Tag Archives: Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

New U.S. reactors: overbudget, behind schedule, shirking safety regs

The Summer nuclear project, May 2014. Still a long ways--and a lot more rate increases--to go.

The Summer nuclear project, May 2014. Still a long ways–and a lot more rate increases–to go.

The nuclear “renaissance” began fizzling about three minutes after it was declared, once utility financial people took over from the nuclear boosters and did a real examination of reactor construction cost estimates, declining electrical demand, falling prices for natural gas, and rapid growth of renewables.

But five new reactors, aided by unique circumstances, do remain under construction in the U.S.: two at Southern Company’s Georgia Power Vogtle site in Georgia, two at SCANA’s Summer site in South Carolina, and the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar-2 reactor in Tennessee. Both Vogtle and Summer are aided by their control of their state’s Public Service Commission, which kindly allows the utilities to use ratepayers as their banks; both utilities are collecting money from ratepayers as construction goes on, enabling them to borrow less and repay what they do borrow faster. And the Vogtle project also has received $6.5 Billion in low-interest taxpayer loans from the Federal Financing Bank, with another $1.8 Billion to some of its partners still expected. TVA is in a class of its own–a federal government agency with its own budget and authority and Congressional backers who will readily support just about anything it wants to do–as long as it’s not spending too much money on renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.  Continue reading

Nuclear Newsreel, Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Nuclear Power

Exelon is up to its old tricks–the kind that already got it kicked out of the American Wind Energy Association. The nuclear giant is once again trying to kill production tax credits for wind and solar power, but it sure doesn’t want to give up its taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power. The reason is, of course, that wind power (in the midwest especially) and natural gas, but even solar power, can and do provide electricity when needed most at lower prices than Exelon’s aging fleet of expensive nukes.

Both the wind and solar tax credits may be in trouble. Senate Finance Committee chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) unveiled a new tax credit bill yesterday that didn’t include either. However, Wyden, who supports both, is likely to add them as amendments to the bill in a committee markup session that could occur as early as tomorrow. But there is concern that the intense lobbying by Exelon and some right-wing organizations could make the amendments overly controversial in an election year.

Florida's St. Lucie reactors. Photo from enformable.com

Florida’s St. Lucie reactors. Photo from enformable.com

Safety concerns are ignored as NRC denies petition to keep FPL’s St. Lucie-2 reactor closed pending hearing. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) had filed the petition with the NRC in light of disclosures that the St. Lucie reactors, especially Unit-2 are showing signs of severe degradation of their steam generator tubes. Although the exact nature of the degradation is said to be somewhat different from what caused a steam generator tube rupture at San Onofre, eventually leading to the permanent shutdown of both reactors at that site, the possibility of such a rupture seems real, as does the probability of expensive repair work ahead. The NRC has not yet ruled on SACE’s request for a hearing on the issue.

Japanese families are torn as the first Fukushima evacuation refugees are being allowed to return to their homes. It’s a tiny area that Japan says has been cleaned up: 357 residents are eligible to return, but many of them say they won’t. The toll on mental health caused by stress, confusion, and lack of transparency by both the government and Tepco simply cannot be overstated. And the continued dangerous work involved in decommissioning and cleaning up the Fukushima reactors will put any returnees into harm’s way again for decades. Japan needs to acknowledge that the evacuation zone is for now and the foreseeable future a dead zone and instead focus its efforts on preventing a second Fukushima disaster rather than spending billions in largely futile attempts to clean up contaminated areas in that zone.

Don’t you love it when nuclear energy giants go clawing after each other over their failures? Duke Energy has sued Westinghouse over the cost of its cancelled Levy County nuclear project. Of course, Duke is getting most of the money it put into Levy County from ratepayers anyway, even though the reactors won’t be built, due to Florida’s outrageous “early cost recovery” law.

The Monticello reactor. Photo from NRC.

The Monticello reactor. Photo from NRC.

