U.S., India reach agreement on nuclear power

by Dave Boyer - The Washington Times - Sunday, January 25, 2015 

President Obama announced a tentative agreement in New Delhi Sunday with India’s prime minister to open the country to U.S. firms investing in commercial nuclear power, a step that the two leaders said underscores improved bilateral relations.

The president and Prime Minister Narendra Modi said they reached an “understanding” on liability of U.S. companies in the event of a nuclear accident, and on U.S. insistence of tracking nuclear materials — issues that had prevented American companies from building reactors in India since an initial breakthrough agreement in 2006.

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US Nuclear Power Plants Posted Record High Efficiency in 2014

Average Capacity Factor of 91.9 Percent Surpasses Prior Record Set in 2007

 

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 22, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- U.S. nuclear energy facilities generated electricity at a record high level of efficiency in 2014, again demonstrating nuclear energy's value to the reliability and stability of the electric grid and to the nation's economy.

One hundred nuclear power plants operating in 31 states posted an estimated average capacity factor of 91.9 percent, based on preliminary 2014 data compiled by the Nuclear Energy Institute. That surpasses the industry's prior record set in 2007 by one-tenth of a percentage point. Capacity factor measures total electricity generated as a percentage of year-round potential generation.

 Actual electricity production from nuclear energy facilities last year was the sixth-highest ever, at an estimated 798.4 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh). The industry's record high electricity generation came in 2010, when the 104 reactors then operating produced 806.9 billion kwh of electricity while posting an industry average capacity factor of 90.9 percent.

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FirstEnergy Invested $690 Million in 2014 in the Ohio Edison Service Area to Enhance Electric System

Company Completed Infrastructure and Reliability Projects to Help Reduce Outages and Handle Future Growth 

 

AKRON, Ohio, Jan. 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its ongoing efforts to improve its electric system, FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE) invested approximately $690 million in 2014 in the Ohio Edison service area on reliability infrastructure projects and other transmission- and distribution-related work, including building new transmission lines, new substations, and installing remote-control equipment to help reduce the number and duration of power outages.

More than $581 million of the total was spent on transmission-related projects owned by American Transmission Systems, Incorporated, a FirstEnergy transmission company. 

"We expect the results will show that in 2014 Ohio Edison performed better than the service reliability standards established by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, which we largely attribute to the work we have done to make our system more robust," said Randall A. Frame, regional president, Ohio Edison.  "The infrastructure projects we completed in 2014, and in previous years, are making a difference when it comes to reducing the number of outages our customers might experience."

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Report: Power plants, gas companies still feeling each other out

By Wayne Barber, Chief Analyst, GenerationHub 

Power generators and the businesses that provide them natural gas are still figuring each other out, and a new white paper concludes that if differences between the two sectors aren’t harmonized problems could arise, according to GenerationHub.

Authored by the Illinois Institute of Technology, the Long-Term Electric and Natural Gas Infrastructure Requirements White Paper offers a series of recommendations aimed at harmonizing electricity and natural gas markets. The report also seeks to raise awareness within the industry and regulatory community about potential challenges.

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Exelon Statement on Illinois Nuclear Power Plant Report

CHICAGO, Jan 12, 2015 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Exelon today issued the following statement on the State of Illinois report on potential nuclear power plant closings prepared in response to House Resolution 1146:

We thank the state for its attention and work on such an important issue for Illinois and the future of the state’s energy assets. The report confirms that the state’s six nuclear power plants provide substantial economic and environmental benefits to Illinois residents and businesses. It also highlights the negative impacts closing one or more of the state’s nuclear facilities prematurely would have on Illinois’ economy, energy prices and carbon emissions, and concerns it would raise about the reliability of the electric grid. The report makes clear that the future of Illinois’ nuclear power plants should be an issue of statewide concern.

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TVA Asks Customers to Conserve in Light of Peak Power Demand

The Tennessee Valley Authority is asking for a voluntary reduction in electricity use until Friday
afternoon as a result of frigid temperatures causing high demand across the Southeast.

