nuclear-news

Ft. Calhoun nuclear station in Nebraska that has been shut down since April 2011 when a Missouri river flood threatened the safety of the plant. Calhoun has been struggling with meeting the increased oversight demands of the NRC. OPPD, the owner of Calhoun received an insurance payout, attempted to get FEMA money, swore they would not raise rates and then abruptly announced they had hired Exelon to run the plant for them. Now OPPD has just announced they are raising customer rates to cover cash black hole that Calhoun has become on the company. OPPD admitted they were selling excess power to the grid at the same time Calhoun has been offline, indicating the utility does not need Calhoun to meet consumer demand.

Xcel Energy recently announced they intend to raise rates on MN customers in part to cover the ongoing costs to operate their two nuclear plants. Xcel cited lower demand as also playing a role.

Kewaunee nuclear plant announced it will shut down in 2013 citing low midwest wholesale power prices combined with losing a contract to provide power to a nearby city.

Now Exelon is saying it is at least considering the idea of closing or selling the Clinton nuclear plant in Illinois. The plant is newer by US standards. Exelon cites a glut of cheap wind energy in the region as the biggest challenge to Clinton remaining profitable.

Exelon has also just announced they may shut down the Oyster Creek nuclear plant. Exelon cites any possible new expenses and low power prices as the pressures that might cause them to close down the plant faster than the 2019 shut down date. Small cracks in the reactor cap were found in recent weeks and the NRC just announced a special inspection over some irregularities in reporting and procedures during the Hurricane Sandy alert declared at the plant.

Exelon also dropped plans to boost output at the Lasalle and Fitzpatrick nuclear plants. Xcel Energy also recently dropped a plan to uprate the Prairie Island nuclear plant citing lack of profitability of the change.

One new development that is making things even harder on these nuclear operators to make a buck is the NRC demand that they install filtered vent systems on all BWR type reactors very soon. It was discovered as the Fukushima Nuclear accident is analyzed that the unfiltered venting of unit 2 created the largest release of radiation to the environment. A single reactor filter system is estimated to cost about $16 million USD. Thenuclear industry is fighting this important safety upgrade with everything they have.

Exelon, the largest nuclear plant owner in the US had a disastrous 3rd quarter. The company’s profits dropped a staggering 51%. Even when sales rebounded in 2009 their income continued to drop.  Exelon cited the high price of nuclear fuel, extended outages, low market prices for electricity and higher expenses as things dragging the company.

Exelon has a combination of owning an aging fleet of reactors that sells power to the wholesale market when they don’t have contracts or the ability to sell direct to consumers. Selling directly gives larger profits, selling to the market right now is dragging down many of the energy companies as the price is so low due to cheap natural gas and low cost wind power.

With the possibility of even more nuclear plant closures we looked at what caused other plants to shut down. Most of the plants forced to shut down are PWR design reactors and failing steam generators is the #1 reason for nuclear plants to shut down. The PWR design uses a specific steam generator that has been found to the tubes inside fail over time. Some have replaced these steam generators but they are extremely expensive.

Most other reasons for shutdowns involved some sort of expensive hard to replace failure, many had a string of safety issues or public referendum attempts to shut the reactors down on top of equipment problems. Just about every instance involved economics to some extent. The costs to repair and continue running the reactor vs. the profits from selling power became an unprofitable equation………. http://www.simplyinfo.org/?p=8260