Attended Intermountain Energy Summit in Idaho Falls, Idaho Recently, I was awarded a full scholarship to attend the Intermountain Energy Summit on August 19-20, 2014. This was basically an energy summit focused on the US states of Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and Colorado and Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. The summit was located at Shilo Inn and Convention Center in town. It was on my bike route and took just 20 minutes to get there. The following speakers were featured for this event: (a) Dr. Ernest Moniz, United States Secretary of Energy; (b) Ms. Kristine Svinicki, United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Commissioner; (c) Mr. C.L. Otter, Governor of Idaho; (d) Dr. Mike Simpson, US Congressman from Idaho and Chairman of House Appropriations Subcommittee for Energy and Water Development; (e) Mr. Mike Crapo, US Senator from Idaho; (f) Mr. James E. Risch, US Senator from Idaho; (g) Dr. Rebecca Casper, Mayor of Idaho Falls; and (h) Mr. Robert Bryce, journalist and author. Aside from these, there were plenty of moderators and panelists from Canada and the United States. When I arrived at the event on the first day, I was given a badge and bag full of gifts. I had a look through the 15 organizations that were participating in the exhibit. Among these include: (a) Idaho National Laboratory (INL); (b) Fluor; (c) Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII); (d) Nuscale Power; (e) Babcock & Wilcox (B&W); (f) North Wind; (g) Creative Energies; (h) Bonneville Power Administration; (i) Portage, Inc; (j) Great Falls Development Authority; (k) Washakie Renewable Energy; (l) National Energy Foundation; (m) United States Department of Energy/Idaho Operations Office; (n) LA LED; and (o) CH2M Hill. Breakfast was served for all participants at 8 am in the Idaho Room. During the breakfast on the first day, I was joined by NRC Commissioner Kristine Svinicki. I knew who she was since I had read her profile a few days before the summit but I kept my silence. There were 30 roundtables in the dining hall, but she chose the same table as me. From the talks and panels over the two days, I wrote down a total of 36 pages of notes! Hence, I will try to keep it as brief as possible and limit the technical language for engineers and non-engineers alike. Dr Rebecca Casper, mayor of the city of Idaho Falls, gave the welcome address to all of us during breakfast. One of her highlights of her talk was when she read out parts of the late President John F Kennedy’s “Moon Speech” which he gave on September 12th, 1962. Journalist and author Robert Bryce gave a talk after the mayor was done. He introduced his book “Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong”, which was published in May 2014. A proponent for nuclear energy, he reminded the audience of President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program-especially the importance of harnessing atoms for peaceful means. For the panels, all of us went to a conference room known as the Grand Teton Room. Some issues discussed in the panel include the ways to market energy resources, carbon tax (called carbon charge in Canada), and transportation of energy resources via railroad or pipelines and its environmental/economic benefits. One of the things that were noteworthy to me is how the United States and Canada can’t become energy self-sufficient of each other but the two nations can become altogether energy self-sufficient from the rest of the world. I remember tackling the question of energy self-sufficiency during my masters in nuclear engineering program at the University of Missouri-Columbia. My then advisor, Dr Tushar K Ghosh, taught a class called “Energy Systems and Resources”. There was a final paper to write with essay questions of the following: (1) What must the state of Missouri do in order to become energy self-sufficient? (2) What must the United States do in order to become energy self-sufficient? I can’t remember my complete answers to these questions but I wonder if someone concluded that it was impossible for energy self-sufficiency to be achieved at a state and national level. Energy relations between the US and Canada were presented. One thing that was noteworthy is that the Canadian province of Saskatchewan is a major exporter of uranium ore to the United States. The Keystone pipeline, an oil pipeline between the two countries was discussed with regard to its opportunities and issues. During lunchtime, I sat opposite a chemical engineer from the INL by the name of Dr Richard Boardman. I didn’t speak to him then since a talk was going on. I had heard of him since I work with his colleague and INL investigator, Dr Michael McKellar, on a joint University of Idaho/INL project. I believe he noticed my badge and already knew that I work with Dr McKellar. I met him briefly before the next panel began. Dr Boardman happened to have participated on one of the afternoon panels. He described the concept of a hybrid energy system. This is a system where renewable energies such as wind, solar, and hydro provide the base load and nuclear power plants account for the periods where renewables are not able to deliver. It is an integrated arrangement of these energy sources, not just for electricity production but also for processes such as high temperature electrolysis for hydrogen production, desalination, pyrolysis, etc. When power beyond the base load is provided, there is the option for thermal energy