Let the Nuclear Renaissance Begin

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday, 12/21/11, approved the amended design for the Westinghouse AP1000, a reactor that several power companies intend to use for building the first new U.S. nuclear plants in decades.

“The design provides enhanced safety margins through use of simplified, inherent, passive, or other innovative safety and security functions, and also has been assessed to ensure it could withstand damage from an aircraft impact without significant release of radioactive materials,” NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in a statement.

Next Gen Nukes

Safety Plan The Generation III+ reactors at the Vogtle facility in Georgia will feature a passive safety system to safeguard the plant in the absence of power. Kevin Hand

In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in March, the appetite for new nuclear power plants slipped to post-Chernobyl lows. Regulators from Italy to Switzerland to Texas moved to stop pending nuclear-power projects, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) began to reevaluate the safety of all domestic plants. Yet nuclear power still provides 20 percent of America’s total electric power and 70 percent of its emissions-free energy, in large part because no alternative energy source can match its efficiency.

One nuclear plant with a footprint of one square mile provides the energy equivalent of 20 square miles of solar panels, 1,200 windmills or the entire Hoover Dam. If the country wants to significantly reduce its dependence on carbon-based energy, it will need to build more nuclear power plants. The question is how to do so safely.

In the 30 years since regulators last approved the construction of a new nuclear plant in the U.S., engineers have improved reactor safety considerably. (You can see some of the older, not-so-safe ones in this sweet gallery.) The newest designs, called Generation III+, are just beginning to come online. (Generation I plants were early prototypes; Generation IIs were built from the 1960s to the 1990s and include the facility at Fukushima; and Generation IIIs began operating in the late 1990s, though primarily in Japan, France and Russia.)

Unlike their predecessors, most Generation III+ reactors have layers of passive safety elements designed to stave off a meltdown, even in the event of power loss. Construction of the first Generation III+ reactors is well under way in Europe. China is also in the midst of building at least 30 new plants. In the U.S., the Southern Company recently broke ground on the nation’s first Generation III+ reactors at the Vogtle nuclear plant near Augusta, Georgia. The first of two reactors is due to come online in 2016.

(Click the above image for more details.)

For full article, click here.

US Nuclear Power - How Safe Is It?

The following guest editorial will be featured in this coming Sunday’s local newspaper. The editorial provides answers to some common questions concerning on US Nuclear plant's ability to safeguard the health and safety of the public — or maybe even your friends and family — in the face of a natural disaster or terrorist threat.

As the world continues to watch the tragic circumstances in Japan, we at our Nuclear Plant understand that you may have new questions about living near a nuclear power plant. We have always tried to be open and available to the community, however, we understand the situation in Japan likely calls for increased dialogue.

All U.S. nuclear plants are designed to handle extreme environmental hazards including tornados, earthquakes or floods. Our plant is located more than 400 miles from the nearest fault line and is engineered to withstand an earthquake of up to 6.4 on the Richter scale. This translates into an even larger earthquake as measured at the epicenter.  

Since our plant is located on a lake, a tsunami is not possible.  However, we do have procedures for flooding or a seiche – which is a large wave on an enclosed body of water.  Seiches, however, are rare occurrences.  The largest seiche on record near our plant was 8 feet in 1954.  Our plant is designed to perform properly if there is an 11-foot seiche or flood.

A tornado is the most likely natural disaster here in the Midwest. The plant is designed to safely shut down despite the effects of an F5 tornado with 300 mph winds. Still, we acknowledge that not all natural disasters are predictable.  Please rest assured our personnel plan and prepare for severe conditions that may be greater than our design basis.

We all know that the lack of power following the tsunami was a problem in Japan. Our transmission switchyards are a hub of electrical distribution for our region and we have seven separate high-voltage connections to the grid. Each of our two reactors has two locomotive sized back-up diesel generators that
start automatically if offsite power is lost. Only one is required to safely shut down each reactor. These are located in seismically secure rooms 9 feet above lake level. There is also a supplemental diesel generator, something the Japanese plants didn’t have, that could safely shut down either unit.  This is located 23 feet above lake level.

