Elul 12, 5770, 22 August 10

by Hillel Fendel, Arutz Sheva

(Israelnationalnews.com) Dr. Eugene Shwageraus, of Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Be’er Sheva, has received a seven-figure research grant from the BSF (US-Israel Binational Science Foundation). He and his research partner, Dr. Michael Todosow of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York, are working on developing a self-sustainable fuel cycle for light water reactors.

The grant, which the university described as “generous,” is termed a U.S.-Israel Energy Independence Partnership Grant.

Current plans for limiting carbon emissions require that nuclear energy use be expanded within the framework of renewable energy sources. The vast majority of the current generation of nuclear reactors is cooled and moderated using ordinary (light) water – but requires the use of enriched uranium. Heavy-water reactors, on the other hand, can be fueled with non-enriched uranium and are therefore more attractive as the world’s current energy sources are gradually depleted.

The objective of the Shwageraus-Todosow project is to use light-water technology in combination with a self-sustainable thorium fuel cycle, which would also eliminate the need for uranium enrichment.

The abundance of thorium in the Earth’s crust is estimated to be at least three times that of uranium.

The BSF US-Israel Energy Independence Partnership Grants enable leading scientists from Israel and the United States to work together on projects focused on one of the most vital issues facing our world today: the quest for alternative and renewable energy solutions. The initiative has awarded $1.2 million in funding for six projects that address energy-related goals in solar energy, biofuels and clean, safe nuclear energy. Supported by the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructures, these projects are the first phase of a multi-year program.

The BSF promotes scientific relations between the U.S. and Israel by supporting collaborative research projects in a wide area of basic and applied scientific fields, for peaceful and non-profit purposes. Founded in 1972 by an agreement between the United States and Israel, the BSF is an independent body based in Israel, directed by a board of governors consisting of five American and five Israeli members. Numerous scientists participating in BSF programs have won prestigious awards such as the Nobel, Lasker, and Wolf prizes.

www.IsraelNationalNews.com

© Copyright IsraelNationalNews.com

19th June 2009, 9:15 WST

Engineering giant WorleyParsons shares jumped after it said it has been awarded two nuclear power plant contracts in Egypt and Armenia.

WorleyParsons says it has signed a $US160 million ($A200.15 million) contract with the Egyptian Nuclear Power Plant Authority for consultancy services contract to support the delivery of the first Egyptian Nuclear Power Plant.

The contract commences with site and technology selection studies and carries through to design, construction management, commissioning and start-up.

“The revenue to WorleyParsons is expected to be approximately EGP 900 million ($US160 million) over the expected 8 years of the project,” the company said in a statement.

WorleyParsons also announced a contract to provide consultancy services for a new nuclear power plant project in Armenia.

The contract will be implemented in four phases, with the first two phases scheduled to begin in 2009.

The major scope to be implemented during these first two phases includes development of a bankable feasibility study for the project and then managing and assessing the tender process for strategic investors for the project.

The duration of these two phases is expected to be one year.

The expected revenue to WorleyParsons for stages one and two is $US500,000 ($A625,469.1). Phases three and four, which is to organise and manage a tender, and then consult on design, construction and start up could provide more than $US430 million ($A537.9 million).

WorleyParsons shares were up $1.25 or 5.44 per cent at $24.24 at 8.53am.

AAP

by ArabianBusiness.com staff writer  on Thursday, 18 June 2009

The nuclear industry in the MENA region will be worth billions to the international companies capable of building and maintaining reactors. One way or another they are already queuing up to take part.

President Barack Obama approved a deal worth around US $41 billion for the US to supply fuel and materials to the UAE, to help it develop its nuclear power ambitions. The US Congress was given 90 days to amend or reject the deal. While some xenophobic members may hesitate to sign it, it will be hard for them to ignore the value of the trade and job-creation potential.
A few days after this announcement the president of another nuclear power, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, showed up in Abu Dhabi to open the UAE’s first foreign military base. Closer cooperation was the refrain, but the potential for lucrative nuclear energy deals provided the backdrop to the events.

