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Bacon Meme of the Day
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Nuclear Power “Essential” – Gates and Granholm
By James C. Sherlock
Bill Gates and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm demonstrated and published a joint position on nuclear energy nearly two years ago:
“Nuclear power is the only carbon-free energy source we have that can deliver power day and night throughout any season, almost anywhere on earth. And it’s been proven to work at a large scale,” said Bill Gates, founder and chairman of TerraPower and noted philanthropist, during his remarks at this year’s Nuclear Energy Assembly (NEA).
In a clean energy system, wind and solar will play important roles as renewable resources, but they will need support from reliable, carbon-free electricity. Nuclear energy, which accounts for over half of our carbon-free energy, is poised to be a critical part of decarbonization efforts.
“It’s hard to imagine a future where we can decarbonize our power grid affordably without using more nuclear power,” Gates said.
Then:
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm emphasized the Biden administration’s commitment to investing in nuclear energy when she spoke at NEA.
“Between DOE’s historic budget request and the massive investments in the American Jobs Plan, this administration is going to be able to launch more nuclear energy projects across the country,” said Granholm.
“It’s going to be able to bring the benefits of clean sources of electricity and the high-quality jobs they’ll create to more communities. It will move mountains in our pursuit of President Biden’s bold climate and clean energy jobs agenda.”
“These next few years offer a can’t-miss opportunity to harness nuclear’s full potential,” said Granholm.
Policymakers recognize the need to expand and innovate, as it becomes clear that we need more nuclear power to fight climate change. And in turn, new nuclear sites and projects expand opportunities for steady, high-paying jobs for skilled workers.
Governor Youngkin agrees wholeheartedly.
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The Naming Commission’s Declaration of Intent
by Donald SmithI’ve written a lot about the Congressional Naming Commission (CNC). In my opinion, the CNC has expressed contempt, and even disgust, for the legacy of people who served for the Confederacy. I base that assessment largely on the opinions and judgments the CNC declared in the Preamble to its Final Report. That Preamble is reprinted, in its entirety and without editing, below:
“There is much the United States should commemorate about the American Civil War
The Civil War turned a slaveholding republic into a champion of liberty, equality and freedom, and our nation has continually expanded its definition and defense of those values ever since – both between its shores and throughout the world. Through the courageous service and sacrifice of more than two million United States Soldiers from 1861 to 1865, what could have been our nation’s end became, instead, our second American Revolution. It made our Union more perfect. The American Civil War was, as Abraham Lincoln immortalized at Gettysburg, “a new birth of freedom.”
Yet this rebirth and revolution came at a terrible price. Between those fighting for the United States and those fighting against them, an estimated 620,000 Americans died in the conflict, and the war’s total casualties numbered around 1.5 million. The conflict was deadly, devastating, and destructive: on a per capita basis, the Civil War was eight times more lethal for Soldiers and 10 times deadlier for all Americans than World War II. In absolute numbers, the Civil War killed more Americans than the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and all other conflicts before the Vietnam War combined. (more…)
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What’s in a Name?
by Joe Fitzgerald
I have previously written much about the Bluestone Town Center from a logistical and political standpoint, much of which can be summed up by saying the people planning and approving the project do not understand logistics or politics. The planners and approvers show an understanding of and ability to manipulate governmental processes, which is a skill on the level of getting a stubborn toddler to give up a favorite toy if you could pick and choose your toddlers through low-turnout elections and rampant cronyism.
Today, however, I am writing about design, marketing, and labeling. First, some background.
The Harrisonburg Redevelopment and Housing Authority (HRHA), has formed a partnership with EquityPlus (EP) to build Bluestone Town Center. That partnership is an LLC, a limited liability corporation, a legal entity designed to protect the owners of a project from responsibility. The entity is owned 51 percent by HRHA and 49 percent by EP. A wild guess about the split is that having a government entity as the (barely) majority owner adds the shield of sovereign immunity as well as the exemptions to government rules that government entities give to themselves.
(more…)
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Putting Off Paying Your Debt is Not “Bill Relief”
In this case, for us along with Popeye’s friend, “Tuesday” translates into “after the next election.” by Steve Haner
Whether customers pay a lot more for one year starting this July, or just a little bit more for ten years starting next winter, Dominion Energy Virginia’s entire backlog of accumulated fuel costs from prior years will be paid in full. Every dollar will come from customers, with annual interest tacked on in the case of the long-term approach.
The second approach, the “put it on the credit card and pay the minimum” approach, is not bill relief. Paying less now in order to pay more for ten years is not bill relief. It is bad enough that a major newspaper is helping to sell the con. The story was then shared on Twitter as an example of “Republican-led utility reform,” and Democrats are likely to seek to claim credit, as well. (more…)
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Political Embellishment and Poor Journalism
by Dick Hall-SizemoreSome Virginians, along with citizens in the rest of the country, will be able to receive refunds from the company Intuit, the developers of the TurboTax automated tax return preparation program. According to a report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, approximately $3.5 million will be available for distribution to Virginians.
