Greenpeace militants yesterday boarded a ship transporting steam generators to the Olkiluoto 3 EPR reactor in Finland.

The organization’s action, taken in the run-up to December’s climate summit in Copenhagen, is a protest against nuclear energy, which it claims would harm efforts to combat climate change.

Once again, Greenpeace has attacked the wrong target – while no one claims nuclear power is THE solution, it is widely accepted as being ONE of the solutions that can help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

To quote a well-known saying, “Our house is burning and we are looking the other way.” If we apply this metaphor, then Greenpeace’s attempts to stand in the way of nuclear power is like preventing a trusted fire service from getting to the blaze.

In the United States, for example, nuclear energy is by far the largest source of CO2-free electricity production and plays a significant role in preventing additional greenhouse gas emissions.  Its role in preventing emissions is even greater in France, because the country receives roughly 80% of its electricity from nuclear energy.

AREVA is saddened that Greenpeace refuses to engage in a calmer debate on energy issues. According to AREVA spokesperson Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, “This buccaneering behavior is the thanks AREVA gets for opening up to this association, which for instance was welcomed just last week to its mining sites in Niger. If Greenpeace wants to find out more about steam generators, it doesn’t need to show off like this – the doors of the Chalon Saint-Marcel plant are wide open for it to come and see how these reactor components are made.”

Today marks an important step for Japan’s energy independence and for the future of the nuclear industry.  As World Nuclear News and others are reporting, Kyushu Electric Power Company restarted Unit 3 of the Genkai nuclear power plant using MOX (mixed oxide) fuel recycled at AREVA’s MELOX facility in Marcoule, France.  Eventually, the Genkai plant plans to use MOX fuel at one-quarter of their 193 assemblies.

Because of Japan’s unique place on the world stage – a nation with a large energy appetite but relatively few natural resources – they’ve embarked on a plan to generate fully 40% of their energy from nuclear power and to start their own recycling operations on the islands, instead of sending their used nuclear fuel to France for recycling (as they’d done up until 1998, when they started collecting their own fuel).  They’ve known for a long time that just storing away once-used  
nuclear fuel and calling it “waste” – as we do here in the U.S. – doesn’t make sense.  Not only does recycling get more energy out of the used nuclear fuel, it also reduces the volume of the most dangerous waste by over 60%.

We’re proud to be working with Japan in taking this first step toward a cleaner, carbon-free, independent energy future.  Japan’s example makes it clear that a crucial stepping stone toward sustainability and energy independence – not only in Japan, but here in the U.S. and Canada as well – is expanding the use of nuclear power and putting in place a program to recycle used fuel.

Kyushu is one of the first of AREVA’s agreements to supply MOX fuel to Japan; the latest came in September with Chogoku.

John Wheeler of This Week in Nuclear, in his an excellent post up on The Energy Collective, pointed us to a recent study from the Nature Conservancy on the “Land Use Intensity” of nuclear energy versus other forms of energy.  The study, “Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency,” looks at the impact of various energy-generation methods on natural habitats (measured in square kilometers per terawatt-hour) and comes to the conclusion that aside from increasing efficiency, nuclear power has the smallest land-use footprint of all forms of energy generation – including green technologies like wind, geothermal, and solar!

As you can see from the chart, it only takes 2.4 square kilometers of land to produce one terawatt-hour of energy in a nuclear reactor – just one-third of the impact of the next most efficient form of generation, geothermal, and just one-sixth the impact of solar thermal power.

Why is this important?  As climate change becomes a reality, preserving natural habitats – the Nature Conservancy’s mission – will become more and more crucial.  The energy we generate in the future needs to not only have a low-impact with regards to carbon emissions and pollutants, but also be efficient in terms of land use.  Just as “suburban sprawl” can gobble up natural and wilderness habitats that had previously supported diverse ecosystems, so too can “energy sprawl.”