storage. Mr Mike McGough of Nuscale was also one of the panelists. Nuscale is a potential small modular reactor that has coolant flow via natural circulation rather than the use of pumps, valves, etc. In the event of a station blackout, like with what happened at Fukushima Daiichi, Nuscale shuts itself down and also cools itself in the process with no need for operator action. The 1st commercial reactor could be in Idaho and then later in the states of Washington, Arizona, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah. I had the chance to speak with Dr Boardman after the 1st day of talks and panels were over. He cleared some misconceptions with me concerning the nuclear hybrid energy system. Initially, I thought the NGNP (Next Generation Nuclear Plant), which is a helium-cooled and graphite moderated very high temperature reactor, was the only candidate reactor for this system. It turned out light water reactors were also potential candidates. On the 2nd day, the event again started with breakfast. Guess who joined me at the table again? NRC Commissioner Svinicki! The most important guest was due to speak. It was none other than US Secretary of Energy, Dr Ernest Moniz. He spoke during the breakfast. Dr Moniz elaborated on President Obama’s “all of the above” energy policy. While Dr Moniz did acknowledge nuclear energy as an important carbon-free source, he also raised his concerns with the aging nuclear power reactor fleet and natural gas as a competitor. He mentioned about the construction of new AP1000 reactors in Georgia. Aside from nuclear energy, Dr Moniz spoke about the problems of transporting oil via railroad and the lack of women in the energy field. Dr Moniz was only there for the breakfast speech. Later on, he went to visit the INL facilities, the Department of Energy office in town, and the Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES) building. NRC Commissioner Svinicki gave one of the talks on the second day. For those not in the know, the NRC is a government entity that dictates the statutes concerning reactor safety and security, reactor licensing and renewal, licensing of radioactive materials, radionuclide safety, and spent fuel management including storage, security, recycling, and disposal. I have come across some of the NRC codes in a few of my nuclear engineering classes. Commissioner Svinicki reminded the audience about the 100+ nuclear power reactors that were originally licensed. Out of these, at least 75% of them have been granted 20 year extensions. Commissioner Svinicki pointed out that reactors could be granted an additional 20 year extension, meaning that they could operate as long as 80 years altogether. She went on to elaborate on the 5 principles of the NRC: independence, openness, efficiency, clarity, and reliability. After the Fukushima Daiichi accident, President Obama requested the NRC to look at the lessons learnt and make adjustments to the existing statutes. NRC took 90 days to thoroughly look at the Fukushima Daiichi case. Commissioner Svinicki said she met with nuclear safety regulators all around the world. One of the needs she emphasized for nuclear reactors is better spent fuel pool level instrumentation. In addition, the United States does not have a high-level waste management program (i.e. a long term depository for high-level waste). Commissioner Svinicki mentioned that the Scandinavian nations of Sweden and Finland have one. Commissioner Svinicki went over time with her talk. I noted down some of her last few words: “…that being said, boy did I ramble for a long time….” After lunch, I had the chance to speak with Commissioner Svinicki in person. I thanked her for her speech and asked her questions about the potential 40 year license extension for current nuclear power reactors. She very gladly answered my questions. Here, I will describe the last panel of the whole event. There was a quote by one of the Canadian speakers: “We (as in the US and Canada) will never become energy independent but we will be energy self-sufficient”. This quote is based on the theme that the US and Canada as a whole can become energy self-sufficient from the rest of the world. Energy independence is actually derived from to economics and is the ability of a nation to price energy resources without being influenced by other nations. There was a question about increasing the number of universities that are part of the CAES research partnership. Currently, CAES is a partnership between the INL and the three Idaho public universities: University of Idaho, Idaho State University, and Boise State University. It was raised whether the University of Wyoming or even the University of Alberta could join CAES? This was my first summit I had ever been to and so I took it very seriously. I will cherish the badge and bag for the rest of my life. Although I was younger than most of the audience, I could have asked some questions to the panelists in front of everyone else. Never-the-less, I asked the folks the questions I had in private. I also learnt some things about public speaking. On each of the panels, there was always a speaker who disagreed with someone else’s perspectives. If speaker B was to state his/her objection to the views of speaker A, it would be done in a respectful manner using phrases like this: “with all due apologies to speaker A, I take the view that…”
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 08:06:55 +0000
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