Russia’s nuclear play for power in Africa, DW 2 July 20,
Russia is pushing nuclear technology to African nations to both turn a profit and expand its political might on the continent. Rwanda’s parliament has just approved a plan for Russia’s state-owned Rosatom nuclear conglomerate to build it a nuclear research center and reactor in the capital, Kigali.
The Center of Nuclear Science and Technologies, planned for completion by 2024, will include nuclear research labs as well as a small research reactor with up to 10 MW capacity.
Ethiopia, Nigeria and Zambia have signed similar deals with Rosatom, while countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Sudan and DRC have less expansive cooperation agreements.
Rosatom has been aggressively wooing African nations since the mid-2000s and the nuclear deals are seen as part of Russia’s push turn a profit and also gain influence in Africa.
Western sanctions first imposed on Russia in 2014 over its annexation of the Crimea in the Ukraine have forced Russia to seek alternative sources of incomes and also new friends.
Nuclear technology instead of trade
“For Putin to remain relevant in Russia, he really has to ensure that Russia has a big influence,” said Ovigwe Eguegu, a geopolitics analyst with the international affairs platform, Afripolitika. “That’s why he is looking at African markets so he has more parties to partner with when it comes to international issues.”
African nations constitute the largest voting bloc in the United Nations.
While the Soviet Union had a close relationship to various African states during the Cold War, Russia’s trade balance with Africa is one tenth of that of China, meaning it needs to look for other means to get a foothold on the continent.
“Russia is using the tools that they have to expand their influence and right now, Russia has lots of experience in the nuclear energy area,” Eguegu said in a phone interview from Abuja.
Rosatom nuclear leader
Rosatom is the world’s biggest nuclear company by foreign orders. While it has projects in developed countries such as Finland and Hungary, it’s mainly involved in developing regions.
The Rosatom packages are popular because the corporation’s sheer size means it can offer all-in-one deals, from training local workers to developing nuclear science curricula, supplying uranium for the plant’s life time and dealing with nuclear waste — with the added plus of Russian state loans for the projects.
The cost and financing of Rwanda’s nuclear research center is still undisclosed. But Russia is extending a $25 billion (€22.23 billion) loan to Egypt to cover 85% of the cost of the El Dabaa nuclear power plant, which Rosatom is constructing.
Rosatom has come to dominate nuclear exports to developing countries because of their generous financing and worker training,” according to the 2018 Center for Global Development policy paper, Atoms for Africa.
Additionally, Russia is itself a major player in the nuclear market, responsible for some 8% of uranium production worldwide as well as 20% of uranium conversion and 43% of uranium enrichment (conversion and enrichment are stages of processing uranium so it can be used by commercial nuclear power reactors)………….
many experts, including Gatari, believe that nuclear technology doesn’t yet make sense for African countries. They lack the highly skilled local workforce required to run the technological intricacies of such reactors. Plus, nuclear facilities are vastly expensive and take years to build.
Gatari warns of countries becoming locked into costly projects that end up being “white elephants”.
“Such a project can only be driven by strong and educated local human resources,” the nuclear researcher said. “That knowledge isn’t possible by rushing young students through training for a short time.
And the cost of maintaining that kind of installation can cripple the budget of a country for a long, long time.”
Doing the smooth sell
Currently, South Africa is the only country in sub-Saharan Africa with a functioning nuclear power plant, while Nigeria and Ghana have research reactors, which are primarily used for studying and training and to test materials, such as minerals.
In Europe, safety concerns around nuclear technologies have already caused countries such as Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland to vote to phase out nuclear power.
These concerns are compounded in Africa, given the the political instability of certain regions and the threat of sabotage or terrorist attacks. This hasn’t stopped Rosatom, and Russia, from doing a soft sell of nuclear technologies on the continent.
Rosatom funds scholarships for students from sub-Saharan Africa to study nuclear sciences and engineering in Russia. As of January 2020, around 300 students from more than 15 African countries were studying nuclear specialties there.
It runs an online video competition, Atoms for Africa, where participants stand a chance to win an all expenses paid trip to Russia for a video dedicated to innovative nuclear technologies.
