If the television manufacturing industry adhered to Joe’s understanding of cost control, we might all still be looking at large, flat screen TVs with longing lust instead of having watched their prices drop rapidly into the affordable range.

Of course, so far, the nuclear industry has done a bang-up job of not controlling costs. We have cooperated in a long term effort to burden our amazing technology with so many cost-increasing features that we have priced ourselves right out of the market. In the process, we have done as much or more as the antinuclear opposition to make the world a dirtier and more dangerous place.

Joe’s latest rant about the high cost of nuclear energy came in a post purposely aimed at discouraging his followers from going to see Pandora’s Promise. He has not bothered to watch the movie, but he apparently feels qualified to offer a “resounding no” to anyone who might be considering investing just 90 minutes of their time to gain a new and useful perspective on one of the most important topics of our time.

I strongly disagree with that recommendation. You should see the movie and you should take all of your friends to see the movie. You should organize outings to encourage strangers to see the movie. It is an valuable contribution to a vital discussion.

Here is the comment I posted in response:

Unlike Joe Romm, who lives in Washington, DC, where Pandora’s Promise is available to any remotely curious reviewer for an $11.50 ticket, I have made the effort to actually watch the movie.

I had to travel from Lynchburg to DC to do so, but I thought it was worth the effort so that I could write intelligently about the experience instead of just parroting other points of view.

Robert Stone might have creatively decided that his movie was not about costs, but about ideas and potential, but it seems kind of petty to criticize a creative effort merely because it did not talk about the topic you wanted it to talk about.

Pandora’s Promise includes frequent allusions to the scale of the challenge of changing our energy supply system and to the scale of the investments required to build new nuclear plants and develop a new nuclear supply system. His protagonists might not be elected leaders of establishment Environmental organizations, but that does not mean that they are not caring, concerned environmentalists who honestly care deeply about the fate of the planet.

Many reviewers have claimed that Stone “mocks” the opposition, but his technique is merely to film them and allow them to speak for themselves. He does not limit his footage to classic reels of ’70s or ’80s vintage “No Nukes” concerts, but also shows very current assemblies with leaders like Wasserman and Caldicott at the microphone. He even tries to let Dr. Caldicott explain herself and her position. I am not sure how that qualifies as “mocking.”

My wife attended the movie with me. She is an environmentalist with a degree in biology who worked for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for several years. We both recycle, we care about clean air and water, and we have a deep interest in leaving a better world for our children and grandchildren. She thought that the movie was well done, but asked me if Lynas and Stone were really as sure about nuclear as some critics have implied. It was her impression that they were still wishy washy in their support.

My recommendation to all of you – watch the movie with your critical thinking caps on before you dismiss it.

BTW – Joe, I will agree that nuclear power costs too much and that the “industry” is more at fault than the opposition. For too long, we have used the excuse that people are afraid of radiation. We have hiddem a lot of excessive costs (and generous salaries) behind the mantra that it is not yet safe enough and we have to spend even more money to make it safer still.

We need to change and to recognize that the public deserves access to abundant, affordable, RELIABLE power that is acceptably (not perfectly) safe.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Nuclear energy professional

The post Defy Joe Romm’s advice and watch Pandora’s Promise appeared first on Atomic Insights.

Jim’s premise is that the continued access restrictions to all but the most contaminated areas are harming people by preventing them from living normal, productive lives. Instead, potentially healthy Fukushima natives are being turned into victims of excessive stresses caused by living in temporary relocation facilities while being frequently subjected to fear-inducing stories about how they and their children will eventually become victims of cancer or other scary illnesses. In some cases, their fellow countrymen actively avoid contact out of irrational fear that they will somehow become contaminated themselves.

Ironically, however, the WHO report highlights the psychological effects of the disaster — fear, anxiety and depression to the point of psychosomatic illness, psychiatric disorders and suicide (Husband of Fukushima suicide victim demands justice). And, as only humans can do, people tend to stigmatize those hailing from the affected areas, making relocation even more punishing socially and physically.

The miniscule risks outlined by all these studies do not justify the continued harm and devastation perpetrated upon the Fukushima refugees. Except for the small, highly contaminated areas adjacent to the reactors which should stay off-limits until remediated, the risk of cancer and death from the increased use of coal and gas since the disaster has provided much more risk to the population of the Tohoku region, and to Japan as a whole, than any radiation effects from Fukushima (Killer Energy Sources).

Atomic Insights readers would not be surprised to learn that our old friend, Bob Applebaum, is actively involved in the discussion thread. He is posting as “anon”, but his habit of accusing anyone who questions the Linear, No-Threshold dose assumption of being a Creationist identifies him as accurately as a fingerprint. In response to one of Bob’s comments claiming that the LNT is a proven theory that has been tested and validated for about 100 years, I added my own thoughts. I’m vain and lazy enough to capture and repurpose them here as a way of encouraging additional discussion.

@anon (AKA Bob A)

I find it interesting that you both date the LNT hypothesis to the work of a man who lived more than 100 years ago, and then claim that it is the central theory of low dose radiation health effects because of its statistical effect on DNA.

You are aware, I hope, that scientists did not even know that DNA existed 100 years ago. People like Hermann Muller and Hugo DeVries had no way to study how DNA repair mechanisms work for complex, multicell creatures like human beings.

There was no way for them to begin to understand WHY Caspari’s (working in Muller’s own lab) experiments showed such dramatically contrary results that invalidated the LNT assumption.

Here is a brief history. Caspari was interested in determining if mutation rates really were related to radiation doses in a linear fashion all the way down to zero. He had studied Muller’s results and was aware of his linear, no threshold hypothesis. Like a good scientist with a questioning attitude, he wanted to validate – or invalidate – that hypothesis through a well-designed experiment.

He used radium as the source of what was then considered to be low doses. He exposed large samples of fruit flies to doses of about 50 Rad (50 rem or 500 mSv) given at a lower rate (2.5 r/day) than the 100 R/min x-rays that Muller used in his own mutation experiments. Caspari’s experimental results showed that mutation rates for the exposed fruit flies were indistinguishable from the mutation rates in a similarly large control population that was NOT exposed.

Muller was aware of Caspari’s results BEFORE he gave his Nobel Prize speech, but he ignored them because those results did not support Muller’s political desire to stoke radiation fear as a means of encouraging people to actively resist the atomic bomb testing program.

In recent years, scientists like Feinendegen, Pollycove, Callabrese, and Neumann have learned how low doses of radiation stimulate (up-regulate) metabolic defenses and molecular repair mechanisms and how those defenses stop working only when doses exceed a reasonably high threshold. Unlike Muller and DeVries, today’s genetic researchers can study DNA and detect the way that redundant repair mechanisms succeed. They can also study DNA in living organisms to find out that spontaneous DNA damage rates from many other influences exceed those caused by low dose radiation by 3 to 6 orders of magnitude.

Adaptive response works. Doses below a single whole body dose of 100-150 mSv (10-15 rem) and below a chronic dose rate of about 700 mSv/y (70 rem/year) are safe and even somewhat beneficial to human health. Unlike the situation of 50 to 100 years ago, we now have the tools available to test and validate those numbers.

High doses of radiation are dangerous and must be avoided. Fortunately, we can detect radiation at levels far below the harmful level with a high degree of confidence.

We do not need to tremble in fear of ionizing radiation as a silent killer; by conducting simple measurements we can learn when levels are safe and when they are high enough to cause concern. We can go about our lives in confidence and make good use of Nature’s gift of exceedingly energy dense fuels that do not destroy our shared atmosphere.

Of course, people whose wealth and power are based using any energy source other than nuclear energy or those whose prosperity is based on getting paid large sums of money to PROTECT people from the imaginary danger of low doses of radiation (I’m looking at you, Bob) will continue to spread FUD and hope that no one notices.

People who understand the science of radiation health effects and its potential economic impacts must effectively resist the fossil fuel, “renewable energy”, “smart grid”, conservation and radiation protection sales efforts with facts and science.

Many powerful people have a lot to lose when the rest of us figure out that we have been duped into believing a failed hypothesis that produces INCORRECT results when applied to radiation doses in the range of possible variations in normal background.

It is incredibly empowering for human society to recognize that we already know how to design resilient power plants where three large reactors can melt at the same time without exposing anyone to harmful levels of radiation. We’ve had that knowledge for nearly 50 years; we just did not conduct the validating experiment until March 11, 2011.

The post Empowering victims of the Fukushima Frenzy to resist radiation FUD appeared first on Atomic Insights.

My realization came as a result of deciding to travel from Lynchburg, Virginia to Washington, DC so that I could attend Pandora’s Promise during its opening weekend in the theaters. Though I probably should have known better, I was hoping to have an opportunity to experience a theater full of people having their minds opened to a new way of thinking about our available energy alternatives. I harbored fantasies of chatting with some of them after the movie was over.

Southwest Virginia mountain view

For those of you who are not completely familiar with Virginia geography, Lynchburg is roughly 200 miles southwest of Washington. The first 150 miles of the trip is through some of the most beautiful countryside in the mid-Atlantic region. It includes mountain views, “horsey” country with rolling pastures bordered by white fences, densely forested sections, and pleasant small towns endowed with great local restaurants and functional economies that are often rich with opportunities for sightseeing or active recreation.

The last 50 miles of the trip passes through an increasingly densely populated zone of long stretches of suburbs, strip malls, crowded freeways, and glass faced office buildings decorated with marquee names like Boeing, AOL, and CACI. Even on a weekend, and with the help of a navigator (my wife) who is skilled in the use of a traffic ap called Inrix, the drive into town included a slowdown in a traffic jam surrounded by thousands of impatient strangers. Some of those other drivers seemed to be willing to risk their lives – and mine – to go just a little bit faster than their neighbor.

Tree sculpture in DC garden

Saturday was a “Chamber of Commerce Day” in Washington, with blue skies, pleasant breezes, and relatively dry air. The Mall area was predictably crowded, with tens of thousands of people from dozens of states and countries enjoying a visit to one of the most interesting cities in the world. There was a Folklife Festival on the Mall and lines coming out of attractions like the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and the Spy Museum.