Need
Increasingly, a nuclear powered Arab state looks like a matter of when, not if. The contracts that will emerge from such a development will be worth billions, run for decades and employ thousands. And although there is a long way to go, the need and the will to make it happen is clear.
“There is definitely a very rapid growth in the rate of electricity consumption,” said Adnan Shihab-Eldin, former secretary general of OPEC, speaking at the recent GCC Nuclear Summit. “It’s one of highest in world and has been growing at 7-10% for a number of years.
“Currently, the GCC countries rely on oil and gas as the fuel of choice. The problem is that although these countries have largest oil and gas reserves they are looking for free gas (not associated with oil) to make it available. The question is if you have free gas, is it in your best interests to export this gas, or use it domestically?”
There is also the question of emissions. Although there is no obligation to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions, as some of the highest producers in the world per capita, it’s something GCC nations cannot afford to ignore. Most important of all though is the economic factor. Estimates suggest that if oil is steady above US $50 a barrel then nuclear power is a good option and the power is needed to continue the economic development and diversification of the region as a whole.
“Energy is at the core of the biggest dilemma we face: how we meet demand for development on the one hand and deal with the constraints of the environment on the other,” said Bertrand Barre, chairman of the International Nuclear Energy Academy.

“But the impending renaissance is in the planning, not yet in the building. There are issues to be solved, including the maintenance of economic competitiveness, public acceptance through no accidents and proper waste disposal. But there will be a renaissance, because there is a need for it.”
Cost
Most commentators are quick to point out that the cost of nuclear and how it competes with existing and potential future options has to be kept in mind. A reactor built away from the coast would probably need to be air cooled and according to Shihab-Eldin, this can add as much as 30% to the price tag. However, nuclear’s ability to provide a nation’s base load will keep it ahead of current renewable options, at least until storage issues are resolved.
“The economics and the comparison with fossil fuels make nuclear a very viable option,” said Shihab-Eldin.
“If oil holds above US $60, it is more economic to export the saved oil and gas. That will be more than enough to provide funds for the nuclear power plants [from planning to fuel disposal].”
Long lead times in project development, the lifespan of plants and the millennial longevity of waste fuel, means commitment to the process of going nuclear has to be total. While there are definite signs of a nuclear renaissance, there is an uncertainty about its magnitude and how it will develop.
“There are risks. They centre around the issues related to safety, maintaining the excellent safety standards of the industry and addressing the risks of proliferation,” said Shihab-Eldin.
“It does appear that the nuclear option is a must for GCC countries. If they explore it, they must have a long term commitment. Minimum construction time for a plant is 7-10 years and that’s with a nuclear infrastructure already in place.”
This includes development of highly qualified human resources, plus systems of inspection and oversight. The International Atomic Energy Agency has studied the process of going nuclear and outlined 19 issues that must be addressed, while breaking them down into three phases. The organisation’s estimated timeframe for these phases is 10-15 years.
“There are no shortcuts,” said Shihab-Eldin. “You can do it fast track, but not short cut. Even if they use BOO (build, own, operate) models a country must still have the ultimate responsibility for oversight, regulation and licensing. The first thing is to develop comprehensive nuclear legislation, as the UAE has achieved with the assistance of the IAEA.”
Fuel
The sensitive issue is the source of fuel. If there is a serious development of reactors in the region a long-term source of fuel will be required. There are several multi-lateral agreements being proposed – one is being considered by the board of the IAEA in June – to provide commercial supply through nuclear fuel banks, thus removing the need for countries to develop the technology for the complete fuel cycle.
“Our position in the Gulf is to support the director general of the IAEA in this approach,” said Shihab-Eldin. “These banks should not have any additional requirements, but should be apolitical. A country that abides by non-proliferation treaties should be able to avail itself of the resources.”
Shihab-Eldin also raised the point that there is no precedent for the regional development of nuclear power and he felt that although the idea was sound, there is an opportunity for it to be led by just one or two nations.
“When you put six countries with no previous experience together to formulate a regional programme, the speed at which the programme advances will be that of the slowest member of the group,” he said. “The better approach is that of the UAE, working on the regional approach with the other countries, but leading it through a national programme.”

By People’s Daily Online,  May 07, 2009

As of May 6, Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant, which is the first large-scale commercial nuclear power station on the Chinese mainland, has recorded 15 consecutive years of safe and stable operation. It has provided 205.12 billion kilowatt-hours accumulatively to the power grid.
In comparison with the original feasibility study report, the electricity generated at Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant has increased from 10 billion kilowatt-hours annually to over 15 billion kilowatt-hours, and the usability ratio of the generating units has risen from 65 percent to over 90 percent.
The benefits achieved in environmental protection and resource conservation are as remarkable as the economic benefits it has achieved.
It is estimated that the electricity generated from the plant to the power grid in its 15 years of operation is equivalent to a reduction of 86 million tons of standard coal consumption, based on the conversion of the average coal consumption of conventional power plants. Moreover, it has reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 134 million tons and sulfur dioxide emissions by 33,900 tons.

