We don't need nuclear power to meet climate goals and keep the lights on
It would be a folly to think that there is no hope of tackling climate change without nuclear power
by Natalie Bennett, the leader of the UK Green party, and Caroline Lucas, the UK's first green MP

is there really no hope of tackling climate change without nuclear power? This is certainly what the nuclear industry wants us all to think. But analysis using the government's figures shows that we don't need nuclear power to meet climate goals and keep the lights on.

Renewable energies, together with combined heat and power, energy efficiency, smart grids, demand management and interconnection, are the building blocks of an alternative energy future. The path we take is a matter of political choice, not technological inevitability.

As for coal, the emissions performance standard in the energy bill should rule out all new unabated coal, although it needs strengthening to ensure the operation of any fossil fuel plant is compatible with the decarbonisation of the power sector by 2030.

Importantly, we also need to stop subsidising the fossil fuel industry. Coal, oil and gas have enjoyed decades of support that the renewables sector can only dream of.

And with the energy bill set to deliver a backdoor subsidy for nuclear...

Will Boeing’s 787 Battery Issues Ground Electric Vehicles, Too?
Ryan Matley
Consultant
February 4, 2013

Boeing has made big news in recent weeks, but for all the wrong reasons. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded Boeing’s flagship airplane, the fuel-efficient, next generation 787 Dreamliner. The problem isn’t its innovative carbon fiber construction, but rather a less heralded technologic leap: lithium ion batteries. In the span of one week a battery caught fire while a plane was at the gate in Boston and another forced an emergency landing and evacuation in Japan when it overheated. This marks the first grounding of an airplane type since the DC-10 in 1979.

Inevitably, news stories appeared connecting the 787’s battery troubles to past laptop battery fires and electric vehicles (EVs), reflexively highlighting the 2011 Chevy Volt fire that occurred following crash testing.

...Unlike electronics and aerospace batteries, electric vehicles do not use LiCoO2 chemistry, specifically because of its safety concerns. (Some 2,500 early Tesla Roadsters used LiCoO2 batteries designed with multiple safeguards, but the company has since switched to batteries with more stable chemistries.) Automakers have intentionally traded less energy density for better safety and lower cost (cobalt is expensive). Most electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids on the road use a lithium-manganese-spinel (LiMn2O4) chemistry. Some are adding a nickel-manganese-cobalt chemistry developed at Argonne National Lab to increase energy density.

...Does more stable lithium ion chemistry combined with the robust design of automotive batteries mean a 787-style battery meltdown will never occur in an EV? Of course not. The precise reason that lithium-ion batteries are used—their high energy density—increases the odds of a sudden energy release (aka fire). But that doesn’t mean electric vehicles are any less safe than internal combustion vehicles. For the last one hundred years cars have been carrying around gasoline, which has more than twice the energy density of lithium ion. Automakers have been able to minimize, but not eliminate (see the Ford Pinto) the risk of fire due to fuel leaks. In fact, I might prefer the on-road safety record of current automotive lithium-ion batteries, which have had zero reported fires in over 500 million miles driven. By comparison, gasoline vehicles have averaged nearly 65,000 vehicle fires that caused 300 fatalities per year between 2008 and 2010.

US shifting to a decentralised power system says FERC boss
14/12/2012
By Dr. Heather Johnstone Chief Editor

The US is moving away from an electricity generation system based on large, centralised power stations to a distributed generation or decentralised energy model.

...Solar photovoltaics (PV) is expected to play an important role in the “rapid expansion” of the US’ distributed generation sector, says Wellinghoff, as more and more households and businesses explore the feasibility of rooftops installations.

...Wellinghoff also believes that with the continuing low gas price in the US, on-site natural gas-fired cogeneration systems – both turbine and engine-based – will attract increasing interest by driving down energy costs compared to the traditional centralised generation system.

A key factor now driving this move, according to Wellinghoff, is the seeming prevalence of natural disasters hitting the US, including most recently Hurricane Sandy.

Wellinghoff concluded that ...

Though Obamacare Pays Less, Providers Flock To 'Bundled' Medicare Payments
Bruce Japsen

The Obama administration says more than 500 hospitals and related health care organizations have agreed to be paid "bundled payments" as part of a three-year initiative to lower costs and improve quality in the Medicare program for seniors. In yet another blow to traditional fee-for-service medicine where doctors and hospitals are paid for each service provided for each patient’s illness or course of treatment, the Obama administration says more than 500 hospitals and related health care organizations have agreed to be paid “bundled payments” as part of a three-year initiative.