In 2019, it even held an international fishing competition near the Leningrad nuclear power station, Russia’s largest, to demonstrate the safety of nuclear power for water bodies. (The competition was won by an Egypt team).
“There is good money if you can sell a research reactor,” said nuclear scientist Gatari. “Unfortunately, the convincing capacity of [Rosatom’s] marketing is very high, and the understanding of those who are buying is low.” https://www.dw.com/en/russias-nuclear-play-for-power-in-africa/a-54004039
July 2, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AFRICA, marketing, politics international, Russia |
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Dave Toke’s Blog 27th June 2020, The chickens are coming home to roost for EDF for their 
questionable decision to go ahead with building Hinkley C -a decision they took despite the lack of certainty over whether they would get enough backing from the British Government.
Originally EDF was publicised as being offered UK Treasury loan guarantees that had been widely touted as a vital basis for building Hinkley C. But now the French Financial Markets Regulator has
sanctioned EDF for not flagging up how conditional such loan guarantees were. These loan guarantees have never materialised.
Essentially, EDF is now continuing to build Hinkley C using money borrowed on its own balance
sheets – borrowings which are much more costly than UK Government backed guarantees and which reduce its own (EDF) profitability.
The Finance Officer of EDF actually resigned at the time EDF decided to go ahead with building Hinkley C. Of course all this is happening at the same time when we are being asked to believe that the next EPR (at Sizewell C) is going to be delivered at low cost to the consumer if the risk of building the plant is transferred from EDF to the British taxpayer and consumer!
This is the so-called RAB mechanism, something that could well just turn out to be an
almost unlimited cash facility for EDF to park their financial black hole in the centre of British finances (as well as those of the French).
https://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2020/06/edf-sanctioned-by-french-regulators-for.html
June 30, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, France, politics, politics international, UK |
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the government is exploring novel ways in which to lay the burden for financing a dangerous and costly nuclear venture on you, the consumer.
‘The Sizewell C plans are an insult to the people of Suffolk’ https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/pete-wilkinson-together-against-sizewell-c-campaign-1-6718925 27 June 2020, Pete Wilkinson, Together Against Sizewell C
Chairman of Together Against Sizewell C, Pete Wilkinson, has described it is a “battle for the soul and integrity of East Suffolk”. Here he explains why he is opposing the nuclear project.
Anyone new to Suffolk, ignorant of EDF’s nuclear plans, would be forgiven for laughing out loud.
An untried reactor, labelled ‘technically complicated to construct’ by its own designers, a cost of £20billion-plus, taking at least 10 years to build, producing waste which is not only lethal to living tissue but which remains so for thousands of years and for which there is no agreed or proven disposal or management route, to be built in the middle of a community of 5,000, which will not produce electricity for at least 10 years by which time its output will be redundant to needs, built on an eroding coast? Yeah, sure: pull the other one.
You really couldn’t make it up.
Yet this is what residents up and down the East Suffolk are facing. They have been led to believe that the destruction of their environment on a massive scale, the compulsory purchases, the roads, the workers’ campuses, the borrow pits, the huge water demand in the driest county is inevitable – and to make the best of it.
When did anyone ask YOU, resident of East Suffolk, if you wanted your tranquil, culturally rich and peaceful rural environment urbanised and anonymised, requiring six new roundabouts on the A12 and up to 1,000 vehicle movements a day along our country roads to ferry the material required for our own white elephantine carbuncle on our heritage coast, light, noise and dust pollution 24 hours a day, seven days a week or a decade of accommodating 4,000 workers? Of course you were not asked. They knew the answer. The new nuclear policy has not been subjected to anything like forensic public or Parliamentary scrutiny.
Democratic deficit runs through all aspects of this programme like the letters in a stick of rock and is presented by its advocates as ‘inevitable’. The National Policy Statement process renders what government calls ‘national infrastructure projects of over-riding importance’ inviolate, untouchable and – yes – inevitable unless the planning authorities have the courage or unless the Secretary of State has the guts to do what they should – throw the EDF plans out as an insult to the people of Suffolk. Sizewell C is important to no-one other than EDF.
