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Bloomberg.com: Europe

Areva to Settle Finnish Project Loss With Client TVO )By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Areva SA, the world’s largest reactor maker, is negotiating with Teollisuuden Voima Oyj, or TVO, to share losses at a reactor it is building for the Finnish utility………………………………OL3, which has been plagued by component, construction and organization problems since it started in 2005, is more than 25 percent over its 3 billion-euro ($4.1 billion) initial budget and its delivery date has been pushed back two years to mid-2011. Even that target is “challenging,” Jouni Silvennoinen, senior VP at TVO, said today in a presentation on site……………….

The company has never disclosed the exact amount of provisions for the project over the time. Areva’s reactors and services unit had a 258 million-euro operating loss in the first half on additional charges as the company tried to accelerate the work and allocated more resources than planned, it said.

The OL3 contract was the first reactor order negotiated by Areva after the nuclear power industry’s long pause.

Bloomberg.com: Europe

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October 17, 2008 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

Steve Parker: Debate — McCain calls Nuclear Safety Advocates “Extreme Environmentalists”

The Huffington Post
“…………………….McCain accused Obama of taking the position of “extreme environmentalists” because Obama wants to be sure that storing and disposing of used fuel rods from nuclear power plants is done safely.In fact, in Nevada, which borders McCain’s home state of Arizona, there has been a decades-long battle to not allow the disposal of those nuclear rods in that state. With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) among those “extreme environmentalists,”

Steve Parker: Debate — McCain calls Nuclear Safety Advocates “Extreme Environmentalists”

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October 17, 2008 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Colorado Energy/Climate Survey: Most in State Oppose More ‘Subprime’ Investments in Coal, Nuclear Power – MarketWatch

Colorado Energy/Climate Survey: Most in State Oppose More ‘Subprime’ Investments in Coal, Nuclear Power
Market Watch   2008DENVER and WASHINGTON, Oct 16, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — 86 Percent Want Limits on Subsidies for Oil Shale Production, 76 Percent Support Moratorium on New Coal-Fired Power Plants; Strong Back Shift to Clean Wind and Solar Power.
f elected officials in Denver and Washington, D.C. are going to continue investing in energy through subsidies, tax breaks and other incentives, the focus should shift from coal and nuclear power to promoting wind and solar energy, enhanced energy efficiency, and highly fuel-efficient vehicles, according to a new survey of 600 Colorado adults conducted for TheCLEAN.org and the Civil Society Institute (CSI) by the leading U.S. survey firm Opinion Research Corporation (ORC). The CLEAN/CSI survey was released today with Western Colorado Congress (WCC)………………….Civil Society Institute President and Founder Pam Solo said: “Colorado residents deserve credit for understanding that more investment by the state and federal governments in coal and nuclear power is essentially the same thing as investing in subprime mortgages. If Colorado taxpayers are going to directly or indirectly underwrite energy development and energy-intensive industries — such as the auto industry — we need to insist that state officials in Denver and the next Congress and President make good, solid investments that make sense for the long-term of our country. The only energy investments that rise above the ‘subprime’ level today are wind, solar and other clean renewable energy in concert with enhanced energy efficiency.”………………….Grant Smith, national project coordinator for TheCLEAN.org, added: “Investments in coal and nuclear power are the Countrywide Financial subprime mortgages of the energy world. What the public is saying in this survey is that we support government making investments in the energy sources of tomorrow, but we have to stop flushing money down the drain by propping up the failing energy sources of yesterday, including oil, coal and nuclear……………………………There is no viable model under which new nuclear power plants can be constructed as anything other than multi-billion-dollar public works boondoggles. After the current financial debacle on Wall Street, it is hard to imagine that Americans are going to allow more dumb investments by Denver and Washington on the wrong energy sources.”

