Both of these goals can be attained, but the question remains: what is the best path forward?

Many on the left want to see a tax levied on carbon, arguing that this will force the development of greener technologies.But at least one environmental researcher, highlighted in the July 2010 edition of Popular Science magazine, thinks that technology innovation, rather than government policies, will lead to new and greener energy sources.

Part of what alarms his critics is how un-alarmist his conclusions have turned out to be. For example, instead of using policy to change how people will behave in the future, [Jesse] Ausubel prefers exploring technological responses to what he believes people are going to do regardless. His favorite defense of this laissez-faire approach is to explain that, absent any policy dictating that it should happen, energy consumption over the past 100 years has steadily “decarbonized.” That is, humankind has moved to fuel sources with progressively better ratios of carbon atoms to hydrogen atoms–wood at 10:1, coal at 2:1, oil at 1:2, natural gas at 1:4 and, eventually (in the future Ausubel envisions) 100 percent hydrogen. He thinks technology inevitably improves things. “That’s not to say I don’t worry about the downsides of technology,” he says. “A lot of my work is about that. But my general interest is new and high-tech ways of dealing with problems.”

Ausubel rightly argues that over the years, technology has steadily been advancing and decarbonizing largely without government intervention, a concept that should continue in the future.

For examples supporting Ausubel’s argument, one does not have to look any further than the nuclear industry, where a trend of innovation can be seen with companies like Babcock & Wilcox looking to bring asmaller nuclear reactor to market. Their goal is to create a modular reactor that can easily be shipped to its destination for final assembly. The smaller size means using one-fifth of the staff a regular size reactor requires, a benefit that will significantly lower operation costs, which in turn means these reactors will allow smaller utilities to diversify their energy profiles.

That means more utilities may look into using nuclear energy, carbon-free technology that produced enough energy around the clock to serve as baseload power.

Additionally, recent technological innovations in the algae biofuel industry could lead to major advances in the hydrogen field. An algae biofuel technology company recently announced that they had developed a method to cheaply ‘harvest’ hydrogen from algae, a method that scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory called “the ‘Holy Grail’ of the hydrogen economy.”

Examples of innovations like these in the energy industry are happening frequently and largely without government intervention. With talk about a new climate/energy bill being written, Congress needs to remember that it should not try to force technological advances but instead should focus on creating a climate where innovation is encouraged.

Ultimately, instead of the heavy hand of the government steering the development of our energy technologies by artificially affecting the price of energy through carbon taxes or selective subsidies, we should let the private sector do what it does best: innovate and commercialize, two things that will benefit everyone in the process.

Originally posted on American Solutions

SENECA — The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s verdict is in: the Oconee Nuclear Station gets a clean bill of safety.

NRC officials presented the findings on the station’s 2009 operations Thursday at Duke Energy’s World of Energy.

Duke operated the Oconee station “in a manner that preserved public health and safety with a moderate degradation in safety performance,” said Andy Sabisch, senior on-site NRC inspector of the Oconee station.

Residents were recently given the opportunity to ask NRC officials questions concerning the Oconee Plant with many seeming to be in support of the the plants continued operations despite the minor issues over the past year.

In a political climate rife with partisanship, it is always a pleasant surprise to see lawmakers from both sides of the aisle coming together to solve our nation’s problems. One of the issues desperately needing bipartisan attention is nuclear power, an issue that has become particularly critical after the administration’s short-sighted announcement this year not to fund the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility.

Luckily, several House Republicans and Democrats have come together to introduce a resolution that would stop the Obama administration from ending the Yucca Mountain project.

Just days after firmly supporting the passage of Obamacare, Democrats like Majority Whip James Clyburn (SC) and John Spratt (SC) are taking a stand against President Obama’s decision to end Yucca Mountain. Even Washington Democrat Jay Inslee, who was one of the chief salesmen for the Waxman-Markey energy tax last summer, joined in this rebuke of the president’s energy policy.

As stated previously, the Yucca Mountain facility is the nation’s legally designated location for nuclear waste storage, and billions of dollars have been spent on its research and development. The administration’s decision to cut its funding without an alternative will harm the nuclear industry who has been eagerly waiting its opening.

These facts have united Republicans and Democrats, especially those whose districts and states currently store nuclear waste in temporary facilities and have done so for many years under the assumption that a long-term nuclear storage facility like Yucca Mountain would be completed. With the Yucca Mountain facility near completion, the thought of starting from scratch with a yet to be determined replacement facility is disheartening.

After already waiting years for a promised storage facility, the nuclear industry is now being told to wait even longer. This uncertainty could potentially deter further investment in nuclear energy sector and even counteract the administration’s push for increased nuclear power.

