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Kansai Electric plans to restart another nuclear reactor

Japan to restart another nuclear reactor Jan. 29, 1st on MOX fuel, Kyodo News, TOKYO, Jan. 21, Kyodo A nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture is expected to restart operations on Jan. 29, the first that will run on uranium-plutonium mixed oxide fuel under new safety regulations, sources close to the matter said Thursday.

Final arrangements are under way to restart the No. 3 reactor of Kansai Electric Power Co.’s Takahama plant, the third such case after Japan returned to nuclear power generation last summer following the loss of nuclear energy amid safety concerns in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Last April, a district court banned Kansai Electric from restarting the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors of the Takahama plant citing safety concerns. But since the court lifted the injunction last month, the utility is now making preparations to reactivate the two reactors on the Sea of Japan coast, with the restart of the No. 4 unit planned for late February…..http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2016/01/393890.html

January 22, 2016 Posted by | business and costs, Japan | Leave a comment

Former nuclear power executive sentenced for fraud

Flag-USAFormer Executive of Nuclear Power Company Sentenced Jennifer R. Ransom to Serve 30 Months in Prison, Clearwater Tribune, 8 jan 16  BOISE – Jennifer R. Ransom, 41, of Meridian, Idaho, was sentenced Jan. 7 in United States District Court to 30 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release—the first six months of which is home confinement–for the crime of securities fraud, U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson announced. Senior United States District Judge Edward J. Lodge also ordered Ransom to forfeit $580,780 and pay $116,138 in restitution to victim-investors. Ransom pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud on April 21, 2015.

According to the plea agreement, Ransom was the Senior Vice President of Administration of Alternate Energy Holdings, Inc. (“AEHI”). AEHI was a development stage company headquartered in Eagle, Idaho, that planned to construct and operate a nuclear power plant in Payette County, Idaho.

According to the plea agreement, Ransom joined AEHI in late 2007. Prior to joining AEHI, Ransom took and passed the Series 63 examination, one of the tests required to become a licensed Securities Agent, and knew it was wrongful and unlawful to engage in conduct that was designed to defraud or deceive investors by artificially controlling or fraudulently affecting the price of securities. Notwithstanding, she agreed with her co-defendant, Donald L. Gillispie, the former President and CEO of AEHI, and other “nominees” to a scheme to defraud or deceive AEHI investors……..

n May of 2015, Ms. Ransom’s co-defendant, Donald Gillispie, failed to appear for two scheduled arraignment hearings. He remains a fugitive and is being pursued by the United States Marshals Service.

The case was investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Today’s announcement is part of efforts underway by President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF), which was created in November 2009 to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes  http://www.clearwatertribune.com/news/online_only_news/former-executive-of-nuclear-power-company-sentenced/article_658d5ea2-b65a-11e5-81af-1b4cc23d91cb.html

January 22, 2016 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Pro nuclear Bill moves to Wisconsin Senate

Nuclear options, ISTHMUS, 21 Jan 16  January 21, 2016     (Wisconsin)  “…….Under current law, state regulators are barred from approving new nuclear power plants unless there is a federal facility to store nuclear waste and the new plant is not a financial burden for ratepayers. No such federal facility exists. A proposal from Rep. Kevin Petersen (R-Waupaca) removing those provisions made it through committee with bipartisan support last month and passed in the Assembly on Jan. 12.

Now, it moves on to the Senate. A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald did not respond to an Isthmus request for comment on the status of the bill. Gov. Scott Walker has said he supports lifting the moratorium………

Several Wisconsin energy utility companies support the legislation, although none have plans to build nuclear power plants anytime soon.

Alliant Energy spokesman Scott Reigstad says the company is focusing on transitioning its energy generation mix away from large, coal-fired plants and ramping up natural gas generation, which produces 50% to 60% less carbon. Alliant also owns wind farms and hydroelectric dams and has seen growth in customer-owned renewables, like solar panels.

