

Are Finland’s nuclear woes a cautionary tale for the rest of the industry? Don’t bet on it, say Rod Adams and Dan Yurman.