Hiroshima Remembrance Event August 6, 2020 [NOTE: Due to COVID, event could not be held at the University of Chicago Campus ‘Nuclear Energy’ Statue so it was held online via Zoom conference.] Good Evening, Thank you all for your concern and time regarding this issue and thank you to Charles Strain for organizing this event […]
Greetings Safe Energy Advocate – It’s now officially winter. Both meteorologically and astronomically. The major holidays are winding down, and we soon will face a new year. That makes it time for NEIS to fill you in on what we’ve been up to, and what’s on the safe-energy agenda in 2020. Exelon Bailouts – New […]
NEIS sent the following today to Illinois state and federal legislators, as well as to its entire media list. We share it with you now: We hope that this latest installment of our energy transformation series finds you well, and as you wind down towards the end of the Spring legislative session, that your work […]
NEIS has a number of events lined up for Earth Week 2019 — April 22-27. We close out the week with a very special activity. We’re co-hosting a workshop with noted activist/organizer/author George Lakey who is in town to promote his new book, “HOW WE WIN: A Guide to Non-Violent Direct Action Campaigning. This will […]
NEIS sponsors a week of activities against premature, hazardous radioactive waste transport through Illinois NEIS hosted a week of events and activities in response to recent House Congressional legislation that would prematurely place hazardous high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) on our roads, build expensive and unnecessary HLRW storage facilities in Texas and New Mexico, and would […]
August 16, 2018 Dr. Norma Field, professor emeritus of Japanese Studies at the University of Chicago, and Dr. Yuki Miyamoto, ethicist and professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University are interviewed by Jerome McDonnell on his “Worldview” program, on WBEZ-FM 91.5 public radio Chicago. The Japanese Government has been engaged in a program to dismantle […]
It’s August already. They don’t call this time of year “the dog days” for nothing. After a pretty frenetic Spring, things have slowed down a bit. But that doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. We at NEIS are using this relatively “slow(er)” time to re-group, plan, groom and educate those who are in need of […]
A new NEIS “Know Nukes” program made its debut this August 6th at the Chicago Hiroshima Anniversary Observance, held at the site of the Henry Moore Sculpture to Nuclear Power on the campus of the University of Chicago. The site – memorialized by the world-famous sculpture — is the exact location where the Nuclear Age […]
Congressional Briefing: “Decommissioning Nuclear Power Plants: What Congress, Federal Agencies and Communities Need to Know” WHEN: Monday, July 16 2018 | 2 PM – 3:30 PM Eastern Live webcast will be streamed at: www.eesi.org/livecast WHERE: Room HC-8, U.S. Capitol Building, Washington, D.C. WHO: Mayor Al Hill, of Zion, Illinois, home of the decommissioned Zion Nuclear […]
Written By Kari Lydersen, Energy News Network, July 13, 2018. Members of Congress are scheduled to receive a briefing next week from nuclear energy experts and watchdogs on pending nuclear waste storage proposals and the decommissioning of nuclear plants that have closed or could soon. Among the organizers of the July 16 briefing and a […]
NEIS’ Director David Kraft gives an update on Nuclear Power Plants and the Pandemic on The Nuclear Hotseat
COVID, Climate Disruption Present Increasing Threats to Continued Use of Nuclear Power, Report States
World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR2020), released on 24 September 2020. The annual analysis of world nuclear power operations examined nuclear power’s performance in 2019, with a number of startling results:
• The number of operating reactors declined by 9 in 2019
• New-built renewables accounted for 77 times more new energy capacity than new nuclear plants
• The COVID pandemic and increasing climate disruption present significant safety implications for continued operation of nuclear plants worldwide
The World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR2020), released on 24 September 2020, assesses in 361 pages the status and trends of the international nuclear industry and analyzes the additional challenges nuclear power is facing in the age of COVID-19. For the first time we report includes as specific chapter analyzing nuclear programs in the Middle East as the first reactor started up in the Arab world.
Seven interdisciplinary experts from Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Lebanon/U.S. and the U.K., from top think tanks like Chatham House in London and prestigious universities like Harvard in Cambridge, Meiji in Tokyo and Technical University in Berlin, have contributed to the report, along with a data engineer, numerous proofreaders and two artistic designers. The foreword was provided by Frank von Hippel, Professor Emeritus of Princeton University, and Jungmin Kang, former head of the safety authority in South Korea.
The number of operating reactors in the world has dropped by nine over the past year to 408 as of mid-2020, that is below the level already reached in 1988, and 30 units below the historic peak of 438 in 2002.
New renewable resources like wind and solar power increased by 184 gigawatts last year, while nuclear power grew by only 2.4 gigawatts. As a result — for the first time in history — renewable sources (excluding hydropower) generated more power than nuclear plants in 2019.