In terms of the nuclear safety level, the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station’s Unit 1 has completed five consecutive fuel cycles without any unplanned automatic reactor shutdown since January 2002, totaling 2,457 days as of May 6, 2009, which is a record in China and meets the world-class standard. It currently ranks second in safety standards among the 64 units of this type built by the Electricite De France (EDF) Group worldwide.
Statistics show that since it commenced commercial operation, the Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station has accumulatively invested over 200 million USD, digested and implemented more than 1,470 technological transformations, continuously upgraded the safety performance of its units and the professional level of its staff, and produced noticeable technological and economic benefits and social effects.

By H.J. CUMMINS, Star Tribune, September 15, 2008

With oil costing about $100 a barrel, nuclear energy is enjoying a public-opinion comeback. But not everyone is warming to nuclear as the new ‘green’ energy.

Once the stuff of disaster movies and picket lines, nuclear energy is enjoying a renaissance.
But for 30 Minnesotans in a Red Wing public library last week, at the first public meeting over Xcel Energy’s proposed expansion of its nearby Prairie Island nuclear power plant, it was clear they want no part in the revival.
Many stood to tell state regulators and Xcel executives that they oppose any expansion of the plant. Even after living next to it for 35 years they don’t feel safe, they said. Charlotte Eastin of Lake City even suggested it’s time to shut it down, “before the unthinkable happens.”
They were harsh words for a plant that has operated without a major problem since it started up in 1973. And Xcel’s director of nuclear regulatory policy, Terry Pickens, said afterward that all the concerns raised about the expansion will be addressed through the long application process.
But some version of the evening’s exchange — between skeptics and utilities that are increasingly calling nuclear power the clean, carbon-free energy of the future — is going to play out in many more communities around the country as the push for nuclear grows.
After 30 years without a single application to build a new plant, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission received 12 over the past 12 months, and expects another five by year-end, said spokesman Scott Burnell in Washington. And while those wouldn’t come online for years — adding to the 104 reactors operating today — federal regulators point to another, current phenomenon: “upratings,” when utilities get permission to push more output from their existing nuclear reactors — part of Xcel’s plans. Over the years, these have added 5,200 megawatts of electricity, the equivalent of more than five new reactors.

Minnesota has had a moratorium on the construction of new nuclear plants since 1994.
Politics will have a hand in sorting out the future energy mix. Republican presidential candidate John McCain is calling for 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030. His Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, said he will make nuclear power part of his climate-friendly mix, but only if the country comes up with a safe way to store the waste. Also, government subsidies will give strong development and pricing advantages to whatever form of energy — from solar to nuclear — that public policy picks.
For now, the energy industry is putting nuclear power back into what it says will have to be a diverse — and preferably, domestic — portfolio of energy resources. “All of that adds up to a new role for nuclear energy going forward,” said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based industry group.
A bigger Prairie Island
The Prairie Island proposal has three pieces, projected to cost a total of $486 million. The company is seeking a 20-year extension for the plant’s two reactors, whose original licenses are set to expire in 2013 and 2014. It’s also asking to ramp up production at Prairie Island’s two reactors from 1,100 to 1,264 megawatts. And it wants to store more spent fuel — also called nuclear waste — on the site, adding up to 35 casks to the current 24.
The proposals, which need approvals from several state and federal agencies, are starting with an environmental impact statement by the Minnesota Office of Energy Security, which called last week’s public forum.
Xcel estimates that 28 percent of the energy consumed by its Upper Midwest customers is now nuclear-generated, and the Prairie Island expansions would allow it to maintain that level as demand grows. Nationwide, about 20 percent of energy is nuclear.
In support of the plans, Brian Zelenak, manager of Xcel’s regulatory administration, described nuclear energy to his Red Wing audience as both “green” and safe. Expanding Prairie Island “does keep us an environmentally friendly utility,” he said.
But he also said the expanded storage will lead to more low-level radiation, and the expanded production will raise the plant’s water discharge up to 3 degrees. Both are within regulatory limits, and did not bother Alberta Suter, who lives within half a mile of the plant, and said air and water monitors on her property have never registered any contamination.
But the news alarmed others. “You’re going to drastically affect the ecology of plant and fish life in the river,” said Andru  Peters, of Lake City.
Standardizing new plants
Better technology and operations management make it safe to ramp up production at the working reactors, helping raise their output from 54 percent of full capacity in 1980 to almost 92 percent last year, according to the World Nuclear Association, a London-based trade association.
The option is also faster and cheaper than building a new plant, utilities said.
For those building new — and Gov. Tim Pawlenty has proposed lifting the state’s moratorium — construction will be faster than in the past, however, said Kent Mortensen, industrial analyst at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans in Appleton, Wis. Instead of designing every plant separately, as in the past, the NRC is approving a handful of technical designs — from firms including Westinghouse and Mitsubishi — and power companies will choose from one of these standard approved designs.
“What I’m hearing is you don’t want to be the first person to build, because it is a new process, but you don’t want to be the No. 8 guy, either, because there is not yet the supply chain necessary to build the components,” Mortensen said.
H.J. Cummins • 612-673-4671