Colorado Energy/Climate Survey: Most in State Oppose More ‘Subprime’ Investments in Coal, Nuclear Power – MarketWatch

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October 17, 2008 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Consultant: Green power a threat to W.Va. coal – Forbes.com

Associated PressConsultant: Green power a threat to W.Va. coal
Forbes.com By VICKI SMITH 10.16.08, 8:41 AM ET MORGANTOWN, W.Va. –

Solar power plants and other renewable energy sources are real, competitive threats that neither the coal industry nor the state’s political and academic leaders should dismiss, a consultant warned Wednesday at the second West Virginia Coal Forum.

While the carbon in coal has many potential applications, its future as a fossil fuel to be burned for electricity is limited, said Allan Tweddle, a member of the West Virginia Public Energy Authority.

In a discussion focused mainly on ways to ensure that West Virginia coal remains a prominent part of the nation’s energy plan, Tweddle was a splash of cold water to the face.

Germany has abandoned the coal-to-liquid fuel technology it pioneered, he said, opting instead to focus on solar power plants. South Africa, which has had the world’s largest continuously operating coal-to-liquids plant, is now planning to shut it down.

Simultaneously, the worldwide solar cell industry is growing 35 percent a year, with China spending $3 billion a year, Tweddle said. And California is looking into on-demand solar plants that he said could produce electricity that is price-competitive with coal-fired power plants.

All that growth is lowering the cost of silicone, a key ingredient that had made solar power more expensive, Tweddle said.

“The state has got to pay attention to these serious trends,” he warned. “I hear too much dismissal of these technologies.”

Consultant: Green power a threat to W.Va. coal – Forbes.com

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October 17, 2008 Posted by | ENERGY | Leave a comment

WORLD’S FATE RESTS WITH ARMS CONTROL, DISARMAMENT INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, YET STATE OF AFFAIRS UNSTABLE AT BEST, DISARMAMENT CHIEF TELLS FIRST COMMITTEE – 7thSpace Interactive

WORLD’S FATE RESTS WITH ARMS CONTROL, DISARMAMENT INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, YET STATE OF AFFAIRS UNSTABLE AT BEST, DISARMAMENT CHIEF TELLS FIRST COMMITTEE
7th Space 17 Oct 08 Heads of Atomic Energy Agency, Disarmament Conference, Chemical Weapons, Test-Ban Treaty Organizations, Describe Efforts to Keep Pace with Emerging Threats
The future of the world rested in the fate of arms control and disarmament intergovernmental organizations, yet the current state of affairs in the fields of disarmament and arms control was unstable at best, the United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Sergio Duarte, said today.
Addressing the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), Mr. Duarte said that many Member States were confronted with a variety of crises, some of which had been particularly hard on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and had inspired doubts about the Treaty’s effectiveness in achieving its goals of disarmament and non-proliferation. Then too, some of the crises related to the lack of any multilateral legal obligations in certain fields, such as missiles, space weapons and conventional armaments.

Today, the heads of some key arms control and disarmament organizations – the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), the Conference on Disarmament, and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — spoke to the Committee about the impasses and breakthroughs they had experienced in an effort to keep pace with, and even ahead of, the indisputably fluid security environment.

With only nine countries remaining to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of CTBTO, Tibor Toth, said his organization was making sure the verification regime was ready from “day one” of the Treaty’s entry into force. The system would comprise 337 facilities in 89 countries, each hosting a range of recording equipment maintained by nearly 500 operators worldwide, around the clock.

With the CTBT verification regime, a new standard of transparency had been achieved, which represented a new democracy in the verification of multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation instruments, he said, urging the Committee to stay focused, at the upcoming 2010 NPT Review Conference, on the gravity of nuclear dangers, and for Member States to contemplate the importance of progress on the test-ban Treaty’s entry into force.

