Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Power Engineering's Top Stories 6/3

Top Stories

Carbon emissions to decline 30% by 2030; states can create plans, EPA says
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced rules aimed at cutting carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent by 2030.
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DTE Energy acquires wind farm, renames
DTE Energy (NYSE: DTE) has purchased one of two Pheasant Run wind parks from a NextEra Energy Resources LLC. (NYSE: NEE) subsidiary.
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Kansas gives go-ahead again to new coal plant
A state regulator has given the go-ahead again for the construction of a $2.8 billion coal-fired power plant in southwest Kansas.
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Cat litter may have led to radiation leak at WIPP
Kitty litter may be to blame for a radiation leak at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, but workers continue their investigation.
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Industry News

Turkey nuclear power plant to be operational by 2023
Turkey’s planned Akkuyu nuclear power plant is expected to be operational by 2023.
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Exelon, Pepco Holdings file merger application with FERC
Exelon Corp. (NYSE: EXC) and Pepco Holdings Inc. (NYSE: POM) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for approval of the proposed merger of the companies.
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Wind power industry adds 485 MW in first quarter
With 26 percent growth from the first quarter in 2013, the wind energy industry has installed 485-MW of wind power capacity during the same time this year.
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Missouri S&T shuts down campus coal plant
A World War II-era power plant at Missouri University of Science & Technology has been shut down as the Rolla school transitions to a more energy-efficient geothermal system.
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More Headlines
• First Wind’s solar project in Massachusetts begins commercial operations
• IKEA to install Kansas’ largest solar rooftop
• Siemens, Clariant to create coal gasification technology
• PPL keeps Susquehanna 1 nuclear unit offline after maintenance outage
• ITC approved for public utility status in Wisconsin
• APR Energy names new COO
• Environmentalists urge more green energy for NY
• American Boiler Manufacturers Association names new president, CEO
• Bluesphere receives emissions permit for waste-to-energy project in North Carolina
• Ohio bill would limit impact of new pollution rule
• Kansas officials studying EPA greenhouse gas rule
• W.Va. determining impact of new pollution rule

Industry Trends

Giving States the Power to Tax Carbon, June 1, 2014

http://www.plattstv.com/video/giving-states-the-power-to-tax-carbon/3595086206001

Carbon Reduction Requires Big Role for Nuclear Energy

‘Without Nuclear, No Chance to Meet Climate Change Goals’

http://www.nei.org/News-Media/Media-Room/News-Releases/Carbon-Reduction-Requires-Big-Role-for-Nuclear-Ene

EPA Carbon pollution emission guidelines – New and preserved nuclear capacity

http://atomicinsights.com/epa-climate-rules-new-preserved-nuclear-capacity/

Tepco, Detailed Analysis Results in the Port of Fukushima Daiichi NPS, around Discharge Channel and Bank Protection — Underground Water Obtained at Bank Protection

Tepco, Detailed Analysis Results in the Port of Fukushima Daiichi NPS, around Discharge Channel and Bank Protection — Underground Water Obtained at Bank Protection (pdf):http://www.tepco.co.jp/en/nu/fukushima-np/f1/smp/2014/images/2tb-east_14052802-e.pdf
Results Published May 28, 2014 (Bq/liter):

KUSP, May 30, 2014: [Ken Buesseler, Senior scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution] doesn’t worry about cesium-containing fish swimming across the ocean and appearing in other fisheries. The situation is different for strontium-90 [...] Strontium behaves like calcium, and it can replace calcium in your bones. “Instead of [cesium's] 50 days, think of more like 500 days, a couple of years, before it would be released back through natural processes,” he says. [...] In the ocean near the power plant, levels of strontium-90 have grown since the accident. But Buesseler says he hasn’t seen alarming numbers for strontium in fish yet. “Down the road, as we see strontium becoming more of concern, that isotope in the food chain will have to be studied more carefully,” he says. Buesseler hopes to monitor strontium levels in the ocean and seafloor near Japan in the future. Should that strontium move across the Pacific Ocean, it will take three years for it to reach the West Coast of the United States.
Full KUSP broadcast herehttp://blogs.kusp.org/features/2014/05/29/fukushima-in-fish/