© 2008 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

By Tim Buchholz, Reprinted from American Muslim, July 11, 2008

Every day we seem to be inching more and more toward more war. According to Ali Akbar Dareini’s article in the AP, “Iran test-fired nine long and medium range missiles Wednesday during war games that officials said aimed to show the country can retaliate against any U.S. and Israeli attack.” He also says that “Israel’s military sent warplanes over the eastern Mediterranean for a large military exercise in June that U.S. officials described as a possible rehearsal for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.” Our boys too are running war games, preparing for a possible attack on the Strait of Hormuz, “a strategic waterway through which about 40 percent of the world’s oil passes.” All this because we say Iran wants Nuclear Weapons.The Nuclear Program in Iran is a long story, and at the beginning, is US. The US, that is. In the 1950’s the US was very friendly with the Shah of Iran. We, well the CIA, helped put him in power in a coup that removed a democratically elected prime minister. People in the Gerald Ford Administration, names we see today saying Iran should not be allowed to pursue enrichment (Dick Cheney, for one), suggested to the Shah that though Iran had plenty of oil, some day it would run out and it was time to start preparing for the future. According to Wikipedia, “President Gerald Ford signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The Ford strategy paper said the introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran’s economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.” Now, 30 years later, Dick Cheney says Iran is “already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas, nobody can figure why they need nuclear as well to generate energy.” But back to the beginning.