“Nuclear energy has become irrelevant in the electricity generating technology market,” said Mycle Schneider, the coordinator of the report. “At the same time, COVID-19 puts additional stress on the sector.” Co-author Antony Froggatt, Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House, London, added: “In economic terms renewables continue to pull away from nuclear power, over the past decade the cost estimates for utility-scale solar dropped by 89 percent, wind by 70 percent, while nuclear increased by 26 percent.”
The report highlights the particular impact of COVID-19, the first pandemic of this scale in the history of nuclear power. These include:
The U.S. regulator granted operators permission to impose extremely long work hours, with some working 16 hours a day and 86 hours a week.
In Russia and Sweden control-room staff were isolated in on site housing.
In France, workers walked off at least three reactor sites considering their health and safety were not appropriately protected.
Force-on-force exercises in the U.S. were suspended, leading to a degraded readiness level.
In many cases, refueling and maintenance outages have been altered to eliminate “noncritical work” or were deferred entirely to the end of the year or even into 2021.
Numerous fuel-chain and research facilities were shut down.
Notably, only one national operator – in Russia – reported weekly on infections among nuclear staff. As of mid-July, Rosatom reported a total of 4,500 cases.
The new chapter focusing on nuclear programs in the Middle East assesses whether the first nuclear plant in the Arab world is a pilot project or an exception for the region considering the spectacular advances of competing solar power. Contributing Author Ali Ahmad, Research Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School comments: “The progress made on the UAE’s Barakah project, despite its own delays, is unlikely to be replicated elsewhere in the region because of the structural drivers that, together, made the Barakah project possible.”
The question of Small Modular Reactors is frequently being debated and a chapter analyses the status of the programs around the world. Contributing Author M.V. Ramana, Professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada, states: “Small Modular Reactors continue to be the focus of much of the discussion about the future of nuclear power but they have so far been suffering many of the development problems experienced in large nuclear power plant projects, especially deadlines for licensing and construction being pushed back and costs increasing.”
This independent report has contributions from seven interdisciplinary experts from Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Lebanon/U.S. and the U.K., from top think tanks like Chatham House in London and prestigious universities like Harvard in Cambridge, Meiji in Tokyo and Technical University in Berlin, have contributed to the report. The foreword was provided by Frank von Hippel, Professor Emeritus of Princeton University, and Jungmin Kang, former head of the safety authority in South Korea.
www.worldnuclearreport.org/
COMMENTS FROM NEIS
“As NEIS has warned in Illinois, this report shows that the COVID pandemic and increasingly severe climate disruption events are demonstrating that nuclear power will be an increasingly vulnerable and dangerous energy resource worldwide,” notes David Kraft, director of the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy information Service (NEIS).
“As energy future plans and debates continue, as they are currently in Illinois, nuclear emerges as a much riskier energy choice than renewables, efficiency and energy storage,” Kraft contends.
The increasingly unpredictable availability of water for reactor cooling and generation of steam as a result of severe climate events makes nuclear plant operations less viable and more costly.
The COVID pandemic has demonstrated that nuclear plant operations will be more costly and present a huge and unique public health threat. States and electric utilities will be continually confronted with the incompatible choice of either deferring safety-related maintenance and refueling operations, or risking resurgence of COVID cases as hundreds to thousands of specialized, out-of-state workers are brought in to conduct these operations, while simultaneously risking increased spread of the virus.
These points have been made by dozens of safe-energy organizations around the country in a joint letter sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and independently, to their respective members of Congress. In Illinois NEIS has sent a letter and had conversations with the staffs of both Sen. Richard Durbin and Sen. Tammy Duckworth listing these concerns, and has sent these concerns to many state officials and legislators currently involved in “energy working groups” to draft energy legislation for the Fall legislative session.
NEIS hosted a special ZOOM webinar this evening titled, “Nuclear Power Operation in a COVID World,” featuring Tim Judson, director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service which will be posted soon on our youtube channel at www.youtube.com/user/videoatneis.
www.worldnuclearreport.org/
HIGHLIGHT from NEIS Night With The Experts
The Environmental Injustice of Nuclear Energy
“Nuclear power has it’s own unique set of environmental issues which seem to be colliding with…trying to close down coal plants but then they’re saying ‘Yeah but we have to operate the nuclear plants’, which creates environmental problems outside the states [that shut down coal production and then rely on nuclear energy].
You can watch the full episode of Night With The Experts with Leona Morgan or other videos on our YouTube page linked to here.
youtu.be/JrHyM6ET4bg
youtu.be/apL5DcGR5Q0
NEIS Dave Kraft on Nuclear Hotseat
While we always recommend a full listening of the weekly show “Nuclear Hotseat” you can jump to the interview with Dave at the 16:45 mark and listen to the rest of the show later.