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.

NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer Appears on PBS News Hour

Last night, NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer, Tony Pietrangelo, appeared on the PBS News Hour to discuss the future of the industry in the wake of the awarding of a COL to Plant Vogtle.

Running Out of Road in Belgium

Germany is a big country with a big problem when it  comes to closing its nuclear plants. Belgium is a smaller country with the same problem and somehow it’s still a pretty big one:

With just three years to go before Belgium is due to begin phasing out nuclear power, the country is still grappling with basic questions about its plans, including whether the 2015 deadline has to be adjusted to ensure electricity supplies remain reliable.

To be honest, if you want to close nuclear plants, you have to prepare for the loss of a lot of electricity and the very real possibility that the price to customers will go up, in some cases considerably. Belgium hasn’t prepared for any of this.

Melchior Wathelet, the country's new state secretary for energy, said in an interview that a study currently being prepared, for presentation by July, will assess whether there is "an alternative that would guarantee the security of supply at an acceptable price and respecting the environment."

If it were the U.S., one might poke up one’s hand and say, “Natural gas!” But that’s not a very good option for Belgium because it would likely get the gas from Russia – the whole reason, I’d guess, the phrase “security of supply” is in that statement.

Once you’ve eliminated natural gas, the answer to Mr. Wathelet’s conundrum is that Belgium will have to make an unattractive decision – accept higher electricity rates via imported sources – such as nuclear energy from France – or flip the switch on some of the shuttered coal plants.

But:

"I will say that I am getting out of [nuclear] only when I am sure I have an alternative ready," Mr. Wathelet said. Nuclear power accounts for roughly 55% of Belgium's electricity production.

Gulp! An alternative to 55 percent of your electricity production? And fast? Good luck, Mr. Wathelet.

We’ve said several times that nuclear energy is not a trap for the unwary – you don’t have to be wedded to it however much good it has done for your energy profile – but perhaps we should amend that. Nuclear energy is a trap for bad policy makers because the atom produces a lot of emission-free electricity for not very much money. (New facilities are relatively expensive to build but exceedingly inexpensive to run. As soon as you’ve paid off your fixed costs, gravy.) Countries reap the benefits with happier electricity customers – who are not paying as much as their non-nuclear neighbors and are doing their bit to combat climate change.

I genuinely don’t get why the Germans and Belgians would make  decisions that are likely to cause at least some social harm. I understand the German anxiety caused by Chernobyl colored its view of Fukushima, but I also know that that fear didn’t amount to anything. With Belgium, it was a bill blithely passed in 2003 to shut the plants after 40 years of operation – with the idea of what to replace them with kicked down the road like an old can.

Belgium is now out of road – and holding a can full of coal.

If the Germans and Belgians had behaved with any sense of responsibility, they might not have gotten into such an awful situation – and might still leave nuclear energy behind, though perhaps in a more orderly way and with further thought behind it.

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What a difference a little time and cooler heads can make:

After last year’s disaster at Fukushima, many forecast the death of the nuclear power industry as countries jumped out of this potent fuel for other alternatives. Some looked for fossil fuels to play a bigger role in electricity production, while others predicted greater dependence on clean tech products such as wind and solar instead. While both of these types have increased somewhat in importance, nuclear power doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon, at least in some markets.

From Christine Whitman and Patrick Moore:

The United States has taken an important step toward efficiently meeting the country's rising electricity demand by ensuring a greater supply of clean, safe nuclear power.

With plans in place in Georgia for the construction of the next generation of nuclear energy facilities, this industry expansion will promote economic prosperity and continued development of a sustainable clean energy source. We need a cost-efficient, low-carbon solution to the nation's increasing electricity demand- projected to rise 24 percent by 2035. Expanding nuclear energy as part of the mix of electricity generation options is necessary to meeting our nation's growing power needs cleanly and cost-effectively.

From The Trenton (N.J.) Times:

How can we best provide energy for New Jersey’s economic expansion? The answer is nuclear power — and building a new plant to capitalize on nuclear power’s economic and environmental benefits. Such a plant can supply large amounts of affordable power from a small amount of fuel all day, every day, without polluting the air or loading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.

This one almost goes over the top – but in a good way.

A quick look at the mid-Atlantic region and around the country shows that the revival of nuclear power is picking up steam and public support.

Some of this is reaction to Southern Co. getting a license to build two new reactors at Plant Vogtle – but some of what I’ve seen has just seemed free-floating support for the atom. Appreciated.