According to “Iran’s Nuclear Program. Part 1: Its History” by Mohammad Sahimi, “History shows that the US and her allies were in fact the driving force behind the birth of Iran’s nuclear program in the late 1960s and early 1970s. According to declassified confidential US Government documents posted on the Digital National Security Archive, in the mid-1970s, the US encouraged Iran to expand her non-oil energy base, suggested to the Shah that Iran needed not one but several nuclear reactors to acquire the electrical capacity that the Stanford Research Institute had proposed, and expressed interest in the US companies participating in Iran’s nuclear energy projects.” He says the Shah’s government was going to purchase eight nuclear reactors from the US for generating electricity.And according to “Bush Spins Iran’s Centrifuges” by Ray McGovern, “Cheney and Rumsfeld persuaded a hesitant President Ford to offer Iran a deal that would have meant at least $6.4 billion for U.S. corporations like Westinghouse and General Electric, had not the Shah been unceremoniously dumped three years later. The offer included a reprocessing facility for a complete nuclear fuels cycle—essentially the same capability that the U.S. and Israel now insist Iran cannot be allowed to acquire.”
Dafna Linzer says in her article “Past Arguments Don’t Square with Current Iran Policy,” “Iran was also willing to pay an additional $1 billion for a 20 percent stake in a private uranium enrichment facility in the United States that would supply much of the uranium to fuel the reactors.” We also provided Iran with “93% enriched uranium reactor fuel,” in the 1960’s, according to Iranwatch.org. To make an atomic bomb, according to “Uranium Enrichment – How to Make an Atomic Bomb” by Tim Dean, “the uranium has to be enriched to more than 90 per cent and be produced in large quantities.” He says Iran claims it has “not enriched uranium beyond 4.8 per cent and only on a limited scale (as of 2006).” Wikipedia says “Most reactor fuel is enriched to only 3–4%.” The International Atomic Energy Agency, or the IAEA, who according to their website “works with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technologies,” released a report on Iran in late May 2008 entitled “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007) and 1803 (2008) in the Islamic Republic of Iran.” It states, “The results of the environmental samples taken at FEP and PFEP indicate that the plants have been operated as declared. The samples showed low enriched uranium (with up to 4.0% U-235), natural uranium and depleted uranium (down to 0.4% U-235) particles. Iran declared enrichment levels in FEP of up to 4.7% U-235. Since March 2007, fourteen unannounced inspections have been conducted.”In a report issued in November 2007 from The National Intelligence Council (NIC) of The United States entitled “National Intelligence Estimate – Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities” our government states “National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are the Intelligence Community’s (IC) most authoritative written judgments on national security issues and designed to help US civilian and military leaders develop policies to protect US national security interests.” They “ascribe high, moderate, or low levels of confidence to our assessments,” and define high confidence as “High confidence generally indicates that our judgments are based on high-quality information, and/or that the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid judgment.” They say with high confidence that, “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”
The NIC defines moderate as, “Moderate confidence generally means that the information is credibly sourced and plausible but not of sufficient quality or corroborated sufficiently to warrant a higher level of confidence.” They then say that, “We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007,” and that, “We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.” They also state, “We judge with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely.” So why the big rush now to attack their nuclear facilities? And isn’t our system of law in the US based on the principle “innocent until proven guilty?”Perhaps the rush has something to do with my favorite joke circulating before the Iraq war, “How does the US know Iraq has weapons of mass destruction? They still have the receipt.” According to “State of War,” by James Risen, the CIA had a secret plan they called “Merlin.” It was hatched under the Clinton Administration, and was carried out in 2000 under the Bush Administration. It involved a Russian scientist who had defected to the US years earlier and had been kept on the CIA’s payroll. He was given, “technical designs for a TBA 480 high-voltage block, otherwise known as a “firing set”, for a Russian-designed nuclear weapon. He held in his hands the knowledge needed to create a perfect implosion that could trigger a nuclear chain reaction inside a small spherical core. It was one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short.” And he was told to take the blueprints, “to Vienna to sell them – or simply give them – to the Iranian representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).” The blueprints had a small error, but they hoped Iran wouldn’t notice and would try to build a bomb. “Instead of a mushroom cloud, the Iranian scientists would witness a disappointing fizzle. The Iranian nuclear programme would suffer a humiliating setback, and Tehran’s goal of becoming a nuclear power would have been delayed by several years.” The CIA wanted to see if Iran already had this technology, and if not, they wanted to humiliate them. The only problem was the Russian Scientist noticed the error. When he told the CIA officers of the error, they told him it didn’t matter, but he feared the Iranians wouldn’t work with him if they noticed the flaw. So once he arrived in Vienna he opened the package and included a letter saying that there was a flaw, but he could help them find it. He then got scared and instead of selling the report to the Iranians, he slipped it under their door and ran. James Risen goes on to say that, “Tehran also obtained nuclear blueprints from the network of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and so already had workable blueprints against which to compare the designs obtained from the CIA. Nuclear experts say that they would thus be able to extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws.” Oops!Another bit of information left out of the current administrations speeches is that Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued a fatwa forbidding nuclear weapons. Wikipedia describes a Fatwa as “a religious opinion on Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwa is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be, depending on the status of the scholar.” Iran is predominately Shiite. Bill Weinberg, in his story “Iran issues anti-nuke fatwa,” includes a portion of the statement Iran presented to the IAEA on the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing. “The Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has issued the Fatwa that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office just recently, in his inaugural address reiterated that his government is against weapons of mass destruction and will only pursue nuclear activities in the peaceful domain … It is the most absurd manifestation of irony that the single state who caused this single nuclear catastrophe in a twin attack on our earth now has assumed the role of the prime preacher in the nuclear field while ever expanding its nuclear weapons capability.” Iran’s spiritual leader issued a similar fatwa against chemical weapons during the Iran/Iraq war, and although Iraq used chemical weapons, Iran did not. Ali Khamenei says that Iran is committed to The Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran signed in 1968. According to Mohammed Sahimi, the treaty “recognized Iran’s inalienable right to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination, and acquire equipment, materials, and scientific and technological information.” They are also permitted under this treaty to enrich uranium, which the US and its allies are now demanding Iran cease with threat of war. The US signed this same treaty, and according to the UN’s website, the NPT “represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States.” So isn’t the United States in violation of this treaty by not disarming? When is someone going to attack our nuclear reactors and put sanctions on us?Ria Novosti, in the article “IAEA says Israel’s nuclear status none of its concern,” says “The UN nuclear watchdog said it will not respond to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s remark implying that Israel has nuclear weapons, something the Jewish state has never officially admitted. Independent analysts have said Israel holds between 80 and 200 nuclear warheads, and may be the world’s sixth-largest nuclear power.” Gerald M. Steinberg, in his article, “The International Atomic Energy Agency and Israel, A Realistic Agenda,” defends Israel saying, “As long as Jewish sovereignty and Israel’s right to equality as a state among the nations is denied, the need for a credible deterrent will not end.” Israel bombed a nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007 in an attempt to keep them from acquiring nuclear weapons, and as mentioned above have practiced an attack on Iran’s reactors. Israel’s closest ally, The United States, has gone to war with Iraq and many people believe they did so for oil, which Iran happens to have a lot of. Is not the sovereignty of Iran at stake as well? Countries want to have nuclear weapons for the same reason that the US won’t get rid of theirs, as a deterrent from the other countries that do have them. It’s kind of like the Second Amendment here in America, the right to bear arms. It was created by our forefathers to guarantee that if the government becomes corrupt, the people can stand up and fight back. I don’t know what Iran’s intentions are, but I do know what is fair. And it is not fair for the only country to ever use a nuclear weapon, who has more than anyone else, to tell anybody else they can’t have one, let alone threaten war.Henry Kissinger, who was Secretary of State during the Ford Administration, now writes opinion articles about why Iran should not be allowed to go nuclear. During the Ford Administration he was one of the major players in bringing nuclear power to Iran. In Dafna Linzer’s article mentioned above, she asked him why he changed his mind. He said, “They were an allied country, and this was a commercial transaction. We didn’t address the question of them one day moving toward nuclear weapons.” Had they only just bought it all from us, maybe we wouldn’t be on the brink of World War III.