Another dangerous, aging reactor: the NRC is troubled by ‘degraded’ performance at Minnesota’s Monticello–yet another one of America’s Fukushima-clone GE Mark I reactors. The biggest issue for the agency is the site’s readiness to handle floods. Monticello is on the banks of the Mississippi River, which floods fairly often; a 2011 flood that partially submerged Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun reactor site kept that reactor down for more than two years. So flooding is one issue that the NRC is for the most part taking seriously. Unfortunately, the agency seems to be taking less seriously the possibility of flooding from the potential for major breaks in some of the country’s aging dam network, such as at the Oconee site in South Carolina, where whistleblowers inside the agency put the risk of meltdown at the three-unit site at 100% if a nearby dam fails.

Clean Energy

The potential from solar energy dwarfs that from all other energy sources combined.

The potential from solar energy dwarfs that from all other energy sources combined.

Solar energy is the motherlode. The world currently uses 16 TerraWatts of energy per year. The sun provides the earth with 23,000 possible TerraWatts per year, far dwarfing any other potential energy supply. The trick has been in harnessing all that free power, and the solar industry is finally doing so efficiently and cost-effectively. That’s why the sun will be the dominant energy source of the future. The great graphic above says it all.

Or does it? Right now at least, the real motherlode isn’t solar, or wind, or nuclear, gas, oil or coal. It’s energy efficiency, or as Amory Lovins has described efficiency: negawatts. Either way, energy not used to perform a task is like energy produced to perform that task. And increasing energy efficiency has been, and continues to be, the cheapest source of “new” electricity. While power demand continues to grow worldwide–and will continue to do so as large parts of our world are not even electrified, in the U.S. electricity demand’s peak was in 2006 and it has not yet returned to that peak; in fact demand has been falling as state-level efficiency programs and federal appliance and other efficiency standards have kicked in.

Michigan utilities are on target to meet their modest Renewable Energy Standard of 10% renewables by next year. But a new study from Union of Concerned Scientists argues the state could increase its standard to 30% by 2030 at basically no cost to taxpayers and ratepayers. However, Michigan voters in 2012 rejected a proposal to increase the standard to 25% by 2025, so it is not clear there is a sufficient political mandate there to adopt such a proposal.

Finally today, a great piece on CleanTechnica: Solar Power Advantages Versus Insanity. Want to save the planet? Go solar and the planet will thank you. More important to you to save some money? Then definitely go solar and your wallet will thank you. As the article concludes:

In the end, many of us have a fairly simple choice:

Get solar power on our home and/or business, help the planet, and benefit financially.

or

Continue sending our money to electric companies to make a handsome profit on our insanity while polluting the planet.

Sanity vs insanity. Your choice.

Inside Washington

Exactly the wrong approach: The U.S. Department of Energy is pushing Europe to increase its use of dirty energy to reduce its reliance on Russian natural gas. That’s advice that Europe, most of which is well ahead of the U.S. in adopting clean renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, really doesn’t need, nor probably want, to hear. The DOE told European nations they should increase nuclear power, natural gas fracking and carbon capture and sequestration technologies (not that those have worked in the U.S. yet, and likely never will be cost-effective). We get that the Obama Administration, and the President himself, likes to pretend that the “all of the above” energy strategy makes any sense at all. It doesn’t, it’s just a way to avoid making easy choices that would alienate one energy sector or another. But there is really no need to push such an inane policy on the rest of the world too. And that strategy is primarily driven by the DOE, first by Secretary Chu and now by Secretary Moniz. This is an agency that needs a major overhaul and needs to understand that in an era of limited financial resources, choosing all of the above is effectively the same as choosing none of the above.

Michael Mariotte

April 2, 2014

Permalink: http://safeenergy.org/2014/04/02/nuclear-newsreel-wednesday-april-2-2014/

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Nuclear Newsreel, Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Nuclear Power

Yesterday’s revelations in the Tampa Bay Times about extensive degradation of steam generator tubes at Florida’s St. Lucie reactors have sparked calls for investigations and a new effort to repeal Florida’s early cost recovery law. In this article, the Times’ Ivan Penn follows up on yesterday’s story and quotes a former NRC official, Joe Hopenfeld, who is clearly concerned about the degradation.