The Tihange facility in Belgium.

On Vogtle: Reaction and News Coverage

The importance of the license granted (or virtually so, as the Commission technically authorized issuance of the license, but did not issue the license itself) to Southern Co. to build two reactors on its  Plant Vogtle site in Georgia is quite real – I noticed that the New York Times and Washington Post put on their first pages that it might happen today.

That’s anticipation for you.

Well, it did happen today – well, the NRC authorized it to happen. A little confusing, but as we’ll see, it’s largely treated as the big event.

Here is NEI’s President and CEO Marv Fertel:

This is a historic day. Today’s licensing action sounds a clarion call to the world that the United States recognizes the importance of expanding nuclear energy as a key component of a low-carbon energy future that is central to job creation, diversity of electricity supply and energy security. The Nuclear Energy Institute congratulates Southern Company, the Shaw Group, Westinghouse Electric and other project participants on this exciting achievement.

Read more here.

From Southern Co.’s President and CEO Tom Fanning – he’s on video in the post below this one:

“This is a monumental accomplishment for Southern Company, Georgia Power, our partners and the nuclear industry,” said Southern Company Chairman, President and CEO Thomas A. Fanning. “We are committed to bringing these units online to deliver clean, safe and reliable energy to our customers. The project is on track, and our targets related to cost and schedule are achievable.”

The company expects to deliver to customers more than $1 billion in benefits from the Department of Energy loan guarantees, production tax credits and recovering financing costs during construction.

Georgia Power expects Unit 3 to begin operating in 2016 and Unit 4 in 2017.”

More here.

From Shaw Group’s Chairman, President and CEO J.M. Bernhard:

“Shaw congratulates Southern on this major milestone for the Vogtle project, the first new U.S. nuclear construction commercial power project in more than 30 years,” said J.M. Bernhard Jr., Shaw’s chairman, president and chief executive officer.

“Shaw is proud to be part of such a historic project. Not only is this milestone another step forward in continuing to provide safe, clean and reliable energy for the future, but the project also will create thousands of jobs and provide numerous long-term benefits for the Georgia community. Shaw anticipates hiring approximately 3,500 employees during construction of the new units at Vogtle, with thousands of more jobs created as a result of construction and operation of the reactors,” said Mr. Bernhard.

More here.

From Westinghouse’s President and CEO Aris Candris:

"Westinghouse congratulates Southern Nuclear on the approval of its combined construction and operating license (COL) for Plant Vogtle by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"The granting of this COL is yet another important step in constructing the next generation of new nuclear plants in the United States.  The thorough and rigorous COL review, combined with the recent AP1000® design certification help to ensure Southern and its stakeholders of receiving greater levels of safety, increased project certainty and years of reliable electricity generation.  Additionally, these plants will contribute significantly to the local, regional and national economies by creating and sustaining thousands of jobs.”

More here.

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Let’s look at some news coverage.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Commissioners voted 4-1 to approve the project. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who has supported the project throughout the process, dissented, saying he was concerned that the reactors would not meet certain safety requirements put in place since Japan's Fukushima Daiichi accident.

"Significant safety enhancements have already been recommended as a result of learning the lessons from Fukushima, and there is still more work ahead of us. Knowing this, I cannot support issuing these licenses as if Fukushima never happened," Jaczko said.

The Augusta Chronicle. Augusta is the largest town near the Vogtle facility – I reckon a fair number of its workers live in Augusta:

Fellow commissioners expressed confidence that safety recommendations made since the Japan crisis will be properly implemented.

“There is no amnesia, individually or collectively,” commissioner Kristine L. Svinicki said of the NRC’s attention to lessons learned from Fukushima.

Newshounds. Always after conflict. The Chronicle gets a detail right that most other papers missed:

The license, which could be issued within 10 days, according to NRC staffers, will lead to the construction of the first AP1000 modular reactors in the U.S., creating a workforce expected to peak at about 3,500 during the next three years, with total job creation estimated at 5,000.

Symbolically, today’s the day, but practically, the license will be prepared by the NRC staff and issued inside a couple of weeks. Southern Co. cannot proceed without it, but now they know it’s coming. Good for writer Rob Pavey for picking that up.

The Chronicle has a page with stories about Vogtle. My favorite one was:

Twin brothers Abner and Allen DeLaigle can remember the flood of workers and money that inundated Burke County when Plant Vogtle first rose from the ground decades ago.