But just how ‘over-riding’ is the need for Sizewell C? The French-made film, ‘The Nuclear Trap’ makes it clear that Hinkley C in Somerset and Sizewell C are more critical to the survival of the French nuclear industry than they are to providing electricity to UK consumers.
There has been a huge reduction in electricity demand since 2013 – over 16% – making earlier predictions of an increase of 15% by 2020 an overestimation of more than 30%.
Renewables out-compete nuclear on every front – cost, waste, jobs, CO2 and time for deployment. If ever Sizewell was built, it would be at least a decade, probably more like 15 years given the history of cost and time over-runs of its flagship plant at Flamanville, before it turned one kilowatt hour of electricity.
In 15 years, we will – one can only hope – have grown out of our obsession with nuclear and invested at suitably high levels in realising the huge job potential in micro-technology, decentralisation, efficiency and conservation of energy, and look back on our nuclear infatuation with a shake of the head.
The current National Policy Statement which covers the nuclear component of the energy policy, EN6, is entirely unfit for purpose as it gives policy authority only to those nuclear plants which can be deployed before 2025 – i.e. not, Hinkley, not Sizewell and not Bradwell, none of which will be generating electricity by that date.
Therefore the EN6 policy document is null and void. Its replacement is still undergoing review and will depend heavily on the financing arrangements the government can agree to in order to remove the need for EDF to fork out for it.
Instead, the government is exploring novel ways in which to lay the burden for financing a dangerous and costly nuclear venture on you, the consumer.
So much for ‘no subsidy’ nuclear, but in policy terms, it is legally questionable for Hinkley C to continue to be built, for Sizewell C’s planning application to be submitted or for CGN/EDF to consult on plans to build Bradwell B when there is no policy architecture to justify and legitimise any of this work or progress.
EN6 has fallen as a legitimate policy statement for new nuclear build but that does not seem to have any effect on the way the French and Chinese backers of new nuclear in the UK are required to act nor the complacency and indifference with which the government seems to take these gaping legal inconsistencies.
The waste problem that nuclear generates is probably the most intractable. In the 15 years of the existence of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, it has failed to secure a site, a volunteer community or to satisfactorily solve many of the dozens of technical and engineering problems associated with burying 500,000 cubic metres of legacy waste while ensuring that the estimated 78,000,000 units of radioactivity remain underground.
While new build waste such as that from Sizewell C is likely to be less bulky, its high burn up in the reactor means that it will be far hotter than even Sizewell B’s waste and will generate much more radioactivity – up to five times that contained in the legacy waste. How can any government or industry knowingly embark on a development programme which will create such a mountain of waste when a repository for its safe disposal is still more a matter of hope over expectation?
The only legacy Sizewell C will leave for Suffolk is a degraded environment and a radioactive waste mountain which future generations will have to deal with. Please tell your councillor to vote to remove the support for Sizewell C at the full council meeting on July 7, please write to the planning inspector to voice your concerns and please urge your MP to tell the Secretary of State to put EDF’s planning application where it belongs – in the bin.
June 29, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, climate change, environment, politics, UK |
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  Cost of new Sizewell C nuclear plant put at £20bn https://www.ft.com/content/77c209f7-6d18-4609-ac3c-77d1b5b82b34 26 June 20, Higher-than-expected price tag revealed for first time in planning documents. Nathalie Thomas in Edinburgh and Donato Paolo Mancini in London
A new nuclear plant proposed on England’s east coast will cost £20bn, according to planning documents that reveal the higher-than-expected price of the project for the first time. The developers of the proposed plant at Sizewell in Suffolk — France’s EDF and Chinese state-owned CGN — had previously indicated the power station could be built for 20 per cent less than Hinkley Point C. Britain’s first new nuclear plant in a generation is under construction in Somerset.
This implied a cost of about £18bn for the Suffolk plant, called Sizewell C, after EDF last year said the price tag for Hinkley Point had risen to as much as £22.5bn. The first new-build project has suffered a string of cost overruns.