After an afternoon stroll, we had a tasty dinner at Jaleo’s, a popular tapas restaurant with a fascinating menu. While waiting between courses, we chatted with the young couple sitting next to us; they were from Minnesota, and were excited about a vacation in DC. I told them why were were in town; neither of them had ever heard of Pandora’s Promise, but humored me by saying that it sounded interesting.

When we walked into the theater a few minutes before the scheduled 8:00 pm start, I was disappointed to realize that there was only one other couple in the room. A few more people trickled in, but I would guess that the audience totaled less than 20 people in a city teeming with hundreds of thousands of energy consumers.

Lest you think I am completely out of touch, I understand that watching documentaries is not the most popular pastime. However, I compared that audience of 20 people in a city the size of Washington to the 200 or so that showed up to watch Switch in Lexington, VA, which is a relatively isolated college town with a population of about 7,000 people.

Not surprisingly, I enjoyed the movie, but a more important reviewer was my wife, who often just tolerates my atomic obsession. She said that the film was well done and included many thought-provoking ideas. Even though she was a little sleepy from the trip, the wandering and the sangria at dinner she said she was never bored or tempted to doze off. She was surprised to learn that some reviewers had claimed that Stone had become a pronuclear cheerleader; she thought that the director and at least one of the protagonists – Mark Lynas – were still quite undecided and slightly fearful about the technology.

As I thought about the high quality of the documentary versus the small size of the audience, I wondered if the explanation is that most people do not have strong emotions about nuclear energy. Perhaps a movie about environmentalists that overcome their fear and learn to accept nuclear power as a viable energy alternative is not as gripping a tale as some of us think it is.

Perhaps the dramatic story about nuclear energy still needs to be found and told. I am going to continue to keep searching for a way to help more people to pay attention to the availability of a concentrated power source that has the potential to make an energy system that depends on burning coal, oil and gas seem as quaint as a communication system limited by smoke signals and fleet-footed messengers.

The post Pandora’s Promise – bullseye against wrong target appeared first on Atomic Insights.

In his review of Pandora’s Promise (which is opening this weekend in about 20 cities in the United States), Ed Lyman, senior scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, picked a nit by extracting a single line and attempting to show how wrong it was.

My hand got tired trying to jot down all the less-than-half truths put forth by the talking heads in the film, which could have benefited from some fact-checking. Here’s just one example. Gwyneth Cravens, when prompted by the interviewer about the leak of tritium from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, stated that someone would get more radiation from eating one banana than from drinking all the water coming out of the plant. Well, I thought I would double-check this one. The dose from eating a single banana is about 0.01 millirem. Entergy, Vermont Yankee’s owner, estimated in a 2011 report to the NRC that the leak detected in early 2010 released 2.79 curies of tritium into groundwater. Assuming someone consumed all of this tritium in the form of tritiated water, that person would receive a dose of 185,000 millirem. Ms. Cravens was only off by a factor of twenty million. Perhaps she was referring to the actual amount of tritium that would end up in the wells of the plant’s neighbors, given dilution effects—but that isn’t what she said. These sloppy soundbites greatly diminish the film’s credibility.

In making that statement, Lyman questioned the credibility of the film and insulted one of my frequent Atomic Show guests, who happens to be one of the most concerned human beings I know. According to a correction posted on his blog entry, Gwyneth Cravens has responded.

Gwyneth Cravens pointed out that I missed part of the quote that I attributed to her. She writes that her actual quote was “If you ate one banana which has a potassium isotope that’s a little hot, you would get more radiation exposure than you would if you drank all the water that comes out of the plant in one day.” I had missed the phrase “in one day.” However, her statement is still wrong by a large factor.

Lyman goes on to modify his assumptions a little to claim that Gwyneth was off by a factor of 25,000. She is standing her ground and added the following comment on his blog:

In regard to Mr. Lyman’s mistaken quote of my remark in the film about the tritium leak, thanks for posting my correction.
In regard to Mr. Lyman’s second attempt, I stand by what I said in the film. This information was fact-checked by one Nobel-prizewinning particle physicist, a health physicist, and by four radiation-protection experts. Apart from my own wish only to say what I knew to be the case, Robert Stone wanted to make sure everything in the film was accurate.

Lyman’s response at that point was to demand that Gwyneth and her checkers show their work so that it can be compared to the work done by the UCS. I’m an old school commissioned officer and gentleman (CDR, USN (Ret.)) so I jumped in to help a fine lady being wrongly accused of misleading people. Here is the comment that I added to the UCS blog post. (Note, I have made some editorial changes; continual proof reading is one of the annoying habits I picked up as the son of a high school English teacher.)

Dr. Lyman

The method I am using can be found in many basic texts. One that is available online is LLNL Environmental Report 1998 Appendix A Methods of Dose Calculations.

In that document, you can find the following conversion factor for a whole body dose from consuming tritiated water. The document has a fully referenced method for producing the final number, so I will not reproduce it on your blog.

6.4 × 10–8 mrem/pCi

Therefore dose from consuming 2.79 curies = 6.4 x 10-8 mrem/pCi x 2.79 x 10+12 pCi = 178,000 mrem

So, it looks like your number is close enough – on the surface.

I will admit that Ms. Cravens’s comparison is a little off, but the key element remains true. Even in the entirely impossible instance of a single person consuming every single drop of a leak of tritiated water that had a concentration of 2.5 million picocuries per liter, the total dose to that one individual would be about 178 Rem. That dose is in the range that might result in mild radiation sickness, but is unlikely to lead to any immediate consequences worse than a mild flu.

The recipient MIGHT contract cancer that they otherwise would not have gotten, but the average American has a 30-40% lifetime risk of cancer anyways.

In order to get that dose, however, the person would need some rather special capabilities that are not normally found in human beings. They would have to be able to consume, in a single sitting, roughly one MILLION liters of water.

If, instead, the person was closer to an average human and consumed their normal intake of 8 liters per day, their dose rate would be 0.001 mrem rem per day.

Perhaps the comparison that Ms. Cravens was attempting to make in the film and the one that was checked by her eminent sources was to note that human beings could obtain ALL of their daily water intake DIRECTLY from the water that Vermont Yankee was leaking into the ground underneath the plant and they would STILL receive a daily dose that is less than the one received from eating a single banana well below the level at which there is any measurable increase in lifetime cancer risk.

Even that situation is absurd, since water that leaks into the ground underneath a power plant cannot be consumed by any human without going through a rather effective filter consisting of thousands of feet of soil with a delay measured in years, since there is little driving head pushing that water towards wells used for drinking water.

Ms. Cravens and Robert Stone are perhaps guilty of making a statement that is attempting to illustrate risk in terms that people can more readily understand and goofing up the wording of the comparison a little bit. What they are NOT guilty of is harming people and the planet by making people tremble in fear about a minuscule risk.

Living in continuous fear can cause debilitating health effects all its own. Focused efforts aimed at shutting down emission free electrical generating plants because of “tritium leaks” can cause an elevation in real risks like climate change, fires and explosions, and economic consequences from rising power prices caused by having to replace an adequately safe nuclear plant that is already built and paid for.

I am accusing you and your organization of failing to help the public make reasonable evaluations about one of the most important energy decisions they can make – whether or not to allow the safe, reliable, cost effective operation of nuclear power plants INSTEAD of having to produce the power they would otherwise have produced by burning hydrocarbons or damming up rivers.

Here is the statement that I think Gwyneth was trying to make in Pandora’s Promise:

“If you ate one banana which has a potassium isotope that’s a little hot, you would get more radiation exposure than you would if you drank all of your water directly from the place where Vermont Yankee was leaking tritium.”

That is an accurate statement that. The extremely low level of radiation risk, even if people drink water directly from a the leak source, should make people ask Arnie Gundersen and his friends at the UCS the following questions:

“What was all of the fuss about? Why have you worked so hard to discredit a fine company and spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about the best available energy alternative? Why are we supposed to be more afraid of tritiated water coming from nuclear power plants than of the possibility of contaminated ground water from natural gas fracking, carbon and other nasty waste products from coal plants, continued dependence on oil imported from abusive regimes, or the potential of massive forced relocations for hydro electricity (along with occasional risk of dam failures.)?”

The shared motivation caused all of Robert Stone’s stars to change their mind about nuclear energy was not an unrealistic belief that nuclear energy is a perfect solution. It was a recognition that a world that needs energy needs to make reasonable choices among available energy alternatives. There is no perfect power source that is fueled by “unobtainium”. Nuclear power plants do not have to be perfect in order to be acceptable. They just have to be better than other available choices.

Stone’s protagonists have decided that we must chose to accept pretty darned good power sources fueled by small quantities of uranium and plutonium, even if they have a few complexities, costs and imperfections. The alternative to accepting nuclear energy is to burn more coal, natural gas and oil and to dam up more rivers. Wind and solar are expensive distractions that are only available at the whim of the weather; they are never going to be players in the vital enterprise of supplying reliable power.

Note: I brought Arnie Gundersen into this post because he was one of the main protagonists in the saga about Vermont Yankee and its highly publicized tritium leaks.

The post UCS is guilty of harming humans by reinforcing fear mongering appeared first on Atomic Insights.

Many people are writing about Pandora’s Promise; I expect that the attention will turn into theaters packed full of people who want to be able to keep up with the conversation.

If you live in one of the following cities, please gather some friends and colleagues and head out to the theater to show your support for the beneficial use of nuclear energy as a way to help avert many of our most pressing challenges. There are openings this weekend in the following cities: New York, Berkeley (I’d love to attend with the Berkeley ANS student chapter), Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Dever, Washington, Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Houston, and Seattle.

If you are not lucky enough to live in one of the cities where the film is opening this weekend, here is a brief list of the reviews that you might be interested in reading. Many of them have their own comment threads, so go out and share your thoughts.

Ed Lyman, one of the go-to guys for a negative quote about nuclear, wrote a piece titled Put “Pandora’s Promise” Back in the Box that is predictably negative about the film.

