Carnival of Nuclear Energy 236

The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 236 is up at Yes Vermont Yankee

ANS Nuclear Cafe – the US EPA Clean Power Plan aims to reduce emissions rates (not necessarily emissions) by setting goals for states in terms of lbs of CO2/MWh. According to the US Energy Information Agency (US EIA), in 2012 New York State’s electricity sector had a carbon emissions rate of 578 lbs/MWh. For scale, the average U.S. coal plant emits ~2250 lbs of CO2/MWh, and the average natural gas plant emits ~1100 lbs of CO2/MWh. New York’s carbon emissions rate is much lower than a state like Wyoming (2106 lbs/MWh) because while Wyoming is heavily reliant on coal (87.5 percent of net electricity generation was from coal), New York has a mix of natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, coal, and other renewables.

In the Clean Power Plan, state goals are set by calculating the total emissions of the electricity sector for that state, and dividing the electricity production of all fossil fuels, wind, and solar, but only 5.8 percent of nuclear (hydro is excluded completely). What this does is artificially increase the calculated initial emissions rate for the state, so that in setting state goals, states with a significant amount of nuclear have easier goals.

Next Big Future – South Korea approved 4 new nuclear reactors other global nuclear approvals and completions There are new builds, commissioning tests and

Next Big Future – China’s 2020 energy plans include quite a bit of nuclear energy.

A review of China’s plan for its energy mix by 2020. This includes deepwater oil drilling, reducing coal use to 62% of electricity generation, and considerable new nuclear coming on-line. According to Chinese planning documents, fast reactors will be an important part of the energy mix in the future.