We are participating in a U.S. nuclear industry initiative to verify our capability to protect the public under severe adverse conditions. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is also performing an independent review of our capabilities and has established a task force to develop safety improvement initiatives based on the Japanese events.

Our emergency response plans are very detailed and we regularly train and practice with the County and State emergency management groups. We recently participated with the NRC and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) evaluation of our emergency preparedness exercise and determined we successfully demonstrated our ability to protect the public in the event of an emergency at the plant.

If you have additional questions, please call or email (details omitted). We also have speakers available to talk to your service club, school or church group.

We will use the lessons learned from Japan’s tragic event to ensure that we continue to operate to the highest standards. Your health, safety and security are, and always will be our number one focus. More than 1,100 men and women at our plant  – your neighbors – are standing with me on that promise.

Nuclear Power Myths

President Obama's announcement in early March that the federal government will support new nuclear reactors through loan guarantees has reinvigorated the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club, Ralph Nader's Public Citizen and other opponents of nuclear energy. Their objections to this proven technology—which already generates about 20% of our electricity—have barely changed since the 1970s. But most of their arguments have either been proven wrong or become outdated. Here's a rundown:


• Nuclear isn't safe. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident—in which a faulty cooling valve led to a meltdown without injuring anyone—occurred when computer technology had barely penetrated the U.S. industry. Today, thanks to the Price-Anderson Act, first adopted in 1957 and amended several times since, each of America's 104 reactors is now on the hook for $100 million in damages for an accident at another reactor ($10 billion coverage in all). You can bet they talk to each other. Accidental "scrams" and safety outages have been reduced to nearly zero. Our entire fleet is up and running 90% of the time. That's why, even though nuclear constitutes only 11% of generating capacity, it provides 20% of electricity.

• Nuclear is too expensive. Building a 1,500-megawatt reactor will cost around $5 billion, which seems expensive until you compare it to everything else. The equivalent capacity in wind power would easily cost $4 billion because you have to build 4,000 windmills at $1 million apiece plus hundreds of miles of transmission lines and an almost equal capacity of natural gas generators to back them up when the wind doesn't blow. Building zero-emissions coal plants that capture the carbon dioxide and bury it underground will probably cost more, but nobody really knows because it's never been done. Only natural gas is cheaper to build, but that's because 95% of the cost is in the fuel. (With nuclear it's only 26%.) Natural gas prices fluctuate. Would anyone care to predict what the price of natural gas will be in 25 years?

• A hijacked jet liner crashing into a reactor would cause a nuclear holocaust. Go to YouTube and search "plane crashing into wall." You'll see a video of an F-4 fighter jet hitting a concrete containment wall at 500 miles per hour. The plane simply disappears. The wall barely budges. Nuclear opponents argue that a jumbo jet would have a greater impact, but the laws of physics say it would be about the same. A jet is a hollow metal tube. Even at the speed of a bullet (700 mph) it could not penetrate a concrete containment wall.

• We haven't figured out what to do with the waste. Basically, there is no such thing as nuclear waste. The reason we have the controversy over the Yucca Mountain storage facility is because we gave up fuel reprocessing in the 1970s. Reprocessing reduces the volume of spent fuel—already remarkably small—by 97%. The French reprocess and store all their high-level waste from 30 years of producing 70% of their electricity beneath the floor of one room in their La Hague plant.

• We can't reprocess because that will lead to nuclear proliferation. The conceit of the 1970s was that if we isolated plutonium in an American reprocessing plant, some foreign terrorist would steal it to make a bomb. Half a dozen countries have since built nuclear bombs, none of them with stolen American plutonium. North Korea built its own reactor. Iran has been enriching uranium. France, Japan and Russia all reprocess and no one has stolen their plutonium.