“We had a store, and a restaurant, just down from the front gate,” said Allen DeLaigle, “We also had a camper park with 380 spaces — and we stayed full for 10 years.”

During that era [meaning the 70s], the mammoth project lured 14,000 workers to the remote banks of the Savannah River, where the demand for housing, food and other commodities was so intense that their restaurant bustled seven days a week.

Sounds like a gold rush town. Wonder if they had a dance hall and a Marshal.

I looked at the Waynesboro paper, the True Citizen, (Waynesboro is the town nearest to Vogtle likely to have a paper), but it puts its content behind a pay wall. We may never know how they report it in Waynesboro, except that the headline is: High Expectations.

The Washington Post Story is here and the New York Times story is here. Both relegate it to the business pages. Better to stay local on this one, because this is really big news in that part of Georgia. I come from Georgia myself, so perhaps there’s a personal angle too and a bit of home state pride.

Plant Vogtle clears land.

On An Historic Occasion

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it has approved Southern Nuclear's combined construction and operating license (COL) for the two-reactor Plant Vogtle expansion in Georgia. Southern Nuclear, a subsidiary of Southern Company, will build two Westinghouse Electric Co. AP1000 reactors at the site near Augusta, Ga.

In the following video, Southern Co.'s Tom Fanning discusses the historic approval of its license - the first since 1978 - to build and operate two new reactors:

The Sun Rises on New Nuclear

Southern Co. has launched a new print advertising campaign to highlight some of the economic benefits the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant brings to the Georgia area.

I particularly like the image--the sun rising on the construction site for Vogtle units 3 and 4. It sheds a hopeful light on a topic that I discussed in a blog post earlier this week: Is the Future Outlook for Nuclear Energy Bright?

For the latest on construction at the site, see Southern Company’s website.

Is the Future Outlook for Nuclear Energy Bright?

To every debate, there are two sides of the coin. How will nuclear energy stack up in a post-Fukushima world? Heads—nuclear energy will continue to prosper and become even safer despite potential regulatory hurdles that could befall the industry. Tails—Fukushima’s impact on the industry will force new nuclear energy production to come to a screeching halt.

David Crane, president and CEO of NRG Energy, believes that the future outlook for nuclear energy is “dim.”

The Hartford Business Journal writes:

America’s long-term energy future lies with both large- and small-scale solar and wind generation, especially solar, backed up by baseload and peaker power plants using a variety of fuels, Crane said. The bulk of that back-up fuel source was supposed to be nuclear power, he said, but after the Japanese nuclear disaster in March, the regulatory burdens make expanded nuclear nearly impossible.

The Journal continues:

The problem with nuclear isn’t the typical not-in-my-backyard neighbors concerns, as nuclear is widely accepted in the South, said Crane. Instead, nuclear development suffers from regulatory and government financing hurdles only made worse by Japan.

Crane’s outlook for the industry comes after NRG in April decided to write down $481 million of its investment in two new nuclear units at the South Texas Project due to concerns about financial resources. However, The New York Times writes that the project…

was in considerable doubt even before the accident at Fukushima began on March 11. Texas has a surplus of electricity and low prices for natural gas, which sets the price of electricity on the market there.

Given current U.S. natural gas prices are low and that overall electricity demand is down from the depressed economy, it is not hard to understand why some, including Crane, take the “tails” side view. But, there are still others in the “heads” camp to balance the debate.

Take, for instance, an email I received just today from our friends at SCANA who are doing preconstruction work for the Summer 2 and 3 project in South Carolina.

With about 1,000 workers on site, a significant amount of infrastructure work is complete, including water supply lines and a temporary drain system. All commercial buildings have been erected. This includes pipe shops, electrical shops, an engineering building, and warehouses.

Similar preconstruction activities continue to take place at Southern Co.’s Plant Vogtle site in Georgia. In May, I had the privilege of videotaping a short interview with then-CEO Jim Miller of Southern Company on whether or not he thought the industry would continue to move forward. His take:

We are going to continue constructing Vogtle 3 and 4 and other new plants in this country and move forward with this safe, clean, very reliable and low-cost source of electricity for our customers and for our country.

I guess only time will tell who will win the debate, but I’m hoping for heads.

Photo credits from SCANA: Assembly of the heavy lift derrick, or the Bigge Crane, is well under way. Known as the world’s biggest crane, its boom is 560 feet.