Harvey Wasserman on Forgotten Fukushima

Harvey Wasserman on Forgotten Fukushima
"Newsflash: Fukushima Is Still a Disaster" -- The corporate media silence on Fukushima has been deafening even though the melted-down nuclear power plant's seaborne radiation is now washing up on American beaches.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/newsflash_fukushima_is_still_a_disaster_20140603

Is the White House’s Open Data Strategy Working for Energy?

Is the White House’s Open Data Strategy Working for Energy? « Breaking Energy - Energy industry news, analysis, and commentary

EPA Unveils ‘Flexible’ Path to 30% Carbon Emissions Cut by 2030

EPA Unveils ‘Flexible’ Path to 30% Carbon Emissions Cut by 2030 « Breaking Energy - Energy industry news, analysis, and commentary

EPA’s Clean Power Plan to Fight Climate Change and Build the Clean Energy Economy

EPA’s Clean Power Plan to Fight Climate Change and Build the Clean Energy Economy « Breaking Energy - Energy industry news, analysis, and commentary

Monday, June 2, 2014

Jacopo Buongiorno, MIT

By Jason Deign on May 14, 2014

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have proposed a tsunami-proof nuclear concept that combines current reactor technology with a rig similar to those used in oil and gas. MIT’s Jacopo Buongiorno outlines the benefits.

Jacopo Buongiorno is the lead author of a paper on the offshore small modular reactor (OSMR), in which reactors can be sited in deep water using an oil rig-like platform.
Q: What is unique about the OSMR concept?
The first thing to say is that even though our paper discusses an offshore floating SMR, the concept is not limited to SMRs. In principle, you could have a 1,000MW reactor. The platform would be bigger, that’s all.
It is unique compared to Russian floating reactors because those are floating plants but they are not really offshore.
By putting our concept a few miles off the coast, should there be an accident you would have more distance from habitation; say up to 10 miles, which is the current mandated evacuation zone in the US. The other difference has to do with tsunamis.
If you have a plant on the coast, it could still be damaged by a tsunami wave. But at 100 metres of depth they are of no concern; the plant rides the wave. Tsunamis are eliminated as a security concern. That makes our concept different to the Russian concept.
There are two other concepts that might be compared to ours. One is the French submerged concept, Flexblue, but that is essentially designed to be operated remotely. The other is the old Atlantic generating station idea that progressed to a contract with Westinghouse.
However, that was a large terrestrial plant mounted on a barge, which did not take advantage of any of the intrinsic advantages of being offshore, like putting the reactor below the water level for cooling purposes.
Q: Where do you expect to commercialise this?
Currently in the US the appetite for new reactors is very low, as we have extremely low prices for natural gas. Nuclear is clearly not the preferred choice. But the situation could change very quickly if we start exporting gas.
Western Europe is heavily dependent on Russian gas and one thing the US could do is start selling American liquefied natural gas to Europe.
That could push domestic gas prices up again, and then this reactor would make sense on the West Coast because you have deep water, up to around 100 metres, fairly close to shore.
Even today, it would still make sense in any country with deep water next to the shore and any country that is highly seismic, because it eliminates the tsunami problem.
So in Japan, Chile, Peru, China, the Philippines and Indonesia, all countries that are highly seismic, it would make a lot of sense.
Q: How would you deal with operations and maintenance?
As far as operations are concerned, what we have in mind is the oil and gas platform model, having people on the rig for two or three-week shifts.
Minor maintenance would be done by the crew on board and for major maintenance you would move the rig back to a centralised facility, say every 10 to 15 years.
Q: Are there safety considerations with being so far offshore?
The basic safety question with nuclear reactors is how to ensure cooling under any circumstances. Our reactor is in a containment structure that is of the order of 15 to 20 metres underwater, so we have easy access to ocean water.
We are using the ocean as our ultimate heat sink. Even if you have a meltdown, which is very unlikely, the fuel and radioactivity are retained in the reactor.