Nuclear Option Still Gaining Traction :o)

Key Senate Democrats signaled yesterday they are willing to negotiate with Republicans on nuclear power and expanded domestic oil and gas development if it helps in nailing down the 60 votes necessary for floor passage on a comprehensive global warming and energy bill.

Several moderate Senate Republicans, including John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said they are in talks with Kerry and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on the nuclear language, as well as other key issues.

"A guy like Senator Kerry is looking for coalitions," Graham said. "If you had a bill that would allow for responsible offshore drilling, a robust nuclear power title, I think you could get some Republican votes for a cap-and-trade system."

The Nuclear Energy Institute said last week the Kerry-Boxer provisions were "a start in the right direction" but wanted to work with senators to create a "meaningful nuclear energy title."
Kerry yesterday said he is open to tacking onto the nuclear provisions in the bill. "There's a nuclear title and it invites discussion on that," he said. "I'm willing to sit down with anybody and talk seriously about how we proceed in a serious way."

To see the full New York Times article, click here.

What U.S. Should Really Fear About Nuclear Power

I appologize in advance for the length of this entry. One of the challenges we are going to be debating in the next few months, prior to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December, is how to reduce our carbon footprint. This is probably even more critical to the future of our country than the health care debate, but it is not getting the same press. How we get our energy, both for electricity and for our transportation, will be changing, period. We take the ability to flip a switch, and have lights, for granted. Building power plants and associated infrastructure takes decades, and hence, it is not sexy to the press, and it is complicated, so few take on the issue. As I state in my profile, I work at a nuclear power plant (actual picture to the right) and believe in the safety of this technology, and that it must be a part of our energy solution. The following press release provides an excellent summary of the challenges and issues. If you are short on time, I highlighted some interesting facts at the end.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 -- The office of Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., issued the following news release (edited with some commentary inserted):

Communications experts say that fear is the best way to get attention when you're trying to win an argument. [we certainly have seen the fear card thrown lately in the health care faux "debate"] Groups who oppose nuclear power have certainly mastered that technique by playing to economic, environmental, and safety fears. So I'd like to introduce a little element of fear into my argument here.

I want to suggest what could happen if we don't adopt nuclear power as a more important part of our energy future- if Russia and China and a lot of other countries go ahead with nuclear - as they are now - while we get left behind. Are we going to be able to compete with countries that have cheap, clean, reliable nuclear power while we're stuck with a bunch of windmills and solar farms producing expensive, unreliable energy or, more likely, not much energy at all?

The whole prospect of the United States ignoring this problem-solving technology that we invented is what I fear most about nuclear power. "The world still looks to us for leadership in this technology. They'd prefer to copy what we've already done. They don't like being on the cutting edge." [but if we do not build new nuclear, we will be left behind]

China bought Westinghouse and GE reactors back in the 90's, with the rights to reverse engineer future plants. China's next wave of reactors is going to be built with Chinese technology. By 2008 the Chinese had shovels in the ground. They started talking about building 60 reactors over the next 20 years and just recently raised it to 132. They're in the nuclear business.

What have we accomplished in the meantime? Well, people have been talking about a "nuclear renaissance" in this country since the turn of the century. In 2007, NRG, a New Jersey company, filed the first application to build a new reactor in 30 years. Other companies have followed suit and there are now 34 proposals before the NRC, but nobody has yet broken ground. [It will be at least 4-5 years before a construction permit is issued]

As countries began constructing new reactors, it quickly became clear that the bottleneck would be in forging the steel reactor vessels. These are the huge, three-story-high, forged steel units that hold the fuel assembly - the reactor core. That means forging steel parts that may weigh as much as 500 tons. In 2007 the only place you could order a reactor vessel was at the Japan Steel Works and they were backed up for four years [that is where we had our AREVA replacement reactor heads forged].

