Benefits Of Nuclear Power Research Articles

Amicus Brief of the Electricity Regulation Scholars in Village of Old Mill Creek v. Star (7th Cir. 2018)

Energy credit programs, first enacted in the 1990s, are premised on legislative determinations about the types of electric generation that will meet environmental goals and diversify the state’s energy supply. They are a derivative of regulatory planning, updated to reflect states’ utility restructuring laws that catalyzed the creation of today’s organized wholesale markets. Rather than requiring utilities to construct and maintain generation, which would be inconsistent with restructuring, energy credit programs direct utilities to acquire credits from specified types of facilities, such as wind or solar. Energy credit programs achieve the original twin aims of utility regulation — consumer protection and industry development. They provide consumers with the benefits of a cleaner and more diverse energy supply while isolating them from the risks of developing new generation projects. Many credit programs include cost containment mechanisms to further protect consumers. For industry, credits spur investment in new facilities and provide utilities with a cost-effective, flexible compliance mechanism. Illinois’ Zero Emission Credit (ZEC) program is wholly consistent with the electricity industry’s legal structure and with the historic goals of utility regulation. The ZEC program selects nuclear generators because they meet state environmental goals. The program places legal obligations on utilities, and not generators selling at wholesale, and it protects consumers by ensuring that they do not overpay for the legislatively determined environmental benefits of nuclear power. Appellants’ sweeping view of FERC’s rate regulation authority threatens to preempt state energy credit programs. Under appellants’ reading of the FPA, a state energy credit program is preempted because payments to generators for credits are made “in connection with” wholesale sales. Appellants’ novel reading of the FPA confuses Congress’s broad delegation of authority to FERC to set just and reasonable wholesale rates with imagined Congressional intent to usurp traditional state functions. It is inconsistent with precedent and would call into question long-standing FERC practice. In asking this Court to reinterpret FERC’s rate regulation authority, appellants seek to deny FERC the opportunity to harmonize its market regulation with state programs, as it has done in numerous proceedings. In doing so, appellants would weaken FERC’s authority and create new regulatory gaps. Energy credit programs would be beyond the reach of states, and FERC would be unable to reconcile state programs with wholesale power markets. The resulting “regulatory ‘no man’s land,’” FERC v. Electric Power Supply Association, 136 S.Ct. 760, 780 (2016) (citation omitted) would threaten traditional state efforts to pursue legitimate consumer protection and environmental goals without providing FERC any authority to achieve those ends. While eliminating energy credit programs, appellants’ proposed expansion of FERC’s exclusive field could also sweep environmental emission allowances and an array of financial products under FERC’s rate regulation jurisdiction. This Court should reject appellants’ reading of the FPA because it would unduly diminish state authority while “extend[ing] FERC’s power to some surprising places.” Id. at 774.

Exploring Students’ Ideas About Risks and Benefits of Nuclear Power Using Risk Perception Theories

Due to increased energy demand, Turkey is continuing to explore the possibilities of introducing nuclear power. Gaining acceptance from local populations, however, may be problematic because nuclear power has a negative image and risk perceptions are complicated by a range of psychological and cultural factors. In this study, we explore the views about nuclear power of school students from three locations in Turkey, two of which have been proposed as sites suitable for nuclear power plants. About half of the student cohort believed that nuclear power can supply continuous and sufficient electricity, but approximately three quarters thought that nuclear power stations could harm organisms, including humans, living nearby. Rather few students realized that adoption of nuclear power would help to reduce global warming and thereby limit climate change; indeed, three quarters thought that nuclear power would make global warming worse. There was a tendency for more students from the location most likely to have a nuclear power plant to believe negative characteristics of nuclear power, and for fewer students to believe positive characteristics. Exploration of the possible nuclear power programmes by Turkey offers an educational opportunity to understand the risk perceptions of students that affect their decision-making processes.