- See more at: http://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/small-modular-reactors/jacopo-buongiorno-mit#sthash.OZLMuyXO.dpuf

NUCLEAR: White House throws ailing reactors a potential lifeline

NUCLEAR:

White House throws ailing reactors a potential lifeline

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060000559

Minister says more Mideast reactors planned

http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2989783

Eight states commit to zero emission vehicles - FierceEnergy

EPA Carbon Rule Announcement and Important Considerations | The Energy Collective

Los Alamos Approved Nuclear-Waste Packing Mix, Despite Risks | Global Security Newswire | NTI

Platts Publishes Latest Rankings of U.S. Electric Power | Platts Press Release | Media | Platts

Nuclear Energy Institute - Carbon Reduction Requires Big Role for Nuclear Energy

Cleantech Industry and Venture Capital Distribution Fairness | The Energy Collective

Nuclear Giant Exelon Launches Front Group to Cover Its Assets | Elliott Negin

Panasonic's robotic exoskeletons could help nuclear plant workers | PCWorld

Turkey: Akkuyu nuclear power plant to be operational by 2023 - Economy - ANSAMed.it

China to commission new nuclear power reactors in 2015 - Energy Business Review

Nuclear power still safest, cleanest form of energy

Iran Joined by a Third of IAEA Members Shirking Nuclear Duties - Bloomberg

Fukushima ice wall under construction

Fukushima ice wall under construction
Construction has started of a wall of frozen soil at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to prevent groundwater entering the reactor buildings. The ice wall is expected to take nine months to complete.http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS-Fukushima-ice-wall-under-construction-0206144.html

Atucha 2 nearing startup

Atucha 2 nearing startup
Argentina's newest nuclear power reactor, Atucha 2, is expected to reach criticality and be connected to the grid within sixty days.http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Atucha-2-nearing-startup-0206147.html

Fukushima Updates 6/2/14 -

Fukushima Updates 6/2/14 -

This week's totals for spent fuel transfers and evacuee compensation... The radioactive Cesium levels in the F. Daiichi basements continue to drop... The F. Daiichi Cesium absorption system will be upgraded to also remove Strontium... Naraha Town government has re-opened their town hall... Two men have been arrested on suspicion of evacuee compensation fraud... Residents of the F. Daiichi host communities are displeased with rural radioactive waste storage plans... Miyagi reconstruction workers claim they are underpaid and overworked... Japan’s Atomic Industrial Forum has published a pamphlet on the Onagawa station and the 2011 quake/tsunami... and more.

http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-accident-updates.html

Study: Jobs, Economic Growth to States From Crude Exports « Breaking Energy - Energy industry news, analysis, and commentary

AEP expects to retire power plants under EPA rule | Utility Dive

BREAKING: EPA announces CO2 emissions rule for power plants | Utility Dive

Why This Matters | George Monbiot

Is Current Warming Natural?

In Earth’s history before the Industrial Revolution, Earth’s climate changed due to natural causes not related to human activity. Most often, global climate has changed because of variations in sunlight. Tiny wobbles in Earth’s orbit altered when and where sunlight falls on Earth’s surface. Variations in the Sun itself have alternately increased and decreased the amount of solar energy reaching Earth. Volcanic eruptions have generated particles that reflect sunlight, brightening the planet and cooling the climate. Volcanic activity has also, in the deep past, increased greenhouse gases over millions of years, contributing to episodes of global warming.

A biographical sketch of Milutin Milankovitch describes how changes in Earth’s orbit affects its climate.

These natural causes are still in play today, but their influence is too small or they occur too slowly to explain the rapid warming seen in recent decades. We know this because scientists closely monitor the natural and human activities that influence climate with a fleet of satellites and surface instruments.