It also reveals that Lyman, a man who earned a PhD in Physics but has invested his career into political activism against atomic energy, is not much of a film or literary critic. He does not even acknowledge that a journey of discovery is one of the most established forms of storytelling and persuasion. He attributes the technique to late-night informercials rather than understanding that it dates as least as far back as the epic of Gilgamesh, one of the very first heros in literature. It probably goes farther back; to a time when storytellers entertained their friends around cooking fires. As a literary device, it has been used countless times by some of our finest writers, including Hemingway, Thoreau, Cravens and Steinbeck.

“Pandora’s Promise,” taking a page from late-night infomercials, seeks to persuade via the testimonials of a number of self-proclaimed environmentalists who used to be opposed to nuclear power but have now changed their minds, including Stewart Brand, Michael Shellenberger, Gwyneth Cravens, Mark Lynas and Richard Rhodes. The documentary tries to make its case primarily by impressing the audience with the significance of the personal journeys of these nuclear power converts, not by presenting the underlying arguments in a coherent way.

Another thing that Lyman reveals is that he is way behind in his health physics reading. He has apparently missed the recommendations of virtually all organizations that specialize in understanding the health effects of low level radiation to avoid using “collective dose” to compute hypothetical event consequences.

Lynas then goes on to assert that the Fukushima accident will probably never kill anyone from radiation, also ignoring studies estimating cancer death tolls ranging from several hundred to several thousand. The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, which obtained a copy of a draft report by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), revealed that the report estimated a collective whole-body dose of 3.2 million person-rem to the population of Japan as a result of the accident: a dose that would cause in the range of 1,000-3,000 cancer deaths.

In contrast, here is what the Health Physics Society recommends:

In accordance with current knowledge of radiation health risks, the Health Physics Society recommends against quantitative estimation of health risks below an individual dose of 50 millisievert (mSv) in one year or a lifetime dose of 100 mSv above that received from natural sources.

There’s more to challenge in Dr. Lyman’s piece. Please go and participate in the discussion on the UCS blog. Maybe Dr. Lyman himself can take some time to respond to thoughtful criticism, but I am not optimistic.

In contrast, there are many positive reviews to read.

David Ropeik in a guest post on the Scientific American blog asks Will “Pandora’s Promise” Start a New Environmental Movement for Nuclear Power?. Here is his conclusion:

Pandora’s Promise is open, earnest, unabashed advocacy, and it makes a persuasive case, using images and emotional framings that will resonate with innate affective cues that influence our perceptions of risk. It may not change the minds of baby boomer environmentalists whose fear of anything nuclear grows from deep historic roots and whose self-identities are too tightly bound to the expected tribal opposition to nuclear power. But to younger viewers, and to any viewer with an open mind, Pandora’s Promise may help encourage fresh thinking about the huge pros, as well as the better known cons, of this important, if controversial, source of clean energy.

Lori Huck wrote the following in an Examiner review titled Pandora’s Promise’ review: Surprising new perspective on nuclear power

“Pandora’s Promise” is one of those intelligent and relatable documentaries that resonates, long after the credits roll (probably because you too are against and even afraid of nuclear power due to potential nuclear meltdowns). But after Stone and his co-hosts finish, you may find yourself thoroughly surprised with an about-face view on the energy issue.

Movie Nation published Movie Review: “Pandora’s Promise”

It’s a debate worth revisiting, and only the most dogmatic will resist it. Tilting so far toward one side means that Stone’s film merely brings the topic to the floor. But the day is coming when the world will have to have this argument all over again. As activist Mark Lynas declares, “Loving your children is about loving the future that they’re going to inhabit.” And that future may be either a hotter planet, or one where nuclear power turns the thermostat down.

Tim Wu said the following in his Slate article titled If You Care About the Environment, You Should Support Nuclear Power.

I found watching this film uncomfortable, because, like most of us, I intuitively find something scary about nuclear power. Michael Shellenberger, one of the leading greens for nuclear power, confirmed to me that no major environmental group in the United States officially supports nuclear as of now. But what is the role of science if not to meet our greatest fears with actual data? Tomatoes were once thought poisonous, and doctors once believed it was wrong to treat illness by cutting open the human body. Our fear of nuclear power has gone too far.

Aside: I’ve known for years that I am an odd duck, but I still cannot understand why people talk about intuitive fear of nuclear power. People who do not grow up watching movies or television may not even know that radiation exists. End Aside.

On Quartz, you can find a review titled Everything you thought you knew about the risks of nuclear energy is wrong with the following quote:

That point comes across brilliantly in the film when Robert Stone, the writer, director, and producer, confronts Helen Caldicott, a leading anti-nuclear activist, at one of her rallies, to question why she and others claim that Chernobyl-caused cancer is killing or has killed one million people, a figure exponentially greater than other estimates. “This is the biggest cover-up in the history of medicine!” Caldicott bellows, but she throws up her hands when asked for the reason.

Nick Schager, writing in The Village Voice was not completely pleased with Stone’s relentless point of view and purposeful avoidance of attempting to insert journalistic “balance”, but he offered the following statement indicating he understands the film’s primary message.

The case for nuclear power as the solution to both the planet’s rapidly escalating energy needs and the climate change produced by fossil fuels and natural gas is aggressively, and somewhat convincingly, made by writer-director Robert Stone.

The San Francisco Guardian included the following statement in its review of Pandora’s Promise.

Couching the debate in cultural and political context going back to World War II, Stone builds a case for nuclear energy as a viable method to provide clean, safe power for planet in the throes of climate change that will nonetheless need double or triple the current amount of energy by 2050, as billions in the developing world emerge from poverty.

Ashutosh Jogalekar, in a guest post on Scientific American titled Hope springs eternal: “Pandora’s Promise” and the truth about nuclear energy wrote:

So why would environmentalists of all people support nuclear power? What changed these people’s minds? Two things, primarily.

One was the gap between perception and reality that they uncovered on speaking to the experts and doing their own research. Foremost among their revelations was an accurate appraisal of the nebulous bogeyman named “radiation”. The basic facts are well-known to informed audiences but they bear repeating: we are bathed in a sea of background radiation whose level often exceeds those from even the worst nuclear accidents like Chernobyl.

Aside: Once again, my own oddness makes me wonder why so many people assume it is surprising that people who care about clean air, clean water, and treading lightly on earth would support the use of densely concentrated nuclear energy. After all, it contains 2 million times as much energy per unit mass as oil! That means you can do a lot more work with a lot less material. That sounds like an environmental mantra to me. End Aside.

Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune was also not pleased with Stone’s decision to avoid turning his film into a balanced debate instead of an attempt to expose the truth learned through deep research. His review is titled Complaining about documentary films.

Anthony Kaufman at IndieWire mentioned Pandora’s Promise as an example in his piece titled Lefty Filmmakers Grapple with Left-Wing Backlash

While the attacks against Gibney and his film have been well-documented, by O’Hehir and others (and I can certainly confirm them, as even I was blasted on Twitter for my favorable piece on “We Steal Secrets”), the backlash against “Pandora’s Promise” is just beginning.

In one such paper titled “Pandora’s False Promise,” published for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, executive director Kennette Benedict writes, “A more powerful approach to this complex threat to humanity would be to film a fact-based, passionate debate that explored the alternatives, trade-offs, and consequences of various energy options. Such an exploration might move us from the usual politics of zealotry to new habits of thought, and perhaps to new forms of action based on all the facts.”

But what’s funny to me is that this is exactly what I found “Pandora’s Promise” to be.

Not that I feel compelled to provide any balance on Atomic Insights, I still think it is useful to read widely and understand that other points of view exist. Common Dreams is a predictable place to find a shrill critic of the beneficial use of nuclear energy, so I turned there to find what I later discovered was a press release titled Pandora’s Propaganda: New Documentary Omits Sound Science and Expert Research and Should be Viewed with the Facts at Hand. (Regular readers will be shocked to find that contact is Linda Gunter, writing from Takoma Park, Maryland, an enclave near Washington, DC that has achieve a self-sustaining critical mass of antinuclear activism.)

“When Pandora’s Promise was first publicized, it claimed to feature ‘former leaders of the anti-nuclear movement,’ which got our attention,” said Linda Gunter of Beyond Nuclear who has authored several documents examining the claims made in the film and in its publicity. “But when we looked at who was actually featured, we found that virtually all roads led to The Breakthrough Institute whose personnel appear prominently in the film and none of whom ever ‘led’ the anti-nuclear movement.”

Aside The way I finally recognized this piece as a press release was when I realized that Ms. Gunter seemed to be quoting herself and decided that even an antinuclear activist would know better than that. I guess I should have seen the “For Immediate Release” above the title of the piece. Oops. End Aside.

It is also useful to turn back the clock several months to an Inside Movies review published after the film’s debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Sundance: What makes ‘The Way, Way Back’ a crowd-pleaser? Plus ‘Pandora’s Promise,’ a radically sane and important documentary about how nuclear power could save us.

It’s a movie that says: “Stop thinking what you’ve been thinking, because if you don’t, you’re going to collude in wrecking the world.” Pandora’s Promise is built around what should be the real liberal agenda: looking at an issue not with orthodoxy, but with open eyes.

You can find more links and reviews of Pandora’s Promise in yesterday’s post titled Pandora’s Promise Review Roundup

Additional links

These additional links were found after the initial post. I will keep adding as more are discovered.

Chenda Ngak, CBS News (June 12, 2013) – “Pandora’s Promise” asks us to rethink nuclear energy

Tom Roston, New York Times (June 14, 2013) A Rebel Filmmaker Tilts Conservative

Hank Campbell, Science 2.0 (June 14, 2013) Pandora’s Promise: Director Robert Stone Takes On The Anti-Nuclear Movement

John Seal, Berkeleyside (June 13, 2013) ‘Pandora’s Promise’: A love letter to atomic energy

Mick LaSalle, Seattle Times (June 13, 2013) ‘Pandora’s Promise’: Opening up pro-nuclear dialogue

Mark Feeney, Boston Globe (June 13, 2013) ‘Pandora’s Promise’: No nukes — or know nukes?

