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We're Bullish on Nuclear Power

Posted on: Saturday, 27 August 2005, 03:01 CDT

What is the public perception of nuclear energy in the U.S.?

There is still a public fear of nuclear power. One of the myths about nuclear power is that it's not safe. Nuclear power is one of the safest energy production methods there is. If you think about it, none of the public in the United States has ever been injured, let alone killed in a nuclear accident. We do have a public relations uphill battle and we need to educate the people that nuclear power is safe, clean and does not emit greenhouse gases. Once we get our message out there, even though there is approximately 70% that supports nuclear power today, when they find out that there aren't safety concerns and it does not emit greenhouse gases that improves almost another 20%.

How far can we improve the public's perception about nuclear energy?

If we are seriously considering nuclear power, we do have to get serious about PR and what we do going forward to get public support. We have to educate the teachers to educate the kids, educate the policymakers starting with the local community and building from there. We're not going to convince everybody, we just need to convince the silent majority that it's safe, clean and a source that doesn't rely on foreign entities. Our biggest hurdle will probably be educating the public.

In fact, about two months ago we brought in the staffers from our congressional members into Entergy Headquarters in New Orleans and I gave them a one-hour presentation on the future of nuclear power. They had a lot of the same concerns about safety, proliferation and greenhouse gasses. Focusing on the staffers has to be a good part of what we do going forward. Entergy is doing it and most of the nuclear operators also have to do likewise.

Students are the future citizens. How can we educate them about the benefits of nuclear energy?

We need to be more aggressive on the high school level in teaching the teachers. Some of the things Entergy is doing include, for example when I go to my alma-mater of Oregon State, I present a two-hour seminar on nuclear power and the future of nuclear power, not only to the nuclear engineering department but open to the entire campus. The first year I had 50-60 people and the last time, last year when I went, over 100 students that came in who were very interactive, very interested and very positive. They have very strong concerns about the environment, greenhouse gasses and global warming and they ask, "hey, why aren't we doing more of this"? My response back, up to recently, was that natural gas was $2/million BTU and that it wasn't economical but now that natural gas is at $6, nuclear power makes a lot more sense. Some other concerns are about greenhouse gases and stricter environmental regulations, again making nuclear power look very good. We are communicating the message; we need to do more of it and the industry, as a whole needs to do more of it. We need to be teaching the teachers and students at the college level, not only about nuclear power, but also about radiation. Radiation isn't bad. We have food irradiation to help eliminate many pests, medical radiation is good and radiation has a lot of positive aspects to it.

Healthcare application of radiation is one of the reasons the public has become more accepting of nuclear power and radiation because they do go to the dentist, they do get x-rays, they do see the positive aspects and that just needs to be reinforced.

What is Entergy's current and future business strategy?

Back in 1996 Entergy decided to refocus on its core competency. One of our main core competencies is nuclear operations and Don Hintz brought all the nuclear officers together and said how do we grow the nuclear business and operation?

My suggestion was that if there was someone willing to operate a plant for someone else, Rancho Seco would probably be operating today, Trojan [in Oregon] would probably be operating today. We started thinking about it and made some calls and immediately New York Power Authority (NYPA) said we would love for someone to come in and operate the plant for us. That didn't work out, but right after that Maine Yankee said they had some problems and we helped on the operation of Maine Yankee. Unfortunately, before we had an opportunity to make an impact, their board decided to shut it down. At the same time Pilgrim came on the market and we made a business case to go look at Pilgrim and put together a package to our board to buy Pilgrim. We bought Pilgrim for $81 million of which $67 million was for fuel, so we basically bought a 670 megawatt nuclear power plant for $14 million. It paid for itself in a month or two and it was a great investment.

Acquiring nuclear power plants is a business development strategy that accounts for 25% of earnings of the entire company in the five plants we've bought in the Northeast. We've taken over the management of the Cooper plant [in Nebraska] and that's a strategy that we've had from the beginning but Cooper is just the first one we were able to do.

Other things we're focussed on beyond acquisition and managing for others include license renewal, decommissioning, new plants including the Westinghouse AP 1000 and the GE ESBWR. A second track we're going down is an advanced generation of new reactors - high temperature gas reactors (HTGR), not only for the production of electricity but also for the production of hydrogen.

There is no way around it - we have to reduce reliance on foreign oil and natural gas. There's a finite amount of oil and gas in the world and the price is going up. It likely will continue to go up.

We need to take steps today to wean ourselves off of oil. The only way we can do that is the hydrogen economy and the most economical non-polluting way to produce that is through nuclear power. That leads us to the high temperature Generation IV reactor, the HTGR, in the future. It may take 20 years to get there, but we've got to start laying the foundation today with both new Generation III and Generation IV reactors.