Everyone started saying, "This is going to be what holds up the world's nuclear renaissance. They'll never be able to produce enough of those pressure vessels." So what happened? Well, first Japan Steel Works invested $800 million to triple its capacity. They're going to be turning out 12 pressure vessels a year by 2012. Then the Chinese decided to build their own forge. In less than two years, they put up a furnace that can handle 320-ton parts. They turned out their first components in June. Now they're building two more forges. So you won't see the Chinese standing in line in Japan any time soon.

The Russians are doing the same thing. They're in the midst of a big revival, planning to double the production of electricity from nuclear power by 2020. They're also building a forge and just cast their first 600-ton ingot in June.

France, Britain, South Korea and India are all following suit. Very soon, every major nuclear country in the world is going to be able to forge its own reactor vessels - except one. And that's us. No steel company in America is capable of forging ingots of more than 270 tons. We're still stuck in the 1960s. That means when it comes to building reactors we'll have to stand in line in Japan or somewhere else. In fact, just about everything in our first new reactors is going to be imported. The nuclear industry tells us that at least 70 percent of the materials and equipment that go into those first few reactors will come from abroad. That's because we've let our nuclear supply industry wither on the vine.

In 1990 there were 150 domestic suppliers making parts for nuclear reactors. Today there are only 40 and most of them do their business overseas. Of the 34 proposals before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 20 are designed by Westinghouse, now a Japanese company and, nine are from Areva, the French giant. General Electric, the only American company left on the field, has partnered with Hitachi. They sold five reactors to American utilities but fared poorly in the competition for federal loan guarantees. Two utilities have now cancelled those projects and there are rumors that GE may quit the field entirely.

So let's take stock. There are 40 reactors now under construction in 11 countries around the world, none of them in the United States. In fact, only two are in Western Europe - one in Finland and the other in France, both built by Areva. All the rest are in Asia. Although we haven't gotten used to it, Asia may soon be leading the world in nuclear technology. Japan has 55 reactors and gets 35 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, almost double the 19 percent we get here.

South Korea gets nearly 40 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is planning another eight reactors by 2015. So far they've bought their reactors from the Japanese but now they have their own Korean Next-Generation Reactor, a 1400-megawatt giant evolved from an American design. They plan to bring two of these online by 2016. Taiwan also gets 18 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is building two new reactors.

We're gradually losing our economic place in the world. Now a lot of people say, "Well, what's the difference? So what if we fall behind on nuclear technology? We'll just forge ahead with something else." Well, there are several reasons to be concerned: 1) First there's energy security. America already spends $ 300 billion a year importing 2/3rds of our oil from other countries. If we remain on the current path of no new nuclear power or start depending on other countries to build our reactors and supply us with fuel, we're going to be even more vulnerable than we are now. The best way to reduce imported oil, aside from ramping up domestic production, will be to use electricity to power cars and trucks. And, how can we criticize India and China for not reducing their carbon emissions when we refuse to adopt the best technology ourselves?

If we move toward a nuclear-based economy and we have to import 70 percent of the technology and equipment, how are any better off than when we're importing two thirds of our oil? We'll just be creating jobs for steel workers in Japan and China instead of in the United States. If we don't move toward a nuclear powered economy but try to do everything with conservation and wind and solar, we're going to be sending American jobs overseas looking for cheap energy. So to insure we have enough cheap, clean, reliable electricity in this country to create good high-quality, high-tech jobs, here's what we have to do. The United States should double its production of nuclear power by building 100 nuclear reactors in 20 years.


Just The Facts :o)

Nuclear today provides 70 percent of our carbon free electricity. Wind and solar provide 4 percent. Nuclear plants operate 90 percent of the time. Wind and solar operate about one third of the time.

The Obama Administration's Nobel prize-winning Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, says nuclear plants are safe and that used nuclear fuel can be safely stored on site for 40-60 years while we figure out the best way to recycle it.