Nuclear power for climate mitigation? Contesting frames in Korean newspapers

Korea has been one of the most aggressive countries pursuing nuclear power expansion, ranking in the top five nations globally for the installation capacity of nuclear power plants, nuclear power generation, and the number of reactors in operation. Even after the Fukushima accident, the Korean government has made no policy changes in regards to nuclear power, and public support for nuclear power remains relatively high. This study focuses on the role of the mass media in representing the Korean government’s benefit-oriented nuclear frame and the persistence of public support in the country for nuclear power. The study further aims to answer the following questions: What kind of frame was mobilized by the mass media? What kinds of speakers were chosen by the media to represent a particular side to the issue? A total of three conservative, progressive, and business newspapers were analyzed. The benefits and/or risks of nuclear power in the context of climate change were major topics in the three newspapers. The benefit and risk frame constructed in these three newspapers was characterized as “slightly risky but significantly beneficial” in the conservative Chosun Daily and MK Business and “seemingly beneficial but intrinsically risky” in the progressive Hankyoreh. Different frames were contested in the three newspapers; however, because the influential power of Korean progressive newspapers is weak, arguments supporting the growth and benefits of nuclear power have become pervasive in Korea.

United Arab Emirates and the experience of a nuclear newcomer

In 2008 the United Arab Emirates (UAE) adopted an official policy on the evaluation and potential development of peaceful nuclear energy. It was based on a study of viable options to meet future energy needs, and it focused on the potential benefits of nuclear power for the UAE people, the environment, and the economy. The policy included commitments to the highest standards of safety and security, complete operational transparency, and nonproliferation. It outlined a process for working with the International Atomic Energy Agency, foreign governments and nuclear companies, and expert organizations to develop a nuclear energy program. In less than four years, the UAE has established an independent Nuclear Regulatory Authority and the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, selected a site for construction of its first nuclear power plant, and broken ground. The progress to date has proven that, with strong commitment and vision, safe and secure nuclear energy can be developed and sustained. The UAE’s program is on schedule to meet the growing energy needs of the country. But more important, it has become a model program for ensuring that safety, security, and nonproliferation are top priorities.

Nuclear Energy: A Perspective on Recent Results on the Removal of Strontium from Waste

Nuclear Energy: A Perspective on Recent Results on the Removal of Strontium from Waste

Dutch to weigh up benefits of nuclear power

Dutch to weigh up benefits of nuclear power

Safe and secure - Environmental effects of nuclear power plants and the nuclear fuel cycle

This paper focuses on the issues critical to the operation of commercial nuclear power electric generating plants. These issues include safe, secure long-term plant operations, plant physical security, radioactive waste management, and environmental impact. Few energy choices can compete with the environmental benefits of nuclear power. By capturing and sequestering waste products during the entire fuel cycle, nuclear power is one of the cleanest baseload energy sources available. Long-term storage of used fuel is technically feasible in both aboveground storage containers and in underground geologic formations. Continued research into new nuclear reactors is expected to allow for almost complete consumption of the available unused fuel in high level waste

Editorial

Nuclear physics is something of a Cinderella story in modern science. For many years it has experienced society's distaste because of its role in creating nuclear weapons as well as the perceived problems of nuclear power, most notably the waste disposal problem. Yet the molecular biologists may well lift the mantle of sin onto their own shoulders and some parts of the green movement are beginning to see the benefits of nuclear power for our planet's fragile atmosphere. There are genuine prospects for reprocessing long-lived radioactive waste, thus solving the long-term storage problems. Millions of people benefit each year from procedures in nuclear medicine and our field has a wonderful array of discoveries and challenges before it which are capable of inspiring the best and brightest students.

New designs on nuclear energy

The nuclear industry and environmental campaigners have battled long and hard over the benefits of nuclear power. One side argues that nuclear plants emit almost no greenhouse gases and use a plentiful source of fuel. The other claims that nuclear power is expensive and produces radioactive waste that is fiendishly hard to store. But the nuclear industry is starting to think it has turned the corner in the battle for public acceptance of this form of energy.