Tim Buchholz is a freelance writer living in Ohio.

By LiveScience Staff, 23 October 2007

Nuclear power has a bright future globally, according to a report released today by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The annual report makes two projections, one assuming all nuclear capacity currently under construction or firmly in the development pipeline gets completed and attached to the grid, but no other capacity is added. In this low projection, there would be growth in global nuclear capacity from 370 gigawatts at the end of 2006 to 447 gigawatts by 2030. (A gigawatt equals 1,000 megawatts).

In the high projection, which adds in additional reasonable and promising projects and plans, capacity is estimated to rise to 679 gigawatts by 2030, for an average growth rate of 2.5 percent per year.

“Our job is not so much to predict the future but to prepare for it,” explains the IAEA’s Alan McDonald, Nuclear Energy Analyst. “To that end we update each year a high and low projection to establish the range of uncertainty we ought to be prepared for.”

Nuclear power’s share of worldwide electricity production rose from less than 1 percent in 1960 to 16 percent in 1986, and that percentage has held essentially constant in the 21 years since 1986, the agency reported in a statement today. Nuclear electricity generation has grown steadily at the same pace as overall global electricity generation.

Other findings in the report:

• There were 435 operating nuclear reactors around the world as of the end of 2006, including 103 in the United States, 59 in France, 55 in Japan and 31 in Russia.
• 29 plants are under construction, including 7 in Russia and 15 in various Asian countries.
• Of the 30 countries with nuclear power, the percentage of electricity supplied by nuclear ranged from 78 percent in France to 19 percent in the United States and 2 percent in China, where energy consumption has burgeoned in recent years.
• India, another country experiencing rapid growth in energy use, gets less than 3 percent of its electricity from nuclear but plans to increase that figure to 10 percent by 2022.

“Nuclear power’s prominence as a major energy source will continue over the next several decades,” the report concludes.

The IAEA was established in 1957 as an autonomous organization under the United Nations. Its mandate is to serve as an intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology.

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N-energy as an option

BOONSONG KOSITCHOTETHANA , Bangkok Post, August 1, 2007

Nuclear power is a controversial subject around the world, with both critics and proponents very keen to have their views heard. The debate whether the world should build more nuclear power plants to meet the estimated 50% surge in global electricity demand in the next 25 years, is now upon us here in Thailand.

Nuclear power has become a hot issue here after the government in April approved a master plan for power supply development which called for the installation of 31,790 MW in additional generating capacity over the next 15 years. For the first time, nuclear energy was specifically included in the plan, with a 4,000 MW capacity plant to be put in place by 2020-2021 at an estimated cost of US$8 billion.

Fuelling the debate is the recent advocacy of the Thai plan made in Bangkok by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei. The statement was endorsed by Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, but was promptly rejected by Greenpeace. The 6.8 tremor which struck central Japan on July 16, causing some damage to the 8,212 MW Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, has also renewed concern about radiation, because some water from the spent-fuel pool leaked into the Sea of Japan (though most of it was far less active than common natural radiation sources). That occurrence has brought up the question whether we should allow the case to compound earlier worries of risks to citizens’ health and safety due to possible accidents and radiation from nuclear power stations.