Mandatory Meetings

Later this week, The Nuclear Energy Commission will host what it calls a mandatory meeting between the commissioners and the NRC staff on the combined license for Southern Co.’s two reactors at its Vogtle site in Georgia. This is important as it is the first time this type of meeting has been held under NRC’s more streamlined process for licensing nuclear reactors.

So what is it?  The Atlanta Journal-Constitutions Kristy Swartz offers a preview:

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s mandatory hearing will review, among other things, emergency planning, cybersecurity and how nuclear waste will be stored at the reactor site. The NRC will not issue a ruling until perhaps early next year; with that ruling comes the construction license for the units.

Nathan Ives, a senior manager with Ernst & Young, said his initial review of documents didn’t turn up any red flags. But Ives, a consultant in the energy and nuclear industry, said regulators likely will scrutinize heavily Southern Nuclear’s plans to handle disasters, including floods and earthquakes.

Although Southern Co. will speak, the meeting will focus on the commissioners questioning of the staff – this isn’t the place to try to make the case that the project should go forward because that’s essentially settled but whether the NRC staff has done a good enough job of vetting the license application and all the issues associated with it and through it, the project.

How will it go? I couldn’t even begin to say – except – that it will probably go differently than if it had occurred before the accident in Japan. Not necessarily in tenor, but likely in focus. Even the NRC’s meeting announcement suggests its current interests:

The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. on Sept. 27 in the Commissioner’s Conference Room at NRC Headquarters, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md. The Commission expects to discuss the staff’s Final Safety Evaluation Report (FSER) on the first day, with discussion of the staff’s Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS) starting on Sept. 28. The hearing will be open to public observation and will be webcast. A detailed agenda and presentation slides will be available in advance on the Commission’s meeting transcript page.

It’ll be interesting to see how much hardened vents, flooding and used fuel pools come up in the discussion. You can pick up the slides here and the webcast can be followed here.

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“Let’s play this scenario out,” Crane said in a morning-long session with the committee. “This thing’s going to take five years before you know even whether you have NRC [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] approval. It’s going to cost $100 million to get to that mark, that’s what nuclear costs, and you’ve got a five-year window of massive uncertainty to even know whether you’re going to get the approval.

“These are very capital-intensive,” she went on to explain. “They take many, many years, have a huge amount of uncertainty for the first five years, and then you have your typical construction risks.”

If you’re going to undertake a nuclear energy plant, then you’d better know the risks. That’s what Cindy Crane, vice president of PacifiCorp Energy’s Interwest Mining told the Task Force on Nuclear Energy Production convened by the state legislature to explore the possibility of a plant in – wait for it – Wyoming.

Wyoming has about 560,000 people in it, though outside Cheyenne, you could spend a lot of time trying to locate them. In as much as there is a plan, it is to share the cost of the facility and the electricity itself with five other states – that is, the service area of PacifiCorp.

Casper Journal writer Greg Fladager does a good job of covering the discussion between Crane and the task force. Here is Crane on CWIP or Construction Work in Progress, which might be considered as a funding mechanism. It works by charging a modest uprate to customers while a project is ongoing

“I think ‘construction work in progress’ is advantageous for the regulated utilities. I think whether it fully covers your $100 million outlay risk ... anything and everything that can help cover that risk will be very important,” Crane said. “It could take different flavors, but I think that’s the single biggest hurdle, certainly for a multi-state, regulated utility like PacifiCorp.”

That led into a discussion of the complexity of applying CWIP to a regulated utility that averages its rates among several states (six states for Rocky Mountain Power and Pacific Power). That means Wyoming rate payers wouldn’t pay for a new power plant alone, it would be spread among six states.

Fladager doesn’t mention it, but the value of CWIP to the ratepayer is that it can forestall, lessen or eliminate interest payments to a bank, saving a lot of money on a project and thus a more onerous rate increase later on. (This isn’t just a nuclear energy thing – most large plants cost more than an American private company could pay comfortably.)

But he does show the task force really working through the issues. Hard to say from one article, but the Wyoming project does seem to be well-shepherded. Worth a read.

Well, no one said a task force meeting in Wyoming was going to be a barrel of laughs. The Task Force on Nuclear Energy Production meets in Casper.