“The guidelines the NRC and FPL are using to assess the severity of the tube damage are the same ones used to measure a different type of wear, he said. The current inspection criteria are for wear caused by stress corrosion cracking, he said. St. Lucie’s tube wear comes from the tubes vibrating too much, which caused them to rub and bang against the antivibration bars.

Those are different problems, Hopenfeld said, which call for different types of evaluations.

‘This is not black and white as being presented by the NRC,” Hopenfeld said. “There’s some sickness. I don’t know the degree, but there is some sickness. It’s getting sicker, sicker and sicker.'”

And in this article, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy calls for full repeal of the early cost recovery law, which has allowed Florida utilities to collect millions of dollars from ratepayers for a failed steam generator replacement project at the now-shuttered Crystal River reactor and costs for the now-cancelled Levy County reactors. Last year, an attempt to repeal the law fell short in the Florida legislature, although some reforms were accomplished. The problems at St. Lucie, previously regarded as a relatively solid performer, are likely to add new impetus to the repeal effort.

Japan still hasn’t learned: the conservative government of Prime Minister Abe’s new energy plan calls for resumption of nuclear power. But the document is vague about how that will be accomplished, and acknowledges that reliance on nuclear will have to be reduced. Still, local officials in Japan may be able to block many, if not all, attempted reactor restarts.

DOE says more airborne radiation has been detected from the leak at the WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Project) transuranic radioactive waste site in New Mexico, but provides little real data. The DOE press release announcing the new information is available here. At a public meeting last night in Carlsbad near the WIPP site attended by 250+ concerned citizens, DOE conceded that the leaks are very serious, but told area residents that, as all nuclear officials are apparently pre-programmed to say, there is no threat to public health and safety.

The experts (mostly) agree: government shouldn’t be supporting the nuclear power industry. In the wake of the approval of the taxpayer loan for construction of the Vogtle reactors, the National Journal asked several energy experts to weigh in on whether the government should be investing in nuclear power and whether the Obama Administration is doing too much or too little to back the nuclear industry. Most of the experts agree that nuclear power is not worthy of additional taxpayer support, although their reasons differ.

Clean Energy

Roadmap to a 100% renewables-powered California.

Roadmap to a 100% renewables-powered California.

Powering the US with renewables, a state-by-state roadmap. Good article on the recent work by Stanford’s Mark Jacobson that provides a clear roadmap on how the US can meet the target of 100% renewable electricity by 2050. Each state has different pathways to achieving that goal. In California, for example, his model projects “55 percent solar (both distributed and large-scale, including a lot of CSP), 35 percent wind (both on- and offshore), 5 percent geothermal, and 4 percent hydroelectric, plus a big contribution from energy efficiency.” Washington state, by contrast, would rely more heavily on hydropower and wind with a model of “43 percent wind, 28 percent solar PV, 26 percent hydro, 2 percent geothermal, and half a percent each of wave and tidal.”

But Jacobson and his colleagues have done more than simply provide sample ways to meet the 100% renewable goal. They also have looked at other benefits from implementation of the goals and project that their policies would “create a net 178,000 permanent jobs, avoid $131 billion in annual healthcare costs, and pay off the 631 GW of new installed power within six years”–in California alone. The issue of avoided healthcare costs, due largely to air pollution from fossil fuels, but also potentially from health effects from nuclear radiation, is one that too often is overlooked in the debates over our energy future.

New report from Rocky Mountain Institute: The Economics of Grid Defection. By “grid defection,” RMI means that the combination of affordable rooftop solar power along with battery storage will allow, by mid-century, virtually anyone in the U.S. to be electricity self-sufficient, i.e., to disconnect from the electrical grid for about the same costs as they are currently paying for electricity (although, in reality, many will remain connected to the grid and will be selling back excess power to the grid). Hawaii is already there, according to the report. But other states will be following soon: within a decade, for example, both New York and California residents could achieve this type of grid parity. And, as we have been saying in these pages, that reality presents profound challenges for electric utilities and will change the entire nature of the electric power industry. Nuclear power, of course, has no role in this new 21st century energy model.