Overall, while the administration may feel that the fight over Yucca Mountain is coming to a close, the recent actions in Congress may indicate that things are only beginning to heat up. Congress still has the power over the budget and the power to decide what funding Yucca Mountain may or may not receive. With Republicans and Democrats standing together on this issue, the opportunity to positively influence the fate of Yucca Mountain and alter the administration’s current course dramatically increases.

As the Obama administration has acknowledged, nuclear power needs to be an important part of our energy future. However, a nuclear waste repository like Yucca Mountain is needed soon in order to help the nuclear industry grow.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has approved a license amendment request from Duke Energy Carolinas to install an up-to-date computer upgrade of major safety-related systems at the Oconee Nuclear Station, located eight miles north of Seneca on Lake Keowee.

The amended Oconee license gives Duke permission to replace 1970s-era analog, solid-state controls for the plant’s Reactor Protection System (RPS) and Engineered Safeguard Protection System (ESPS). Duke will install Teleperm XS (TXS) digital computer-based equipment, according to a release from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

(…)

The NRC staff approved the Oconee amendment after confirming the new system’s ability to meet both safety requirements and NRC cyber-security regulations that isolate the systems and prevent cyber attacks. The staff paid particular attention to the system’s ability to maintain two-way communications between various subsystems and provide diverse control pathways for safety-related commands, as well as the tools used to simulate and validate the system’s performance. NRC staff also inspected Duke’s procedures for the Oconee-specific TXS design and implementation and observed testing of the actual system at production facilities in Germany.

This marks the first NRC approval for a nuclear power plant’s integrated digital RPS and ESPS instrumentation and control system. The agency had previously approved single safety-related digital control applications, such as for the main steam and feed-water isolation system at the Wolf Creek nuclear plant in Kansas.

A couple fun facts about the Oconee station courtesy of Gwyneth Cravens’ book, “Power to Save the World”

• Started producing power in 1973
• By 1981, the plant had paid for its start up costs
• Only nuclear power plant in the country with a hydroelectric backup

*****

This past week, a disagreement occurred between the Energy Secretary Steven Chu and White House Budget Director Peter Orszag over how much money should be cut from funding the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. This disagreement once again brings up the question of what are the United States’ plans for long-term storage of nuclear waste since support for expanding nuclear energy is growing within the public and with policymakers.

Nuclear energy has seen a resurgence in popularity in the past couple years, as evidenced by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission receiving roughly 20 applications to build over 30 reactors in just the past 4 years.

In June 2008, the Yucca Mountain facility submitted a much-anticipated application to build a deep geologic repository for used nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste, and the goal of increasing our nuclear energy production levels looked to be achievable.

However, over the past year of the new administration, we have seen conflicting statements and actions concerning increasing nuclear energy production within the United States.

For example, not even a month after the inauguration, the Obama administration announced that it will cut off almost all funding to the Yucca Mountain Facility and instead wants to look into finding a “better solution for management of our nuclear waste.”

With the Yucca Mountain solution taking over 25 years to get to the point where they can even apply to start building the facility, how much longer will the American people have to wait for the Obama administration’s “better solution” to come to fruition?

Of course, their proposed solution has not yet been announced, one year after halting funding for Yucca Mountain. This haphazard discontinuation by the administration of a project that has received previous endorsements from all three branches of the U.S. government contradicts their pro-nuclear energy stance and statements.

Even though recycling the spent nuclear fuel for further use in nuclear reactors should be the ultimate goal, there are those that feel that a long-term nuclear waste repository must first be demonstrated before these reprocessing efforts will be expanded.

That is why this facility, which Congress passed legislation to create in 1982 and was meant to safely store nuclear material from across the country for thousands of years, is necessary if we are to expand the nuclear energy production capacity of the United States

After decades of work and roughly $10 billion spent on research, the country needs a place like Yucca Mountain that is authorized to store 70,000 metric tons of nuclear fuel, and has been rated by the Electric Power Research Institute to safely and securely store up to 570,000 metric tons of nuclear waste.

While this may seem like a lot of waste, critics must consider that 0.0007 pounds of nuclear material can produce the same amount of energy as 1,780 pounds of coal. In fact, over the past 50 years of nuclear energy production, only 60,000 metric tons of waste has been produced.

Currently, nuclear power plants are forced to store their nuclear waste on-site. While many argue that the fuel is safely stored at the reactor sites, it is surely less than ideal since these measures were to be a temporary fix rather than a long-term solution like the one Yucca Mountain can offer.

The on-site storage of nuclear waste is very expensive, both for the companies operating the plants and the American taxpayer. Since 1998, the government has been on the hook for paying for many of these on-site storage capabilities, the product of a partial breach of contract signed two decades ago whereby the government would construct a permanent federal facility for the safe disposal of nuclear waste.

