Pilgrim, Blobs of Black Oil, Fusion Part 20

We always have time for some good news:

A three-judge panel at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) denied a filing by Massachusetts to stop the relicensing of Entergy's 685-megawatt Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Massachusetts.

This had never seemed a good bet for Massachusetts, which had based its contention on events at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi. Since the NRC is working to apply lessons learned from Fukushima to the American fleet, the state’s contention seemed irrelevant. But – there are further steps to be taken:

The NRC said the state could appeal the ASLB ruling against its Fukushima contention to the five-member, presidentially appointed Commission that oversees the NRC.

The ASLB is is the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which handles these issues. It was the ASLB that created a minor tempest when it ruled the Department of Energy could not withdraw its license application for Yucca Mountain from the NRC. This is smaller in scope, but an important step to (re)establishing where the state’s authority over nuclear facilities ends.

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A little news from Durban, South Africa, where the United Nation’s climate change conference (COP17) is taking place:

Blobs of black oil have mysteriously surfaced on the beaches north of Durban, threatening to spoil them for holidaymakers ahead of the festive season.

Residents began noticing pockets of oil on the shores of Zinkwazi, Salt Rock, Zimbali and Blythedale beaches.

Not very climate changey. Anything else?

As COP17 kicked off on Monday in Durban, several people were reported dead following flooding over the weekend.

The eThekwini Municipality said 10 fatalities were reported, with five of the cases having been confirmed following flooding that resulted in damage to property and infrastructure in Umlazi on Sunday.

The worst-hit area is the central region, with 19 reports of flooding affecting shacks at Quarry road and Puntan's Hill.

Any questions?

(h/t ThinkProgress)

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And now, for something completely different:

In the race against world governments and the wealthiest companies to commercialize a nuclear fusion reactor, a small, innovative Canadian firm is hoping to bottle and sell the sun's energy.

In a laboratory in this Pacific Coast city [Burnaby, Vancouver], General Fusion physicists and engineers in bright red smocks are busy assembling an experimental reactor.

They hope to test a prototype in 2014 and eventually become the first to commercialize the technology, offering a safe, cheap, pollution-free and virtually inexhaustible source of energy.

Ah, sweet mystery of fusion, never to die. The main problem with fusion, as the story notes, is that it takes a cup full of electricity to produce a thimble full. Forget about economy of scale – there’s no economy whatever.

But you’ve got to admire people who look at the sun and think, I can do that, and then try to do that. The only drawback is that it leads to tears – again and again.

General Fusion admits its chances of success are slim -- but backers believe in its proposal, and are pouring CAN$30 million into the project.

Good work if you can get it. Can’t help but wish General Fusion well.

One detail in the story produced a sour burp:

"The central challenge is still that fossil fuels -- getting them out of the ground and burning them -- is still so cheap to do that there is not an adequate incentive to invest in renewables or other low carbon technologies," said Matt Horne, director of the Pembina Institute.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Pembina, a Canadian think tank – it doesn’t like nuclear energy very much, but you can’t have everything - but I do think there’s plenty of incentive to invest in low carbon technologies. In any event, it’s an odd argument from a Canadian outlet – the country generates almost 60 percent of its electricity from hydro. Go figure.

Blobs of black oil - in New Zealand, in this instance.

Not Wasting Opportunities

A few posts down, we spotlighted continued support for nuclear energy from Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. The billionaire’s club may not be big, but it certainly is interested in energy issues.

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has contributed to a $19.5 million round of funding for Canadian nuclear fusion startup General Fusion, marking the web billionaire’s first major investment in nuclear energy.

General Fusion describes itself as a venture capital funded company, so this infusion will doubtless be very welcome. Here’s how the company describes what it is doing:

General Fusion’s approach is based on “magnetized target fusion” concepts first developed about 30 years ago. This approach is a hybrid of traditional “magnetic fusion” and “inertial confinement fusion” methods, and involves first confining plasma in a magnetic field, and then compressing the confined plasma to thermonuclear conditions. General Fusion’s patent-pending fusion technology involves the equipment needed to contain and compress the plasma, and the systems needed to manage the process.

And a little more:

Our generator will operate in a repeating cycle, with each cycle culminating in a burst of fusion energy.

Each cycle will involve:

• creating plasma of deuterium and tritium,

• trapping the plasma within a magnetic field,

• compressing the magnetic field and the plasma within it to thermonuclear conditions, and

• capturing the heat that results from the fusion reaction and using it to generate electricity and power the next cycle.

The company says it will be ready to commercialize its technology by the end of the decade, which sort of fits the “always tomorrow” theme that has dominated nuclear fusion projects. But who knows? I’m not sure Bezos’ money will help fusion to find a commercial application any more than any one else’s money has up to now. But it never hurts to think big. Maybe this time, fusion really does have a tomorrow.

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The confluence of events this week can certainly, along with elation, cause considerable nervousness. So this seems germane:

The tires on a semitrailer delivering hydrogen to Iowa's only nuclear power plant exploded Tuesday, prompting an alert, but the safety of the plant and the public were never affected, a spokeswoman said.

That would be Duane Arnold. Naturally, that led to:

The tires that blew were on a trailer holding several long tanks of hydrogen. A fire started, but officials didn't know whether the exploding tires caused the fire or the fire caused the tires to pop. The plant's on-site fire brigade and local firefighters responded, prompting the alert.

A fire. Around hydrogen. The fire was put out quickly enough, the driver sent to the hospital and the hydrogen put in storage, but anyone who read about this in little bursts had every right to jitter just a little. But the end result?

The plant remains at 100 percent power. It's operating safely," Nelson [Renee Nelson, spokeswoman for NextEra Energy Resources] said.

So there you go. I doubt this would have made the Iowa papers (much less Business Week, where this account originated) most other weeks.

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So why waste an opportunity?

A grass-roots group organized after the Japan nuclear disaster is holding what is expected to be a large rally for nuclear safety at Plymouth Rock on Saturday. Its leaders say it is neither antinuclear nor political in purpose.

“It’s about families. It’s not about politics,’’ said Anna Baker, coleader of Pilgrim: Make Us Safe Today, or Pilgrim: MUST.

The Pilgrim plant? Really? It went online in 1972 and has quietly gone about its business for 40 years, powering about 600,000 homes around about Plymouth (and creating jobs and economic activity and not producing a bunch of emissions). It’s up for license renewal in 2012, so that’s the reason to do something this year.

The protesters sort of grasp that this is a protest against nothing in particular:

To make the rally more positive, the group is focusing on specific problems and proposing solutions. The list begins with the storage of nuclear waste in water inside a plant, which experts say was the source of the greatest danger in the Japanese crisis.

The protest isn’t being held directly in front of Pilgrim but in a nearby state park next to Plymouth Rock. I hope Entergy gets some of the plant employees over there to contribute to the discussion. Sounds like a friendly enough crowd inclined to listen as well as be heard. So why waste an opportunity?

The Pilgrim nuclear plant.