Electricity use is declining and energy efficiency may be a factor says ACEEE. Actually, ACEEE is being rather conservative here. Their own findings show that state-level energy efficiency programs and federal efficiency standards are doing exactly what they’re supposed to: reducing electricity demand. If that trend continues, and there is little reason to believe it won’t, that means fewer power plants of all kinds, but especially fewer expensive old-line “baseload” power plants and greater opportunity for distributed generation.

Inside Washington

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects that in 2017 U.S. utilities will begin applying for new license extensions that would allow them to operate reactors for up to 80 years. Most reactors already have received extensions allowing operations up to 60 years, although a couple dozen applications remain in the pipeline or are expected relatively soon–some of which, like Indian Point, are highly controversial. The NRC staff has told the Commissioners that the license renewal rule needs to be changed to accommodate the expected applications and has asked for permission to issue a rulemaking proposal soon. Of course, no one knows if reactors will even last the 60 years they have been re-licensed for, much less 80 years. A license is a piece of paper–not a guarantee of ability to operate.

In a sign that the Obama administration still doesn’t understand the nuances of nuclear non-proliferation policy, nor the notion that the U.S. nuclear power industry does not merit U.S. government support anywhere, President Obama has signed off on a controversial civilian nuclear power agreement with Vietnam. The agreement would encourage Vietnam to buy enriched uranium from the U.S., although it would not require the country to forego installation of its own enrichment capability. And it would encourage the sale of nuclear technology to Vietnam–a country that certainly has ample renewable resources and no need of nuclear reactors.

Michael Mariotte

Permalink: http://safeenergy.org/2014/02/06/nuclear-newsreel-tuesday-february-25-2014/

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Nuclear Newsreel, Friday, February 14, 2014

Nuclear Power

The mindset over at the Tennessee Valley Authority is just impossible to fathom. The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that TVA will spend $160 million for replacement steam generators at Watts Bar-2–before the reactor is even built! Construction at Watts bar-2 began more than a generation ago–back in the 1970s–and the reactor still isn’t finished. But the original steam generators have flaws that have caused leaks at other reactors and have aged while waiting for construction to be completed. TVA decided it would be too expensive to replace them now, before starting up the reactor. So it’s planning to get the reactor running with faulty steam generators, and then planning to replace those generators in just a few years. If, of course, the existing faulty generators don’t rupture by then. Citizens of Tennessee have to hope for the best….

Of course, TVA won’t include the replacement steam generators in its initial construction costs, making them look lower than they otherwise would. “Nuclear power is always sold as the cheapest power until it isn’t,” said Stephen Smith, executive director for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an anti-nuclear group based in Knoxville. “It’s not cost competitive when you have these billion-dollar cost overruns that we’ve already experienced at Watts Bar 2 and now we’re having a look at what will probably be a half billion dollar replacement project in the not too distant future.”

Arnie Gundersen and the remnants of Fukushima Unit-3

Arnie Gundersen and the remnants of Fukushima Unit-3

Tepco has finally admitted what Fairewind and NIRS have been saying for nearly three years now: the Fukushima Unit-3 fuel pool is in much worse shape than the Unit-4 pool which caused so much concern late last year. In this new video from Fairewinds, Arnie Gundersen explains the problems that will face Tepco–and the world–when clean-up of this mess begins. 50 tons of rubble fell on top of and into the pool.