Should we allow the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster to continue to haunt us and stop us from exploring for new power sources as they did in many countries in the latter part of the 20th century?

What nuclear offers is a choice. Not an easy one, but one that needs to be considered on the basis of its merits and weaknesses, as all energy options should be. There is no panacea. We should not reject the nuclear option outright based on perceptions that resolutely bill nuclear as a pariah, ignoring the benefits it offers. Many experts agree that nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse gas emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and that can produce the large amounts of “baseload” power supplies needed to satisfy day-to-day electricity demands.

With worries about terrorism now paramount in the minds of the world’s public and political leaders, concerns about safety that haunted nuclear utilities for decades appear to be receding. Many societies are becoming more aware of the scientific fact that the rate of fission in a reactor is not capable of reaching sufficient levels to trigger a nuclear explosion because commercial reactor grade nuclear fuel is not enriched to a high enough level. In fact, nuclear plants have by and large proven to be safe, thanks to new technology, stringent regulatory frameworks and strict operation controls. The World Nuclear Association offered a comparison of death due to accident among different forms of energy production – death per TWy of electricity produced is 885 for hydropower, 342 for coal, 85 for natural gas and eight for nuclear.

With electricity shortage, the increase in prices of fossil fuels, global warming from fossil fuel use, safer nuclear technology and national energy security, the world is left with little choice but to embrace nuclear power in a broader way. As of 2004, nuclear power provided 6.5% of the world’s energy and 15.7% of the world’s electricity, with the US, France and Japan together accounting for 57% of all nuclear-generated electricity.

At present, the IAEA reports, there are 435 nuclear power reactors in operation in 31 different countries, providing about 17% of the world’s electricity. As far as Thailand is concerned, a diversification of power source is necessary as the Kingdom is heavily relying on natural gas, which generates about 70% of total power supply. If everything goes according to plan, nuclear would represent only 7% of the country’s total generation in 2011.

Excluding hydropower, nuclear power promises to offer the least generating cost at 2.05 baht/kWh, compared to 2.07 baht from coal-fired thermal plant, 2.24 baht from coal-fired combined cycle plant, 4.02 baht from oil-fired thermal plant and 7.77 baht from gas-turbines.

According to a recent government study, the estimated generation cost from renewals are 20.20 baht for solar, 5.98 baht for wind turbine, 4.63 baht from waste and 2.63 baht from biomass. The current average power charge paid by the public is around 3 baht/kWh.

Boonsong Kositchotethana is Deputy Assignment Editor (Business), Bangkok Post.

Source:
Inderscience Publishers

Date:
July 25, 2007

Keywords:

Energy and the Environment, Renewable Energy, Environmental Science, Wind Energy, Nuclear Energy, Energy Technology

Renewable Energy Wrecks Environment, According To Researcher

Science Daily — Renewable does not mean green. That is the claim of Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller University in New York. Writing in Inderscience’s International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, Ausubel explains that building enough wind farms, damming enough rivers, and growing enough biomass to meet global energy demands will wreck the environment.

Ausubel has analyzed the amount of energy that each so-called renewable source can produce in terms of Watts of power output per square meter of land disturbed. He also compares the destruction of nature by renewables with the demand for space of nuclear power. “Nuclear energy is green,” he claims, “Considered in Watts per square meter, nuclear has astronomical advantages over its competitors.”

On this basis, he argues that technologies succeed when economies of scale form part of their evolution. No economies of scale benefit renewables. More renewable kilowatts require more land in a constant or even worsening ratio, because land good for wind, hydropower, biomass, or solar power may get used first.

A consideration of each so-called renewable in turn, paints a grim picture of the environmental impact of renewables. Hypothetically flooding the entire province of Ontario, Canada, about 900,000 square km, with its entire 680,000 billion liters of rainfall, and storing it behind a 60 meter dam would only generate 80% of the total power output of Canada’s 25 nuclear power stations, he explains. Put another way, each square kilometer of dammed land would provide the electricity for just 12 Canadians.

Biomass energy is also horribly inefficient and destructive of nature. To power a large proportion of the USA, vast areas would need to be shaved or harvested annually. To obtain the same electricity from biomass as from a single nuclear power plant would require 2500 square kilometers of prime Iowa land. “Increased use of biomass fuel in any form is criminal,” remarks Ausubel. “Humans must spare land for nature. Every automobile would require a pasture of 1-2 hectares.”