Madison Gas and Electric recently launched a renewable energy initiative, Energy 2030, which aims to supply 30% of its retail energy sales from renewable sources by 2030. The plan makes no mention of nuclear power, says Dana Brueck, MGE spokeswoman.

The bill also places nuclear power on the state’s list of energy priorities, ranking it the fourth most desirable energy source, below “combustible renewable energy,” but above nonrenewable combustible energy resources……..

Environmental groups agree on the need to cut carbon emissions. But many say renewable energy sources like wind and solar offer a cheaper option for generating power.

“If we want to reduce customers’ bills, energy efficiency is the answer,” says Mitch Brey, organizer for renewable energy advocacy group RePower Madison. He says that instead of exploring nuclear options, the Legislature should focus on reducing the state’s dependency on coal. Wisconsin is one of the biggest coal consumers in the nation — more than 60% of the net electricity generation came from burning the fossil fuel in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Renewable energy is also safer than nuclear power, say environmentalists, who fear the prospect of nuclear catastrophes like those that occurred at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Fukushima.

“There’s a saying that when you have a solar spill, it’s called a sunny day,” says Elizabeth Ward, a program coordinator with the Sierra Club-John Muir Chapter.

Ward says nuclear power plants are unlikely to help Wisconsin meet the EPA’s Clean Power Plan goals by the 2030 deadline. Facilities are costly and time-consuming to construct, and utility companies have no plans to build in the near future.

“There’s no way we could see a proposal, approval and construction of a nuclear power plant by that time,” she says.

Ward also warns of a possible “unintended consequence” of the legislation. She believes if the moratorium is lifted, it would “strongly signal” to the U.S. Department of Energy that Wisconsin is open to storing nuclear waste. President Barack Obama halted plans to store spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the DOE has also identified Wisconsin’s Wolf River Batholith as a possible site for a repository.

“That does not bode well,” Ward says……….

January 22, 2016 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear power: high costs, massive subsidies – some details

nukes-hungryAfter 60 years of nuclear power, the industry survives only on stupendous subsidies, Ecologist, Pete Dolack 4th January 2016 It’s a global phenomenon

“………….Numerous research papers paint a fuller picture. A Congressional Research Service report found that nuclear power had received $74 billion for research and developmentby the US government for the period 1948 to 1998, more than all such money given for fossil fuels, renewables and energy efficiency combined.

A report by the venture-capital firm DBL Investors, Ask Saint Onofrio, reports that nuclear energy cumulatively has received four times more subsidies than solar energy in California, and that nuclear subsidies were higher than solar in 2011 and all previous years. Nuclear has received $8.2 billion in subsidies in California, while providing the state with 3% of its power in 2012.

The uneconomical state of nuclear power is a global phenomenon, not limited to any one place. A comprehensive study prepared for the Green Party of Germany’s Heinrich Böll Stiftung, The Economics of Nuclear Power: An Update, reports:

“Up to now, nuclear power plants have been funded by massive public subsidies. For Germany the calculations roughly add up to over €100 billion and this preferential treatment is still going on today. As a result the billions set aside for the disposal of nuclear waste and the dismantling of nuclear power plants represent a tax-free manoeuvre for the companies.

“In addition the liability of the operators is limited to €2.5 billion – a tiny proportion of the costs that would result from a medium-sized nuclear accident.”

The paper later says: “Successive studies by the British government in 1989, 1995, and 2002 came to the conclusion that in a liberalised electricity market, electric utilities would not build nuclear power plants without government subsidies and government guarantees that cap costs. In most countries where the monopoly status of the generating companies has been removed, similar considerations would apply.”

