Resurgence in American Nuclear Industry To Start in Ga., Says Energy Chief

In case you missed the tweets from @SouthernCompany or @EnergyPressSec yesterday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu  toured the site where two new reactors are being built at Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Ga. Reconfirming his commitment to nuclear energy, the Nobel Laureate spoke to the more than 500 workers already on site on the need to build new nuclear plants to create jobs for American workers and boost U.S. competitiveness.

“In his State of the Union address, President Obama outlined a blueprint for an American economy that is built to last and develops every available source of American energy,” said Secretary Chu. “Nuclear power is an important part of that blueprint. The work being done in Georgia and at research organizations like Oak Ridge National Laboratory is helping restore American leadership in the global race for the nuclear energy jobs of tomorrow.”

Just how many new jobs is Secretary Chu talking about? Business Week says:

About 1,700 workers are already on the job site and plant managers say that number will grow to nearly 5,000 at the peak of construction. Once the completed units go online, they will employ about 800 permanent workers.

Those numbers only capture the direct jobs from the project, but indirectly, Business Week explains that constructing the two new reactors means a lot more people coming to the area, consuming more goods and services at local businesses. Take, for example, Allen DeLaigle:

"Plant Vogtle has pretty well saved Burke County," said Allen DeLaigle, who owns and manages an RV park with his twin brother about 4 miles from the nuclear plant.

Since site preparation ramped up for the new units, DeLaigle's park has filled about 90 of its 151 spaces with RVs and campers owned by workers coming in from other states such as Alabama and Mississippi, West Virginia and Ohio.

Or Robin Baxley:

Robin Baxley, owner of a Waynesboro office supply store, added two new employees to keep up with deliveries of pens, paper, marker boards and thumb drives to the modular offices set up on the construction site. Her business also supplied the cubicles, desks and file cabinets for many of those temporary offices

"They helped us make it through the economic downturn," Baxley said. "Office furniture is not the first thing people buy when they can hardly make payroll."

The project also will create approximately 35,000 jobs for suppliers and manufacturers, which is why groups like the National Association of Manufacturers wholeheartedly support the project:

Manufacturers use one-third of the energy consumed in the Unites States, so building new reliable sources of energy is essential to our competitiveness. Building new nuclear power plants also means the creation of quality jobs for Americans at a time when we need them the most. The Vogtle plant alone will create 5,000 new jobs and will have a tremendous positive impact for the many jobs in the nuclear energy supply chain. 

The amount of jobs this project is creating has not gone unnoticed by the public. In fact, on the day of the announcement, I took a phone call from a member of the public asking where he could find information online to apply for a job. I also saw comments like this one on Twitter:

If the overall goal is to create new jobs, make America more competitive and invest in an emission-free, domestic energy source, then this is the way to do it, said Secretary Chu on the tour:

“America has the opportunity to lead the world in clean energy technologies and to provide a foundation for our future prosperity. What you are doing here at Vogtle will help us compete in the global clean energy race and provide domestic, clean power to U.S. homes.”

During his visit to the site, Secretary Chu announced a funding opportunity of up to $10 million for research and development toward advanced nuclear reactor and fuel cycle technologies and also announced that the agency will be putting together an internal working group—chaired by Peter Lyons—to recommend a nuclear waste strategy to the secretary by the summer.

Continuing with his busy week, today the secretary testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee on the agency’s fiscal year 2013 budget request. (See the committee’s archived webcast and Secretary Chu’s testimony for more information.)

Photo: Southern Co.’s Tom Fanning and Energy Secretary Steven Chu on a tour of the Plant Vogtle site. Photo courtesy of Southern Co.

Mr. Burns Makes Surprise Appearance in D.C.

Working in Washington, D.C., I’ve become very accustomed to seeing street protests of all types and sizes. From the big, inflatable scary rat that pops up on a sidewalk, to construction workers chanting and banging on drums, to the truckers of America riding on Independence Avenue honking their horns, there’s always a little something for anyone who is ready, willing and able to protest.
So, when I saw this little nugget in last Monday’s Politico Morning Energy, I got very excited to see what the day would hold:

Noon - The group Beyond Nuclear holds a Halloween event in front of DOE headquarters to protest federal support for nuclear power. Costumes and street theater have been promised.

Costumes? Street theater? What more could a girl want on Halloween?
Well ... exactly that!

The group was not as organized as one might think. Other than “Mr. Burns” speaking into a camera, I’d call the “Scream Rally” a poor showing at best.
But, Beyond Nuclear, the proud organizers of this event, still heralded it a “screaming” success (pardon the pun) in their weekly newsletter.

