Energy Dark and Energy Light

While I enjoy a little alarmism as much as the next person, an article at CBS really ups the ante in the Mad Max sweepstake:

The world faces an array of intractable energy problems that, if anything, have only worsened in recent weeks.  These problems are multiplying on either side of energy’s key geological divide: below ground, once-abundant reserves of easy-to-get “conventional” oil, natural gas, and coal are drying up; above ground, human miscalculation and geopolitics are limiting the production and availability of specific energy supplies.

Nuclear energy plays into the above ground scenario and author Michael Klare sees one country after another abandoning nuclear energy. After surveying Germany and Japan, he continues:

China also acted swiftly, announcing on March 16th that it would stop awarding permits for the construction of new reactors pending a review of safety procedures, though it did not rule out such investments altogether.  Other countries, including India and the United States, similarly undertook reviews of reactor safety procedures, putting ambitious nuclear plans at risk.

Frankly, acting swiftly seems a good course of action to quell public concerns and trying to learn lessons from Japan and applying them wise. Germany’s move to close its plants has gotten, at best, mixed reviews. And a few new plants planned before the accident, here and in places like Sweden and UAE, are moving right along.

But nuclear is only a part of Klare’s entropic narrative – in his view, the whole energy sphere is collapsing. (Oddly, he give renewable energy sources no space at all.)

I’m pretty sure few if any nuclear energy advocates have quite spun themselves into such marked pessimism. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College (in Massachusetts) and his books, with titles like Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet. and Blood and Oil, deal with the geopolitical implications of energy resource management, with (I think) an eye on Russia as a major villain in asserting its authority as an energy supplier.

In other words, he’s not a crank, and he avoids ideological freight that can weigh down such efforts. He has found his subject and he’s working it toward its logical if not inevitable conclusion. Worth a read, if only to quarrel with it.

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Case in Point: This bit from Bernama, the Malaysian national news agency:

Asia, particularly, the Asia-Pacific remains the main arena for nuclear energy expansion in the world, with at least 40 ongoing projects, a nuclear conference was told Monday.

The rest is an altogether positive article about nuclear energy’s prospects, giving a lot of space to Hooman Peimani from the Energy Studies Institute at the National University of Singapore.

Dr Peimani said demand for nuclear energy remains on the uptrend despite the Fukushima nuclear plant crisis due to the earthquake and tsunami last March.
[..]

But according to him, the negative perception was due to exaggerated reporting by the media and prevailing poor knowledge about nuclear energy worldwide.

The fact is, he said, the world had seen six decades of power generation by nuclear energy starting in the 1950s, and hundreds of nuclear power reactors in operation globally since the 1950s.

In case you need a tonic for Klare, Dr. Peimani is in and will see you now.

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And from Bulgaria:

Bulgaria plans to increase its reliance on nuclear energy by 2020 under a new proposal adopted by the government last week.

"Bulgaria will defend the right to maintain and increase its share of nuclear energy to European institutions," it said.

Currently, Bulgaria relies for 35 percent of its demand on energy from its sole nuclear plant of Kozloduy, while 55 percent comes from coal and gas power plants and 10 percent from renewable energy.

Under the proposal, the country will seek to extend the life of Kozloduy's only two 1,000-megawatt reactors past their 2017 and 2019 operation end dates.

It’d be nice if they built a new reactor or two, also, and get that percentage up a bit. Oh:

It also calls for the construction of two new reactors, either at the existing site or at a new plant in Belene on the Danube, east of Kozloduy.

Well, good.

We featured the Kolozduy plant not too long ago, so thought we’d share with you this lovely house in the town of Kolozduy. It’s on sale for 12 thousand Euro. More here – house prices there seem pretty low in general.

Dialing Down the Alarm; Bulgarian Rectitude

It’s interesting that the NRC, when it wants to make a point, will use the direst language it can think of:

"When training requirements vary among staff, compromised oversight of (spent fuel storage) safety inspections can occur," said the report, released by the NRC.

"Specifically, there is an increased potential that inspections will overlook discrepancies, resulting in an increased risk to public health and safety."

Has there been such an increase? No. But there could be. As a recommendation to train NRC inspectors to do more thorough inspections of dry cask storage containers, it’s exactly right and the language makes the point as clear as it can be. Of course, it also allows news ledes like this:

U.S. citizens may be at risk from radioactive waste stored near nuclear plants as better training for federal safety inspectors and more on-site checks are needed, an internal government report showed on Friday.

Well, maybe it’s not that bad if it spurs this training. But I expect everything that comes out of the safety inspections the NRC and industry are doing will be amplified into imminent peril. It’s just the mood of the day.

If I had any advice to readers, It would be to mentally dial down a lede’s alarm a notch or two and see what the rest of the story says.

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When you see a story like this about Bulgaria:

It's a grim reality for patients and families in Bulgaria, a struggling EU nation where donors are troublingly scarce, hospitals are strapped for funds and blood traders - mainly Gypsy, or Roma, men - are thriving.

- You don’t necessarily find yourself bowled over with surprise. (A good story, by the way, about a much more complex situation than it would seem.)

Bulgaria does have a nuclear plant – Kozloduy – far from a rusty tub with fuel rods.

"Complying with the highest safety standards for nuclear power has a key role in the development of the sector after the accident at Fukushima. At the same time, the requirements should not be impossible to fulfill, as they could block the technological and commercial development of nuclear energy," he said.

That, from Bulgarian Energy Minister Traicho Traikov, seems a kind of declaration that finds some echo across Europe, some disputation. But however one slices it, it seems a balanced statement.

Bulgaria launched a safety check at its nuclear power plant in Kozloduy on March 22 2011, which is not part of the stress tests to be conducted by the EU. After Brussels decides on the criteria for the Europe-wide checks, the facility will start a new stress test in June, Bulgaria's Nuclear Regulatory Agency head Sergei Tsochev said.

Good for Kozloduy. Bulgaria may have some rather grim crevices in its civil society, but nuclear energy wouldn’t seem to roost within any of them.

A little more news from Kolozduy:

A new dry spent nuclear fuel storage facility was officially launched at Bulgaria's Kozloduy by the country's PM, Boyko Borisov, and Economy and Energy Minister, Traicho Traikov.

This is meant to house used fuel from decommissioned plants around the country and essentially becomes a cross between Yucca Mountain, a centralized used fuel repository, and dry cask storage for Kozloduy itself.

The German NUKEM Technologies-GNS has been contracted by Bulgaria to build the depot, which will cost EUR 70.5 M [about $92 million]. The new facility will accommodate casks with spent fuel from the plant's four closed units, currently stored in wet pools, and will be subsequently enlarged to receive casks from the active Units 5 and 6.

Which seems a good approach. The Bulgarians are rolling right along.

Kolozduy. Like the symbols – no mistaking what kind of energy facility it is. Bulgaria gets about 17 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, second to coal, which supplies about 19 percent