Yet new plants are being built, with new subsidies

Significant cost overruns are the norm in building nuclear power plants, and it isn’t investors who are on the hook for them. Three nuclear projects are under construction in the United States and two in Western Europe, a group that features an assortment of cost overruns and generous guarantees:

  • The two new Vogtle reactors in Georgia are already $3 billion over budget although their completion date is three and a half years away. The largest owner, Southern Company, has received $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees. Overruns at this plant are not unprecedented; the two existing reactors cost $8.7 billion instead of the promised $600 million, resulting in higher electricity rates.
  • The Watts Bar 2 nuclear reactor in Tennessee, which received its license to operate in October, has seen its cost rise to $6.1 billion from $2.5 billion. (This is technically a restart of a unit on which construction was suspended in 1985.) The existing reactor at this site has a history of safety problems.
  • The Summer 2 and 3 reactors being built in South Carolina have already caused rate payers there to endure a series of rate increases. Cost overruns just since 2012 havetotaled almost $2 billion.
  • In October 2013, British authorities approved a new nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point, England, that features subsidies designed to give the owner, Électricité de France, aguaranteed 10% rate of return on the project. Power from the plant will be sold at a fixed price, indexed to the consumer inflation rate.
    In other words, The Independent reports, “should the market price fall below that [agreed-upon] level the Government would make up the difference.” The agreed-upon fixed price set by the Cameron government at the time was double the wholesale pricefor electricity. Since then the gap has only widened.
  • Olkiluoto-3 in Finland was supposed to have cost €3 billion, but is 10 years behind schedule and €5 billion over budget.

High costs despite high subsidies

There would at least be a small silver lining in this dark picture if the electricity produced were cheap. But that’s not the case. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, the cost of producing electricity from nuclear power in France tripled and in the United States the cost increased fivefold, according to the Vermont Law School paper [page 46].

Then there are the costs of nuclear that are not imposed by any other energy source: What to do with all the radioactive waste? Regardless of who ultimately shoulders these costs, the environmental dangers will last for tens of thousands of years.

In the United States, there is the fiasco of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada. The US government has collected $35 billion from energy companies to finance the dump, which is the subject of fierce local opposition and appears to have no chance of being built.

Presumably, the energy companies have passed on these costs to their consumers but nonetheless are demanding the government take the radioactive waste they are storing at their plants or compensate them. As part of this deal, the US government made itself legally responsible for finding a permanent nuclear waste storage facility.

And, eventually, plants come to the end of their lives and must be decommissioned, another big expense that energy companies would like to be borne by someone else.

As the Heinrich Böll Stiftung study says, [page 17], “there is a significant mismatch between the interests of commercial concerns and society in general. Huge costs that will only be incurred far in the future have little weight in commercial decisions because such costs are ‘discounted’. This means that waste disposal costs and decommissioning costs, which are at present no more than ill-supported guesses, are of little interest to commercial companies.

“From a moral point of view, the current generation should be extremely wary of leaving such an uncertain, expensive, and potentially dangerous legacy to a future generation to deal with when there are no ways of reliably ensuring that the current generation can bequeath the funds to deal with them, much less bear the physical risk. Similarly, the accident risk also plays no part in decision-making because the companies are absolved of this risk by international treaties that shift the risk to taxpayers.” http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2986749/after_60_years_of_nuclear_power_the_industry_survives_only_on_stupendous_subsidies.html

January 22, 2016 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, politics, Reference | Leave a comment

No response fro India’s PM Modi to Shiv Sena’s report on Jaitapur nuclear plant

PMO yet to respond to Shiv Sena’s report on Jaitapur nuclear plant By PTI | 21 Jan, 2016, MUMBAI: Shiv Sena is yet to receive a response from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on a report it sent more than a month ago detailing “adverse” impact the proposed Jaitapur nuclear power plant would have on the green belt in Maharashtra’ Konkan region.

Sena, a key constituent of BJP-led ruling alliances in Maharashtra and at the Centre, is strongly opposing the mega nuclear plant at Jaitapur on the ground it will “adversely” impact the fragile ecosystem in the coast region. …….

January 22, 2016 Posted by | India, politics | Leave a comment

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