Turning to wind Ausubel points out that while wind farms are between three to ten times more compact than a biomass farm, a 770 square kilometer area is needed to produce as much energy as one 1000 Megawatt electric (MWe) nuclear plant. To meet 2005 US electricity demand and assuming round-the-clock wind at the right speed, an area the size of Texas, approximately 780,000 square kilometers, would need to be covered with structures to extract, store, and transport the energy.

One hundred windy square meters, a good size for a Manhattan apartment, could power an electric lamp or two, but not the laundry equipment, microwave oven, plasma TV, and computer. New York City would require every square meter of Connecticut to become a wind farm to fully power all its electrical equipment and gadgets.

Solar power also comes in for criticism. A photovoltaic solar cell plant would require painting black about than 150 square kilometers plus land for storage and retrieval to equal a 1000 MWe nuclear plant. Moreover, every form of renewable energy involves vast infrastructure, such as concrete, steel, and access roads. “As a Green, one of my credos is ‘no new structures’ but renewables all involve ten times or more stuff per kilowatt as natural gas or nuclear,” Ausubel says.

While the full footprint of uranium mining might add a few hundred square kilometers and there are considerations of waste storage, safety and security, the dense heart of the atom offers far the smallest footprint in nature of any energy source. Benefiting from economies of scale, nuclear energy could multiply its power output and even shrink the energy system, in the same way that computers have become both more powerful and smaller.

“Renewables may be renewable but they are not green,” asserts Ausubel”, If we want to minimize new structures and the rape of nature, nuclear energy is the best option.”

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Inderscience Publishers.

Published Saturday, May 13, 2006 (NYT)

Not so many years ago, nuclear energy was a hobgoblin to environmentalists, who feared the potential for catastrophic accidents and long-term radiation contamination. But this is a new era, dominated by fears of tight energy supplies and global warming. Suddenly nuclear power is looking better.

The nuclear industry recently trotted out two new leaders of its campaign to encourage the building of new reactors. They are Christie Whitman, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace. This campaign is the latest sign that nuclear power is getting a more welcome reception from some environmentalists who have moved on to bigger worries.

True, most environmental organizations remain adamantly opposed to any expansion of nuclear power and instead look to conservation and renewable energy to get us out of the fossil fuel age. But when the ecologist James Lovelock ? creator of the Gaia hypothesis, which holds that Earth and all its organisms behave as if they were a single living system ? urges his colleagues to drop their “wrongheaded opposition” to nuclear energy, it is clear that fissures are developing.

There is good reason to give nuclear power a fresh look. It can diversify our sources of energy with a fuel ? uranium ? that is both abundant and inexpensive. More important, nuclear energy can replace fossil-fuel power plants for generating electricity, reducing the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute heavily to global warming. That could be important in large developing economies like China’s and India’s, which would otherwise rely heavily on burning large quantities of dirty coal and oil.

But nuclear power should not be given a free pass in our frantic quest for energy and environmental security. Making any real dent in carbon emissions could require building many hundreds or even thousands of new nuclear plants around the world in coming decades, a hugely ambitious undertaking fraught with challenges.

As nuclear expertise and technologies spread around the world, so does the risk that they might be used to make bombs. Unfortunately, the Bush administration erred badly when it signed a nuclear pact with India that would undercut the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. That misguided deal needs to be repudiated by the Senate. We can only hope that it does not undercut a more promising administration plan to keep the most dangerous fuel-making technologies out of circulation by supplying developing nations with uranium and taking the spent fuel rods back.

There remains the unsolved problem of what to do with the radioactive waste generated by nuclear plants. Many people are unwilling to see a resurgence in nuclear power without some assurance that the spent fuel can be handled safely. The Energy Department’s repeated setbacks in efforts to open an underground waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada do not inspire confidence, but there is no reason why the spent fuel rods can’t be stored safely at surface sites for the next 50 to 100 years.

More problematic is the administration’s long-term solution for waste disposal. It wants to recycle the spent fuel in a new generation of advanced reactors that would use technologies that don’t yet exist, following a timetable that many experts think unrealistic. Its current approach is apt to be costly and would leave dangerous plutonium more accessible to terrorists.

Nuclear power has a good safety record in this country, and its costs, despite the high initial expense of building the plants, are looking more reasonable now that fossil fuel prices are soaring. How much impact it could really have in slowing carbon emissions has yet to be spelled out, but there is no doubt that nuclear power could serve as a useful bridge to even greener sources of energy.