Southern Co. Advances; Atomists and Their Games

For those who have been following nuclear energy issues for the last 10-15 years, this kind of news can cause a bit of a tingle:

The utility recently cleared a couple of hurdles in the approval process for Plant Vogtle units 3 and 4. Last week, the NRC determined its new Westinghouse AP1000 design meets current federal and state safety requirements. After the Fukushima I disaster, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko had expressed concerns that Westinghouse, a unit of Japan-based Toshiba, had failed to properly measure the impact that earthquakes, tornadoes or other disasters could have on the new design.

Officials approved the plan after Westinghouse addressed those concerns. So far, the NRC has turned a deaf ear to anti-nuclear and other environmental activists who are urging the agency to halt new plant approvals like this one, as well as re-licensing older reactors.

Because we haven’t heard news like this before. It’s all new. And it’s very exciting. (The two reactors should begin operation in 2016 and 2017.)

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Although, the perambulations of stock prices don’t really mean that much to me, it’s interesting to see that investors don’t have a problem with Southern Co.’s nuclear ambitions:

With healthy sales growth and approval of its nuclear plants likely, there’s a lot to love about SO [the stock symbol for Southern] — for steady growth and solid income. SO just set a new 52-week high of $40.87 on July 21 and at $39.41, the utility is trading nearly 12% above its 52-week low of $35.19 last August.

Because really, why should they?

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Hard to say Russians don’t know how to have fun:

A competition held at Rostov to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the commissioning of reactor 1 saw some 48 participants from ten of Russia's nuclear power plants. During an opening ceremony, Ludmila Tkachenko, deputy chairman of the Volgodonsk city government, said: "I admire the work of Rosenergoatom Concern on the organization of sports competitions. There has already become a good tradition for atomists to hold various sports championships, competitions and tournaments in our city."

“Atomists.” I wonder what Russian word led to that translation, but I like it regardless. Looks like a lot of fun and a lot of medals were had by all. The story makes it clear that these are very competitive nuclear facility workers.

The plant has previously hosted and won medals in the All-Russia Hand-To-Hand Combat Tournament and its workers have cycled the 800 kilometre journey home from the Zaporizhzhya plant in Ukraine.

And here we play on softball teams. This video shows you what Russian hand-to-hand combat looks like.

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We’re a little surprised:

Ts. Damdinsuren, a senior Mongolian nuclear official, said Ulan Bator [Mongolia’s capital] has not changed its atomic plans despite the severe nuclear accident that occurred in Japan's Fukushima Daichi plant after the March earthquake and tsunami.

He said Mongolia has rich coal reserves, but using nuclear energy is favorable because fossil fuel could harm human health and the environment.

But only because the story ended up here:

A senior Japanese nuclear engineer said Japan would be glad to provide technology and safety control support for Mongolia's peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Surprised yes, pleased certainly.

The Rostov tennis team.

Pistols at Dawn – Ostendorff - 7 Ways

Rosatom has a beef with a Norwegian newspaper that said its nuclear facilities do not meet international safety standards. Its response, in part:

The company said it has told the newspaper it reserves the right to “defend its honor and integrity in accordance with international standards.”

Which we hope doesn’t include pistols and seconds. From Nucleonics Week. No link to the story, unfortunately.

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William Ostendorff won his first full term as an NRC commissioner last night, allowing the NRC to move forward with a full five-member roster of commissioners. Ostendorff had stepped in for the departing Dale Klein last year, but this vote ensures him a full five year term. This is important, as the NRC needs a majority to ensure there are no tied votes. Here’s a bit from Ostendorff’s bio at the NRC site:

Before joining the NRC, Mr. Ostendorff served as the Director of the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy and as Director of the Board on Global Science and Technology at the National Academies.

Mr. Ostendorff came to the National Academies after serving as Principal Deputy Administrator at the National Nuclear Security Administration from April 2007 until April 2009. From 2003 to 2007, he was a member of the staff of the House Armed Services Committee. There, he served as counsel and staff director for the Strategic Forces Subcommittee with oversight responsibilities for the Department of Energy's Atomic Energy Defense Activities as well as the Department of Defense's space, missile defense and intelligence programs.

Mr. Ostendorff was an officer in the United States Navy from 1976 until he retired in 2002 in the grade of captain. During his naval career, he commanded an attack submarine, an attack submarine squadron and served as Director of the Division of Mathematics and Science at the United States Naval Academy.