Sometimes state legislatures do stupid things, Part 1. Washington state legislature approves creation of task force to examine feasibility of new nuclear power in the state. Most of Washington’s electricity comes from hydropower, just three percent from the one reactor in the state–the remnant of the legendary WHOOPS collapse of the early 1980s. That happened when the Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) tried to build five reactors at once and couldn’t do it; only one was completed. The other four were abandoned at various levels of construction and WPPSS defaulted on billions of dollars of bonds–in fact, still the largest such bond default in U.S. history. Renewables other than hydro account for relatively little of Washington’s supply–there should be more. As Tom Buchanan of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) says here: “There are other options. We think that carbon free and nuclear free go hand in hand.” He said renewable energy sources including wind and solar, along with continuing energy conservation are the way forward. We agree.

Sometimes state legislatures do stupid things, Part 2. The Texas legislature will examine the feasibility of offering up some part of the state to be an “interim” high-level radioactive waste site. A potential permanent site, at Deaf Smith County, was dropped in the 1987 “Screw Nevada” radioactive waste bill and isn’t likely to be revived. But there’s a lot of wide-open space in west Texas, so some legislators think a “temporary” radioactive waste dump could bring in a few extra bucks. Better watch out Texas: those “interim” sites aren’t exactly fail-safe and could quickly become permanent when it’s clear that no one else will take the lethal waste. Or as Tom “Smitty” Smith of Public Citizen puts it here: “It’s idiotic to even consider disposing of high-level radioactive waste in Texas. Other states have rejected having high-level radioactive waste dumped on them. It’s all risk and very little reward for Texans.”

Electricite de France (EDF) is overwhelmed by nuclear reactor upkeep operations, reports Bloomberg. Adding to the financial pressures on the world’s largest nuclear utility (yesterday, we posted that EDF is trying to raise its wholesale nuclear power rates), EDF is finding that maintaining and attempting to upgrade its 58-reactor fleet is costing twice as much and taking 50% more time than projected. Add to that the utility’s woes in attempting to build the way-over-budget and way-behind-schedule Flamanville EPR reactor and the European Commission’s initial finding of illegal subsidies that may scuttle EDF’s proposed Hinkley Point complex in the UK, and you get the picture of a utility, that despite posting record profits last year, is scrambling for its life to get out of a self-imposed nuclear collapse.

Clean Energy

The Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration says that coal plants will be retired much more quickly, at least through 2016, than previously projected. That’s the good news. Oddly, EIA projects coal retirements will slow rapidly after that.

Distributed resources, including combined heat and power systems and solar PV, could make up a full third of the U.S. power grid by the end of this decade. And while rooftop solar isn’t a huge part of that this decade, its rapid growth suggests that the percentage of power provided by distributed generation will continue to increase rapidly every decade.

Inside Washington

This one isn’t exactly energy-related but it’s a must-read anyway. The two best people writing on economic issues these days are Paul Krugman of the New York Times and Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone. In this piece, The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks’ Most Devious Scam Yet, Taibbi reports on a little-known piece of some 1999 legislation that is fundamentally transforming the American economy–and not for the better. The subtitle gives some indication of the issue: “Banks are no longer just financing heavy industry. They are actually buying it up and inventing bigger, bolder and scarier scams than ever.” And, indeed, the article notes that the mega-investment bank Goldman Sachs is now in the uranium business. What could possibly go wrong?

Michael Mariotte

Permalink: http://safeenergy.org/2014/02/06/nuclear-newsreel-friday-february-14-2014/

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Nuclear Newsreel, January 16, 2014

Strike threat looms at Entergy’s Indian Point reactors, already battered by economic & legal challenges. The unions, including control room operators, are threatening a strike at Indian Point and have even set up “practice” picket lines in front of the site. But this story goes beyond the labor strife and looks more deeply at the growing list of challenges faced by Entergy which could well lead to shutdown of the reactors. Let’s keep adding to the pressure, folks….