A Brief For Power and Against Weapons

Megawatts and Megatons A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age?. Richard L. Garwin and Georges Charpak. New York, Knopf, 2001. 431 pp. $30, C$45. ISBN 0-375-40394-9. Blending explanations of the physics of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons with policy analyses, the authors argue for accepting the benefits of nuclear power and acting to reduce the dangers of nuclear weaponry.

Panel discussion overview

The delegates to the Royal Society of South Africa Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Workshop were, for the greater part, people with a stake in the success of the global nuclear enterprise. Nevertheless, the attendance of several key dissenters from the South African science and technology community and from EarthLife Africa ensured that issues as well as technicalities were at the forefront of the day's discussions. A key point of consent, even among those whose opinions on the overall benefits of nuclear power differ fundamentally (particularly with respect to waste issues), was that the dynamic safety of the PBMR appears convincing.

Commercial nuclear power: assuring safety for the future

This timely book offers insights into the benefits of nuclear power as well as the technological and environmental challenges facing the nuclear industry. Containing the results of worldwide scientific studies and industrial site visits, the book represents a timely focus on the applications of commercial nuclear power, the potential benefits to be gained from contained nuclear use, the environmental risks of nuclear power, and the prevention of nuclear accidents.This timely book offers insights into the benefits of nuclear power as well as the technological and environmental challenges facing the nuclear industry. Containing the results of worldwide scientific studies and industrial site visits, the book represents a timely focus on the applications of commercial nuclear power, the potential benefits to be gained from contained nuclear use, the environmental risks of nuclear power, and the prevention of nuclear accidents.

Evacuation Intentions of Parents in an Urban Radiological Emergency

As part of the efforts to model the evacuation behaviour of urban residents in the event of a day-time radiological emergency, the present study determines and interprets the extent to which parents of school children rely upon school authorities in evacuating their children away from a danger zone. Two-thirds of parents surveyed in this study distrust organised evacuation and would retrieve their children personally. These parents are usually more mobile. recognising the benefits of nuclear power in general, but at the same time are highly aware of its potential risk to the public. The extent of distrust exceeds similar findings elsewhere. General implications for urban evacuation are discussed, and recommendations for urgent evacuation preparedness of schools are put forward.

The case for the fusion hybrid

The use of nuclear fusion to produce fuel for nuclear fission power stations is discussed in the context of a crucial need for future energy options. The fusion hybrid is first considered as an element in the future of nuclear fission power to provide long term assurance of adequate fuel supplies for both breeder and convertor reactors. Generic differences in neutronic characteristics lead to a fuel production potential of fusion-fission hybrid systems which is significantly greater than that obtainable with fission systems alone. Furthermore, cost benefit studies show a variety of scenarios in which the hybrid offers sufficient potential to justify development costs ranging in the tens of billions of dollars. The hybrid is then considered as an element in the ultimate development of fusion electric power. The hybrid offers a near term application of fusion where experience with the requisite technologies can be derived as a vital step in mapping a credible route to eventual commercial feasibility of “pure” fusion systems. Finally, the criteria for assessment of future energy options are discussed with prime emphasis on the need for rational comparison of alternatives. This approach is contrasted with the dual standard too often used in judging the risks and benefits of nuclear power where, for example, rather minor radiological effects are highlighted while much larger exposures to radiation from medical x-rays, airplane travel, color television sets, etc., are ignored. It is concluded that the fusion hybrid deserves a prominent place among new energy resources but that early attention to insure an adequately informed public is a vital ingredient in assuring reasonable prospects of success.

Nuclear Power—the Perspective of Risk

This review of Dr. Lister's address to the Oxford branch of the Conserva ive Society in February this year was prepared for the UKAEA's publication “Atom”. Dr. Lister assesses the risks and benefits of nuclear power and seeks to set the opposing views in perspective and arrive at some conclusions.