The DOE has estimated that the cost to the government of on-site storage litigation will be roughly $11 billion by 2020, the year when the Yucca Mountain repository would be complete if positive actions were taken today.

Overall, this recent disagreement between the White House and Secretary Chu highlights the fact that the administration has not upheld its end of the deal. With the cut in funds to the Yucca Mountain repository, the administration promised to quickly set up a panel to find alternatives solutions to our nuclear waste problem, but in the year since the initial cuts, no steps have been taken to do so.

As the months go by and funding is slowly but surely eliminated from this project without any sign of an alternative solution, one has to wonder if the White House truly is serious about expanding our nuclear energy capacity. Regretfully, the administration’s recent actions seem to point to the contrary.

Mr. Komanoff re-analyzed the data, concentrating not only on the beginning and the end, but also the middle. He found that while costs rose over the period – he put it at 60 percent – they also fell for certain classes of reactors. Specifically, he said, every time the number of new construction projects doubled in a year, the prices fell by 5.7 percent.

One lesson, he said, was that “building more plants in a short period of time creates a potential to reduce or at least control costs.’’

His findings echo what American utilities say, that building a “first-of-a-kind” plant is expensive and later units are cheaper. But for Mr. Komanoff to reach a similar conclusion is significant, because he was a sharp critic of the industry in the construction boom of the 1980s and is no fan of nuclear power now.

Good news for American nuclear energy companies who are looking to start building more plants. Now if the government can just figure out what to do with storing nuclear waste…

The Brazilian government has authorized the company, Electronuclear, to go back to work on the nation’s third nuclear power plant.

 

Work on the Angra 3 reactor, near Rio de Janeiro, has been stalled for 22 years by a lack of money and political issues.

 

But the administration of President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva is turning to nuclear power to meet electricity needs that are growing with the country’s booming economy.

 

“Things have changed a lot, and today it’s clearer to everyone that nuclear energy has a role to play in the Brazilian electrical system, just like the other forms of producing electricity, which can’t be dismissed,” said Leonam Guimaraes, an Electronuclear spokesman.

 

Brazil is the 10th-largest energy consumer in the world, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. It’s the third-largest consumer in the Western Hemisphere, behind the United States and Canada.

 

The two operational nuclear power plants in Brazil supply about 3 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Sen. John McCain called Wednesday for the construction of 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030 and pledged $2 billion a year in federal funds “to make clean coal a reality,” measures designed to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

 

(…)

 

“Every year, these reactors alone spare the atmosphere from the equivalent of nearly all auto emissions in America. Yet for all these benefits, we have not broken ground on a single nuclear plant in over thirty years,” he said. “And our manufacturing base to even construct these plants is almost gone.”

 

Even so, he said he would set the country on a course to build 45 new ones by 2030, with a longer-term goal of adding another 55 in the future.

 

“We will need to recover all the knowledge and skills that have been lost over three stagnant decades in a highly technical field,” he conceded.

Powerline Blog has more on this here.

A recent news article by CNN makes the argument that the US should follow the France’s example in order to end our dependency on foreign oil.

When Goldman Sachs analysts suggested last week that oil could hit $200 a barrel, I expected someone somewhere to express horror at the possibility. But the reaction was a tiny, resignation-filled sigh. Relentless fuel-price increases have so exhausted consumers that we don’t have the energy to be outraged anymore. So we feel helpless as we watch oil sprint past the $130 mark on its way to price-prohibitive territory and wonder whether it’s too late to bring back the horse and buggy. Our sense of helplessness is an illusion: There are things we can do. We got ourselves into this mess, mostly through multiple administrations of politically comfortable but shortsighted decision-making. And inasmuch as we’re willing to stand a little political discomfort, we can get ourselves out.

 

One uncomfortable way to mitigate the energy crisis has been under our nose since the 1950s: nuclear energy. It’s one of the cleanest and most efficient alternatives to coal- and natural-gas-based electricity production, and it’s responsible for less than 20% of domestic electricity production. The most recent numbers (2006) indicate that coal-based production was the largest contributor, at 48%. Increasingly expensive petroleum and natural gas account for 22%. All three are replaceable.

 

It may not be fashionable to suggest that the French know what they’re doing with regard to anything but wine and cheese, but spend some time in Provence and note the remarkably clean air and cheap electricity, 75% of which is produced by nuclear power plants. Most of the plants were built after the 1970s oil shocks that sent France’s economy into a tailspin because it was almost completely dependent on foreign oil, as we are now. Nuclear energy doesn’t produce the air pollution that burning coal does, and even waste products are recyclable, though it hasn’t been done thanks to an also potentially shortsighted Carter-era decision to ban it over fears of nuclear terrorism.

I don’t normally say this but the French have a good idea here and I think we just might to emulate them this one time.