Nuclear Energy’s Sweep of Eastern Europe

Sounds like nuclear heaven:

… Hungarians throughout the country [of Hungary – go figure] are still positive about nuclear energy. There has never been a significant anti-nuclear movement. Even politicians, deeply divided about everything else, have reached a broad consensus on energy issues and want to see an expansion of nuclear power. Hungary wants to modernize the four units in Paks to extend their lifespan - and probably build two new ones beside them.'

And heaven is a place on Earth:

Hungary is part of a trend in the region. From the Baltics to Bulgaria, almost all countries are planning a nuclear future. Lithuania and Poland are considering building new plants in spite of significant popular opposition to nuclear power. In the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, there are concrete plans for new reactors, supported by the majority.

Interestingly, the countries with public opposition have never had nuclear energy facilities (Poland) or depended on Soviet RBMK reactors (Lithuania), which the European Union pressured the country to retire.

The Visaginas project is still in play in Lithuania (it looked like it might be stopped after a change in government but was not) . The outcome of closing the Ignalina facility was that it turned Lithuania from a net electricity exporter to a net importer, not a great development for a small country.

The story enumerates other Eastern European countries that have or want nuclear energy projects – Romania and Bulgaria specifically – so the sweep of that part of the world is just about complete. All this attention originates here:

Early last week (14.10.2013), the prime ministers of the Visegrad countries - Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary [Visegrad is a coalition of these nations] - confirmed their pro-nuclear stance and called on the European Union not to enact a nuclear energy directive. They said that the choice of primary energy sources a country uses should not be decided in Brussels.

Probably because the EU has a strong German voice and we know how the Germans feel about nuclear energy these days.

It’s amusing to see this indirectly addressed:

One student, 21-year-old Peter Racz, born and raised in the city [Paks, Hungary] and whose grandmother and parents worked at the nuclear plant, would like to continue the tradition. He has just completed a welding course, and next year he wants to study engineering. He hopes this will help him get a skilled job at the plant.

Racz cannot understand why the majority of Germans do not like nuclear energy. "This technology will always be used, it is safe and provides many jobs," he says. "Do the Germans have any other ideas about how to secure their energy supply? I think there is no better solution than nuclear power."

Score one for the Hungarian kid.

---

When I travelled through Eastern Europe some years ago (East Germany, then-Czechoslovakia and Hungary), filthy air was the first thing I noticed (well, after stuffing West German marks in my socks to avoid losing them to the hard currency-starved east). Not only because it turned Budapest into London 1900 (pollution so thick it sometimes resembled fog), but because black soot would attach to the skin and had to be scrubbed off. Obviously, the end of a Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe also ended, over time, its status as an environmental cesspool.

Nuclear energy was there then, too, so it could be considered a mitigating factor but not a determinative one in quelling pollution. Now, it can be part of a different solution – not only another way to produce electricity, but to continue clearing away toxic air.

Read More

“In coming years, reaching [climate] goals can't be done without nuclear power.”

We never forget that nuclear energy has a lot to offer in climate change mitigation, a fact that can get lost in the enthusiasm for natural gas. So it never hurts to be reminded of it, especially when the one doing the reminding has some heat.

European Commissioner for Energy, Gunther Oettinger, Thursday said the European Union's goals to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and combat climate change can only be reached with an energy mix including nuclear power.

"Without a doubt nuclear energy belongs to the [mix]," Mr. Oettinger said. "In coming years reaching [climate] goals can't be done without nuclear power."

Oettinger, by the way, is German. His comments have a special tang that must cause heartburn in Berlin, even as closing the nuclear plants there causes unnecessary distress. But he has some solid reasons for taking this tack beyond emissions control.

Mr. Oettinger's comments come as Europe faces serious economic headwinds partly due to fast-rising electricity prices for industry and retail consumers despite wholesale energy prices at record lows.

Due to nuclear energy or even natural gas? Well, no.

This is largely due to the mass rollout of renewable power generation using technologies that are still unprofitable and require subsidies paid by end-users.

Oettinger doesn’t directly take a swipe at his own country, but he insists that each EU member be allowed to make its own decision about its energy choices. Writer Sean Carney finds that this idea (and support for nuclear energy) has fans at least in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Carney is covering a nuclear-centered conference in Prague).

Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas, speaking at the conference, said nuclear power is a "completely legitimate" source of power and can play a role in the decarbonization of the European economy.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said that the use of nuclear energy is a sovereign decision for each country.