The payment method, which means medical-care providers will receive somewhat less money for an “episode of care,” is an initiative under the Affordable Care Act that will be tested over the next three years to see if bundling payments can lower the costs of the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly. Meanwhile, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services hopes the more than 500 organizations that will soon begin participating in the effort will provide more coordinated medical care for seniors.

“This is huge and this is historic,” Jonathan Blum, a deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said of the large number of providers participating in the bundled payment initiative. “This is a huge scale.”

The program works by bundling Medicare payments for services seniors would receive during an “episode of care” such as a surgical procedure that would put them in a hospital. The bundled payments encourage “hospitals, physicians, post-acute facilities, and other providers as applicable to work together to improve health outcomes and lower costs,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid said in a statement.

Medical care providers in turn agree to...

Nuclear power and the French energy transition: It’s the economics, stupid!
Mycle Schneider
Abstract
France is at an energy crossroads. To meet future electricity needs, the country could extend the operating lives of nuclear power plants beyond 40 years, accepting the safety challenges and costs of such a move, or it could change its energy mix, moving away from nuclear power and toward energy-efficiency measures and other energy sources. Until recently, the French government had refused even to examine the possibility of reducing the country's reliance on nuclear power. But a study by independent French experts suggests that staying the nuclear course would be more expensive and less environmentally beneficial than authorities make it out to be. The difficult financial situation of two state-controlled firms involved in nuclear energy, EDF and Areva SA, will seriously affect the government's operating margins. Those financial difficulties, the aging reactor fleet, and public opinion - which is largely in favor of a nuclear phase-out - will force the government to make fundamental choices in the near future about its energy strategy.

<snip>

The hidden price tag
...The Court of Accounts provided its own estimates of electricity-generating costs for existing nuclear plants. Instead of the levelized cost (i.e., the electricity price needed to break even with the investment cost over the life- time of the plant) of 33.4 euros per mega- watt-hour used by the government and EDF in their amortization calculations, it calculated an average cost of 49.50 euros per megawatt-hour, which could go up to 54.20 euros in the coming years to cover the expenses of projected safety-related improvements ordered since the Fukushima disaster. This esti- mate does not include public research and development expenditures, which, if accounted for, would bring the cost up to 69 euros per megawatt-hour (Dessus, 2012). Also, the court warned about the high uncertainty of long- term decommissioning and waste- management costs and the impossibility of adequately reflecting the risk of a major accident in these kinds of cost estimates.

Despite nuclear power's historical popularity with the government, its actual contribution to the country's wealth has been rather limited. According to an assessment by PricewaterhouseCoopers commissioned by Areva, the nuclear sector contributed 0.71 percent of GDP in 2009, thus gener- ating a total value of 33.5 billion euros (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2011)... (pg20)

My Turn: Government must boost coal, nuclear power

By V.K. MATHUR For the Monitor
Saturday, December 29, 2012

... An active role for the federal government is needed to help achieve energy security and retain America’s edge in energy technology. Economic and environmental concerns – climate change, ensuring low-cost electricity and leading in two critical export industries – justify a concerted effort to boost domestic production of coal and nuclear power.

...

Here in New Hampshire, coal and nuclear power continue to serve us well, supplying about 60 percent of the state’s electricity, safely and reliably. But that won’t last for long, and our economy will suffer unless the government shows more support for coal and nuclear power.

In the years ahead, a cost-sharing partnership with private industry will be needed to achieve the promise of advanced clean-coal technologies and small modular reactors that can be built for a fraction of the cost of large nuclear plants. Coal and nuclear technologies are financially viable for a full range of energy companies in this country, and their development will position the United States to be a world leader in the commercialization of new and innovative power-plant designs.

To be sure, our nation’s energy future has become considerably brighter as a result of the enormous growth in oil and gas production. But we will continue to need a balanced mix of energy sources in order to hold prices down. Especially natural gas, with a history of price volatility, is a reminder of what could happen if we become heavily dependent on a single energy source for electricity production and neglect coal and nuclear power....

Nuclear arms advocates get bolder amid energy debate
The contentious debate over atomic energy is also bringing another question out of the shadows: Should Japan retain the possibility of making atomic weapons — even if only as an option?