“TurboTax misled Virginians, and now they are officially paying the price,” Attorney General Miyares said in a statement. “I’m proud that my office was able to put that money back into the affected consumers’ pockets, where it belonged all along.”
There are a couple of things wrong with this statement. First of all, his office had virtually nothing to do with the settlement. Second, the announcement is late; the settlement was reached a year ago. (more…)
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Good Questions About Nuclear Power Answered
by James C. Sherlock
Surrey Power Station Unit 1. Courtesy Dominion Energy A reader asked two excellent questions:
The issues with nuclear power have been:
1. The waste generated remains radioactive and dangerous for a very long time.
2. In the case of failure, a huge risk is exposed as was the case in Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukishima.Do these new, small reactors bypass either of those risks?
The short answers are:
- The new large reactors for sale now are safer than those in the field.
- New small reactors offer to greatly improve both the safety and efficiency of even the latest versions of the large reactors with a vastly smaller footprint. That includes Westinghouse’s new small reactor announced today that uses technology already approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It expects deployment in 2027.
- The designs of the small modular reactors (SMRs) in development under dual Department of Energy (DOE) and corporate sponsorship incorporate more revolutionary safety design features than any the designs already approved by the NRC for operational use. You will read below that the DOE has identified three revolutionary commercial vendor-backed SMR designs that it expects to be ready for NRC operating approval by 2030.
- Some of the new SMRs actually consume nuclear waste from other sources.
Now for the longer version. (more…)
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UVa’s 20-Year Expenditure Explosion
by James A. BaconTis the season for Virginia’s universities to announce how much they are raising tuition & fees for the upcoming academic year. Virginia Tech’s Board of Visitors has jacked up tuition by 4.9% and the College of William & Mary by 4.5%. Virginia Commonwealth University is considering an increase of 4% to 5%, George Mason University 3%. After a bout of inflation that peaked around 9% and is still running about 6%, putting both university and family budgets under stress, the pressure on governing boards is intense.
At the University of Virginia a tuition increase has been baked into the cake since November 2021 when the Board of Visitors approved a two-year increase of 4.7% in 2022-23 and 3.7% in 2023-24. Under pressure from Governor Glenn Youngkin to hold down charges, UVa issued a rebate to in-state undergraduate students to offset last year’s increase. But there has been no indication that the Board will reconsider a refund in 2023-24. In-state undergrads could well find themselves paying 8.4% more next year.
UVa officials, like their peers at the state’s other public universities, blame the failure of state support for higher education to keep pace with growing enrollment and the escalating Consumer Price Index. In the past, UVa’s board has rarely questioned that claim. But now some board members want to dig deeper into the numbers. (more…)
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Europe’s Complex Rebuttal to American Wokesters
by Donald Smith
On the periphery of Rome, not far from the Vatican, stands a towering obelisk named for Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist dictator and ally of Adolf Hitler. On a recent visit to the city, my taxi driver knew exactly where it was and found nothing remarkable about a request to go there.
The Mussolini Obelisk, standing watch over the Foro Italico sports complex, served as the starting point for my atypical tour of the Eternal City’s ‘fascist architecture.’ At the very outset, our tour group asked our guide: Why has the Mussolini Obelisk not been removed from what appears to be a place of honor?
For an American visitor, it was the obvious question. We have become accustomed to the removal of the likenesses of Confederate generals and even Christopher Columbus from public places. But it was not a difficult question for our guide to answer: ‘In Italy, we view it as history.’ Efforts to remove it had fizzled.
The loss that comes from laundering the past was made clear to us in the historical lesson our tour group received that day — a lesson that would have been impossible if cancel culture, American-style, had prevailed.
This is the beginning of “Italy’s Non-Cancel Culture,” an article by Howard Husock, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Husock’s article appeared in early April. In late April, Elon Musk went on Real Time With Bill Maher and discussed the “woke mind virus” that’s infecting nearly everything nowadays. Musk talked about his own experience with “cancel-culture, American style.” (more…)
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Bible Quotes Verboten in Loudoun Teacher’s Work Email
by James A. BaconA Loudoun County school teacher has been told to remove a Bible verse from the signature block of her work email. She contends her constitutional rights are being violated, according to the UPI news service.
Loudoun County Public Schools maintains that the quote — “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16” — runs afoul of the Establishment Clause, which prohibits governmental establishment of religion.
If anyone runs afoul of the Constitution, it’s the Loudoun school system for using its power to expunge a personal expression of religious belief. An individual school teacher acting in her private capacity is not the government. Expressing her faith in an email signature block is not establishing a religion.