Dave Roberts, Grist (June 14, 2013) Some thoughts on “Pandora’s Promise” and the nuclear debate (Actually, this one is decidedly NOT a review, since Dave is so frustrated with discussing nuclear energy that he refuses to see the film or to participate in the comment thread on his blog post.)

Joe Romm, Climate Progress (June 17, 2013) Pandora’s Promise: Nuclear Power’s Trek From Too Cheap To Meter To Too Costly To Matter Much (Like Dave Roberts, Joe has not seen the movie. He is so certain about nuclear energy that he recommends that others NOT see the movie because he thinks it does not address the issue of cost.)

The post Pandora’s Promise disrupts assumptions about nuclear energy appeared first on Atomic Insights.

Stone’s documentary is a classic “journey of discovery” tale featuring five people who changed their minds about nuclear energy from opposition to support. It takes viewers along the path of knowledge discovery followed by Gwyneth Cravens, Stewart Brand, Mark Lynas, Michael Schellenberger and Richard Rhodes. Some of the stars were only mildly opposed to nuclear, some were strident enough to take part in antinuclear rallies and protests. Some are now unabashed supporters that believe that both existing and future technology are far better than other energy alternatives; others are more cautious and believe that it would be best to consider replacing existing plants with safer designs as quickly as possible.

The project has been fascinating me for several years; I had the opportunity to provide some minor advice and technical consultation during the film’s research and production.

I was hoping to attend a premier event, and even made tentative plans to participate in a sneak preview to be held tonight in Washington, DC, but then determined that a 9 hour round trip drive to see a 1.5 hour movie is a little excessive in the middle of a work week.

Instead, I decided that I would spend a little time and space providing links to reviews from others who have been able to watch the film before its theatrical release this weekend.

I’ll start the review roundup with a critical review from Manohla Dargis in the New York Times titled Asking Environmentalists Not to Fear the Reactor: ‘Pandora’s Promise’ Advocates Nuclear Energy. Here is a quote from that review:

Certainly there’s an environmental case to be made for nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels, which is exactly what some activists and journalists have been exploring for years. But you need to make an argument. A parade of like-minded nuclear-power advocates who assure us that everything will be all right just doesn’t cut it.

When I visited, there were no comments or reader reviews, so I added the following:

Robert Stone is a documentary film maker in the same genre as Josh Fox. He has honed his skills in using documentary videography as an art form through which he expresses his world view. Like Fox, he has a message that he wants to share.

People who want to be fully informed on the nuclear energy debate are free to find counter examples, but why would they expect Stone to provide them? Every film has a tight time budget; Stone spends his focusing on information that he believes is important and relevant to his mission of sharing what he has learned about nuclear energy through a very person journey of discovery.

Disclosure: I was able to answer some technical questions that Stone had during his research. Unfortunately, I was not considered to be a candidate for an appearance because I was not a convert; I became fascinated with the incredible potential of nuclear energy to solve important problems about the time I turned 8 years old. That was 45 years ago.

Rod Adams, Publisher, Atomic Insights

Meredith Angwin at Yes Vermont Yankee has a different view of the film from that of the New York Times film critic. In her post titled Pandora’s Promise: Nationwide now Meredith explains that Stone’s film is not as much a “Road to Damascus” conversion story as it is a thoughtful piece of information sharing aimed at encouraging people to think more deeply about energy choices. Meredith was able to attend a screening of the film at Dartmouth and enjoyed the discussion that it encouraged afterward.

The predictable folks at Beyond Nuclear feel betrayed by the film and its director, so they have published a handout that they have people passing out at some of the premier events. At a recent showing in New York, Robert Stone apparently quipped that it was his first experience at being picketed. Linda Gunter, the author of the pamphlet, resides in the “nuclear-free” zone of Takoma Park, Maryland with her husband and colleague, Paul. Some of their neighbors in that enclave include other professional antinuclear activists like Arjun Makijani, Robert Alvarez, and Kitty Tucker

Nick Touran (who just recently earned his PhD in Nuclear Engineering) has published a full rebuttal to the Beyond Nuclear screed at What is Nuclear titled Pandora’s Revenge. Here is the introduction to a piece that is making the rounds in the pronuclear activism world.

On May 13th, anti-nuclear group BeyondNuclear published a 38-page pdf written by Linda Pentz Gunter called “Pandora’s False Promises” [beyondnuclear.org] which has been picked up by every anti-nuclear person on Earth and waved around as gospel. But, alas, rather than making some good, productive counter-points, it swings way the other way with unsubstantiated, inaccurate opinion. Granted, I’m a nuclear engineer but take a peek and see if it doesn’t sound a little out-there to you too. This is a very natural place for whatisnuclear.com to jump in and deal.

The Nuclear Energy Institute has been following events related to Pandora’s Promise closely, even though Robert Stone expressly refused any financial support that could be linked to the nuclear industry while he was trying to cobble together the resources required for a professionally produced documentary. NEI Nuclear Notes has been compiling what it finds at The Unofficial Guide to Pandora’s Promise, a Documentary Film About Nuclear Energy by Robert Stone Premiering in New York City on June 12 and Nationwide on June 14

NEI Nuclear Notes also published a piece titled Robert Stone and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Clash After Screening of Pandora’s Promise, which is about a personal experience of watching Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. accuse Robert Stone and the protagonists in the movie of all kinds of nasty things. Amusingly enough, Kennedy apparently stated that Stewart Brand was not really an environmentalist. Apparently, RFK was offended by his portrayal in the movie as a wealthy, industrial scale alternative energy system developer and investor working a room full of oil and gas guys for financial support. I wonder where that idea originated?

ANS Nuclear Cafe published a review of the film from Lenka Kollar, another nuclear engineer who had a chance to watch the movie at the University of Chicago, the birthplace of atomic fission. Her thoughts are available at ‘Pandora’s Promise’ – A new documentary film on nuclear energy

I am sure there are more, and I hope more will appear in the next few days as the film gets shown to a growing number of people. If it is available in a theater near you, take some time and take some friends who might be open to learning something new about what I continue to believe is the most important technology discovered in the 20th century.

Aside: I’ve been a little quiet recently. It has been difficult to digest the potential consequences of losing 3500 MW of emission free, hydrocarbon free, electrical generating capacity that used to produce about 28 billion kilowatt hours of power each year. I’m worried about the more than 2,000 nuclear energy professionals who are going to lose their jobs and about the communities that will be affected by increasing pollution, rising energy prices, and rising unemployment.

I’m afraid that things can get worse without focused action, and I am gaining hope that Pandora’s Promise just might be a spark that enables productive conversation.

The post Pandora’s Promise Review Roundup appeared first on Atomic Insights.

One of the least understood features of nuclear power plants is that they consume materials that might otherwise end up in nuclear weapons. Of course, activists that battle the use of nuclear energy generally try to turn that feature into a fault. They have convinced more than a few people that without nuclear power plants, the naturally-occurring material used to produce weapons would not be available.

They neglect the fact that the only two nuclear weapons ever used to harm people were created at least a dozen years before the first electricity producing nuclear reactor.

I wonder how many people really understand that about 10% of the electricity in the United States during the past 20 years has come from decommissioning nuclear weapons and turning the material into heat and elements that will never again be able to fission?

The above clip from Robert Stone’s Pandora’s Promise (hat tip to IndieWire) explains the Megatons to Megawatts program with pictures that speak more loudly than my words can.

The post Clip from Pandora’s Promise explains Megatons to Megawatts appeared first on Atomic Insights.

Since I often point out how infrequently the nuclear industry advertises its clean and exceedingly useful product, I suppose it is only fair for me to point out those occasions when nuclear companies make an effort to communication a clear, concise, memorable, marketing message.

Here’s hoping that the encouragement spawns additional efforts!

The post Nuclear Clean Air Energy – Promotion via Indy Car racing appeared first on Atomic Insights.

It mentioned that politicians like Governor Andrew Cuomo and antinuclear groups like Riverkeeper (in light of the threat of global climate change, I have a hard time granting any group that vigorously opposes nuclear energy with the title of “environmental”) are working hard to require the premature retirement of Indian Point. The news story highlighted a recently published report from the New York Independent System Operator titled “Power Trends 2013″, which included the following warning about the impact of a pushing Indian Point’s 16 GW-hrs per year of annual electricity production off of the New York grid.

This would result in immediate transmission security and resource adequacy criteria violations unless sufficient replacement resources are in place prior to retirement.

(Emphasis added.)

The reporter provided the following interpretation that made the rather technical-sounding language personal for the viewing audience.

What that means is, without another power source, closing Indian Point means you probably won’t be able to power your air conditioner to fight the sweltering summer heat. Or any other home appliance for that matter.

(Emphasis in original report.)

According to the reporter, the cost of replacing Indian Point’s power output would be more than $800 million dollars and that cost would be passed on to consumers. That modest cost estimate can only includes the cost of building replacement power generating capacity using open cycle natural gas turbines (it works out to just $400 per kilowatt of capacity); it cannot include the cost of new gas transmission pipelines, the continuing cost of fuel to operate the plants or the cost of building more efficient, combined cycle power plants.

The news item also included clips of attention grabbing speeches from local politicians who apparently do not have a good understanding of electricity production, the importance of reliable electricity, or the way that electric power grids function to maintain the flow of electricity from power plants all the way to customers.

Here is a quote from a politician behind a podium near the end of the clip. He is not identified, but he is standing in front of a banner that says Westchester County Board of Legislators.

While the risk of something happening might be small, the consequences would be horrific.

I wonder when reporters are going to put politicians on the spot by asking them what the “horrific” consequences of Fukushima really were?

Update: (This post was updated on June 2, 2013 at 5:41 am.) When publishing the first version of this post, I took the lazy route of simply embedded the video from PIX 11 instead of summarizing its contents. I did not realize that the iframe code included an autoplay feature that I could not disable. I apologize for including the annoying feature that started playing every time you reloaded the Atomic Insights site. End Update.