The revelation of Sizewell’s cost in extensive planning documents published on Thursday will reignite the ferocious debate around whether the UK should build large new nuclear plants.
Some backbench Conservative MPs, opposed to Chinese state involvement in critical national infrastructure, have concerns about the project because of the presence of CGN. The Chinese state-owned company is a junior financing partner on the Sizewell C project but hopes to install its own reactor technology in another proposed nuclear station at Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex.
The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that CGN, or China General Nuclear Power Corporation, was on a US list of 20 companies with links to the Chinese military compiled by the Pentagon. The list is part of an attempt by the White House and Congress to prevent Beijing from obtaining sensitive technologies as well as US funding.
EDF said in the planning documents that the cost estimate for Sizewell C includes design, construction and land costs associated with the proposed site, which is situated next to one of the UK’s operational nuclear plants, known as Sizewell B. It also takes into account “expected inflation and contingencies”, according to the document.
The company had previously claimed the cost savings on Sizewell could be delivered because it would be a “near identical copy” of Hinkley Point C.
EDF said the budget detailed in the planning application includes inflation over the estimated 10 years of construction, whereas the latest estimate for Hinkley Point C — estimated to be in a range of £21.5bn to £22.5bn — was based on 2015 prices.
The 20 per cent cost saving still stood if you subtracted a fifth from the Hinkley budget and then adjusted that sum for inflation, the company added.
EDF and CGN are yet to clarify how the new plant would be funded. The UK government last year launched a consultation on a so-called regulated asset base model (RAB) — used for other forms of infrastructure such as energy networks. This would lower the cost of capital of the scheme because consumers would have a surcharge added to their energy bills before the plant was completed.
Stop Sizewell C, a local campaigning group, said the funding statement was “a work of fiction” and described the £20bn pricetag as “totally eye-watering”.
Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist Doug Parr said the nuclear industry’s claim that it can always make the next power plant cheaper was “just never true.” He pointed out that the costs of renewable power had dropped below half those of nuclear “and just keep dropping”.
The government is yet to report back on the consultation. Privately, some nuclear industry leaders have been making an argument for the taxpayer to take a stake in any new project.
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June 27, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, politics, UK |
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Nuclear developers press for ‘prompt’ decision on new UK plants , Ft.com, Nathalie Thomas in Edinburgh, JUNE 24 2020
Britain’s nuclear energy industry has said it could cut the price of power from new large power stations by more than half as it presses ministers for a “prompt” decision on government financing to support construction. …….
The NIA argues that supply chain costs would fall further if it can build further scale and experience. But it warns that new projects rely on “prompt decisions” by ministers on an alternative financing mechanism to support nuclear plant construction. Executives at EDF have made clear they will not replicate the model used for Hinkley, which has been beset by cost overruns. A government consultation on alternative funding models, launched last year, is yet to report back.
The NIA report comes as UK planning authorities are due on Wednesday to rule whether to accept a planning application for Sizewell C, proposed for Suffolk on England’s east coast.
The project, also being developed by EDF and CGN, has magnified concerns among Conservative MPs about Chinese involvement in critical infrastructure. Both Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C use French technology, while CGN is a financing partner. But CGN is hoping to install its own reactors in another proposed plant at Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex.
EDF and CGN submitted the application for Sizewell C in May without knowing how the plant would be funded.
The government last year launched a consultation on funding future nuclear plants through a regulated asset base (RAB) model, used for other infrastructure projects such as London’s Thames Tideway “super sewer”.
Under a RAB model, households would pay for a plant’s construction through their energy bills long before any electricity is generated, allowing developers to attract cheaper finance from investors such as pension funds. But it also leaves consumers on the hook for cost overruns.
EDF has said it hopes to take a final investment decision on Sizewell C by the end of next year or early in 2022.
But nuclear industry executives privately suggest that a decision on financing would be required before the end of December to support new plant construction, given the timescales involved in company boards approving costly projects. Horizon Nuclear Power, which is owned by Hitachi, is also awaiting planning approval this year for a proposed plant at Wylfa on Anglesey.
“Concerted action [is] needed now,” the NIA said.