By YURI KAGEYAMA
AP


Hot zone: The reactor 4 building at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant is in ruins on March 24 last year. AIR PHOTO SERVICE / AP
It may seem surprising in the only country to have ever come under nuclear attack, particularly as it prepares to mark the 67th anniversaries of the Hiroshima A-bombing on Aug. 6 and that of Nagasaki three days later. The government officially renounces nuclear weapons, and the vast majority of citizens oppose them.

But as the nation weighs whether to phase out atomic energy generation, some conservatives, including certain influential politicians and analysts, are becoming more vocal about their belief that Japan should at least not rule out producing a nuclear arsenal in the future.

The two issues are intertwined because nuclear power plants can develop the technology and produce the fuel necessary for such weaponry, as highlighted by concerns that allegedly civilian atomic energy research in Iran is masking a bomb program, as was the case in North Korea.

"Having nuclear plants shows to other nations that Japan can make nuclear arms," ex-Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told AP...

Em‘powered’
Advent of solar power has transformed the remote Indian village of Meerwada, writes Jo Winterbottom

LIFE in the remote Indian village of Meerwada used to grind to a standstill as darkness descended. Workers downed tools, kids strained to see their schoolbooks under the faint glow of aged kerosene lamps and adults struggled to carry out the most basic of household chores.

The arrival of solar power last year has changed all that. On a humid evening, fans whirr, children sit cross-legged to study their Hindi and mother-of-seven Sunderbai is delighted people can actually see what they are eating and drinking.

“When it was dark, we used to drink water with insects in, but now we can see insects, so we filter it and then drink,” said the 30-year-old, whose flame-orange sari and gold nose ring are small defiances in a life close to the poverty line.

Meerwada, on a dirt track rutted by rains and outside the reach of the national grid, struck lucky when US solar firm SunEdison picked it to test out business models and covered the hefty initial expense of installing hi-tech solar panels in the heart of the village.

But rapidly falling costs and improved access to financing ...

US: 200,000 GW of solar could be installed; 400,000 TWh/a
27 JULY 2012
BY: BECKY BEETZ

According to a new study released by NREL, the technical potential of photovoltaics and concentrating solar power (CSP) in the U.S. amounts to just under 200,000 GW, which could generate around 399,700 TWh of energy annually.

The U.S.-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has published a new report – U.S. renewable Energy Technical Potentials: A GIS-Based Analysis – in which it says, technically, 154,864 of photovoltaics and 38,000 GW of CSP could be installed. This would mean, photovoltaics could generate around 483,600 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy annually, and CSP, 116,100. Refer to the table for a breakdown of the different solar technologies.

Overall, it believes rural utility-scale photovoltaics has more potential than any other renewable energy technology, due to the "relatively high power density, the absence of minimum resource threshold, and the availability of large swaths for development." Meanwhile, Texas is said to have the ability to account for around 14 percent of this 153 GW, or 280,600 TWh annual potential.

Executive Summary
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) routinely estimates the technical potential of specific renewable electricity generation technologies. These are technology- specific estimates of energy generation potential based on renewable resource availability and quality, technical system performance, topographic limitations, environmental, and land-use constraints only. The estimates do not consider (in most cases) economic or market constraints, and therefore do not represent a level of renewable generation that might actually be deployed.

This report is unique in unifying assumptions and application of methods employed to generate comparable estimates across technologies, where possible, to allow cross- technology comparison. Technical potential estimates for six different renewable energy technologies were calculated by NREL, and methods and results for several other renewable technologies from previously published reports are also presented. Table ES-1 summarizes the U.S. technical potential, in generation and capacity terms, of the technologies examined.

The report first describes the methodology and assumptions for estimating the technical potential of each technology, and then briefly describes the resulting estimates. The results discussion includes state-level maps and tables containing available land area (square kilometers), installed capacity (gigawatts), and electric generation (gigawatt- hours) for each technology.


TABLE ES-1



Introduction

Renewable energy technical potential, as defined in this study, represents the achievable energy generation of a particular technology given system performance, topographic limitations, environmental, and land-use constraints. The primary benefit of assessing technical potential is that it establishes an upper-boundary estimate of development potential (DOE EERE 2006). It is important to understand that there are multiple types of potential—resource, technical, economic, and market—each seen in Figure 1 with its key assumptions.