In related news, in a May 31, 2013 post on Dot Earth, Andy Revkin reported on the UNSCEAR report about Fukushima health effects. The article is titled Experts Foresee No Detectable Health Impact from Fukushima Radiation. Please join in the comment thread.

I also recommend that you allocate 10 minutes or so to watch the Vogtle progress update video published as the Friday matinee at ANS Nuclear Cafe.

The post Local news (WPIX-TV) coverage about Indian Point nuclear power plant appeared first on Atomic Insights.

After building a profitable consulting business that has provided the resources to send both his children and grandchildren to college, he has reached a stage in life in which his main goal is to share what he has learned with people who can put that knowledge to good use.

As he says in his introduction to Atomic Show #205, the nuclear industry can put his lessons to good use as it seeks to reduce public outrage over incidents and accidents that have caused far less physical harm than the emotional response supports.

Other guests on the show included Margaret Harding, Meredith Angwin, and Suzy Hobbs-Baker. The show format is a little different than most; Peter lectured and then the rest of us asked questions. It is also a bit longer than the average show, but Peter’s full course in outrage management is normally a full day seminar. He condensed his thoughts, but we plan on at least one follow up conversation.

I hope you take the time to listen carefully. My plan is to publish another post later this weekend that attempts to summarize the key points of his talk so we can engage in a meaningful discussion.

If you want to learn more from Peter about risk communications, please visit his web site. You will find the accumulated results of more than 30 years of professional research and practice.

The post Atomic Show #205 – Peter Sandman teaches nuclear communicators appeared first on Atomic Insights.

My goal is to add just a little more pressure on Jim Green — the national antinuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth, Australia — to come clean and admit his mistakes. It would be even better if Green began to make amends for the environmental and economic damage caused by his antinuclear activism, but that is probably a futile hope.

Though my post probably did not affect the situation, I need to follow up with a report that Jim Green has, indeed, apologized for his math error.

Sincere apologies to Ben Heard and Geoff Russell for attacking them for a “multi-order-of-magnitude mathematical howler”. The recurring 77-fold howler is mine, not theirs. (And Russell’s real mathematical howler is trivial compared to mine since his involved nothing more than an illustrative thought-experiment.)

However, Green has not yet decided to stop fighting the use of nuclear energy.

I’m bound to acknowledge my miscalculations and to apologise for an unwarranted attack. But my messaging − in my critique of the Kharecha/Hansen paper, and in the Choose Nuclear Free paper, and on countless other occasions − is that the greatest hazard posed by nuclear power (and the nuclear fuel cycle more broadly) is the repeatedly-demonstated connection to WMD proliferation. That is unchanged. I’ve also said repeatedly that i’ll gladly volunteer time and energy opposing the uranium/nuclear industry because of i) the WMD links and ii) the sickening, systemic racism which makes the industry unsupportable. Again, no change.

Green has demonstrated that he is willing to read and consider constructive criticism, so I thought I would offer a few thoughts that might help him take the next step away from antinuclear activism and, perhaps even towards pronuclear advocacy.

Like Green, I am no fan of nuclear weapons. Contemplation of the consequences of using them has given me many sleepless nights; as some of you may know, I served two tours on US ballistic missile submarines. I completed 11 strategic deterrent patrols and was a member of the two man control team for all but one of those patrols. I never took that responsibility lightly; it was a sobering assignment when I was 23 and the reality never wore off. However, I am enough of a realist to understand that there is nothing that humans can do to erase the knowledge that certain natural elements can be arranged to explode with enough force to destroy an entire city.

I think we can, and should, reduce the probability of using nuclear weapons to as close to zero as possible. Improving prosperity and reducing the vast inequalities in access to power around the world are two ways to reduce the use of all weapons, especially nuclear weapons; both of those can be enabled by using more and more nuclear energy.

Though hydrocarbons are fantastically useful materials and have served humanity well for hundreds of years, they are also the source of large and growing concentrations of wealth that impoverish others. Their use should be limited – by market competition with increasingly less expensive nuclear energy – to save as much of the finite resources as possible for many future generations and to achieve a situation where natural feedback loops can alleviate most of their climate changing emissions.

As we increase the use of nuclear energy, nuclear materials will become increasingly valuable as fuel sources. Using enriched uranium and plutonium in reactors reduces accessible stockpiles of potential weapons material. The most secure location I can think of for storing materials that could be assembled into weapons is inside the core of an operating nuclear reactor.

Not only are pressure vessels strong vaults, but the complex mixture of radioactive isotopes produced by a fission power plant make the fuel almost completely self-securing. The longer the material remains inside a power generating reactor, the less useful it will be for creating a weapon. After a certain amount of time, the material includes a sufficient variety of isotopes, some with characteristics that greatly reduce their usefulness in a weapon, that it is essentially impossible to convert them to any use other than producing more power.

I am not sure I understand Green’s concern about systemic racism. I am aware that there have been a few campaigns against uranium mining based on the fact that some resources have been exploited from land owned or occupied by aborigines, native Americans, or First Nation tribes, but that is not an inherent factor of nuclear energy. Uranium and thorium are widely distributed around the world; there is a known deposit within an hour of my southwest Virginia home that could supply the entire US demand for two years.

Using nuclear energy is certainly not a racist endeavor; in fact, the Atoms for Peace vision and the program that implemented that vision was one of the least racist programs ever devised by the powerful to share their power and provide opportunities for all to prosper. One of the main reasons that I favor nuclear energy development is that I honestly love humanity and want to bring power to the people.

There is a good chance that people like Jim Green can become effective pronuclear advocates as long as they continue to engage in critical thinking and learn as much as they can about the ways that nuclear energy use aligns with their primary concerns. If Green has the opportunity to watch Pandora’s Promise he might be inspired by a film about leaders who are concerned about both the environment and the power needs of the less advantaged people in the world and, as a result of open-minded examination, have switched from antinuclear opposition to pronuclear support.

The post FoE Australia’s Jim Green issues conditional apology appeared first on Atomic Insights.

During the interview, Rencheck talked about Areva’s business serving the operational needs of the existing fleet of nuclear power plants, its involvement with plant uprates, the Mixed Oxide (MOX) project at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, prospects for used fuel recycling in the United States, and the company’s line of various sized reactor plants including the 1600 MWe EPR, a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), the 1100 MWe Atmea (PWR), and the 1200 MWe Karena, a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR).

The post Areva Inc.’s Mike Rencheck discusses his company’s business outlook appeared first on Atomic Insights.

During the interview, Ferland discussed the B&W mPower^TM reactor, one of the leading small modular reactor development projects; FutureGen 2.0, a carbon capture and storage demonstration project; the impact of increasing government regulations; and the company’s technology development programs.

Disclosure: I am employed by B&W as an engineer/analyst on the B&W mPower reactor development project.

The post B&W’s Jim Ferland describes company’s global business outlook appeared first on Atomic Insights.

While browsing AdWeek, I came across a video titled The Price of Carbon and thought it would be worth sharing as a conversation starter. It’s a pretty concise way to encourage the continuation of a complex discussion about a topic with immediate and long term impact on human existence on Earth.

Instead of charging polluters a fee for dumping their carbon dioxide into our shared atmosphere, we are all paying the cost of the consequences of putting attempting to store about 30 tons per year in our air. I’m willing to pay my share and work to reduce our collective contribution to the pollution. Are you?

Update: (Posted at 3:44 on May 23, 2013) After receiving several comments, I realized that I did not clearly state my recommended means of both paying my share and working to reduce our collective contribution to the pollution. I believe that Jim Hansen’s fee and dividend approach makes a world of sense and can be packaged into a politically palatable product.

I also was hoping that Atomic Insights readers would “get” that I am certain that rapidly expanding nuclear energy will increase human access to affordable, reliable energy — and energy use is what gives us the ability to do valuable work and live abundant, fulfilling lives — while at the same time dramatically slow human greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, nuclear fission does not just reduce CO2 when it replaces hydrocarbon combustion, it also eliminates NOx, SOx, fine particulates, trace toxins, and mercury. End Update.

BTW, for those who want to argue by claiming that CO2 is a plant fertilizer and a natural product, consider the fact that feces can make exactly the same claim.

The post Replace price of carbon with price on carbon appeared first on Atomic Insights.

With Ben’s permission, I have decided to publish another copy of his important article in hopes of increasing its exposure and generating a new series of comments. My goal is to add just a little more pressure on Jim Green — the national antinuclear campaigner for Friends of the Earth, Australia — to come clean and admit his mistakes. It would be even better if Green began to make amends for the environmental and economic damage caused by his antinuclear activism, but that is probably a futile hope.

Green Nuclear Junk

By Ben Heard and Geoff Russell

In their determination to attack nuclear power and those who support it, anti-nuclear activism has walked away from the scientific process. As a result, nearly the entire community of environmental organisations in Australia is currently standing behind figures that are completely mathematically incorrect. Will they correct these blatant errors and open their publications to expert external review? Or is correct maths and good science optional when you wear the colour green?

The great scientist Carl Sagan famously said that extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. So how is it that Jim Green, an anti-nuclear campaigner with no scientific journal publications, can accuse James Hansen, one of the most extraordinary scientists of the last 50 years, of junk science?

In Green’s recent article “James Hansen’s nuclear junk science” he does precisely what good scientists don’t do. He cherry picks data.

For those who came in late, Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen recently calculated, in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, that the historic deployment of nuclear power had likely prevented 1.84 million air-pollution related deaths, and by mid-century would prevent a further 420,000 – 7.04 million such deaths.

James Hansen

In response, Green has the temerity to call Hansen a “policy flake”. That’s bizarre. For his outspoken policy advocacy on climate change such as the phase out of the coal industry and the cessation of tar sands operations, together with advocacy for fee-and-dividend carbon pricing, Hansen has been rightly lionised by the left and respected almost universally. But there is another platform to his policy position: that nuclear power must be deployed to prevent further climate destabilisation. Same man, same intellect, same background. This should give pause to those on the left who oppose nuclear power.