“There is a limit to how long developers can justify continuing to keep options open, and the supply chain can continue to invest in capability to prepare for a thriving nuclear future, without a clear signal that the government is serious about a funded nuclear new-build programme.”
June 27, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, politics, UK |
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Duda, Trump announce nuclear energy deal, Presidents Andrzej Duda and Donald Trump announced on Wednesday the signing of a deal on development of nuclear energy in Poland, which Duda said would be signed as soon as possible.US President Donald Trump talked of the purchase of American technology.
At a press conference with Duda at the White House, Trump said they were working on a deal that would facilitate the development and building of a nuclear power plant in Poland, adding that it would work with the use of American technology bought from a large US company……… https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/duda-trump-announce-nuclear-energy-deal-13601
June 27, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
marketing, USA |
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Resequencing of Vogtle nuclear plant expansion activities is credit negative: Moody’s, Author, Joniel Cha , Editor, Richard Rubin , 26 June, Washington — Georgia Power’s resequencing of construction activities for the Vogtle nuclear plant expansion project is credit negative, Moody’s said June 24.
June 27, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA |
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Because of the inflexibility of the AGRs, RE suppliers are shut off first. This is explained in a recent report by the newly-formed pressure group, 100 percentrenewable uk, which explains that the inflexible nature of nuclear power is instrumental in forcing the National Grid to turn off large amounts of wind power (ie in the jargon to be ‘constrained’) in Scotland when there is too much electricity on the network.
This appears nonsensical as the Grid is turning off cheap renewables to preserve expensive nuclear, and then paying large compensation payments to them to do so.
UK Electricity: Renewables and the problem with inflexible nuclear, Ian Fairlea, June 21, 2020
In recent years, the share of the UK’s electricity supplied by renewable energy (RE) sources has increased substantially to the point that RE is now the second largest source after gas: It now supplies 20% to 25% of our electrical needs. This is greater than the amount supplied by nuclear – about 15% to 18%. Coal, hydroelectric, and mainly gas (~40%) constitute the other sources. See chart [on original] for Britain’s electrical power supplies in 2019.
Why are AGR reactors inflexible? Continue reading →
June 25, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, ENERGY, politics, UK |
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Daily on Energy, presented by API: Inside the new US policy on financing nuclear abroad, Washington Examiner, by Josh Siegel, Energy and Environment Reporter & Abby Smith, Energy and Environment Reporter | June 22, 2020
INSIDE NEW POLICY ON FINANCING NUCLEAR ABROAD: The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation mostly had small nuclear reactors in mind when it proposed this month lifting its ban on funding nuclear projects overseas. But a senior official from the DFC – a greatly expanded successor to the Overseas Private Investment Corporation – says the agency also envisions select situations for funding traditional large reactors, despite recent projects being delayed or canceled by cost overruns……..
The official cited a move by Congress a year after lawmakers passed the BUILD Act in 2018, which authorized the DFC, that called on the U.S. government to support energy diversification projects in Europe as a counter to Russia’s “energy dominance.”
It’s worth noting that some European Union member states, like Germany, are strongly anti-nuclear. Nuclear plant construction is currently underway in only three EU member states — Finland, France and Slovakia — according to the
World Nuclear Association).
Opening the door for SMRs: Small modular nuclear reactors, meanwhile, are still under development and a decade or so from becoming widely operational. This has critics of the DFC’s move questioning the timing of it. The DFC official countered the new policy puts the U.S. in the game with China and Russia, which are already aggressively promoting their advanced nuclear technologies in developing countries……..
the policy shift commits DFC to nothing if small reactors end up being a flop. The DFC met with small reactor developers such as NuScale, an Oregon-based company seeking to be the first to have its license approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that were pushing for the agency to change its policy……
The DFC offers direct equity financing, loans, and political risk insurance, while Ex-Im can only offer credit or lending. The DFC has a total investment limit of $60 billion, amounting to about a $1 billion maximum per project, the official said.
He acknowledged the DFC does not have in-house expertise on nuclear power at the moment, but he said it’s not uncommon for the young agency to work with independent engineers and experts from other agencies to assess financing opportunities.
