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.

A fascinating argument from Richard Lester on what it would take to meet our Copenhagen goals for the US, and in the process dramatically almost eliminate US dependence on foreign power… notably, it would include multiplying the US nuclear power infrastructure “five-fold.” Here are snippets:

When President Obama goes to the Copenhagen climate change summit next week, he is expected to once again declare that the U.S. will reduce its carbon emissions 83% by 2050….

Most anthropogenic CO2 emissions come from fossil fuels, so there are two main routes to achieving the president’s goal. First, the U.S. must reduce the share of fossil fuels—currently 85%—in the energy supply system, which includes everything from electricity generation and transportation to industrial uses. And second, Americans must use energy more efficiently…

Here is a recipe that would work: Add 30,000 megawatts of new wind turbines every year between now and 2050 (this is nearly four times what was added in 2008, a record year). Add another 35,000 megawatts of solar photovoltaic capacity annually (more than 100 times what was added last year—a record year for solar, too).

That’s just the beginning. Now multiply the nuclear reactor fleet fivefold by midcentury. Retrofit all existing coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and storage technology. And build twice as many new plants, also with carbon capture. Natural gas could substitute for coal, but only with carbon capture too. By 2050, the electric power system would be four times bigger than today. Two-thirds of the car and truck fleet would be powered by electricity, and the rest would run on advanced biofuels…

All of this would indeed reduce carbon emissions by 83%. It would also practically eliminate America’s dependence on oil imports. But could it be done?

Perhaps, though not without enormous effort. Operating a power grid reliably and economically with intermittent solar and wind resources generating 40% of the electricity cannot be done today. Carbon capture and storage has yet to be demonstrated on a large scale. Meanwhile, a still vocal group of environmentalists remains adamantly opposed to nuclear energy—even though it is the only low-carbon energy source that is both scaleable and already generating large amounts of electricity…. Yet falling short on any of these decarbonization measures would require even more of the others, or even greater energy efficiency gains…

This is a matter of arithmetic; it cannot be wished away.

We’d like to bring your attention to this article from KIDK.com (the local Idaho Falls television station), which talks about how Idaho Falls is weathering the current economic storm. The article, which is mostly about businesses in the Idaho Falls region, points out at the very end that AREVA’s planned Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility is bringing new hope to the region:

The biggest change our area will see will be the arrival of Areva and their multi-billion dollar uranium enrichment facility.

Not only will the company hire locals or bring in new jobs that will stimulate our local economy, a very hurting construction industry will be major benefactors of the company. [. . .]

Areva is likely to bring between 800 and 1,000 construction jobs alone. And once the facility is running, more than 300 jobs will be created.

That’s the kind of thing that can really help a local economy… because the money paid to the people who work those 800-1,000 construction jobs, and the 300+ permanent jobs, will keep circulating around the Idaho Falls region as the employees patronize local businesses and services. Idaho Falls is just one community that’s finding new vitality in the green jobs of the nuclear renaissance.

Mark Flanagan of NEI is highlighting a CFR interview with Duke Energy’s CEO, James E. Rogers, in which he talks about the future of the energy industry – and the importance of nuclear energy not only for our CO2-free energy future, but also for our economy:

But the difference in the jobs is quite different, because if you’re wiping off a solar panel, it’s sort of a minimum wage type of job, [with] much higher compensation for nuclear engineers and nuclear operators. If our goal is to rebuild the middle class, nuclear plays a key role there, particularly if coal is out of the equation.

He also talks about the U.S. regaining its role as the leader in nuclear energy:

People forget that [the United States was] the innovator of nuclear energy. We developed the technologies. And what people have also forgotten is that 20 percent of our electricity comes from nuclear, and that we produce twice the amount of electricity from nuclear than any country in the world. We sit here today, not turning dirt on a single nuclear plant. [. . .] We have a competitive advantage on building nuclear, on building recycling to address the spent fuel, and that would be a great loss of opportunity if we don’t find a way to seize it and rebuild the supply.

Like Mark Flanagan said, we could spend all day highlighting great lines from this interview, but it would probably be better if you just read the interview for yourself.  You should also know that Duke Energy is teaming up with AREVA on the ADAGE joint venture focusing on the biopower sector. ADAGE was recently in the news because JEA, the energy company for Jacksonville, Florida, announced that it plans to power 40,000 homes with power generated from ADAGE’s biomass plants.  We’re proud to be working with Duke Energy and Jim Rogers, who clearly “gets it” when it comes to the future of energy generation in the U.S.

• More posts about ADAGE Biopower
• Official Website for ADAGE Biopower

Last week, CNBC’s Executive Vision focused on the energy industry and the changes that are taking place to make U.S. sources cleaner and improve domestic energy security. The episode, “Being a Leader, a Job that’s Never Done,” talks with industry executives and experts, including AREVA North America President Jacques Besnainou. The segment on nuclear energy begins at 14:35 and looks at the current situation for nuclear energy means and what additional capacity could mean for the United States. Following the overview, the energy panel discusses the need for more nuclear energy.

After watching the clip, let us know if you agree or disagree with what the experts said.

The Fall 2009 Issue of Dædalus, a quarterly publication from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, focuses on nuclear energy and features an article written by AREVA CEO Anne Lauvergeon.

