“Public trust is at stake here, folks.” That’s how South Carolina’s top power industry regulator described the gravity of local utilities’ decision to walk away from a pair of partially-built nuclear reactors, according to Charleston’s Post and Courier. Public Service Commission chairman Swain Whitfield added that the reactors’ cancellation after $9 billion of investment — more than the state’s annual budget — “is going to shatter lives, hopes and dreams” in South Carolina. South Carolina-based Santee Cooper and SCANA’s abandonment of their pair of new reactors, announced on Monday, also have broader ramifications for the nuclear industry’s self-declared “nuclear renaissance.” The cost overruns and delays afflicting this project and a sister project in Georgia drove the reactor designer and builder Westinghouse Electric Co. into bankruptcy. Cost overruns and political concerns are also squeezing nuclear suppliers from France, South Korea, and Russia. Continue reading “Palmetto State’s $9-bn Nuclear Boondoggle”
Category: Nuclear Power
Can U.S. Grids Handle 100% Renewables?
A battle royale between competing visions for the future of energy blew open today on the pages of a venerable science journal. The conflict pits 21 climate and power system experts against Stanford University civil and environmental engineer Mark Jacobson and his vision of a world fuelled 100 percent by renewable solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy. The criticism of his “wind, water and sun” solution and an unapologetic rebuttal from Jacobson and three Stanford colleagues appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In fact, while both sides claim to be objectively weighing the energy options, the arguments and backgrounds of the protagonists belie well-informed affinities for various energy sources (and informed biases against others). As sociologists of science would say, their choice of data and their reading of it reflects hunches, values, and priorities.
Startup Time for Fukushima’s Frozen Wall
Japan’s TEPCO — operator of the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant — is about to flip the switch on its infamous ‘ice wall’ intended to divert flowing groundwater around its crippled reactors and thus stem groundwater contamination at the site. The widely mischaracterized and maligned installation—which is a barrier of frozen soil rather than a wall of ice—has every chance of delivering the hoped for results, according to radiation cleanup experts at U.S. national laboratories and feedback from initial system tests. “The frozen barrier is going to work,” predicts Brian Looney, senior advisory engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina and co-author of an independent assessment of TEPCO’s frozen barrier. Continue reading “Startup Time for Fukushima’s Frozen Wall”
NRC Resisting Europe’s Nuclear Safety Upgrades
Nuclear power plants’ reactor pressure vessels —the massive steel jars that hold a nuclear plant’s fissioning fuel—face incessant abuse from their radioactive contents. And they must be built with extra toughness to withstand pressure and temperature swings during loss-of-cooling accidents like the one that struck Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011. But nuclear safety authorities have recently discovered weaknesses in several pressure vessels, and their contrasting responses suggest that the ultimate lessons from Fukushima are still sinking into international nuclear power culture. This is especially true in the United States, where the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is resisting calls to mandate tougher inspection of RPVs. Continue reading “NRC Resisting Europe’s Nuclear Safety Upgrades”
Could Europe’s New Grid Algorithm Black-out Belgium?
Two of the big European power grid stories from 2014 were the software-enabled enlargement of the European Union’s common electricity market and a spate of nuclear reactor shutdowns that left Belgium bracing for blackouts. Those developments have now collided with revelations that the optimization algorithm that integrates Europe’s power markets could potentially trigger blackouts.
The flaw resides, ironically, in a long-anticipated upgrade to Europe’s market algorithm. This promises to boost cross-border electricity flows across Europe, expanding supplies available to ailing systems such as Belgium’s. Earlier this month market news site ICIS reported that the upgrade, in the works since the launch of market coupling in 2010, has been delayed once again Continue reading “Could Europe’s New Grid Algorithm Black-out Belgium?”
Nuclear Shutdowns Put Belgians and Britons on Blackout Alert
A bad year for nuclear power producers has Belgians and Britons shivering more vigorously as summer heat fades into fall. Multiple reactor shutdowns in both countries have heightened concern about the security of power supplies when demand spikes this winter.
In Belgium, rolling blackouts are already part of this winter’s forecast because three of the country’s largest reactors — reactors that normally provide one-quarter of Belgian electricity — are shut down. Continue reading “Nuclear Shutdowns Put Belgians and Britons on Blackout Alert”
Renewables to Dethrone Nuclear Under French Energy Plan
After months of negotiation, the French government has unveiled a long-awaited energy plan that is remarkably true to its election promises. The legislation’s cornerstone is the one-third reduction in the role of nuclear power that President François Hollande proposed on the campaign trail in 2012.
Under the plan, nuclear’s share of the nation’s power generation is to drop from 75 percent to 50 percent by 2025, as renewable energy’s role rises from 15 percent today to 40 percent to make up the difference. That is a dramatic statement for France, which is the world’s second largest generator of nuclear energy, after the United States. France has a globally-competitive nuclear industry led by state-owned utility Electricité de France (EDF) and nuclear technology and services giant Areva. Continue reading “Renewables to Dethrone Nuclear Under French Energy Plan”
Peter Fairley 