Nuclear

Fukushima Task Force Urges Coherent Nuke Rules

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Fukushima gives US nuclear regulators a golden opportunity to tie up decades of regulatory loose ends and replace the “patchwork” of regulations that has evolved since the 1960s with a “logical, systematic and coherent regulatory framework,” a Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff task force says.

But the industry’s Nuclear Energy Institute quickly faulted the task force for failing to analyze in detail what went wrong at the Japanese nuclear station. NEI warned that rash actions, taken before the accident is fully understood, might harm US plant safety. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 20, 2011 at 3:00 PM

Face Off Over Nuclear Waste Storage Takes New Twist

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The Department of Energy (DOE) has been trying to close the Yucca mountain storage site, but South Carolina and Washington, both facing the challenges of storing growing numbers of spent nuclear fuel rods, have tried almost everything to maintain access to the dump.

On Friday, the US Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. threw out their case, ruling that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is the ultimate the authority on deciding the fate of the storage facility.

Like a recent Supreme Court decision about the role of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in implementing greenhouse gas emissions policies, the Friday ruling reaffirmed the role of federal regulators–in this case the NRC–to call the shots on energy policy. But, similar to the EPA case, the judicial ruling added that states do have the right to take federal agencies to court when they believe regulators there have failed to do their job. Keep reading →

 /  Published July 6, 2011 at 11:20 AM

Whitman: The Lady’s For Nuclear

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If anyone knows clean and green energy it is former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, an unusual elected politician who also has a background as a public utility commissioner and served as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency a decade ago.

Nuclear energy needs to stay at its current 20% share of total electricity generation, Whitman told Breaking Energy during a swing through New York. One of the rare governors who has kept a high profile since leaving the administration, she now runs Whitman Strategy Group in New Jersey and Washington, DC and also serves as co-chair of the CASEnergy Coalition. Keep reading →

 /  Published June 22, 2011 at 4:50 PM

Podcast: Fukushima Fault Trees

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Nuclear power regulators are rethinking their approach to safety after recent data releases showed that post-9/11 measures were often insufficient.

Implementing a “safety culture” of constant measurement and improvement has been central to the industry’s safety progress since the now minor-seeming accident at Three Mile Island, which resulted in a rule-making binge. Keep reading →

 /  Published June 10, 2011 at 3:15 PM

Fukushima Fallout

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The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission‘s (NRC) fundamental approach to regulating safety is being questioned in the wake of the nuclear disaster in Japan, not just by the usual nuclear critics but by the commissioners themselves.

And that could mean big new costs for US nuclear plants – and electric ratepayers. Keep reading →

 /  Published May 20, 2011 at 8:55 AM
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