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The U.S. Energy Information Administration is projecting that U.S. electricity generation from nuclear power will most likely decline from its 2019 share of about 20 percent to 12 percent by 2050. In addition, the agency sees generation from coal declining by 11 percent, from 24 percent to 13 percent.
According to the EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2020, released in late January, nuclear and coal will experience a substantial falloff over the next few years—the result of slow load growth and the increasing electricity production from renewables, which is expected to grow from 19 percent to 38 percent over the next 30 years—but will then plateau to collectively provide about 25 percent of the nation’s electricity through the century’s midpoint.
Referencing the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as well as its own “strong history of environmental stewardship,” Dominion Energy on February 11 announced that it is expanding its greenhouse gas emission–reduction goals by pledging to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The new goal covers emissions of carbon dioxide and methane—the two leading greenhouse gases—from the company’s electricity generation and gas infrastructure operations.
“Our mandate is to provide reliable and affordable energy safely,” said Thomas F. Farrell II, Dominion’s chairman, president, and chief executive officer. “We do that every day, all year long. But we recognize that we must also continue to be a leader in combatting climate change. . . . Dominion Energy already has made important progress on emissions. This new commitment sets an even higher bar that I am confident we can, and will, reach. Net-zero emissions will be good for all of our stakeholders—for our customers, communities, employees, and investors.”
President Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2021, released on February 10, allots $35.4 billion to the Department of Energy. Nearly $1.2 billion of that goes to the Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE).
The final FY 2020 appropriations were signed into law on December 20, 2019, nine months after that budget was first proposed, and it could be several months before final appropriations for FY 2021 are enacted. Those enacted appropriations could bear little resemblance to the proposed budget. It bears noting that while the FY 2020 budget request for DOE-NE was $824 million, more than $1.493 billion—an increase of just over 87 percent—was ultimately enacted.
This morning the White House released its FY2021 budget request. We don't expect federal agencies to issue their detailed budget requests—known as Congressional Justifications, or "CJ's"—for another week or two. In the meantime, here's what we know now:
The geologic repository for defense-related transuranic waste reached a milestone in 2019.
Participants to the 2017 Nuclear Criticality Safety Division topical meeting attended a tour of the WIPP facility, which marked its 20th anniversary this past year. Photos courtesy of WIPP
March 26, 2019, marked the 20th anniversary of the first shipment of transuranic (TRU) waste to the Waste -Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) facility in southeastern New Mexico. Celebrations of the 20-year mark of waste operations recognized the role of the WIPP facility in cleaning up legacy TRU waste from 22 generator sites nationwide.
The NWTRB offers findings and recommendations to the DOE on technical issues that need to be addressed in preparing for an integrated, nationwide program to transport nuclear waste.
The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB or Board) recently completed an evaluation of Department of Energy activities related to transporting spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste. These topics have been the subject of several Board meetings and associated reports, and in September 2019, the Board issued a report, Preparing for Nuclear Waste Transportation–Technical Issues That Need to Be Addressed in Preparing for a Nationwide Effort to Transport Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste [1], which focuses on the issues DOE will need to address to plan and implement an integrated transportation program. In its report, the Board describes 30 broad technical issues that DOE needs to address and offers three sets of findings and recommendations.
The 14th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Applications of Accelerators (AccApp'20) is being organized by the Accelerator Applications Division (AAD) of the American Nuclear Society in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. AccApp '20 will be held April 5-9 at IAEA headquarters in Vienna.
Friends and colleagues - Usually I write about "the old days" of nuclear in this space but something came up in current events that really sticks in my craw, and I have to shine the spotlight on it here. So please indulge me and read along. (We'll get back to "the old days" soon enough, don't you worry!)
Thank you for joining us for Episode 28 of RadioNuclear! This week, we talk about the recent false alarm involving the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station in Canada and about an opinion piece over a recent MIT study claiming that nuclear is not needed for deep decarbonization. We also discuss about why some regions of the world have an easier time building nuclear plants, when compared to other regions of the world.
Over the years that I've been writing for ANS, I've managed largely through that association to come into possession of a number of fairly odd things. I mean, all of us have things that the "normal person" (and by that I mean non-nuclear) would find pretty strange, but I'm telling you I have some strange things that are a bit further out than garden-variety strange. I'd like to tell you about just two.
Fall 2019 was a banner period for five developers of small modular reactors. Here is a roundup of their announcements as well as some information about their plans for the future.
Nuclear energy provides 10% of the world's electricity. To counter climate change, we need more clean and reliable energy sources. Currently, 30 countries operate nuclear power plants, and more than two dozen others are looking at nuclear energy to meet their power and climate needs. In the U.S., more than 30 towns and cities look to go carbon-free, and they're taking a chance on small modular reactors (SMRs) to achieve their goals. Enjoy this short video from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to learn more about how nuclear power can help bring our world toward a carbon-free future.
As we start 2020 I find myself thinking about the slew of articles and posts that I'm seeing about SMR's - that is to say, Small Modular Reactors. Many are written by knowledgeable people, many not so much - but in some places I've started to see some references to the pollution caused by heavy ocean shipping and whether or not we could use SMR's to stop that by converting ships to nuclear power. Well, let's not rush into this - after all, all of the "consideration" phase was done once before and there was in fact ocean-going hardware. So, keeping in mind that it's the holiday season, I'd like to just offer up a quick look at what was considered and what was surprisingly found out to be true in regards to nuclear cargo or passenger ships in the 1950's and 1960's. I hope this is new for many of you!
In deference to the holiday season, I've decided to run something lighter than usual - an almost-listicle describing five historic nuclear facts that might surprise people in the field young and old!
In the not-so-distant 20th century past, our planet was in an uncertain new-world order. The second of two major wars had dramatically reshaped the landscape of the world's nations. It was not by any means assured that the extraordinary nuclear process of fission, which itself had been discovered mere years before the second war's end, would be successfully utilized for anything but the tremendous and frightening powers realized in thermonuclear warheads. In the years following, a humble project materializing out of the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho was to challenge that assertion and demonstrate that nuclear fission could indeed be a commercial, peaceful source of electrical power for civilizations around the globe.
Yesterday, Appropriators released a two minibus package of FY 2020 measures for House passage today. Senate leadership will then plan to hold votes to clear the funding legislation for Drumpf's signature before the Friday funding deadline
After the 2011 Fukushima incident shook the confidence of the people of Europe. It shook their confidence in the technology. Switzerland actually voted to phase out their nuclear power. ANS member & GA Section chair Juan Villarreal gives a Power Talk on the "Swiss Nuclear Brexit."