Producing 20 percent of electricity from wind, as the Obama Administration proposes, will require building 186,000 fifty story turbines, enough to cover an area the size of West Virginia - plus 19,000 miles of new transmission lines to carry electricity from remote to populated areas.

100 new nuclear plants could be built mostly on existing sites. To produce 3-6 percent of our electricity, taxpayers will subsidize wind to the tune of $29 billion over the next ten years. The 104 nuclear reactors we have today were built basically without taxpayer subsides.

It will cost roughly the same to build 100 new nuclear plants (which will last 60 to 80 years) as it would to build 186,000 wind turbines (lasting 20 to 25 years). And this does not count the cost of transmission lines for wind.

There will be twice as many "green jobs" created building 100 reactors as there would be building 186,000 wind turbines.

An America stumbling along on expensive, unreliable renewable energy, trying to import most of our energy from abroad, is going to be an America with fewer jobs and a lower standard of living. Nuclear opponents continue to prey on fear of nuclear power. The truth is that if we want safe, cost-effective, reliable, no-carbon electricity we can no longer ignore the wisdom of the rest of the world. The real fear is that we Americans are going to wake up one cloudy, windless day when the light switch doesn't work and discover we've forfeited our capacity to lead the world because we ignored nuclear power, a problem-solving technology that we ourselves invented.

http://alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Home

Living In Exponential Times :o)

I know that this has made the rounds before, with various links and such, but it is amazing enough that I wanted to post it here again.

This recently came to my attention again because the Nuclear Industry is using this video as a tool to focus on continuous improvement, changing times, and to reiterate that the "bar" is always moving, and what was "excellent" before becomes substandard as others move ahead. We showed it during our leadership communications meeting (all supervisors and above).

At the very end, it asks, what does it mean? I would be interested in your perspective.

Refueling Outage Blues :o)

As you are reading this, I have officially commenced my refueling outage duties. This entails reporting to the Outage Command Center each morning at 5:30 A.M. for turnover, and then putting in a twelve hour shift. That, along with the one hour commute each way, six days a week, makes for a long week. So if I am not around reading and commenting for the next five weeks, please understand.

For some of my Blogger readers, who did not see some of my nuclear power entires over in AOL J-Land, the rest of this entry describes what a nuclear power plan refueling outage is all about.

What you are looking at in this picture is a fuel assembly being removed from the reactor. The fuel is removed from the reactor using all remote handling equipment completely under water due to the extreme high radiation levels of the fuel. Water is a very effective shield source of radiation. The characteristic blue glow is Cerenkov radiation - attributed to radioactive particles moving faster than the speed of light in water. With time the blue glow diminishes.

The fuel is picked up by a manipulator crane that has a mechanical arm that extends down into the reactor vessel. The round structure you see with all of the little round holes in it is actually the reactor vessel flange. The top of the reactor and all of the control rods have already been removed in these pictures to allow access to the fuel. The arm of the manipulator crane has a fuel assembly attached to it. The fuel assembly is approximately 17" X 17" square and about 12 feet long. There are 193 fuel assemblies inside the reactor. All fuel assemblies are removed from the reactor and transferred underwater into the spent fuel pool which is in another building. Approximately 1/3 of the fuel is replaced each refueling outage.

To put things in perspective the crane is about 40 feet above the top of the reactor vessel and the water level is 23 feet deep to the top of the reactor vessel flange. The fuel sits about 20 feet below the reactor vessel flange (so the technician's are about 60 feet above the top of the fuel as it sits inside the reactor).

There is enough low enriched uranium in the fuel to allow operation for 18 months. New fuel is not radioactive until it is placed in the reactor and activated via neutron bombardment, which causes the uranium atoms inside the fuel to become unstable, splitting millions of times per second (fission) and releasing energy in the form of heat, and subsequently this heat is transferred to a secondary water source to produce steam, and this steam then spins the turbines and attached generator to produce electricity.