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Only the taxpayer can save this Ohio nuclear power station

BEAVER VALLEY NUCLEAR PLANT FUTURE HINGES ON SUBSIDIES, Beloit Daily News March 07, 2017  By ANYA LITVAK, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   PITTSBURGH (AP) — One way or another, come next year, FirstEnergy Corp. is getting rid of the Beaver Valley nuclear power station.

Either the Ohio-based company will shut down the 1,800-megawatt plant, two decades ahead of schedule, or it will sell it to another operator. The latter option is a nonstarter unless something — aka someone, aka legislators in Pennsylvania and Ohio — intervenes to give nuclear energy a boost.

The Beaver County nuclear plant and two others in Ohio share the same chopping block as about a dozen fossil fuel plants in FirstEnergy’s portfolio across several states where electricity generation is not directly supported by ratepayers.

But getting legislation that would recognize — monetarily — nuclear energy’s lack of carbon emissions is FirstEnergy’s top priority, according to the firm’s CEO Chuck Jones, even though FirstEnergy won’t stick around to operate the plants either way.

“I don’t think there’s any guarantee, absent some other support for these units, that they’re going to keep running far into the future,” he told analysts during a call last month. Without something to “make them attractive to a buyer, there’s only one way for us to exit this business,” he said.

That something isn’t ambiguous.

In Ohio, it will be legislation seeking to create a program where customers would pay a surcharge to fund zero-emission credits given to nuclear plants. A similar mechanism supports the purchase of renewable energy in Pennsylvania and in Ohio, although the Buckeye State’s program had been frozen for the past two years and some in the state Legislature are attempting to neuter its mandates by making them penalty-free goals instead.

Jones expects an Ohio bill in support of nuclear energy to be introduced soon and said he’s optimistic, “given the discussions we’ve had so far,” that it will pass.

In Pennsylvania, Exelon is taking the lead. The Chicago-based operator of three of the state’s five nuclear power stations has been emboldened by recent victories in Illinois and New York, where it credited the 11th-hour approval of zero-emission credits with saving several plants from early retirement.

This year, Exelon added a significant number of Harrisburg lobbyists to its roster……..

If New York is any indication, Beaver Valley might serve as a sweetener for Pennsylvania lawmakers to act quickly.

When New York was mulling a nuclear credit program, Exelon said it would buy the FitzPatrick nuclear plant from Entergy Corp. — which planned to shut it down — if emission credits were approved………..

In October, five Pennsylvania legislators — most of whose districts include nuclear power plants — formed the nuclear energy caucus. They announced it with a Tweet, posed in front of a banner that read, “Pennsylvania’s nuclear plants support more than 15,600 jobs.”

The caucus, which includes Jim Marshall, R-Beaver County, and Robert Matzie, D-Beaver/Allegheny, plans to make a formal announcement of its existence later this month to be followed by a discussion of a new report on how states can save nuclear power plants, commissioned by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Matzie and Marshall did not return calls for comment.http://www.beloitdailynews.com/article/20170307/AP/303

March 8, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

All the global nuclear salesmen are targeting Kenya

Suitors line up to walk Kenya down controversial path to nuclear energy Standard media UK By Paul Wafula , March 7th 2017 
Kenya is on a delicate journey that will see it switch on its first nuclear power plant by 2027. The country plans to put up four nuclear plants in the long term, each generating 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Initial estimates show it will cost between Sh400 billion and Sh500 billion to put up one nuclear reactor. This means one plant will cost slightly more than building the 609-kilometre Mombasa to Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). By the time the plan is complete, the country will have spent about Sh2 trillion – just under the national Budget for a year – to reap the benefits of an additional 4,000MW of energy plugged into the national grid.

Besides the financing headache, the second test for the 10-year dream being championed by the Kenya Nuclear Energy Board (KNEB) is coming up with a location to for the reactors. The board estimates site selection will cost the country Sh1.5 billion in a three-year process. Though the potential sites have remained a closely guarded secret, the power plant will be built next to any of the four biggest water bodies in the country – that is, the Indian Ocean, Lake Victoria, River Tana and Lake Turkana.