Even BP admits renewables are the fastest-growing energy source, will pass nuclear generation by 2025. BP dropped the pretense of it being a big player in solar power a few years ago, but even their analysis shows that renewables are the future. The figures are staggering: BP projects the use of renewables in power generation will rise 768 percent in China by 2035, 539 percent in India, 227 percent in Brazil and 277% in the U.S. Still, BP likely understates the case and still predicts fossil fuels will remain dominant, providing about 75-80% of the world’s energy (not just electricity) in 2035. A guy who is out to change that dominance is Elon Musk, owner of Wall Street’s favorite electric car company, Tesla Motors. This article looks at Musk’s plan to wean civilization from fossil fuels, not only through electric cars, but through his involvement with SolarCity, which is one of several companies behind the extraordinary acceleration of rooftop solar in the U.S. Musk is not the only one to believe that solar power will be the dominant source of electricity in the U.S. by mid-century, but he is one actually making that happen.

Two press releases from allied groups, Friends of the Earth and Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, focus on the only two private new reactor projects in the U.S. moving ahead now–what’s left of the “nuclear renaissance.” SACE’s release talks about the continued secrecy from the Department of Energy in attempting to give a taxpayer loan for the Vogtle reactor project (a loan that reportedly has been blocked by concerns from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget). Taxpayers kept in the dark as deadline looms to finalize $8.3 Billion nuclear loan for Vogtle reactors. And FoE examines newly released documents that show all is not as rosy as the utility, SCANA, has publicly portrayed progress at South Carolina’s Summer nuclear project. Another nuclear debacle: Cost overruns, delays and construction woes bedevil V.C. Summer reactor project in S.C.

MOX funds in spending bill top budget request. Yesterday, we noted that the omnibus budget bill included more money for the controversial small modular reactor (SMR) program than requested by the Obama Administration. We forgot to mention yesterday that the SMR program last year received Taxpayers for Common Sense most uncoveted Golden Fleece Award. Today, as journalists continue to delve into the fine print of the 1,000+ pages of the omnibus bill, we learn that Congress wants to give the MOX program more money than the Administration requested. This program is even more controversial–after years of delay and overspending, the Administration actually wants to end this program entirely. The program involves building a facility at South Carolina’s Savannah River Site to reprocess reactor fuel into plutonium-based “mixed-oxide” fuel. It’s a dangerous, dirty, and entirely unnecessary program whose only real constituent appears to be Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC).

Report finds increased cancer cases near St. Louis radwaste landfill. The oldest radioactive waste dump in the US lies near the runways to the city’s airport; it’s a vestige of World War II that has never been cleaned up because, as is the case for just about all radioactive waste, no one wants it and there is really no place for it to go. As to why no one wants it–this story should make that clear.

How solar power beat natural gas in Minnesota. Seriously, if solar power can beat natural gas (which itself beats nuclear power and coal) in Minnesota–no one’s idea of a sunny resort area–then can there possibly be anywhere that solar power has not become the cheapest electricity source? Well, maybe in areas well-suited to wind power…

Stock analyst says avoid Exelon stock in 2014. and warns of nuclear shutdowns ahead. The analyst names three single-unit Exelon reactors he believes are vulnerable–Oyster Creek, Clinton and Ginna–that also have shown up on other lists of potential near-term reactor shutdowns. But he adds a fourth, the two-unit Quad Cities site on the Illinois/Iowa border, as vulnerable too, apparently due to competition from Iowa’s fast-growing wind industry.

Japanese taxi company refuses ride to anti-nuclear lawmaker in fear of retribution from nuclear industry.

The Colorado legislature yesterday beat back yet another attempt to weaken the state’s Renewable Energy Standard.

RealClearPolitics released a list of who it calls the 10 most influential legislators on energy issues. Some names on the list are obvious; some may surprise you.

Finally today, researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered a new way of storing energy from solar power production. Energy storage is probably the hottest field in the energy arena right now, and is the last, though quickly disappearing, obstacle before renewables become a 24/7 “baseload” kind of power source. Not that the old concept, still pushed relentlessly by the nuclear industry, of “baseload” power has the same level of relevance to a modern, distributed energy grid that it did in the 1970s.

Michael Mariotte

Permalink: http://safeenergy.org/2014/01/16/nuclear-newsreel-January-16-2014/