But according to Green, Hansen is now peddling junk science, claiming that Hansen got the mortality rates from nuclear power wrong. So the guts of Green’s article is a table of numbers giving deaths per gigawatt year of various energy technologies, with nuclear faring just as poorly as coal. He would have us apply this table in place of the figures provided by Kharecha and Hansen. He boldly criticises the authors for their sourcing relating to nuclear mortality, saying this:

They say: “About 25% of these deaths are due to occupational accidents and about 70% are due to air pollution-related effects (presumably fatal cancers from radiation fallout; see Table 2 of ref 16).” Ref 16 is a 2007 article in The Lancet — which makes no effort to explain or justify its figures for nuclear power deaths.

This shows both arrogance and laziness. Firstly, The Lancet is one of the world’s most highly respected medical journals. As far as sourcing goes, that’s a good first step.

Furthermore, Green is just plain wrong. The Lancet says exactly what is contained in the estimate: “…occupational effects (especially from mining), routine radiation during generation, decommissioning, reprocessing, low-level waste disposal, high-level waste disposal, and accidents.” They also clearly cite the estimate as a summary from the ExternE project.

ExternE is a huge actuarial project run between 1998 and 2005 involving an array of experts in Universities across Europe, under the auspices of the European Commission. The table in question is the summation of thousands of pages of methodology, assessment and reporting, all of which is publicly available. ExternE spends 250 pages justifying its nuclear power death estimates.

Kharecha and Hansen apply the expert information in this table to calculate that nuclear power had saved 1.84 million lives since 1971. But rather than relying on this work by experts, Green refers readers to an alternate table of figures, shown below.

Grossly inaccurate table of mortality published by Choose Nuclear Free

Forgive the interrupted prose, but the process by which this table was developed is best explained with bullets.

• As source for this table, Green directs the reader to a page at an anti-nuclear website Choose Nuclear Free. The page is authored by Green.
• The page repeats the table, and references a more detailed paper. This paper is also authored by Green.
• The paper repeats the table again, this time listing the various sources.
  For figures on biomass, rooftop solar, and oil, Green draws on information from a non-peer reviewed webpage found through the Lifeboat Project.

• In converting these mortality factors from terawatt hours (TWh) to gigawatt years (GWy), he butchers them by accidentally dividing the figure by 8.76 when it should have been multiplied by 8.76. All of these figures are numerically incorrect. For example, Biomass should show 105 deaths per GWy instead of 1.4. Oil should be 315 instead of 4.5. Green’s coal figures are a from a mish-mash of sources, some of which measure in deaths/GWy and others in deaths/TWh. Ignoring this and just using the Lifeboat figures for simplicity, the range should be more like 131-2,435 deaths per GWy.
• This source (Lifeboat Project) also provides a number for nuclear power (0.04 deaths per TWh which would have, erroneously, converted to 0.005 deaths per GWy by Green’s maths or 0.35 using actual maths) . Green ignored it, presumably because this was too low.
• He instead builds his own nuclear mortality factor by:
  • Firstly selecting a 1996 estimate from the IAEA for fatalities from Chernobyl (26,000) and normalising to deaths per GWy. That this 1996 expectation hasn’t eventuated is demonstrated by later assessments of the evidence which Green ignores (see our reference below to the 2007 UNSCEAR assessment).
  • Then selecting a single, non-peer reviewed discussion from a US nuclear physicist (Garvin, 2001) for mortality from the rest of the nuclear energy chain. We have serious misgivings about this assessment itself, however that deserves its own investigation;
  • Then summing the two figures above; then finally
  • Cherry picking a single line from a 424 page 2006 report of BIER as justification to double the upper end of his own mish-mash figure.

Dear readers, we give you junk science. This isn’t so much cherry picking as it is a half-baked cherry pie. Yet this unbelievably bad bit of work is hosted by a site with a tag line “Accurate information about Australia’s energy options”.

But this is especially concerning because Choose Nuclear Free also hosts a joint statement against nuclear energy signed by every major environmental organisation in Australia. This is why peer reviewed science matters. Environmental organisations cannot be permitted to excuse themselves from that process in undertaking their activism and get away with endorsing a non-peer reviewed, mathematically incorrect melange of cherry picked sources that is then leveraged to influence national policy. That’s exactly the practice they object to when it is evident in climate change denial. By insulating themselves from review and indulging in group-think on nuclear, they are just as guilty.

Green’s case falls apart when he tries to claim there have been “countless” accidents in the nuclear energy chain. Wrong. You can count them alright, and that’s what the Energy Related Severe Accident Database does. It tells us that between 1970 and 2005, in the OECD coal incurred 81 severe accidents (defined as 5 fatalities or greater) across the energy chain resulting in 2,123 fatalities. For nuclear, the figures are zero and zero. In non-OECD nations, the figures for coal are 1,507 severe accidents for 29,816 fatalities, and the figures for nuclear are 1 and 31 (being direct fatalities from Chernobyl). ExterneE replicates these findings. This mis-step in logic by Green is extreme.

Energy-related severe accidents (1970-2005)

Green mentions serious hydro accidents in brackets as though they somehow don’t quite count. The ENSAD records two hydro dam failures alone, Banqiao and Shimantan, as responsible for 26,000 fatalities, and ten further failures causing a further 4,000 deaths. These accidents counted for those victims. It is unacceptable to devalue human life when it fails to support the anti-nuclear argument.

The article is padded with discussion of the effects of low-level radiation and Chernobyl. This is an area of ongoing scientific uncertainty, and credible organisations provide differing conclusions. But Green leverages this uncertainty to the most extreme result.

His firstly distances himself from the advice of the peak body while criticising Hansen for attending to it. This is in every way akin to climate denialists dismissing the IPCC. Green remains comfortably distant from the up-to-date advice of the UN who stated, following a major review in December 2012,

“Because of the great uncertainties in risk estimates at very low doses, UNSCEAR does not recommend multiplying very low doses by large numbers of individuals to estimate numbers of radiation-induced health effects within a population exposed to incremental doses at levels equivalent to or lower than natural background levels”.

Green rejects Hansen’s upper limit estimate of 4,900 deaths from nuclear accidents, stating that credible estimates for Chernobyl range from 9,000- 93,000. The link provided to support this statement is to another non-peer reviewed article co-authored by Green himself, which itself provides no source for these figures. But the figures can only be arrived at by doing precisely what UNSCEAR cautions against: multiplying very low doses by large numbers of individuals.

Hansen is correct to quote the figure for known fatalities for Chernobyl of 43 (28 in the event and immediate aftermath plus 15 fatal cases of latent thyroid cancer). He is reasonable in offering an estimate of 4,900 addition deaths for the industry as a whole, being fatal cancers that may have occurred, but at a rate that is too small to distinguish from what is normal. He is well-supported when he reiterates that this is a probable over-estimate due to the wealth of evidence suggesting that low-dose radiation is simply not harmful, including the 2007 observation from UNSCEAR that after 20 years of exhaustive studies of Chernobyl there was “no persuasive evidence of any other health impact in the general population that can be attributed to radiation exposure”. This is hardly going to be the end of the matter for all concerned. But it is certainly not junk science.

Of course, Green glosses over the 64 Gt of greenhouse gas emissions avoided through nuclear power deployment to date. That’s unreal, but sadly typical. It seems anti-nuclear activism would happily cook the globe if it meant no more nuclear power.

Electricity generation by fuel – France 1972-2008

[Note: France supplies electricity at around 80g CO2/kWh. Australia’s National Electricity Market produces around 800g CO2/kWh]

The article attacking Hansen is not a critique. It is a deliberately constructed mis-reading of a scientific paper and its reputable sources, aimed at discrediting a celebrated scientist whose work has become problematic for the author. It is clumsy, lazy, shoddy and deceptive, having failed to read and understand the source material and then accusing Hansen and The Lancet of a lack of rigour.

At every turn it seeks to weight the argument against nuclear by steering away from the best sources, the best science, the multi-paper reviews, and the peak bodies. It provides instead a self-referential pastiche, cobbled together from the fruits of non-peer reviewed activism, cherry picking, merging and simply butchering select references in the process.

To top it off, this error-ridden product is currently leveraged by every major environmental organisation in Australia to push their agenda and influence Australia’s policy directions on energy. That’s not science. That’s not a critique worthy of publication in a peer reviewed scientific journal. That’s an attack on the scientific process itself, and a direct analogue to the techniques of climate change denial.

Hansen is but one in a growing group of highly credible voices who have reached the same conclusions: that an effective strategy to address climate change simply must include nuclear power, and that the hazards presented by nuclear power have been greatly exaggerated and pale in comparison to the threat of climate change. If environmentalism wishes to retain any kind of moral high ground in climate change as we push past 400 ppm CO2, it must reject the junk science of non-peer reviewed anti-nuclear activism. It must evolve to a position based on the transparent application credible, expert science.

Ben Heard is Director of ThinkClimate Consulting, a climate change and sustainability advisory firm. Geoff Russell is a mathematician, computer programmer and longstanding member of Animal Liberation SA. Both authors have rescinded previous positions of strong opposition to nuclear power and have become vocal nuclear advocates.

Ben Heard www.thinkclimateconsulting.com.au; www.decarbonisesa.com ;
Twitter: @BenThinkClimate
Geoff Russell www.perfidy.com.au
Twitter: @csiroperfidy

The post Green Nuclear Junk – reposted from DecarboniseSA appeared first on Atomic Insights.

Here is a sample quote from her article:

Some critics are already questioning, though, why the former national security leaders have set their sights on nonproliferation measures as a chief hindrance to U.S. nuclear sales overseas, when competitors such as France, Russia and South Korea enjoy financial advantages that substantially reduce their prices.

“The problem is not nonproliferation but foreign subsidies of [the] U.S. [industry’s] competitors,” said the congressional source. “That’s the real problem that needs to be solved.”

One gold-standard advocate, Henry Sokolski, questioned the letter’s contention that U.S. nuclear sales to foreign nations must be a principal vehicle for Washington in stanching proliferation.

“You’d think after our wretched experience with civil nuclear programs in Iran, India, Iraq, Pakistan and our past near-calls with Taiwan and South Korea’s programs, this would be the last thing anyone truly opposed to nuclear weapons proliferation would push,” said Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.

