[CARTOON] Nuking Coal Power

Via: California Political Review

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[VIDEO] New Nuclear Power Seen as Big Winner in Obama’s Clean Power Plan

The Obama administration gave the struggling U.S. nuclear industry a glimmer of hope this week by allowing new reactors to count more toward meeting federal emissions limits.

States can take more credit for carbon-free electricity to be generated by nuclear power plants that are still under construction as they work to comply with emissions-reduction targets set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The boost for new nuclear was outlined in the Obama administration’s final Clean Power Plan released Monday.

Under last year’s draft of the plan, the yet-to-be completed reactors were counted as existing units that wouldn’t be fully credited for carbon reductions generated in the future after they had started operating. The nuclear power industry complained that amounted to a penalty on the plants and made state targets harder to achieve.

“We tend to view new rules as potentially the first bit of good news for the struggling nuclear industry,” Julien Dumoulin-Smith, an analyst for UBS, wrote on Monday in a research note.

Nuclear operators are facing high maintenance and clean-up costs, as well as competition from cheap natural-gas fueled power plants and low-cost wind and solar generation. About 10 percent of the nation’s nuclear output may retire early because of low energy prices, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

The question of waste disposal also hangs over the industry as efforts to establish a federal repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have stalled.

Existing Reactors

The Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based trade group, said it was “pleased” that the EPA recognized that nuclear plants under construction “should count toward compliance when they are operating.”

Marvin Fertel, president of the nuclear trade group, said by e-mail that the industry was disappointed that existing reactors won’t get credit for their carbon-reduction value, given that some are at risk of early retirement.

New reactor projects, the first in decades, have been plagued by delays and cost increases.

Beneficiaries of the rule changes would include Southern Co. and Scana Corp., which are building new reactors in Georgia and South Carolina, respectively. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which is building a reactor at its Watts Bar facility near Spring City, Tennessee, would also get a boost.

“Nuclear facilities will be credited because it’s new, zero-carbon generation that will be credited as part of a compliance strategy,” said U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “That’s entirely consistent and appropriate.”

Via: Bloomberg

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With nuclear plants idled, Japan launches pioneering wind project BY CAROL J. WILLIAMS

Japan inaugurated a floating offshore wind turbine Monday that energy industry leaders hope will open a new frontier in Japanese renewable technologies and help the country reduce its dependence on nuclear energy and fossil fuels.

The floating platform is anchored 13 miles offshore from the crippledFukushima Daiichinuclear power plant, the scene of earthquake, tsunami and reactor meltdown disasters in March 2011.

The platform, anchored to the seabed 400 feet below the surface, is the first project of its kind in Japan, and is intended to show that emerging energy technologies can take advantage of powerful offshore winds despite the challenging ocean depths around most of the island country.

Electricity generated by the new 2,000-kilowatt wind turbine is relayed at the adjacent floating substation to an underwater cable anddistributed to about 600 householdsby Tohoku Electric Power Co., the Jiji Press agency said.

The project, which envisions two additional floating turbines next year with 7,000-kilowatt capacity each, is a joint public-private undertaking by the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry, the University of Tokyo and 10 major industrial enterprises.

Japan's wind energy potential could generate 1,570 gigawatts, orfive times current national electricity output, the Japan Daily Press said in its report on the turbine start-up. It hailed the project as reflecting the hope that nuclear power, which supplied nearly one-third of Japan's electricity needs before the Fukushima disaster, can be significantlyreduced or phased out.

All 50 of Japan's nuclear reactors are shut down or inoperable following the March 11, 2011, disasters that began with a magnitude-9 earthquake, which triggered the tsunami that smashed through retaining walls at the four-reactor Fukushima complex. Electrical utilities have already petitioned the government to restart 14 of the idled reactors following safety retrofits and more stringent regulations put in place after the Fukushima meltdowns.

Via: McClatchy

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/11/208225/with-nuclear-plants-idled-japan.html#storylink=cpy