Staff from Beyond Nuclear along with representatives from Pax Christi and other organizations were at the DOE on the last day of public comment on the [blue ribbon] commission’s draft report.

I’m guessing several of the “representatives” had to call in sick to the rally given that Halloween fell on a Monday and they probably had to do their day jobs. Regardless, the poorly attended rally did give “Mr. Burns” the platform he needed to voice his opinions on nuclear energy.

I guess I’ll have to stay tuned for the next “protest” to grace D.C. streets.
Photo of Beyond Nuclear protestors in front of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Forrestal building.

Terror and the Nuclear Energy Industry

The US electric reliability watchdog and the power sector said Thursday that they are working with federal authorities and within the industry to shore up security in the face of a recent federal bulletin about potential threats to private sector utilities.

The Department of Homeland Security issued the bulletin on Tuesday.

That’s scary. Not that the utility sector is on a heightened alert and doing something about it but that the need is there to do so. The watchdog in this case is the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), which oversees the reliability and adequacy of bulk power transmission in North America (meaning the the U.S., Canada and a bit of Mexico).

Interestingly, NERC and the Department of Energy released a report last month on just this subject.

The report examines three high-impact, low-frequency risks in detail: coordinated cyber, physical, or blended attacks; pandemic illness; and Geomagnetic Disturbances (GMD) and Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) events. These risks are rare, and in some cases have never occurred. Certain protections and mitigations are already in place to address these risks, and the study released today will help the electric sector, public utility commissions, and the federal government to further prepare for these potential risks.

The report itself can be found here. There are a number of proposals for ensuring the safety of the grid. The first one seems germane to the DHS bulletin:

The U.S. DOE and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and appropriate government authorities in Canada should work together to establish clearer and more direct lines of communication and coordination with the electric sector. Focus should be given to improving the timely dissemination of information concerning impending threats and specific vulnerabilities, and on the provision of information with sufficient engineering depth for private sector
entities to evaluate and deploy suggested mitigations.

And that appears to be what has happened in the current instance. The rest of the proposals are well worth reading (in fact, the entire report is interesting.)

Beyond what DHS and NERC have done, several utilities have responded. Here, for example, is Progress Energy:

“It’s something, obviously, we take very seriously,” Progress Energy spokesman Mike Hughes said Thursday morning.

He adds that Progress conducts thorough background checks on all employees, including contract employees, and continues to monitor workers throughout their stay with the company. Some are subjected to psychological examinations.

As for physical protection, Progress, and indeed all nuclear energy facilities, have ramped up security measures, Hughes said, to include more security personnel and better physical barriers to prevent a break in.

And NEI’s response:

Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Steven Kerekes said that "US nuclear energy facilities have in place a comprehensive security structure -- strengthened after the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- that includes extensive background checks even for temporary employees who would be authorized to work within a plant's 'protected area.' This includes a criminal history review conducted by the FBI."

The DHS guidance "illustrates the ongoing vigilance applied in this area even though, as the DHS notes, there is no specific, credible intelligence of an imminent threat to private sector utilities," Kerekes said.

You can see that the threat here regards the possibility of an inside attack.

"We knew about insider threats and we do have mechanisms in place whether cyber, physical or personnel related," said Ed Legge, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, the Washington lobby for IOUs [investor owned utilities]. "We tend to have employee redundancy as much as physical redundancy. We have groups of people running the grid versus one guy at any one time and groups of people protecting it as well."

NEI has a section of its web site devoted to plant security and a fact sheet that provides good information about the subject. Here’s a bit detailing the history of a nuclear facility’s security profile:

Congress also responded to public concern over nuclear plant security by including in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 several provisions that increase security requirements or capabilities. As part of the bill, the NRC was directed to officially increase the scope of the design basis threat. It also requires plants to fingerprint and conduct background checks of their employees.

The bill also allowed the NRC to authorize security officers to carry certain advanced weaponry. In addition, the bill increased federal penalties for sabotage and for bringing unauthorized weapons on to a nuclear power plant site.

Many industry security elements are considered “safeguards” information, which means they are controlled on a “need-to-know” basis. Clearly, plant protection capabilities and response strategy should be controlled and protected from public disclosure to avoid compromises that might benefit a potential adversary.

As Kerekes said above, this was all responsive to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, initially targeting “a suicidal, well-trained paramilitary force, armed with automatic weapons and explosives and intent on forcing its way into a nuclear power plant to commit radiological sabotage.” It’s rather sad that such a scenario describes both the world we live in and a bad straight-to-cable action movie. But there it is.

The notion of an insider helping the attacking force was considered originally, so this is not a more recent concern, but the later revision takes account of what DHS is now warning about: an insider who can do considerable damage without help from the outside.