The request extends to all electric power consumers- residential, commercial and industrial customers.  The voluntary reduction will help ensure a continued supply of power to essential services throughout TVA's seven-state service territory and avoid interruptions of service.

All of TVA's available generating resources are being used to meet the peak power demand. TVA's bulk electric system remains secure and stable at this time.

'When it's below freezing, each time the temperature drops one degree another 400 megawatts of electricity is needed for our system,' said Jacinda Woodward, senior vice president of TVA Transmission and Power Supply.

'Setting your thermostat 2-3 degrees below normal this evening and Thursday morning can really help TVA manage the high power demand during this challenging time.'

A peak power demand is expected to happen Wednesday evening as regional temperatures are forecast to drop into single digits causing electricity demand to exceed 31,000 megawatts.

TVA says another peak demand will happen again Thursday morning with electric loads peaking around 32,400 megawatts.

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Nuclear Power Turns To Salt

By Forbes (James Conca) - Today, the United States Department of Energy announced that its Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee is partnering with Canadian nuclear company Terrestrial Energy Inc. (TEI) to assist with TEI’s new Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR). The engineering blueprint stage for this GenIV reactor should be reached in two years. The reactor should come online in less than ten.

Think of it: a nuclear reactor that

• is cheaper than coal
• creates much less waste and few long-lived radioactive elements
• uses almost all of the fuel which lasts 7 years between replacement, and can be recycled easily
• is modular, from 80 MWt to 600 MWt, able to be combined and adapted to individual needs for both on and off-grid heat and power
• is small enough to allow fast and easy construction, and trucking to the site
• operates at normal pressures, removing those safety issues, and at higher temperatures making it more energetically efficient
• has the type of passive safety systems that make it walk-away safe
• does not need external water for cooling
• can load-follow rapidly to buffer the intermittency of renewables
• cannot be repurposed for military use and has strong proliferation resistance
• can last for many decades
• uses a liquid fuel

 Now that is different!

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Nuclear power needed to tackle climate change, say leading scientists

Monday, January 5th, 2015 By Charlotte Malone

Top conservation scientists have stated that in order to tackle climate change and protect the natural environment nuclear power must be considered. They warn that relying solely on renewables to replace fossil fuels is “risky”.

In an open letter over 70 scientists call on environmentalist and campaign groups to stop focusing on “idealistic perceptions of what is ‘green’” and instead look at the benefits of nuclear power generation.

Signatories state they support the broad conclusions of an article published in the journal Conservation Biology. The research states that the full range of electricity-generation sources, including nuclear power, must be deployed to replace the burning of fossil fuels if the world is to have a chance of mitigating severe climate change.

The scientists argue that renewables alone cannot provide a solution. This view has also been taken by two Google engineers who recently argued that today’s renewable technologies alone couldn’t cut greenhouse gas emissions enough to halt climate change.

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Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant unplugs from the grid for good this week

By Mary Serreze - Special to The Republican 

VERNON, VT -- The 620-megawatt Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant will disconnect from the regional power grid this week after four decades of producing electricity, according to the company's decommissioning website.

Vermont Yankee's final day of operation, targeted for Dec. 29, comes sixteen months after parent company Entergy Corp. announced the plant would close by the end of 2014. Entergy cited economic reasons for the shutdown, including high regulatory costs, increased competition from natural gas power plants, and disadvantageous market structures.


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Renewable Energy and Protecting the Grid from Terrorism and Natural Disasters

Tom Lombardo on Engineering.com

A society that relies on technology becomes extremely vulnerable when the technology fails, and since most of our gadgets are electrical, protecting the power grid is a top priority. Failures can be caused by human error, weather, animals, or acts of malevolence, so grid designers must build in safeguards in order to keep faults from taking down major portions of the grid. The National Research Council published two documents that outline the potential problems with the US electrical grid and offer potential solutions based on current or near-future technology. Obviously the reports don’t go into great detail, for security reasons. As Data (the android in Star Trek: The Next Generation) once said, “If you had an off switch, would you want everybody to know about it?”

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