For readers that have not been following this issue closely, the so-called “gold standard” refers to the highly restrictive agreement made by the UAE to permanently forgo any domestic nuclear fuel enrichment or recycling in return for being granted access to US technology. Interestingly enough, that 123 agreement merely opened the door for a lucrative sale of four reactors by South Korea to the UAE. They needed the US agreement because some (precious few, in my opinion) of the components for the reactors would come from the US.

According to some uninformed politicians, who apparently believe that the US still has a near monopoly on nuclear knowledge, all countries should agree to forgo full access to the lucrative nuclear fuel cycle in return for gaining access to “our” technology. They fail to understand that it has been many decades since the US led the world in nuclear energy technology and they fail to take the step of trying to look at their demands from the other side of the table.

Why would any nation agree to permanently give up access to a useful and rewarding technology like manufacturing commercial nuclear fuel? Why would they agree to stop working on ways to improve nuclear fuel utilization from its current dismal level of just 3-5% of the initial enriched fuel input?

Aside: When viewed from a raw uranium input point of view, the utilization is an even more dismal 0.5% of the initial potential energy of the mined material. End Aside.

I know that if I was advising a negotiating team, I would never suggest that they accept that kind of restriction.

I also reject the politically popular assumption that Iran must be pursuing a nuclear weapon program just because they have access to abundant quantities of domestic oil and natural gas. Nuclear energy is a superior power source with much longer lasting resources. In the short term, producing more domestic electricity with nuclear energy simply frees up more oil and natural gas for export. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for Iran to be developing a completely domestic nuclear energy capability; there is no reason to assume that they are only interested in weapons.

In fact, there are also plenty of reasons for traditional anti-Iran nations like Israel and Saudi Arabia to oppose Iran’s commercial nuclear interests with as much fervor as opposing any weapons interests. They would prefer for Iran to burn its oil and gas rather than selling it into the international market. Everyone who follows energy should know that Saudi Arabia has long competed against Iran in the oil and gas market; not everyone is yet aware that Israel’s recent natural gas discoveries in the Eastern Med have turned that country into a natural gas export market competitor against Iran.

Hamre’s position on the matter was clearly stated in a letter dated April 25, 2013 that he wrote to the President. That letter was cosigned by an experienced group of nuclear energy and national security experts including Senator William S. Cohen, former Secretary of Defense; Dr. James Schlesinger, Former Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Defense, and Director, CIA; Admiral Michael Mullen, Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; General Brent Scowcroft, Former National Security Adviser, General James Jones, Former National Security Adviser; Ms. Susan Eisenhower, Chairman Emeritus, Eisenhower Institute and granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower, the author of ‘Atoms for Peace’.

Here is the summary of the position stated in that letter:

Consistent with the Atoms for Peace policy framework, America restricts the right of other countries to buy from American nuclear suppliers unless those countries agreed to stringent security procedures and conditions (the so-called 123 process). Historically we have managed this process on a sensible case-by-case basis. If we adopt a much more restrictive approach, we will not prevent countries from acquiring nuclear technology, but instead will encourage nations to turn to suppliers that do not impose difficult standards. The non-proliferation regime is weakened in that circumstance.

We share your Administration’s concern about the risks associated with the potential spread of sensitive nuclear fuel cycle technologies such as enrichment and reprocessing. But as our nation seeks to reduce these risks, we must be careful not to diminish America’s influence in the international civil nuclear marketplace. America’s nuclear industry exports are shrinking, and this is bad for non- proliferation policy.

The U.S. Government must recognize that the U.S. civil nuclear industry is one of its most powerful tools for advancing its nuclear nonproliferation agenda. It is critical to adopt policies that will strengthen that tool. Weakening it will merely cede foreign markets to other suppliers less concerned about nonproliferation than the United States.

My personal feeling is that even the 123 approach is overly restrictive and inhibits America’s ability to compete in the international nuclear energy market and to influence the direction of the world’s energy economy. It adds a substantial regulatory and information protection burden on suppliers that do business in the US that is not added to suppliers from other countries.

Though I have not performed any detailed cost analysis on this, my sense is that the cost impact might be even more important than the presence or lack of government subsidies. Any excessive burdens that the government imposes add costs without providing any corresponding benefit. When those burdens are placed on just some participants in the market, they distort the market.

I added the following comment to Grossman’s piece.

I am not a former “defense leader”, just a retired US Navy commander with a Naval War College diploma whose research focus area was the impact of energy policies on national security policies. I am also a working level lead engineer/analyst at a company that is developing small modular reactors, which we hope to export in larger numbers. Success in the international market will provide a substantial boost to both the US economy and our own bottom line.

It is from that personal perspective that I offer the following response to the “nonproliferation community” as embodied by Henry Sokolski.

The primary problem I have with all efforts to attempt to impose a policy of not selling to any country that will not agree to permanently forgo domestic nuclear fuel production is that it will lock US based suppliers out of the most important energy technology in the world. Not only is nuclear energy a terrific source of energy that provides exceptional employment opportunities, but it is also the only economical replacement for cheap coal that does not generate any greenhouse gases or the more noxious pollutants associated with burning hydrocarbons like SOx, NOx, and fine particulates.

The effort will not stop any country from going nuclear, it will simply remove one source of supply. That may make the effort to produce power plants a little more expensive, and may slow the vital transition away from fossil fuels for central station power production.

The stupidly named “gold standard” is not the only problem being considered for imposition. The administration also seems bent on adding a lot of quite standard components like pumps, valves, and internal core supports designed for light water reactors to the list of items subject to export controls. (Light water reactors are produced by nearly a dozen different countries and have been in use since the mid 1950s.)

Every additional restriction placed on US participation in export markets adds cost to nuclear items, even if the item is designed for the US domestic market. That is because every item that gets added to an export control list is more difficult to design and build due to the expensive task of preventing that item from being exposed to the possibility of “deemed export” by being made available to anyone who is not a US citizen or green card holder.

In today’s well-connected world, it is expensive and time consuming to set up systems that absolutely ensure that emails and web sites are completely protected from passing through foreign territory. It is also more challenging and expensive to staff an engineering organization if no foreign nationals are allowed. The more parts that must be protected, the more expensive the final product becomes. (Perhaps that is Sokoloski’s real goal – to do whatever he can to price nuclear energy out of the market.)

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights

The post Risks to American nuclear workers from “nonproliferation” excesses appeared first on Atomic Insights.

The panel discussion was moderated by John Hamre, President and CEO of Center for Strategic and International Studies. Participants included E. James Ferland, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Babcock & Wilcox Company; Caroline A. Reda, President and Chief Executive Officer, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy; Michael W. Rencheck, President and Chief Executive Officer, AREVA Inc. and Daniel L. Roderick, President and Chief Executive Officer, Westinghouse Electric Company.

They discussed a number of challenges and opportunities including small modular reactors, competition with natural gas, market distortions caused by targeted subsidies, financial benefits to US of the Export-Import Bank, innovation, competing against government-owned corporations, and the obsolete nature of the prohibition against foreign ownership of US based nuclear power plants. (That last one was in response to a question from the floor. Some of you might recognize the source of the question. )

Since it is difficult for many nuclear professionals to take the time away from their normal duties to attend meetings like the NEA, I thought it would be worthwhile to share this informative discussion with you.

The post Atomic Show #204 – Nuclear vendor CEOs discuss global market outlook appeared first on Atomic Insights.

Fortunately, the crowd at the Nuclear Energy Assembly included a growing number of decidedly not “male, pale and stale” leaders like Margaret Harding, Mimi Limbach, Ann Bisconti and Caroline Reda.

It will take me several days to digest all of the things I learned and heard, both from the podium and in the valuable “hallway conversations” that often occur when you meet people in face to face situations. I have some recorded audio that might find its way into an Atomic Show or two. I also arose early one morning to get a sneak peak at a terrific tool for teaching high school students about the basics of radiation and nuclear energy. That tool comes from an organization that is very familiar to the people in the industry. The group normally maintains a low public profile; the high quality of the educational material opened my eyes to the depth of their talent.

The first thing I want to share, however, is an inspiring video produced by the North American Young Generations in Nuclear (NA-YGN) group. They were in town for a meeting that is scheduled to align with the NEA and have a tradition of taking advantage of being in Washington to meet their elected representatives on Capital Hill and tell them a little about nuclear energy.

I was not the only one who thought that the video was one of the more memorable parts of the conference. Late yesterday afternoon, Robert Trigaux published a column titled A busy week of pitching by nuclear power industry, but who’s buying? in the Tampa Bay Times. Here is a quote from that article:

In Washington, D.C., Duke Energy’s deposed CEO-for-a-moment Bill Johnson, now head of the Tennessee Valley Authority power company, stood at the podium of this week’s Nuclear Energy Institute conference to unveil the industry’s secret weapon.

It’s a video of the North American Young Generation in Nuclear, the nuclear power industry’s organization of youthful engineers and others who work at nuclear power plants. Some 300 of them, including a half dozen or so from a Duke nuclear plant in North Carolina, descended this week on Capitol Hill to spread the nuclear gospel to 200 members of Congress.

“It is very important that these people see that there are young people interested in nuclear science and technology and are advocating for a positive future,” says the group’s young chairwoman.

The organization delivers a compelling appeal to Congress to support nuclear power. And the video boosts morale at the Nuclear Energy Institute meeting where an industry gathered to celebrate the nation’s few new nuclear power plant projects — in Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. Says NEI: Nuclear is “well positioned to expand” as the economy rebounds.

Trigaux goes on to remind his readers about the recent Tampa Bay Times article questioning the value of the Levy County nuclear power plant project and concluding with the opinion that building a natural gas plant would be cheaper for consumers, even when taking a 60 year plant lifetime into account.

I provided the following comment on Trigaux’s column.

Robert – I attended the Nuclear Energy Assembly and saw the inspiring video of young nuclear professionals sharing information with their elected representatives on Capital Hill. Thank you for noticing the event.

