Message-ID: <2161906.1075859802690.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 05:30:00 -0700 (PDT) From: issuealert@scientech.com Subject: The Nuclear Future -- A Closer Look at Safety Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: "SCIENTECH IssueAlert" X-To: X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \Mark_Haedicke_Jun2001\Notes Folders\All documents X-Origin: Haedicke-M X-FileName: mhaedic.nsf Today's IssueAlert Sponsors: [IMAGE] Ensure your company's success even in the uncertainty of today's competitive energy markets. Visit Itron at the CIS Conference and learn how to choose the best tools for complex billing and rate management; data management and exchange; and Internet based data presentment and publishing. Itron solutions are successfully operating direct access markets throughout North America. 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Brock Director, Strategic and Competitive Intelligence [News item from AP] Vice President Dick Cheney says the whole nation could face blackouts like those that have hit California unless it finds more oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy. He also suggested federal initiatives to boost the use of hydroelectric dams and the construction of new nuclear power plants. He called nuclear power "a safe, clean, very plentiful energy source." Although one-fifth of the nation's electricity is nuclear-generated, the industry has not sought a government permit to build a new plant in more than 20 years, since before the accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island. Analysis: What a difference a new administration makes. The Clinton administration was generally thought to be anti-nuclear and EPA lawsuits were initiated over coal-fired emission violations. Efficiency and load curtailment was stressed as the answer to any energy crisis. Monday in Toronto, Vice President Dick Cheney stressed that conservation, while perhaps "a sign of personal virtue," does not make for sound or comprehensive policy. Rather, he supports a supply-side approach of constructing new fossil- and nuclear-fueled generation plants. The main concerns with nuclear generation are, of course, safety and the handling of nuclear waste. Supporters of nuclear energy, however, believe these risks are worth managing, especially when compared to the long-term health risks and potential global climate impact of fossil-fueled generation. New nuclear generation designs are being developed that are expected to be inherently safer than predecessor designs. There is an article running in today's Wall Street Journal exploring safer reactor designs for the nuclear power generation industry. The article tells the story of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Andrew Kadak challenging his students at MIT to design a nuclear reactor which doesn't produce carbon dioxide. He told them it should be cheaper to build and simpler to operate than any constructed to date, with no possibility of a meltdown. The students must have done their research quite well as they returned with what is known as a "pebble-bed" reactor. A pebble-bed-nuclear reactor is currently under development by a South African consortium being headed by South African utility Eskom and its South African partner, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). To date, Eskom and IDC have attracted two international investors in their Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project. One is British Nuclear Fuel (BNFL) and the other is better known to the United States as PECO (or Exelon). The PBMR works by using uranium elements (pebbles) encased in graphite to form a fuel sphere (about the size of a tennis ball). In addition, helium is used as the coolant and energy transfer medium to a closed-cycle-gas turbine and generator. So why is it safer than previous nuclear reactor designs? According to PBMR, the safety features are described as follows: "Representative of a new generation of advanced reactors the PBMR is characterized by a series of inherent safety properties, differentiating it from other reactor types. It is due to these characteristics that the PBMR do not require the typical nuclear safety systems to actively guard the plant for the duration of its operational life. The use of graphite as fuel element cladding/moderator and core structural material/reflector means that a core melt situation can be ruled out because of the large difference existing between the normal, average operating temperature (1095°C) and the maximum tolerable temperature (2800°C)." To summarize, the PBMR is a safer design because it utilizes fuel pebbles encased in graphite and makes use of helium as a coolant. Supposedly, this reduces the threat of a core meltdown to a theoretical zero. Also, distributed generation enthusiasts should warm to the fact that this design would be sized to produce about 110MW, which is about 10 percent of the output of a conventional nuclear or fossil fuel-driven power station. The modular approach makes it possible to build smaller nuclear power plants to serve local needs and to expand them as demand grows. Nuclear waste has been an issue for some time now in the United States. Yucca Mountain, located in Nevada is being tested as a suitable site for a spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste repository. Experts throughout the world agree that the most feasible and safe method for disposing of highly radioactive materials is to store them deep underground. Based on this consensus, the United States Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 that directs the Department of Energy (DOE) to find a site and characterize it. If the site is found suitable and a license application is approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the DOE is to build and operate an underground disposal facility. Yucca Mountain is the current site under investigation by the DOE. How much waste are we talking about here? The sources vary on their estimates of how much highly radioactive material waste exists in the United States. However, if we take the range of estimates, it would equate to a football field ranging from fifteen to twenty feet deep. That estimate takes into account all high level nuclear waste generated in the United States since the start of a nuclear program in the 1950s. Compared to other hazardous materials, the amount of nuclear waste generated per year is very small. All of the nuclear plants in the U.S. produce about 30,000 tons of spent fuel a year, whereas 300 million tons of chemical waste are generated in the U.S. per year. According to an information source managed by the University of Missouri-Rolla American Nuclear Society, "Nuclear wastes are, for the same power output, some 3.5 million times smaller in volume than the wastes from coal plants. High-level nuclear wastes can be disposed of by diluting them with twice their own volume of neutral materials as they are changed into glass or ceramic form. The reprocessed waste volume from a 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plant would fit easily under a typical dining room table. A coal plant of the same capacity (1,000 megawatts) produces some 10 tons of waste per minute." And not to bash coal, Vice President Dick Cheney also informed the Toronto audience that the Bush Administration has budgeted an additional $150 million for next year -- up from $82 million this year -- to support development of cleaner coal technologies. The United States has a tremendous coal reserve that clearly the current administration believes must be utilized to meet our growing energy demand. So where does this lead us? It appears that as the years go by, technology is improving the environmental effects of our generation sources. Natural gas is becoming more efficient, coal is getting cleaner, and nuclear is getting safer. The Bush administration appears to be realizing that fuel diversity is a good thing for an energy policy. An over-reliance on any one type of fuel for power generation can cause problems in a crisis situation. Is nuclear making a comeback in the U.S.? The signposts seem to be inferring that it is. Just last week a California grassroots watchdog group proposed plugging nuclear-powered U.S. Navy aircraft carriers into California's power grid. The power from two of three aircraft carriers now on the West Coast could provide enough energy to power a minimum of 400,000 homes in the state. Also, the first demonstration PBMR unit is scheduled for commercial operation by 2005. Should the test prove successful and the NRC approve the design, we could be seeing new nuclear reactors in the United States by 2010. An archive list of previous IssueAlerts is available at www.scientech.com Reach thousands of utility analysts and decision makers every day. Your company can schedule a sponsorship of IssueAlert by contacting Nancy Spring via e-mail or calling (505)244-7613. Advertising opportunities are also available on our website. SCIENTECH is pleased to provide you with your free, daily IssueAlert. Let us know if we can help you with in-depth analyses or any other SCIENTECH information products. If you would like to refer a colleague to receive our free, daily IssueAlerts, please reply to this email and include their full name and email address or register directly on our site. If you no longer wish to receive this daily email, send a message to IssueAlert, and include the word "delete" in the subject line. SCIENTECH's IssueAlerts(SM) are compiled based on the independent analysis of SCIENTECH consultants. The opinions expressed in SCIENTECH's IssueAlerts are not intended to predict financial performance of companies discussed, or to be the basis for investment decisions of any kind. SCIENTECH's sole purpose in publishing its IssueAlerts is to offer an independent perspective regarding the key events occurring in the energy industry, based on its long-standing reputation as an expert on energy issues. Copyright 2001. SCIENTECH, Inc. All rights reserved.