Decommissioning of Private Assets is Public Matter in Japan; TEPCO Forges Ahead

September 26, 2013, 1:56PMANS Nuclear CafeWill Davis

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Fukushima Daiichi Units 5 (left) and 6 (right) seen in October 2012 behind the newly completed breakwall.

Earlier this month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe conducted a visit to Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station to examine conditions at the site and to gauge TEPCO's response to numerous ongoing problems. When Abe spoke to reporters after the visit, he mentioned (for reasons still unknown) that he had suggested to TEPCO that it decommission Unit 5 and Unit 6 on the site, so that it could focus its efforts squarely on the work required to recover from the nuclear accidents at Units 1, 2, and 3. This was reported with some surprise in many quarters.

Science-Based Science Communications: Surprising New Findings

September 25, 2013, 6:00AMANS Nuclear CafeSuzy Hobbs Baker

Last week Dan Kahan, Harvard professor and member of the highly important Cultural Cognition Project, released his latest research about how scientific evidence impacts opinions. It was published under dim headlines such as Scientists' depressing new discovery about the brain and elicited equally defeated sounding tweets and Facebook posts from science communicators all over the globe.

Are Nuclear Plant Closures Due to Market Manipulation and Decommissioning Fund Rules?

September 19, 2013, 6:00AMANS Nuclear CafeJim Hopf

DC PerspectivesMost of you are well aware that Entergy recently announced it will permanently close its Vermont Yankee (VY) nuclear plant. The primary reasons given were continued low natural gas prices, the cost of post-Fukushima upgrades, and "flaws" in the local wholesale electricity market that suppress prices and harm the profitability of baseload facilities like VY. VY was close to breaking even this year, as well as the last few years, but was projected to become unprofitable in the future-over the next few years, anyway.

The 2013 Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation

September 18, 2013, 6:00AMANS Nuclear CafeMatthew Gidden and Nicholas Thompson

From July 7 -12, 16 students from around the country came to Washington DC to talk with politicians and policymakers about nuclear engineering education funding, energy policy, and other nuclear issues as part of the 2013 Nuclear Engineering Student Delegation (NESD). This year the delegation was comprised of students with especially diverse backgrounds, including nuclear engineering, chemical engineering, materials science, and nuclear safeguards policy. The chair of the delegation was Matthew Gidden, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying nuclear engineering and energy policy. He was assisted by two co-vice chairs: Mark Reed of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Nicholas Thompson of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Interview With ANS Landis Award Recipient Dr. Benoit Forget

September 12, 2013, 6:00AMANS Nuclear CafeKaty Huff

Young Member Group 200x52Benoit Forget, associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was honored with the 2013 ANS Landis Young Member Engineering Achievement Award. The award recognizes outstanding achievement for effectively applying engineering knowledge to yield a new principle, concept, design, safety improvement, method of analysis, or product used in the nuclear energy enterprise.

Vermont Yankee closure announced – There is work yet to be done

September 11, 2013, 6:00AMANS Nuclear CafeHoward Shaffer

viewfromVermontOn August 27, Entergy announced that it plans to close the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in the fall of 2014, when the plant's current fuel is depleted. Entergy plans to decommission the plant using the SAFSTOR option, which consists of defueling, mothballing the plant for a period, then dismantling it by the end of 60 years. Entergy said that it is closing the plant because it is no longer projected to make money, considering the estimated future natural gas prices. Electric power generated by gas is now over 50 percent of the ISO-New England grid.

ANS Will Enter the Climate Change Dialogue

September 10, 2013, 6:00AMANS Nuclear CafeDonald R. Hoffman, ANS President

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In August, the American Nuclear Society conducted a simple 4-question poll on climate change policy. I commissioned this short poll to establish a baseline understanding of our members' views on the general issue and possible policy actions that ANS should consider. The results are in and it is clear that members are ready for ANS to participate in this important policy discussion.

Fighting for the Next Inch

September 5, 2013, 1:57PMANS Nuclear CafePeter Shaw

I had an interesting conversation with some colleagues last night. We were talking about our jobs, and it turned out that some of them were considering moving on to new prospects outside of the nuclear industry. After digging in to the reasons why, the sentiment seemed to come down to "It feels like we're running as hard as we can only to gain inches every day."