June 23, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, politics international, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA |
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U.S. conversion factory’s equipment is on the auction block
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After $8 billion spent, critics see sale at ‘giveaway prices’
Need some parts for a nuclear plant? The government has a few to spare.
Electrical transformers, motors, and pieces of special glove boxes designed to safely handle radioactive material are available as the government auctions off equipment from a now-abandoned nuclear project that was supposed to turn weapons-grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.
The online fire sale, which ended Thursday evening, is part of an effort to recoup some of the nearly $8 billion taxpayers spent on the so-called Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility in Aiken, South Carolina, which sits partially finished.
The Trump administration pulled the plug on the project in 2018 following years of ballooning cost estimates and delays. Envisioned in 1999 with a price-tag of $620 million, it swelled to nearly $48 billion with an estimated completion date in the 2040s. Metric tons of plutonium transferred to the site for conversion remain there.
The thousands of items up for grabs are in their original packaging and “present a rare opportunity to acquire brand new equipment that is top nuclear grade,” said Diana Peterson, president of the auction company AW Properties Global, which has been awarded the subcontract to sell off the goods.
Plutonium Handling
Among the items are 101 pallets of glove box assembly kits — sealed boxes with two arm-length gloves attached to holes in the side, used to handle plutonium and other radioactive materials. The high bid was $20,000 as of Thursday afternoon.
A pair of 3,750 kilo-volt-ampere transformers is going for $70,000. Also available are 300,000 pounds of ventilation equipment, as well as reams of switches, control panels, valves, and electrical equipment.
To critics, the sale is a fitting capstone to a project they say has been beset by waste from the start.
“This give-away sale of equipment from the MOX debacle highlights the massive waste of money spent on equipment that was stockpiled willy-nilly just to spend annual budgets and enrich contractors,” said Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch, a non-profit public-interest group that monitors work at the sprawling site that made nuclear bomb materials in the 1950s.
There should be a “full accounting to the public about how much was spent on stockpiled MOX equipment, how much has been given away or scrapped, and how much is being sold at pennies on the dollar,” Clements said.
The National Nuclear Security Administration, the Energy Department arm responsible for the site, said the auction was being held in accordance with all government property regulations.
“Any inventory that could not be reused by our government, is going to auction as part of our commitment to recapitalize project value,” the agency said in a statement.
(Adds comment from NNSA in final two paragraphs.)
June 22, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
- plutonium, business and costs, reprocessing, USA |
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  The Impact of COVID-19 on Nuclear Electricity Sales Contracts in France, JDSUPRA,
The first two weeks of confinement led to a reduction in electricity consumption in France of around 15 to 20% compared to the consumption usually observed at the same year period under equivalent weather conditions[1]. Such a variation in electricity consumption over such a short period of time is unprecedented, the most recent significant drop in demand having been observed during the economic crisis of 2008-2009, when, in contrast, the contraction in demand spread over the long term, reaching a maximum of -5% from one year to the next.
Concomitantly, electricity prices on the wholesale markets dropped from EUR50-55/Mwh at the beginning of 2020 to around EUR20/Mwh at the end of March.
This distressed economic situation highly impacted the so-called “alternative” electricity suppliers in France, i.e., suppliers other than the incumbent operator, EDF, which entered the retail electricity market in France as a result of its opening up to competition. Several of these suppliers declared force majeure under the contracts entered into with EDF for buying nuclear electricity at a price which became too high compared to the wholesale market price. Several decisions have already been rendered on this issue by the French energy market regulator – Commission de regulation de l’énergie or “CRE”, the Conseil d’Etat (the highest administrative court on administrative matters) and the Commercial Court of Paris, but the legal battle is only just beginning and, given the amounts at stake, we can expect it will be long and bitter……… https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-nuclear-52378/
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June 20, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, France |
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Well, Framatome is really the old AREVA, coming back from bankruptcy. They’re all in it together, nuclear companies worldwide, conning the taxpayers
Framatome, GE and Rosatom team up for Belene project, WNN.18 June 2020, Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom announced today it has signed Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with France’s Framatome and GE Steam Power of the USA to participate in a tender to construct the Belene nuclear power plant in Bulgaria.