Images of the Atmospheric Research Observatory and Polar Operational Environmental Satellite.

Remote meteorological stations (left) and orbiting satellites (right) help scientists monitor the causes and effects of global warming. [Images courtesy NOAA Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (left) and Environmental Visualization Laboratory (right).]

NASA satellites record a host of vital signs including atmospheric aerosols (particles from both natural sources and human activities, such as factories, fires, deserts, and erupting volcanoes), atmospheric gases (including greenhouse gases), energy radiated from Earth’s surface and the Sun, ocean surface temperature changes, global sea level, the extent of ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice, plant growth, rainfall, cloud structure, and more.
On the ground, many agencies and nations support networks of weather and climate-monitoring stations that maintain temperature, rainfall, and snow depth records, and buoys that measure surface water and deep ocean temperatures. Taken together, these measurements provide an ever-improving record of both natural events and human activity for the past 150 years.
Scientists integrate these measurements into climate models to recreate temperatures recorded over the past 150 years. Climate model simulations that consider only natural solar variability and volcanic aerosols since 1750—omitting observed increases in greenhouse gases—are able to fit the observations of global temperatures only up until about 1950. After that point, the decadal trend in global surface warming cannot be explained without including the contribution of the greenhouse gases added by humans.
Though people have had the largest impact on our climate since 1950, natural changes to Earth’s climate have also occurred in recent times. For example, two major volcanic eruptions, El Chichon in 1982 and Pinatubo in 1991, pumped sulfur dioxide gas high into the atmosphere. The gas was converted into tiny particles that lingered for more than a year, reflecting sunlight and shading Earth’s surface. Temperatures across the globe dipped for two to three years.

Graphs of the magnitudes of natural and anthropogenic influences on climate from 1889 to 2006.

Although Earth’s temperature fluctuates naturally, human influence on climate has eclipsed the magnitude of natural temperature changes over the past 120 years. Natural influences on temperature—El Niño, solar variability, and volcanic aerosols—have varied approximately plus and minus 0.2° C (0.4° F), (averaging to about zero), while human influences have contributed roughly 0.8° C (1° F) of warming since 1889. (Graphs adapted from Lean et al., 2008.)

Although volcanoes are active around the world, and continue to emit carbon dioxide as they did in the past, the amount of carbon dioxide they release is extremely small compared to human emissions. On average, volcanoes emit between 130 and 230 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. By burning fossil fuels, people release in excess of 100 times more, about 26 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere every year (as of 2005). As a result, human activity overshadows any contribution volcanoes may have made to recent global warming.
Changes in the brightness of the Sun can influence the climate from decade to decade, but an increase in solar output falls short as an explanation for recent warming. NASA satellites have been measuring the Sun’s output since 1978. The total energy the Sun radiates varies over an 11-year cycle. During solar maxima, solar energy is approximately 0.1 percent higher on average than it is during solar minima.

Extreme ultraviolet images of the sun during Solar Max and Solar Minimum.

The transparent halo known as the solar corona changes between solar maximum (left) and solar minimum (right). (NASA Extreme Ultraviolet Telescope images from the SOHO Data Archive.)

Each cycle exhibits subtle differences in intensity and duration. As of early 2010, the solar brightness since 2005 has been slightly lower, not higher, than it was during the previous 11-year minimum in solar activity, which occurred in the late 1990s. This implies that the Sun’s impact between 2005 and 2010 might have been to slightly decrease the warming that greenhouse emissions alone would have caused.

Graph of total solar irradiance from 1978 to 2010.

Satellite measurements of daily (light line) and monthly average (dark line) total solar irradiance since 1979 have not detected a clear long-term trend. (NASA graph by Robert Simmon, based on data from the ACRIM Science Team.)