Very impressive. The Hill has a story with the basic details and here’s Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) offering congratulations:

"The public is best served by a full commission and Ostendorff's extensive knowledge, both of nuclear reactor operations and the national security issues surrounding it, is vital now as the NRC unravels the lessons-learned from the Fukushima accident and works to issue the first reactor licenses in thirty years.

Inhofe is ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, one of the committees which oversees nuclear energy issues in the Senate. He posted this there rather than at his own web site. I looked around for a press release from committee Chairman Barbara boxer (D-Calif.), but no luck. It’s Friday.

NEI also has a press release, which echoes Inhofe’s comments to an extent.

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Tom Fanning is chairman, president, and CEO of Southern Company. He offers an article in U.S. News and World Report called 7 Ways the Nuclear Industry is Responding to Fukushima. We do have a link to this one.

Our industry will continue to respond to the events in Japan with the level of commitment and urgency that has been the hallmark of our actions. Within days of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, U.S. nuclear energy facilities launched an effort to re-examine and verify their preparedness to safely manage severe plant-related or natural events. Every plant re-examined safety plans and its ability to implement those plans with well-trained personnel and backup equipment on site.

Fanning is writing about about the industry initiative to – well, let’s let him describe it:

[O]ur industry has established a committee of chief nuclear officers from a dozen companies, as well as representatives from the Electric Power Research Institute, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, and the Nuclear Energy Institute. The industry is ensuring that events in Japan are thoroughly researched for lessons learned and that every component of the U.S. nuclear industry understands and applies those lessons at facilities across the country.

And then come the 7 ways of the title. You can see what they are at the USNAWR site. Getting the word out on the nuclear industry’s plans for the future is extremely important and Fanning is a terrific messenger – good for him for doing this.

NRC Commissioner William Ostendorff

Down Florida Way

Doings in Florida -

Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were holding a public meeting Wednesday on their review of the St. Lucie County nuclear power plant on Hutchinson Island.

But:

According to Florida Power & Light spokesman Mark Waldron, this is an annual review, and the NRC has already told FPL in a letter that there are "no issues with the plant."

Yawn! Even despite Fukushima, one might think the public likely to skip this one. Yet it might be quite interesting.

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And here’s why it might be interesting:

Their [Turkey Point and St Lucie’s] job is done. However, the used, or "spent," fuel rods have not gone anywhere. They're still at the St. Lucie and Turkey Point nuclear plants, they're still close to population centers on water and they're still radioactive. The pile of waste continues to grow.

“The pile of waste?” Sound like it was put in barrels in the back yard, doesn’t it? It takes awhile for the story to get to this:

[FPL spokesman Michael] Waldron said FPL's plants have multiple redundant systems to ensure there is adequate power to operate the spent fuel pool cooling systems.

[James] Tulenko, [director of the Florida Laboratory for Development of Advanced Nuclear Fuels and Materials for the University of Florida], said all of Florida's spent fuel pools are next to reactors rather than on top of them [as they are at Fukushima], making them easy to maintain. Dry casks are safe and require no maintenance, he said.

And the conclusion?

The bottom line, experts say, is that while spent fuel is being stored safely, centralized, secure storage is needed. Until then, every precaution should be taken.

Nothing to disagree with there, but the tone is definitely alarmed enough that that meeting at St. Lucie might pack the hall. Fine. FPL seems well able to make its case.

This is a long article and nicely researched by Susan Salisbury. I wish it were a little less breathless, but these may be breathless times.

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Thomas Fanning, chairman, president and CEO of Southern Co., gave a wide-ranging speech on energy to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He said positive things about nuclear energy, but I actually found his comments on natural gas more interesting:

Fanning said that while the price of natural gas is currently low, making it competitive with coal and renewables, the price is still volatile and is not good for American business.

“If that’s your only future generation resource, then that volatility will only increase,” Fanning said.

He also said that hydraulic fracturing shale formations to recover natural gas is economical but can cause environmental problems.

This falls outside our brief, still I hadn’t run across such comments from an energy executive before. Logically, he’s right: betting on any one energy source makes one a hostage to it – see petroleum – so looking at natural gas wholly can only be seen as a good – for natural gas and for energy policy generally.

Here’s what Fanning said about nuclear energy:

“Rest assured, we will continue to focus on safety and be diligent in making sure that our plants remain as safe and efficient as possible,” Fanning said. “But let's not let politics hinder our progress in this nuclear renaissance. Nuclear energy must remain a part of our future.”

Just so.

Thomas Fanning.