The MoUs were signed by Kirill Komarov, Rosatom’s first deputy director general of corporate development and international business, Frédéric Lelièvre, Framatome’s senior executive vice president in charge of sales, regional platforms and I&C, and Michael Keroulle, president of GE Steam Power.
As part of the agreements, Rosatom said that if it were to become a strategic investor in the project through a competitive process, GE would be considered as the partner for an Arabelle based turbine-generator set and turbine hall equipment, while Framatome would be considered as the key partner for the instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for the Belene plant.
The Belene project in northern Bulgaria includes construction of two 1000 MWe units, each using the Russian VVER-1000/V-466 design which is a pressurised water reactor with four circulating loops. Preliminary site works began in 2008, and contracts for components including large forgings and I&C systems were signed with suppliers, but the project was stymied by financing problems……….
Rosatom noted that it has already successfully collaborated with Framatome and GE on international projects, including the Paks-II nuclear power plant in Hungary and the Hanhikivi-1 plant in Finland. It said the cooperation with GE is carried out within the framework of the Akkuyu project in Turkey and the El-Dabaa project in Egypt. AAEM, a joint venture between GE and Rosatom subsidiary Atomenergomash, is a supplier of equipment for the turbine island of each plant. https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Framatome-GE-and-Rosatom-team-up-for-Belene-projec
June 20, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Bulgaria, business and costs |
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Kinzinger Applauds Rule Change On International Private Nuclear Programs http://www.wcsjnews.com/news/local/kinzinger-applauds-rule-change-on-international-private-nuclear-programs/article_b54bef56-af18-11ea-8e41-17fada1bb113.html Jun 15, 2020
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Congressman Adam Kinzinger is applauding a decision by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation that would allow America to support civilian nuclear power projects around the world. Kinzinger wrote a letter to the DFC in March expressing his concerns with internal guidelines that prevented the federal organization from cooperating with international civil nuclear projects. Now that the US can invest in foreign private nuclear programs, Kinzinger said this will strengthen our allies in Eastern Europe and deal a blow to the predatory business practices of Russia and China.
June 16, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, politics, USA |
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For many years now, the Congressional Delegate from Colonized Washington D.C., Eleanor Holmes Norton, has introduced a resolution to move funding from nuclear weapons to useful projects. At some point, bills like that one need to rise to the top of our agenda. But Sanders’ amendment is a current priority, because it can be attached this month to a bill that the supposedly partisan and divided and gridlocked U.S. Congress has consistently and harmoniously passed with overwhelming majorities every year since time immemorial.
We need this step now and it is obtainable. Get out there and demand
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Bernie, Amendments, and Moving the Money, Senator Bernie Sanders has finally done something that some of us thought would give his presidential campaign a big boost four years ago, and again this past year. He’s proposed to introduce legislation to move a significant amount of money from militarism to human and environmental needs (or at least human needs; the details aren’t clear, but moving money out of militarism is an environmental need).Better late than never! Let’s make it happen with an overwhelming show of public support! And let’s make it a first step!
Technically, back in February, Bernie buried in a fact-sheet about how he would pay for everything he wanted to do, an $81 billion annual cut to military spending. While his current proposal is even smaller at $74 billion, it is a straightforward proposal to move the money; it’s not buried in a long document seeking to pay for transformative change almost entirely by taxing the wealthy; it’s already been covered at least by progressive media; it connects with a current burst of extraordinary activism, and Sanders has tweeted this:
“Instead of spending $740 billion on the Dept. of Defense, let’s rebuild communities at home devastated by poverty and incarceration. I’ll be filing an amendment to cut the DoD by 10% and reinvest that money in cities and towns that we’ve neglected and abandoned for far too long.”
And this:
“Instead of spending more money on weapons of mass destruction designed to kill as many people as possible, maybe—just maybe—we should invest in improving lives right here in the United States of America. That’s what my amendment is all about.”