Your paper has done some important work by scrutinizing the high initial cost of building new nuclear power plants in the United States. It is an issue that is certainly worth attention and analysis by people who do not yet understand how interested they should be in the decision process.

As you pointed out, trying to compare the cost of different types of power plants, each with their own unique advantages and disadvantages is a daunting task. However, it is not beyond the capabilities of people who are both outside of the nuclear industry and outside of the professional opposition groups to the nuclear industry.

Many of the inputs of the analysis have more than a monetary component and many of the variables are not independent of the choice that is being made. For example, how valuable is the nuclear plant’s proven ability to store all waste produced over many decades of operation in a small corner of a large site? Who would Floridians prefer to pay, distant suppliers of natural gas and pipeline construction companies or neighbors that hold well paying jobs operating and maintaining a nuclear plant during its 60 year lifetime?

Is it horrible that Duke Energy may earn a reasonable profit for the hard work and financial risk associated with a lengthy construction project? Would it be better for unknown gas suppliers to be able to sell fuel for 60 years at unpredictable market prices that are partially driven by the number of successful – or unsuccessful – nuclear projects?

As Ivan Penn pointed out in his article, there are a number of cost components associated with new nuclear plant construction projects that can be influenced by the public and our elected officials. Do you advocate intelligent action to identify those places where we can decide to help lower costs without sacrificing safety?

After I read Ivan Penn’s initial article, I wrote the following blog post on Atomic Insights – Is Levy County nuclear plant too expensive to compete with natural gas?

http://atomicinsights.com/2013/05/is-levy-county-nuclear-plant-too-expensive-to-compete-with-natural-gas.html

You can probably tell that I tend to favor the nuclear plant option. Even though I no longer live in Florida, most of my family does. They are paying the easily affordable extra fees on current bills but they will reap the benefits of the clean, reliable power that new nuclear plants will be able to provide if they receive both political and financial investment support. So will their children and probably their grandchildren.

I’m not sure when Americans became so selfish that they began creating spreadsheet formulas that severely discount the value of making long term investments that benefit future generations. For some odd reason, bankers and investment professionals have taught people to apply factors and equations that result in essentially no value being assigned to benefits that are produced more than about 20 years into the future. Those equations also make future expenditures for fuel look pretty tiny compared to money that needs to be spent in the near future to build long-lasting production facilities.

I’m sure glad my parents and their parents were willing to help build power plants that benefit Floridians today.

Rod Adams – Publisher, Atomic Insights
Former resident of Pembroke Pines, Orlando, and Tarpon Springs

The post Pitching nuclear energy and explaining value of new plant construction appeared first on Atomic Insights.

The effort is a serious attempt to raise questions about the proposed facility and to ask hard questions about the company’s statements about the reasons that they are going forward with the project. Despite my unreserved support for nuclear technology development, I believe the nuclear industry needs to understand the implications of the results and consider taking action to that will encourage unbiased observers to change the underlying assumptions.

The primary action we need to take is to develop a cost aware culture that understands that losing control of cost is almost as hazardous for the health of the general public as losing control over quality or safety. A “cost is no object” approach to quality and safety cannot be sustained because it results in a culture where even the tiniest issue can result in responses that have almost no upper limit in capital expenditures or man-hours. Anything that gets reported becomes a high priority item; which often skews resource allocation and prevents or delays actions that may be more important.

There is an ever present danger of political pressure to move as slowly as possible to make effective regulatory decisions. We must never lose sight of the fact that people who oppose the use of nuclear energy are well-funded, well-connected, and highly motivated to add as much cost and delay as possible. It is often politically easy for the regulator to announce that they are going to review every change and analyse every issue in an unconstrained manner that pays no attention to the cost associated with the imposed delay.

Our competition does not make the same mistake; they often push back against overreaction to minor issues and effectively use cost-based arguments to help establish action plans based on sound prioritization decisions. Take, for example, the delays and associate cost increases that resulted when inspectors at plant Vogtle noticed that the rebar pattern for the basemat did not exactly match the version of the concrete construction code that was used during the design certification application. Based on news reports, here is the chronology:

April 26, 2012 NRC says Vogtle rebar differs from approved design

Rebar installed at the construction site for Plant Vogtle’s new Unit 3 reactor is not consistent with approved design standards, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, whose inspectors identified the issue last week.

July 14, 2012 Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejects plan to modify rebar in Plant Vogtle’s Unit 3 reactor

A proposal to modify – rather than replace – non-conforming rebar in the foundation of Plant Vogtle’s Unit 3 reactor is unacceptable, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

October 23, 2012
NRC approves plan to resolve Plant Vogtle rebar, concrete issues

Southern Nuclear’s request to amend Plant Vogtle’s construction license to resolve issues with noncompliant rebar and unlevel concrete will be approved, according to the the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

March 14, 2013 First nuclear concrete placed at Plant Vogtle expansion

Georgia Power has completed the placement of basemat structural concrete for the nuclear island at its Vogtle Unit 3 nuclear expansion site, a significant achievement in the building of the first new nuclear units in the United States in 30 years.

Anyone who has been involved in a complex project will recognize the costs and schedule impact associated with resolving an issue that slows construction progress for nearly a year on a project with a projected total cost of approximately $14 billion. It appears, from the outside looking in, that the necessary modifications were relatively minor, even though they consumed a huge chunk of analytical resources along with substantial time investments by associated company license experts. During the entire episode when construction was not moving as scheduled, the company was paying $274 per hour of regulatory review time.

I have no knowledge of the details, but I am nearly positive that there were opportunities to more quickly address the issue and move to the same safe decision in a much shorter period of time.

It is construction performance and regulatory responses like that that makes cost estimators add plenty of padding and contingencies. Of course, if things go more smoothly, there is a normal human tendency to use up the available budget. The result is that large, complex nuclear projects often ratchet with a strong bias in the upward direction. The nuclear industry must take effective action to slow the ratchet effect and to help the regulator recognize that cost is an object whose control contributes to overall public safety. If we do not succeed, the result will be a more precarious dependence on fossil fuels, a power source with known deleterious effects on human health and climate stability.

There are a few assumptions and analysis techniques worth challenging in the Times report. It appears to me that their models used natural gas price assumptions that smooth out variations and spikes to result in a steady, inflation driven increase in the price. That is unrealistic based on history.

Daily price of natural gas at Henry Hub

Like many recent cost comparison studies, the Times report starts with the assumption that natural gas price performance during the period from 2000-2008 was an aberration that resulted in prices that will not be seen again for another decade. The narrative that the industry currently encourages is the one in which the new technology of horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing has created an enormous, cheap resource that is the source of a long period of low prices.

Even with an overestimate of the capital cost of a nuclear power plant, the cost comparison between natural gas and nuclear energy would be quite different under an assumption that prices from 2008-2012 were caused by a difficult-to-repeat confluence of irrational exuberance in the drilling industry, a drop in demand caused by the Great Recession of 2008-2012 and a couple of mild winters. If natural gas prices return to the pattern established in 2000-2008, fuel expenditures and the capacity factor assumption for a replacement gas plant would both lead to much higher costs than calculated for the gas plant alternative.

I also have to challenge the capital cost assumption made for the gas plant. As I understand the cost estimates for the Levy county power station, about $4 billion of the $24 billion cost estimate is associated with building the required transmission infrastructure to tie the plant into the grid. A gas plant construction project would need to make a similar of investment in transmission and distribution infrastructure, but the Times asserts that a natural gas plant with the same output as the Levy county plant can be built for $2.5 billion.

I also wonder if there is any accounting in the comparison for the cost of the increased gas pipeline infrastructure. I am sure that Mr. Penn realizes that Florida is a peninsula that does not produce its own natural gas; the pipelines that supply Florida do not have enough available capacity to supply a new 2200 MWe plant operating at the assumed 81% capacity factor.

There was one more issue with the article that indicated to me that the author is not actually interested in a fair comparison. Though people who have not been following nuclear issues closely might miss the bias indicator, long term participants in the battle for public understanding should see the problem in the following concluding quote:

Diversity in any system is a good thing, “but there’s no point in overpaying for it,” said Bradford, who approved 21 nuclear plants while a federal regulator. The financial realities of nuclear plants changed long ago, he said.

Including nuclear in an “all of the above” strategy “has become kind of a last refuge of scoundrels,” Bradford said. “If we’re talking about world hunger we don’t talk about an all of the above strategy. We don’t say, ‘Lets fight world hunger with caviar.’ “

Peter Bradford has made a career out of being a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member who is opposed to the use of nuclear energy. He serves on the board of the antinuclear UCS, a group that includes a few scientists and a lot of antinuclear lawyers. Peter Bradford was a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from August 1977 through August 1982. That period included the Three Mile Island accident, after which there were no new nuclear plants licensed for at least three years.

I need to do some research to find out which 21 plants he claims to have approved. Perhaps one of you could do that for today’s homework assignment. I need to get ready for my day job.

The post Is Levy County nuclear plant too expensive to compete with natural gas? appeared first on Atomic Insights.

Not surprisingly, we agreed that future energy systems that include a large dose of nuclear energy are more achievable and will also result in increasing human creative capabilities rather than restricting our development potential.

Additional topics included the recent final shutdown of the Kewaunee nuclear power station, nuclear tourism, growing interest in Small Modular Reactors (SMR) around the world, including Australia, and the positive responses that Robert Stone is getting at college campuses as he holds screenings for Pandora’s Promise. That well-received documentary that tells the story of people who have made a personal journey from nuclear opposition to nuclear energy support will be released in theaters around the US (and perhaps the rest of the world) in June 2013.

Guests on this episode of the Atomic Show:
Gwyneth Cravens, author of Power to Save the World: The Truth about Nuclear Energy
Ben Heard, director of Think Climate Consulting and a principal author of Zero Carbon Options
Margaret Harding, principal at 4 Factor Consulting
Steve Aplin, who blogs at Canadian Energy Issues
Paul Lorenzini, who was the CEO at NuScale Power from 2008-2012

The post Atomic Show #203 – Globally distributed atomic conversation appeared first on Atomic Insights.