Necas echoes Oettinger’s view that nuclear energy is key to “decarbonization.” And if that’s the goal, it’s an accurate observation. We’re fairly neutral on why a country might choose nuclear energy for electricity and/or process heat – there’s a laundry list of good reasons – and Oettinger seems focused on price as well as emissions.

In Eastern Europe (my views here are probably dated), it can do yeoman work in mitigating acid rain, too. But whatever the reasons Necas and Fico might have to implement nuclear energy (Slovakia has reactors in progress), good for them. Good for their countries.

Read More

What Is Said About Nuclear Energy–and What It Means

Storing Used Nuclear Fuel at WIPP

From Konrad Szymanski, a European Parliament MP:

“Commissioner [Gunther] Oettinger is responsible for energy policy across all 27 EU countries. It would be extremely disappointing if this became an exercise in forcing Germany’s position on nuclear energy down the throats of other countries.”

I’ve never cared for that phrase, popular during the health care debate, and would be surprised if Szymanski actually used it in whichever language he was speaking when he said it.

What he’s talking about is a European Union report about the stress tests performed on nuclear energy facilities there. The report does not recommend closing any plants; it does recommend spending up to 25 billion Euro (about $32 billion) to make them “safer.” This hasn’t gone over well.

The report is misleading because it conveys the impression that plants are unsafe and a lot of work is needed to make them safer, while in reality the situation is not that dramatic. Moreover, the methodology by which the commission reached this result isn’t clear and the commission is making recommendations in a domain where it really has no powers.

When you start talking about 25 billion anythings, you might as well say 50 or 75 billion – it’s all more than can be reasonably estimated in a fairly tight timeframe. The report might better have left out cost estimates; including them just makes the German Oettinger, who chaired the committee that oversaw the stress tests, vulnerable to charges like those from Szymanski.

The report will be up for discussion in parliament in about two weeks, but so far, the reaction has been very poor.
---
From Ron Litzinger, Southern California Edison President :

"We have concluded that Unit 2 at San Onofre can be operated safely. This plan will get San Onofre Unit 2 back to providing reliable and clean energy to Southern Californians."

This is unalloyed good news, though not one without caveats. San Onofre has been offline with generator problems for eight months, but tests show that one of the two reactors can run at 70 percent power without issue. That’s what Litzinger is announcing.

The caveats:

"The agency will not permit a restart unless and until we can conclude the reactor can be operated safely," NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane said. "Our inspections and review will be painstaking, thorough and will not be rushed."

Which is what you want to happen.

The plan "is a reckless gamble that flies in the face of the utility's claim that it puts safety ahead of profits," the advocacy group Friends of the Earth, which is critical of the nuclear power industry, said in a statement.

To FOE, this would be true of an issue-free facility that’s been turning out electricity for many years. It’s the group’s default position. Just on the level of common sense, putting profits ahead of safety will only lead to tears – not to mention corporate ruin.

Notably, an attempt earlier this year to gather enough signatures (not by FOE) to put an initiative on the ballot to close San Onofre (and Diablo Canyon, another California facility) failed utterly.

Always shouting upwind on a rainy, cold night, our FOE.

So – let’s see how the NRC inspections go.
---
From Jack Volpato, Eddy-Lea Alliance board member:

"The Department of Energy wants this to happen. There are nuclear rods around the country just sitting on a pad, costing $5 to 10 million a year to keep an eye on."

Well, all right, they’re not just sitting on a pad decaying away, they are in used fuel casks, but we get what Volpato is saying. Eddy and Lea are counties in New Mexico that have seen a boomlet in nuclear energy activity. None of it has anything to do with making electricity for New Mexicans, but with byproducts and used fuel.

There is the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, that has been a big local success story, even inspiring the Blue Ribbon Commission investigating the back end of the fuel cycle to recommend using the WIPP-derived community consent-based approach to siting consolidated used fuel storage sites (and a permanent repository, too.) That’s what AREVA is helping with.

So who’s better than Lea and Eddy counties to attract a consolidated used fuel storage site? It worked out exceedingly well once with WIPP, why not again?

The Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance has selected French firm AREVA to help create an above-ground interim storage facility to store nuclear fuel on 1,000 acres between Carlsbad and Hobbs. The facility is being billed as a safe way to temporarily house used fuel from nuclear power plants.

Early days of course, but involving AREVA at this point shows real seriousness to make it work. What we can say is: good. Go for it, New Mexico.

I got sidetracked but that corner in southeast New Mexico also hosts or will host the International Isotopes uranium deconversion facility and Urenco’s uranium enrichment plant. That’s not a coincidence, either, but a subject for a future post.

Read More