What is The Powerhouse's role in Entergy's training efforts?

The Powerhouse is focused on management training for the whole company. There are 70 rooms, an auditorium, and classrooms in The Powerhouse. It has been one of Entergy's successes as we are focused on developing people and this is a good example of how we're focused on management training at Entergy and that has a lot to do with a lot of our success. The difference between good plants and poor plants are the people and the management.

What is Entergy's energy mix?

About 50% of our generation, on a megawatt-hour basis, is nuclear power and 42% is natural gas and the remaining 8% is a little bit of hydro and some coal.

What can the Government Labs and other researchers do to make the hydrogen economy a reality?

Using HTGRs that operate in the range of 900 degrees Centigrade, you can use thermo-chemical splitting of water directly to produce hydrogen. The other technology that looks very promising is high temperature electrolysis where you pre-heat the water before splitting it and therefore less electricity is needed during electrolysis. Idaho National Lab has been doing some experiments and tests on that and it looks very promising. What the government and labs need to do is go forward with their Generation IV next generation nuclearplant, because it frees you from foreign oil. Basically it's a HTGR where you can produce electricity or use the high temperature to produce hydrogen. We need to get that going and there has been money proposed in next year's federal DOE budget to do that and move forward. It seems it will be at Idaho National Laboratory and we would like to support it and operate it, without necessarily taking ownership. The HTGR is one of the Generation IV reactors. The HTGR could be a pebble bed or General Atomics prismatic, Framatome prismatic, a Chinese pebble bed, or a Japanese operating prismatic reactor.

Where does Entergy's confidence in nuclear's future come from?

Many people ask why is Entergy so bullish on nuclear power? We don't have a crystal ball and can't foresee the future but there are a few things we know for sure:

There is an increasing demand for energy, especially in China, India and even here in the United States. The economies of a nation depend on economical supplies of energy.

There is a finite amount of oil and natural gas and it's going to run out eventually, but even before that it'll get more and more expensive. We've seen the price of natural gas triple in the last two years.

Environmental regulations are going to get stricter and stricter for air pollution and greenhouse gases both.

That's why we're bullish on nuclear power. We think nuclear energy is a major part of the solution. That's also why we're bullish on hydrogen and eventually we have to get to a hydrogen economy and producing it with nuclear power appears to be the only way to produce it without emitting air pollutants and greenhouse gas. Probably by the end of this century, we'll also be bullish on renewables and eventually be down to renewables, nuclear energy and clean coal. What we do today is prepare for tomorrow so that our kids can have a lifestyle simi\lar to ours.

Contact: Carl W. Crawford, Manager of Nuclear Development Communications, Entergy Nuclear, 1340 Echelon Parkway, Fl. 6, Jackson, MS 39213; telephone: (601) 368-5658, mobile: (601) 927- 5870, e-mail: ccrawfo@entergy.com.

Dan R. Keuter

By Dan R. Keuter, Entergy Nuclear, Inc.

Dan joined Entergy in 1995 as General Manager of Waterford 3 nuclear plant. Because of his broad nuclear background in plant operations, corporate support and oversight, Dan was asked in 1996 to help lead the implementation of Entergy's nuclear growth strategy to become a national nuclear operating company.

This excerpt is from an interview of Dan Keuter, VP of Nuclear Business Development, Entergy Nuclear, Inc. conducted by Newal K. Agnihotri, Editor and Sr. Publisher, Nuclear Plant Journal during NEI's Nuclear Energy Assembly held in Washington, DC on May 17th, 2005.

In February 2000 Dan was named Vice President of Nuclear Business Development. Since that time, Entergy has doubled the size of its nuclear plant fleet by acquiring five additional units, $1 billion in new annual revenue, $200 million in annual earnings, 3,500 employees and a $250 million pay roll in the Northeast. The five nuclear units that Dan helped purchase in the Northeast provide enough power to serve 4 million people and about 20 percent of the power demand in the New York City metro area. Also, in 2003 Entergy contracted with Nebraska Public Power District to manage the Cooper Nuclear Plant.

Prior to joining Entergy, Dan was Vice President of nuclear operations support at the Tennessee Valley Authority and Chief Nuclear Officer of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District's Rancho seco nuclear plant.

Dan was instrumental in setting up the NuStart Energy Consortium to license a new nuclear plant in the U.S., the first in 30 years, and serves on NuStart's Management Committee. Additionally, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Hydrogen Association.

Copyright EQES, Inc. Jul/Aug 2005

Source: Nuclear Plant Journal

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