As the bit above makes clear, some of the strategies put in place are not known publically, but what is known is that nuclear energy plants vastly ramped up their security protocols after 2001 and took account of potential insider subversion along the way.

I’m sure this is all true of utilities in general – especially since NERC and its regulatory wing, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (yes, they’re NERC and FERC), interact with other energy generators as well as nuclear facilities (though the NRC can be said to take the lead on such issues in the case of nuclear plants).

So, is this DHS bulleting worrying? Sure it is – one would be foolish not to worry. But is the energy sector, and specifically the nuclear energy sector, utterly without recourse? No – it’s well prepared to deal – and harshly! – with anyone who tries to disrupt the flow of electricity.

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On a less alarming note, let’s just say: It’s hot outside! Really hot in many parts of the country, including in Washington, D.C.  And let’s allow that nuclear energy facilities are well-positioned to keep movie theater, bowling alleys and your home nicely crisp and cool:

U.S. reactors, on average, posted a capacity factor of 95.3 percent during the week of July 16-22. Capacity factor is the ratio of the actual electric output of a power plant over a period of time and its output if it had operated at full capacity the entire time. In other words, most nuclear energy facilities were operating around the clock throughout the week.

In fact, only three reactors were down last week. Now, we’re sure that our coal and wind and etc. cousins are doing their bit, but one of the great benefits of nuclear energy is that its facilities can achieve such a high capacity factor for as long as summer lasts (and beyond). If you want, you can keep up with capacity factors on a daily basis because the NRC posts it here for you to peruse. 

We would ask you to let us know when it droops to 36 percent (the average capacity factor of wind power), but then we’d never hear from you. Stay cool!

At the Nuclear Energy Assembly

NEI hosted its annual Nuclear Energy Assembly in Washington DC Tuesday and Wednesday with a solid lineup of speakers and plenty of opportunities for attendees to catch up with colleagues and industry pals. Let’s consider the latter analog social media and leave it at that.

The speakers represented a topflight assemblage of industry, government and regulatory figures. Happily, none tried “the future is bright for nuclear energy” approach you might reasonably expect at an industry meeting. Everyone looked at the year and years ahead through clear eyes.

Here’s a bit of what they had to say:

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko expressed the continued confidence of his agency in the safety of U.S. nuclear energy facilities.

“The commission remains confident in the programs of the NRC and in the safety of the nation’s nuclear power plants,” he said, noting that in 2010 “there were no statistically significant adverse trends in industry performance.”

Still, Jaczko warned the gathered nuclear energy executives against complacency. He noted an increase in the number of automatic reactor shutdowns and significant reactor events in 2010 compared to 2009.

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In the wake of events in Japan, the head of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations has proposed an international organization for emergency response to accidents at nuclear energy facilities.

“Events of the last few weeks have clearly shown the benefits of significantly improving site-specific plans while moving beyond them to establish and formalize a national and even international response capability worthy of the name,” said James Ellis, INPO’s president and CEO.

Formed after the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, INPO is an industry-established organization that rigorously promotes excellence in nuclear energy facility safety and operations.

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Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman made clear that the president’s support for nuclear power remains unwavering, as the events at Japan’s Fukushima plant continue to unfold.

“The president made clear that we still see nuclear energy as an important element of a diverse clean energy portfolio and an important source of low-carbon baseload electricity,” said Poneman.

The domestic nuclear energy industry must continue to make safe and secure operations its top priority, said Poneman, who is also the Energy Department’s chief operating officer.

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In order to “win the future” we need to continue investing in nuclear and other forms of clean energy, Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said.

“Advances in innovation don’t occur in a vacuum,” said Clyburn. “We must make the necessary investments today. Unless we keep innovating, exploring and investing in basic research, our economy will shrivel and die.”

Clyburn said that recent nuclear energy budgets “have been more generous,” but international competition means the country will have to push harder to keep the edge in innovation.

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Events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility “have changed the industry landscape,” said Laurent Stricker, chairman of the World Association of Nuclear Operators.

And, Stricker said, WANO is changing to respond to a post-Fukushima world. For example, he anticipates a better WANO strategy for sharing operational experience and safety information among members and with such organizations as the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations, Japan Nuclear Technology Institute, World Nuclear Association and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

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Given this round-up, I suspect the next year will be an extremely interesting time.

Consider the Nuclear Energy Assembly a snapshot in atomic time: we’ll check back in 2012 to see how things are going.

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This is all original reporting, by Chris Charles, Lynne Neal, T.J. Swanek and myself.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko at NEA.