Dædalus, founded in 1955, features essays from country’s most prominent thought-leaders. This year’s Fall issue focuses on “The Global Nuclear Future,” and features Mrs. Lauvergeon’s article, “The nuclear renaissance: an opportunity to enhance the culture of nonproliferation.” In her article, Lauvergeon discusses the balance between the world’s need for more nuclear energy and communities cooperating to control proliferation.
 
The full text of Mrs. Lauvergeon’s essay, along with the rest of the issue, can be found
here.

by Jarret Adams

In a wide-ranging interview on National Public Radio this morning, Energy Secretary Steven Chu expressed strong support for the expansion of nuclear energy in the United States to meet our nation’s energy needs.

Dr. Chu explained his support for nuclear energy because it is carbon-free and becoming increasingly competitive. He added that “the safety record of nuclear power plants has been really very good.”

Regarding safety, he concluded that if the choice is coal vs. nuclear energy, “I would rather live near a nuclear power plant.”

Dr. Chu characterizes the way we manage nuclear waste as “solvable,” noting that we have geological sites that are promising and can develop new fast reactors that can “burn up” the waste products as fuel.

We don’t dispute the notion that new-generation fast reactor could offer improvements to future waste management. However, we at AREVA have been safely and effectively recycling used fuel for decades at our facilities in France.

This process can reduce the volume of waste for disposal by a factor of five and its toxicity by a factor of 10. Recycling nuclear fuel also will reduce the space required in a geological repository. Even under the current once-through fuel cycle used in the United States, used fuel is safely and securely stored at nuclear plant sites around the country.

Click here for the rest of the NPR interview with Secretary Chu.

People are talking about nuclear energy, and as Lisa Peterson describes from her post “A Nuclear Charlotte, North Carolina” on Clean Energy Insight, it’s all about economic growth and jobs.

Nuclear power is on the brink of a renaissance. New nuclear power plants are planned to be built; which means the nuclear industry has the potential to provide thousands of people with jobs, in fields such as construction and engineering, to name a few. This will create major positive impacts on the economy.

The nuclear industry is, therefore, in need of new talent. Charlotte, NC has been named the supposed “hub” for this nuclear renaissance in the United States, drawing scores of people to the area to work in the nuclear industry. Companies like Shaw, Westinghouse, Areva, URS/Washington, and Toshiba all have offices in Charlotte. Utilities who employ many nuclear power plants in their fleets such as Duke Energy, Progress Energy, and The Southern Company are nearby as well. Listen to this radio program that aired on Wednesday, May 6, (WFAE 90.7 FM) that discusses the positive impact that nuclear power can have on the overall national economy, the environment and the influx of jobs it can bring to the Charlotte area.

Click here to see where else AREVA’s 6,000 U.S employees work…

AREVA prides itself on being the leader in the nuclear energy cycle, and the company’s success has caught the attention of Time Magazine. In a piece posted to Time’s online section from August 7, AREVA was identified as “the first place that countries or power companies go when looking for all of their nuclear services─ supplying and enriching uranium, building and managing plants, disposing of their waste ─ under a single roof.”

The article attributes a large part of the company’s success to AREVA CEO Anne Lauvergeon. Ben Elias, a research analyst for Sterne, Agee & Leach, was quoted as saying “if you look at what she’s done since taking her job, you realize Anne Lauvergeon had the drive, creativity and vision to assemble all these parts into a single unit ready for a nuclear renaissance that she saw coming.”

While the Time piece focuses primarily on AREVA’s current profile, it also emphasizes growth in the global demand for nuclear energy. “As governments search for clean, renewable energy sources and consumers worry about volatile oil prices, nuclear power is hot again…over the next decade, the world is expected to build 180 nuclear power plants, up from just 39 between 1999 and today.” These figures include countries like Italy (who just reversed its moratorium on new plant builds), Britain, Japan, and China.

Of these new builds, the attention right now is on Finland where the construction of AREVA’s Generation III+ EPR™ reactor, Olkiluoto 3, is under way. As the article points out “AREVA’s EPR boasts innovations that led the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists to call its design the only one with the ‘potential to be significantly safer and more secure against attack than today’s reactors.’”

While the article notes that the OL3 project is behind schedule and over-budget, AREVA spokesman Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier responded, “You only see how it works once you’ve built it and proved it’s what you’d said it would be.”

Although there are a couple of points with which AREVA may take issue, the full article, “Areva’s Field of Dreams,” by Bruce Crumley, is definitely worth a read. Check it out on time.com.

Nancy Spring, Editor of Nuclear Power International, presents a piece titled “Shovels in the Ground,” which offers a world tour of ongoing nuclear energy projects. Among other projects in China, India, and Japan, she highlights the AREVA EPR plants being built at the Flamanville site in France and at Olkiluoto in Finland. She goes on to write:

Based on that roster of projects alone, the argument could easily be made that the debate about whether the nuclear renaissance is happening has been decided. And while there’s a big difference between “having plans” and pouring concrete—which at Flamanville 3 can be 200 tonnes per hour from the onsite concrete plant—if the plans for future nuclear projects that many countries have developed are added into the equation, the renaissance is already in full swing.

The question in the U.S. then becomes when to participate.

She ends her piece with a warning:

Many scholars and historians consider the Renaissance of the 1400s as the period when modern science began. Like those in that era who did not embrace the new concepts, the U.S. could choose to not take part in the nuclear renaissance. Would we then be saying “no” to science? The U.S., with its ambivalence toward nuclear power, may remain in the Dark Ages when it comes to energy.