WORLD’S FATE RESTS WITH ARMS CONTROL, DISARMAMENT INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS, YET STATE OF AFFAIRS UNSTABLE AT BEST, DISARMAMENT CHIEF TELLS FIRST COMMITTEE – 7thSpace Interactive

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October 17, 2008 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear agency worries fear will block growth – International Herald Tribune

Nuclear agency worries fear will block growth

International Herald Tribune By James Kanter October 16, 2008

  “……………………………The eport by the Nuclear EnergyAgency, an organization in Paris that advises industrialized countries on nuclear power, said the technology represented a more secure supply of power than oil or gas. But it said that opposition to nuclear power remained strong enough to curtail such an expansion.
………………………………….The report said that “a significant fraction of public opinion perceives that the risks of nuclear energy outweigh its advantages.” The report noted that people were more “concerned about some aspects surrounding nuclear energy (radioactive waste, terrorism and proliferation) than about the actual operation of nuclear power plants.”………………

Skeptics of nuclear power say that expanding the technology would require huge amounts of government subsidies and would be an inefficient use of taxpayers’ money, which could be better spent on developing renewable sources of energy like solar, wind and bio-fuels and on increasing energy efficiency.

Perhaps the most serious concern facing the industry is the question of how to handle nuclear waste.

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Nuclear agency worries fear will block growth – International Herald Tribune

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October 17, 2008 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

Rio warning sends resource stocks plummeting | theage.com.au

Rio warning sends resource stocks plummeting
The Age

  • Barry FitzGerald
  • October 17, 2008

    RIO TINTO’S confession that the five-year commodities boom was unravelling has triggered a global sell-off in resource equities and mineral commodities.

    The big four of the industry – BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Anglo American – took their biggest one-day share-price hits since the 1987 crash while the slide in metal prices accelerated, in some cases to below marginal costs of production.

    Rio let the cat out of the bag on Wednesday in its September quarter production report.

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    October 17, 2008 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

    Public cut out of Yankee info: Rutland Herald Online

    Public cut out of Yankee info
    RUTLAND HERALD October 16, 2008By REP. SARAH EDWARDS In the midst of all the events occurring at Entergy Nuclear-Vermont Yankee over the past several months, you may be wondering why there have been no meetings or comments coming from the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel (VSNAP). I can say that as an appointed legislative member of the panel, I am also concerned about this situation.One of the statutory obligations (Title 18,Ch.34, 1700) of the panel is to hold regular public meetings for the purpose of discussing issues relating to the present and future use of nuclear power, and advising the Legislature and the governor………………………………………There has been little or no communication from the department to VSNAP. The types of communiqués VSNAP has received from the department over the past several months are forwarded generic Nuclear Regulatory Commission messages such as “NRC Names New Resident Inspector at Palisades Nuclear Power Plant” and “NRC Schedules Meeting in Lynchburg To Discuss BWXT Nuclear Fuel Plant Performance.” Rarely, if ever, do we receive any update related to Vermont Yankee.

    Public cut out of Yankee info: Rutland Herald Online

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    October 17, 2008 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

    Former officer hired to spy | theage.com.au

    Former officer hired to spy
    The Age Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie  October 17, 2008 THE owners of Australia’s biggest uranium mines paid a former undercover Victoria Police officer to infiltrate environment and Aboriginal groups in Melbourne.The former police intelligence unit officer, known as Mehmet, was hired by North Ltd — before its takeover by Rio Tinto in late 2000 — and US nuclear and defence giant General Atomics to spy on Friends of the Earth, Jabiluka Action Group, Nuclear Free Australia, radio station 3CR and radical Melbourne bookstore Barricade Books.
    Mehmet first infiltrated the Jabiluka Action Group and Friends of the Earth in 1998 as part of an undercover police operation. It is not known why police chose to infiltrate and monitor the groups, though both were involved in anti-uranium protests………………………………..

    Deputy Police Commissioner Simon Overland told The Age it was a breach of the Police Regulations Act for an officer to use a covert identity after leaving the force or to use information gathered in the course of official duties for private gain.

    “It’s a criminal offence and we would take that very seriously………………………….

    Friends of the Earth spokesman Cam Walker said there was no justification for police infiltration of the group in the late 1990s, especially as it was already holding regular meetings with the police intelligence unit at the time to discuss its campaigns.

    Mr Walker said it was unethical for mining companies to pay the former undercover officer to continue to spy on groups opposed to uranium mining.

    Former officer hired to spy | theage.com.au

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    October 17, 2008 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment