2009 May 05 « nuclear-news

Nuclear solution comes with a huge price tag

North County Times By MARK WILLIAMS – AP Energy Writer | Saturday, May 2, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio —- A ghost from the nuclear industry’s early years has reappeared.

It is not public apprehension about safety or disposal issues this time, but the staggering cost of building nuclear reactors.

A wave of new reactors now in the works is intended to solve at least part of the nation’s energy problems as it attempts to shift away from fossil fuels. But cost is likely to plague every upcoming nuclear project.

This month in Missouri, the first of the next-generation reactors was put on hold because of the $6 billion price tag.

Whether or not AmerenUE’s Missouri reactor was a casualty of the current economic climate, the legal fight in several states shows how big the cost hurdle will be.

Some states have altered laws so that consumers begin footing the bill now, even before construction begins. Missouri did not.

“A large plant would be difficult to finance under the best of conditions, but in today’s credit-constrained markets, without supportive state energy policies, we believe getting financial backing for these projects is impossible,” said Thomas Voss, AmerenUE’s president and chief executive.

Reactors were expensive even 40 years ago at around $1 billion. The cost of AmerenUE’s Missouri project dwarfed even the market value of its parent company………………….. “It is so phenomenally costly that it crowds out capital needed for energy-efficiency and renewable energy,” said Mark Haim of Missourians for Safe Energy, a group that has been fighting Ameren’s plans.

Yet Republican lawmakers in Washington want more government funding for nuclear power…………….

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/05/02/business/z6edbd99928ffa519882575a6006f16a6.txt

May 5, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, radioactive | Leave a comment

Can Clean Energy Revive Manufacturing?

The New York Times By Kate Galbraith 4 May 09

The manufacturing sector in the United States continues to shrink — but could the renewable-energy rush spur a manufacturing revival?

A number of solar-panel factories are coming online in the United States, as I reported on Sunday. Makers of wind turbines are also establishing factories in the heartland, where the factories’ proximity to wind farms on the Plains slashes the cost of shipping the giant machines from Europe…………………. many renewable-equipment manufacturers want to set up operations in the United States because they perceive it to be the largest market for the technologies in the years ahead. (Tax credits in the stimulus package for domestic production of renewable-energy equipment also help.) A key factor in bringing SolarWorld to Oregon, said Mr. Klebensberger, was the work force — and especially Oregonians’ “belief in change and how important renewables are.” Proximity to a cluster of semiconductor factories, some of whose workers SolarWorld has recently poached, was another attraction…………………….

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/can-clean-energy-revive-manufacturing/.

May 5, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, ENERGY, USA | renewables | Leave a comment

Project to move 15 million tons of radioactive waste begins

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2009/05/02/business/z6edbd99928ffa519882575a6006f16a6.txt

Project to move 15 million tons of radioactive waste begins KSLTV 4 May 09 “…………………..They’re finally moving 16 million tons of radioactive dirt away from the town of Moab.

The radioactive dirt is going into big boxes, the boxes onto rail cars: a project that will cost about $1 billion. “You cannot put a price on the image and reputation of the state,” said Gov. Jon Huntsman. “The fact that 50 years ago, during the height of the Cold War, the decision was to make this dump 3 miles out of town, nobody would have thought twice about it. And today, it seems absolutely ludicrous that ever would have been done.”

Moab has been trying to get rid of it almost ever since the uranium mill that produced it shut down 25 years ago. “It’s sitting in the flood plain of the Colorado River and draining into the river,” explained Bill Hedden, executive director of Grand County Trust.

May 5, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, wastes | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear wastes, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Nuclear power foes not stilled in N.E.

Boston.com 4 May 09 “………………….A march in Montpelier last week was only the latest reminder of ongoing opposition to Vermont Yankee’s bid to extend its operating license 20 more years.

The Vermont Public Interest Research Group wants the Vermont Yankee plant shut down, and assurances that its owner, Entergy Corp., will pay the full cost of decommissioning it. “There are millions of people that live within a dangerous distance of this facility,” said James Moore, clean energy advocate for the group, known as VPIRG…………………… A cadre of activists who oppose Vermont Yankee have built a statewide coalition to oppose the 20-year renewal of the plant’s current license, which expires in 2012. The issue will be subject to a vote by the Vermont Legislature in the coming year.

At last week’s demonstration, activists marched from Montpelier’s City Hall to the State House to urge lawmakers to back development of clean sources of energy such as wind and solar. The marchers also announced they had gathered 12,000 signatures in support of closing Vermont Yankee……………………. Environmentalists and others remain concerned that there is no national plan for long-term storage of nuclear waste.

May 5, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment

Safety issues revealed at nuclear facility

Contractors used substandard materials

The State 3 May 09 By James Rosen WASHINGTON — Contractors at the Savannah River Site — one of the country’s major nuclear-weapons complexes — repeatedly procured dangerous construction materials and components that failed to meet federal safety standards, according to a recently completed internal government probe.

One of the substandard materials revealed at the Savannah River Site on the South Carolina-Georgia border “could have resulted in a spill of up to 15,000 gallons of high-level radioactive waste,” the inspector general of the U.S. Energy Department found.

The five-month investigation also disclosed the purchase of 9,500 tons of substandard reinforcing steel at the SRS site near Aiken……………………. Many employees are engaged in a huge environmental cleanup effort to mediate decades of toxic nuclear waste production……………………. Some environmentalists and other critics cast the NRC as a weak regulator plagued by cozy relationships with the power utilities that own and operate the civilian nuclear reactors it is charged with licensing and overseeing.

Heads of the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management, in charge of waste cleanup at SRS and other nuclear complexes, didn’t dispute the inspector general’s findings. http://www.thestate.com/local/story/772791.html

May 5, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | safety, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, uranium | Leave a comment