The Nature Conservancy is concerned that as our energy appetite increases and we become more and more concerned about carbon emissions, we’ll go to methods of power generation that require the destruction of natural habitats for things like farming corn or soy for biofuels.  Nuclear power, they say, has the least amount of land-use impact of all forms of power generation.  Nothing can substitute for more efficiency, obviously. It’s clear from the study that efficiency gains (including, we might add, smart grid technology) would result in net decreases in land use.  But if we’re going to build more power plants, nuclear power will use the least amount of land.

This, combined with the NEI study we previously highlighted showing that nuclear energy is just as carbon-efficient as solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, and wind power, makes it even clearer: the world’s green energy future must involve nuclear power.  Safe, reliable, clean, CO2-free nuclear power must be a crucial component of any carbon-reduction plan.

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.

President Obama

Yesterday at his town hall in New Orleans, the President was asked about climate change, and he responded by reiterating his commitment to push for climate change legislation as soon as the health care debate is over.

One of his main points was that we need to increase our domestic energy production in environmentally-responsible ways – including expanding our nuclear energy sector.

“There’s no reason why technologically we can’t employ nuclear energy in a safe and effective way,” Obama said. “Japan does it and France does it and it doesn’t have greenhouse gas emissions, so it would be stupid for us not to do that in a much more effective way.”

We’re glad that President Obama is acknowledging the nuclear renaissance and recognizing the crucial role nuclear power must play in both ensuring energy security and sustainable development in the United States, and combatting carbon emissions and climate change.

It’s also important to point out that the President realizes, as we do, how important the growth of the clean energy sector could be to our economy:

“But I ultimately am convinced that we should be able to put together a package that puts people back to work, makes us more energy independent and saves our planet in the process,” he added.

Clean energy – including nuclear energy – means jobs, as we’ve pointed out. We’ve been able to keep hiring both here in the United States and around the world even while most of the economy has been in a downturn. An investment in nuclear energy is an investment in well-paying, secure, and economy-growing jobs for Americans… and we’re glad President Obama is on board with us in the crucial push for cleaner, safer, carbon-free energy.

To see a video of the question and answer, click here and go to the 5:15 mark.

by Jarret Adams

Today’s Washington Times contains an excellent op-ed piece by John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers and former Michigan governor, on the pending nuclear deal with the United Arab Emirates. Mr. Engler calls on Congress to approve the 123 agreement that would pave the way for the U.A.E. to develop a commercial nuclear power sector, but he cautions that this endorsement should bring some benefit for U.S. industry.

We should expect these steps taken to facilitate the United Arab Emirates program will pay dividends in terms of new jobs and a resurgent nuclear power industry in the United States.

An AREVA-Bechtel consortium is a bidder for the U.A.E. nuclear deal, which calls for up to four reactors and related services. If our bid is selected, we are well positioned to provide plant components from Newport News, Va., enrichment services from Idaho Falls, Idaho, and technological know-how from many locations around the country. And that means more U.S. jobs.

Click here to read the rest of Mr. Engler’s piece.

Climate Change Is a Reality.

Some of its impacts are probably already irreversible. Or so says a report published in early 2009 by the National Academy of Sciences in the United States. It shows that rising ocean levels, lower precipitation and higher temperatures will persist long after we have ceased to emit CO2.

Action is urgently needed, first to halt the rise in world greenhouse gas emissions by 2015, as recommended by the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), then to cut those emissions in half from 1990 by the year 2050. But how can we do this when electricity is already contributing 40% of the total emissions and world demand for electricity is expected to double by 2030?

To do this, we must use alternatives to fossil fuels, with low CO2 emissions, whenever possible to ensure a balanced and reliable energy mix. We need nuclear energy and hydropower for mass electricity, renewable energies such as wind and sun as make up sources, but also electricity savings notably through more efficient transmission and distribution systems to bring answers to meet the 21st century’s greatest challenges: providing access to energy for all and preserving our planet for future generations.

Michel-Hubert Jamard
Vice President Communications, Nuclear Activities
AREVA

Democratic Senator John Kerry and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham co-wrote a very important Op-Ed in the New York Times this weekend. You should definitely read the whole thing but some key snippets:

…We refuse to accept the argument that the United States cannot lead the world in addressing global climate change. We are also convinced that we have found both a framework for climate legislation to pass Congress and the blueprint for a clean-energy future that will revitalize our economy, protect current jobs and create new ones, safeguard our national security and reduce pollution….

Our partnership represents a fresh attempt to find consensus that adheres to our core principles and leads to both a climate change solution and energy independence. It begins now, not months from now — with a road to 60 votes in the Senate….

And in language that is similar to our past posts on this blog, they go on to say:

This process requires honest give-and-take and genuine bipartisanship. In that spirit, we have come together to put forward proposals that address legitimate concerns among Democrats and Republicans and the other constituencies with stakes in this legislation. We’re looking for a new beginning, informed by the work of our colleagues and legislation that is already before Congress.

And we certainly applaud their note on the key role nuclear power can have in this new effort:

….while we invest in renewable energy sources like wind and solar, we must also take advantage of nuclear power, our single largest contributor of emissions-free power. Nuclear power needs to be a core component of electricity generation if we are to meet our emission reduction targets. We need to jettison cumbersome regulations that have stalled the construction of nuclear plants in favor of a streamlined permit system that maintains vigorous safeguards while allowing utilities to secure financing for more plants. We must also do more to encourage serious investment in research and development to find solutions to our nuclear waste problem.

And it closes with:

We are confident that a legitimate bipartisan effort can put America back in the lead again and can empower our negotiators to sit down at the table in Copenhagen in December and insist that the rest of the world join us in producing a new international agreement on global warming. That way, we will pass on to future generations a strong economy, a clean environment and an energy-independent nation.

You can read the rest of the op-ed here.

by Jarret Adams

Antinuclear activists lately have been trotting out that old chestnut that nuclear energy is not really CO2-free and that this claim is some type of deception. Here’s the short version: nuclear power plants do not produce CO2 while they are producing electricity. For each new AREVA EPR™ reactor that we build, we can avoid 10 million tons of CO2 emissions per year compared to a coal-fired plant.

Chart courtesy NEI.

Here’s the longer version: all power sources, including nuclear energy, renewables, fossil fuels and everything else, produce CO2 at various points during their respective lifecycles. There are emissions during the construction of new facilities, manufacturing of components, obtaining and refining the fuel, transportation to and from the facility, and so on. On the basis of lifecycle emissions, there is no energy source that does not produce some CO2 emissions when one includes full lifecycle and all related activities.

Nevertheless, even when one considers the lifecycle emissions of nuclear energy and renewables, they are very comparable. Reputable studies confirm this. A 2002 University of Wisconsin study showed that nuclear energy had 17 tons of CO2 emissions per Gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity compared with 14 tons of CO2 emissions per GWh for wind. For comparison, coal had 1,041 tons of CO2 emissions per GWh.

Several other studies, including 2008 study by the International Energy Agency (OECD), and a 2006 study by the U.K. Government, offer similar conclusions: nuclear energy lifecycle emissions are similar to wind and lower than solar photovoltaic. Here also is a great article from a UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) publication that lays it out well.

This should take nothing away from renewables – AREVA supports renewables. We are currently installing our M5000 offshore wind turbines off the coast of Germany and recently announced an agreement to build 80 more. These 5 MW turbines are the world’s biggest, and we hope to build hundreds of them around the world, including here in North America.

The point is that nuclear energy and renewables are complementary and are key elements in helping us move toward a low-carbon future. Anti-nukes seem to believe that a dollar spent on nuclear energy is a dollar taken away from renewables. This is not true. We need to begin investing more in both if we are serious about addressing our energy and climate change goals.