…………..These plans have excited sellers of nuclear reactors who are now courting the country, with some dangling ‘free training’. The potential suppliers include South Korea, whose companies are constructing nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates. Kenya has also been window shopping in China, and with Rosatom in Russia and Westinghouse in the United States. The country’s plans appear modelled on the UAE’s, which awarded a South Korean consortium to build four plants at a cost of Sh2 trillion.
…………Kenya has already signed a memorandum of understanding with China, South Korea, Russia and Ghana. KNEB said the deal with China would help Kenya “obtain expertise through training and skills development, technical support in areas such as site selection for Kenya’s nuclear power plants, and feasibility studies”. China has been offering ‘free’ training and feasibility studies for big infrastructure projects in Africa as a strategy to get into the boardrooms where key decisions are made. This is the same approach it used to land the SGR deal.
………..The country has also signed nuclear power co-operation agreements with Slovakia and South Korea.
…………He added that the Sh500 billion cost per plant for UAE may be cheaper because South Koreans were trying to get into the market. France is also lining up for a piece of the action, with the country offering Kenya technical, engineering and financial support to develop reactors.
…………MAKING THE CASE Juma has defended the cost of the project on the grounds that in the long run, nuclear energy is a cheaper and more stable source of power, with sustainable base loads. The board is looking at having flexible financing options, including public-private partnership where a private developer will finance the plant, construct and operate it for some time to recoup investments and make a profit, before handing it over to the State.
……The agency is looking at plants that will have a lifespan of up to 80 years.
………….it will have a difficult task of convincing local communities that the country is ready to deal with the radiological effects of nuclear.
……The other headache that must be tackled is the development of national strategies for radioactive waste management, emergency preparedness and the nuclear fuel cycle.
……energy experts from Italy and Germany last year, advised Kenya to drop plans to build nuclear reactors and instead harness its vast renewable energy resources, including geothermal, solar and wind, for power generation. They cited massive costs for a nuclear plant, long construction periods of about 10 years and expensive decommissioning at the end of plants’ lifespan, especially disposing of hazardous radioactive waste.
…….https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001231716/suitors-line-up-to-walk-kenya-down-controversial-path-to-nuclear-energy

March 8, 2017 Posted by | Kenya, marketing | Leave a comment

Russia’s Rosatom strongly promoting nuclear power at Malaysian conference

The seventh Nuclear Power Asia conference being held in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday and Wednesday is bringing together the leaders of the Asian nuclear-power industry. 

Session participants have concurred that nuclear power, being an economically and environmentally viable source of electricity, has the capacity to contribute greatly to Asia’s sustainable future.

“Sustainable future is impossible without sustainable energy,” said Egor Simonov, director of Rosatom Asia. “Nuclear power [emits] 25-30 times less [greenhouse gas] than coal- or oil-fired power plants. Therefore, nuclear power may be a viable solution for Asean nations willing to fulfil their climate-change commitments.”

Rosatom is Russia’s nuclear regulator, and its Southeast Asian regional branch is in Singapore. …….The Nuclear Power Asia conference is a platform to discuss the latest challenges, trends and achievements in the Asian nuclear industry. The event is annually attended by more than 300 participants from nuclear-energy authorities, energy commissions, nuclear energy programme implementing organisations, international developers and operators, technology suppliers, and academic society.  http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/breakingnews/30308264

March 8, 2017 Posted by | marketing, Russia | Leave a comment

Georgia Utility Shelves New Nuke Proposal

Georgia Power’s decision to pass on plans to construct a nuclear power plant near Columbus is the latest in a string of setbacks for the US nuclear industry.  The Local BY MATT SMITH 6 Mar 17 

The company behind one of only two nuclear power plants under construction in the United States says it’s passing on plans for another.

Georgia Power told state regulators last week that it was shelving plans for a possible new nuclear power plant in Stewart County, near Columbus. In a letter to the state Public Service Commission, the utility said it no longer saw any need for another reactor in the next few years….

The decision comes at a rough time for the U.S. nuclear industry, which has seen five reactors shut down in the past few years and is expecting six more to go offline in the coming decade. . ….

it’s already struggling to complete a two-reactor expansion of its existing Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant near Augusta. The project, which Georgia Power is sharing with three other utilities, is running three years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.

Vogtle’s expansion was further clouded by February’s announcement of $6.3 billion in losses at the Japanese industrial conglomerate Toshiba, which owns the US nuclear company Westinghouse — which designed and is building the new reactors. The company also said it wouldn’t be building any more American reactors……

The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy hailed the news, calling the plan “a bad deal for the citizens of Georgia.”

“The proposed Stewart County nuclear units were nothing more than financial insult to injury on the people of Georgia,” Stephen Smith, the green group’s executive director, said in a written statement. “We need more oversight on the runaway costs at Vogtle, not another blank check in Stewart County.”http://www.seeker.com/georgia-utility-shelves-new-nuke-proposal-2302767501.html

March 8, 2017 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

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