I’m an atheist and have been most of my life. But when I encounter idiocy like Loudoun’s ban, I’m tempted to start attending church as a form of cultural and political resistance. I don’t put any stock in Christian theology, but I have a deep appreciation for the moral system that the Judeo-Christian tradition has bequeathed our society. And I don’t want to see militant secularism enthroned as the new government-sanctioned worldview. (more…)
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Westinghouse Joins the Small Nuclear Reactor Market
by James C. Sherlock
Westinghouse, whose flagship AP1000 nuclear reactor is the American entry into the international market for large nuclear power plants, today announced a new reactor, called the AP300, which it claims will be available in 2027.
It will generate about a third of the power of the AP1000 reactor.
It is targeted at about $1 billion per delivered plant, well below the $6 billion plus for an AP1000 plant.
All of the technologies are already licensed by the NRC.
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Clean Virginia’s Views on Small Modular (Nuclear) Reactors
By James C. Sherlock
VOYGR™ SMR plants powered by NuScale Power Module™, the first and only small modular reactor (SMR) to receive design approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). I wrote in an earlier article that I had reached out to Clean Virginia on its policy on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and had not received a response.
Laura Gonzalez Guerrero, Clean Virginia’s energy policy lead, has been kind enough to contact me with that answer. She was out of the office on April 25th when I inquired.
Ms. Guerrero’s response today:
“Clean Virginia recognizes SMRs as a nascent technology that has neither been fully tested nor proven to be cost-competitive.
Thus, it is our view that this technology warrants further study by the state.
Specifically, we hope state agencies lead a process with stakeholder input to understand and research SMRs and other technologies like hydrogen to determine their viability and the pathways to deploy these technologies in the safest and most cost-effective way possible.”
I fully expect that Clean Virginia, understanding that the Commonwealth has no equivalent state government expertise in next generation nuclear power, will also consider the decisions of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
I sincerely thank Ms. Guerrero for her response.
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The VMI Alumni Association’s Competitive Authoritarianism Regime Subjugates its Members
by Bob Morris, Gene Rice, and Mike StasoOn April 25, 2023, a group of Virginia Military Institute (VMI) alumni filed suit against the VMI Alumni Association, Inc. The complaint alleges that the Association refused members’ requests for records that will permit them to communicate with 20,000+ fellow members by email — the same vehicle the Association uses, and permits others to use.
The right of Alumni Association Members to obtain such a list, and other corporate records, is guaranteed to all members of Virginia non-stock corporations under state law. Virginia Code §§933 and 845 requires any non-stock corporation to produce such records when requested by members if they have a proper purpose.
The Association’s response was swift and accusatory. It stated that the members list is denied to protect the privacy of its members, and implies the lawsuit is an attempt by out-of-control alumni to usurp the protected means of communications between the Association and alumni.
(more…)
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Generation IV and V Technology Offer to Make Opposition to Nuclear Power a Historical Artifact
Courtesy Terrestrial Energy Inc. by James C. Sherlock
We write here often about electric power in Virginia, but usually related to public utilities. We focus on Dominion and Appalachian Power.
There is another big market: industrial power plants independent of utilities and the grid (and thus not requiring State Corporation Commission approval).
Those are not reflected in the plans of the utilities except inasmuch as they lower demand.
Users include the steel and cement industries, oil and gas, pulp and paper, mining, and chemical industries. And military bases.
The United States Navy is the world’s most advanced operational user of nuclear power and thus has both a culture and a corporate structure to support nuclear energy.
Each of the military services needs to maintain the independence of its major bases from utilities to control costs, to ensure reliability by independence from the grid and thus to support uninterrupted operations.
But even the Navy does not currently use nuclear power to provide co-generation of the steam and electricity needs of its shore infrastructure.
Among the technical reasons industrial power plants are conventionally powered:
- low-heat commercial nuclear reactors are not capable of efficient co-generation; and
- high-heat newer technology reactors shorten the life span of the graphite in the cores.
Molten Salt Reactors (MSR), a Generation IV nuclear technology system, were pioneered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory starting in 1968.
An advanced co-generation MSR targeted for commercial deployment in 2030 just achieved a major milestone in Canada.
It offers clean co-generation. (more…)
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Enjoy the Blackouts — They’re Coming!
by James A. Bacon
The graph above shows the key trend driving the major revisions in Dominion’s 2023 Integrated Resource Plan, which Steve Haner describes in the previous post. The projections of peak summer electricity demand, based on PJM Interconnection forecasts, has been consistently revised upward, taking a dramatic jump higher in the 2023 iteration. The massive shift largely reflects changes in methodology but it also incorporates data showing that demand is increasing more rapidly than previously projected.
The demand projections underpinning the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which showed electricity demand decreasing somewhat, are a fantasy. It is impossible to reach zero net-carbon in the Dominion service territory by 2045 without putting Virginia’s electric grid at risk of catastrophic failure. (more…)