Scientists theorize that there may be a multi-decadal trend in solar output, though if one exists, it has not been observed as yet. Even if the Sun were getting brighter, however, the pattern of warming observed on Earth since 1950 does not match the type of warming the Sun alone would cause. When the Sun’s energy is at its peak (solar maxima), temperatures in both the lower atmosphere (troposphere) and the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) become warmer. Instead, observations show the pattern expected from greenhouse gas effects: Earth’s surface and troposphere have warmed, but the stratosphere has cooled.

Graph of tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures from 1978 to 2010.

Satellite measurements show warming in the troposphere (lower atmosphere, green line) but cooling in the stratosphere (upper atmosphere, red line). This vertical pattern is consistent with global warming due to increasing greenhouse gases, but inconsistent with warming from natural causes. (Graph by Robert Simmon, based on data from Remote Sensing Systems, sponsored by the NOAA Climate and Global Change Program.)

The stratosphere gets warmer during solar maxima because the ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet light; more ultraviolet light during solar maxima means warmer temperatures. Ozone depletion explains the biggest part of the cooling of the stratosphere over recent decades, but it can’t account for all of it. Increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the troposphere and stratosphere together contribute to cooling in the stratosphere.

The Rise of the Personal Power Plant

Smart and agile power systems will let every home and business generate, store, and share electricity

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/the-rise-of-the-personal-power-plant

Climate change: How do we know?

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence

NASA Satellite Measurements Imply Texas Wind Farm Impact on Surface Temperature

NASA Satellite Measurements Imply Texas Wind Farm Impact on Surface Temperature
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/tx-wind-farm.html

211th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

211th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Bloggers

This week’s bloggers are Gail Marcus, Adam Hoffman, Brian Wang, Rod Adams and Leslie Corrice. Topics include the Veteran’s Administration needs nuclear lessons, disposal of waste Plutonium, status of a fusion energy project, a Helen Caldicott documentary, retired seniors working to rebuild a Fukushima town, Fukushima workers not fleeing the accident, and the status of Fukushima evacuee compensation payments. http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/fukushima-commentary.html

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Exchanging Information on the Nuclear Fuel Cycle

2 Comments Posted by Moderator on May 29, 2014

Maria Guardiola

Chemical Engineer

Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards

If you follow the NRC closely, you’ve probably heard about our annual Regulatory Information Conference, which brings together a couple thousand people from around the world to discuss a wide range of topics related to the NRC’s work. This type of conference is an invaluable forum for the NRC and a variety of stakeholders—licensees, the public, other government officials—to discuss emerging issues, policy initiatives and nuclear safety.
In a couple weeks we’ll hold a similar but much smaller and more focused conference. The Fuel Cycle Information Exchange will be held June 10-11 at our Rockville, Md., headquarters. It allows the NRC to talk to and hear from industry, the public and government officials about issues related to the nuclear fuel cycle. By that we mean facilities that process uranium ore, meaning they convert it into a form that can be enriched (concentrated), enrich the uranium and fabricate it into nuclear fuel.
The ability to exchange information with stakeholders is so important to the work the NRC does. We value input from all our stakeholders, even from our critics. This format allows open dialogue and a free exchange of views that strengthens the safety basis for our decisions and fosters a greater awareness of important regulatory issues.
Much like the RIC, the fuel cycle conference is heavy on technical details but also features higher level policy talks from senior-level NRC managers. This year’s program includes remarks from Chairman Allison Macfarlane, chief executive Mark Satorius, and his deputy for materials, Mike Weber. Here are just some of the items on the agenda:

NRC’s Yucca Mountain activities
Analyzing chemical hazards
Radiation protection standards
Decommissioning planning
Nonproliferation and security
Considering spent fuel storage when designing nuclear fuel

Participants are also invited to tour the NRC’s Emergency Operations Center, where managers and staff would converge to monitor a licensee’s response to an emergency.
Join us if you can, or tune into our webcast of the executive remarks. If it doesn’t fit into your plans, though, you can rest assured we will use this conference to talk through important issues that will help us to keep you safe. You can find more information here.