One reason for this move by Sanders is almost certainly the current activism demanding that resources be moved from armed policing to useful expenses. The grotesque diversion of local budgets into militarized police and prisons is of course far outstripped in absolute numbers, in proportions, and in the suffering and death created, by Congress’s diversion of the federal discretionary budget into war and preparations for more war — which is of course where the weaponry and warrior training and a lot of the destructive attitudes and the troubled misguided veterans in local policing come from.
Trump’s 2021 budget request varies little from past years. It includes 55% of discretionary spending for militarism. That leaves 45% of the money Congress votes on for everything else: environmental protections, energy, education, transportation, diplomacy, housing, agriculture, science, disease pandemics, parks, foreign (non-weapons) aid, etc., etc.
The priorities of the U.S. government have been wildly out of touch with both morality and public opinion for decades, and have been moving in the wrong direction even as awareness of the crises facing us has inched upward. It would cost less than 3% of U.S. military spending, according to UN figures, to end starvation on earth, and about 1% to provide the world with clean drinking water. Less than 7% of military spending would wipe out poverty in the United States. Continue reading →
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June 15, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA, weapons and war |
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Unanswered questions dog UK’s new nuclear plans Climate News Network June 11th, 2020, by Paul Brown A French company has designs on the United Kingdom: new nuclear plans for more reactors, with British consumers footing the bill.
– The French company EDF, a company in a hurry, wants permission to start building two more reactors in the United Kingdom, and it hopes to save money – by arranging for British taxpayers to pay the capital costs of its new nuclear plans.
EDF is already building two reactors at Hinkley Point in the West of England, and it is hoping to transfer workers from that site to Suffolk, on the east coast, believing that will help it to save up to 20% of the construction cost of the two planned reactors, because everyone employed there will know already what to do.
The catch is that EDF has no money itself to finance the construction and wants the UK government to impose a new tax on British electricity consumers so that they will pay the cost through their electricity bills.
The UK has yet to decide whether to go ahead with this tax, euphemistically called a Regulated Asset Base. If adopted, what the scheme means is that the UK consumer will pay EDF’s bills rather than the company having to borrow the money from banks, which are increasingly unlikely to lend money to such expensive schemes because they take so long to build and promise little return.
Anxieties abound
Meanwhile EDF, which has a Chinese nuclear company as its junior partner, promises to create 25,000 jobs, including 1,000 apprenticeships during construction, and says 900 full-time jobs will be available when Sizewell C, as the station will be called, is complete.
If all goes to plan the company hopes to start work in 18 months and says the two reactors will take 10 years to build. It expects them to provide 7% of the UK’s electricity, enough for six million homes.
There are many objectors. Some say much of the coastline will be badly affected, including internationally important nature reserves. Others fear the site is highly vulnerable to sea level rise and therefore a danger to the public.
Local people also fear that the construction site, with its attendant lorry and commuter traffic, will disrupt their lives for a decade, destroying the important tourist trade.
Cheaper options
Other more strategic objections, which might weigh heavier with the government, are that nuclear power is very expensive and much cheaper and less controversial alternatives exist, particularly on-shore and off-shore wind and solar power, and biogas.
More importantly, a drive for energy efficiency, badly neglected in the UK at present, would render the whole project unnecessary.
The problem EDF has is its track record on construction and repairs. The type of reactor it plans to build, the European Pressurised Water Reactor, said by the company to be the most powerful in the world, is proving extremely difficult to build, and till now none has yet been completed outside China.
Construction is running more than 10 years late in both Finland and France, and costs continue to escalate.
It is hard to understand why, when the scale of the problems became clear, EDF did not cut its losses and close the reactors”
EDF’s debts are now huge, so big that the French state is working out how to restructure the company by splitting it into a renewables arm (which is profitable) and a nuclear branch.
There are serious doubts about the reliability of EDF’s claims and timetables for fixing existing power stations and opening new ones. The company currently owns all of the UK’s operating nuclear reactors, most of which are near the end of their lives, and there are serious doubts about whether they are economic and in some cases even safe.
Two reactors at Hunterston in Scotland have serious cracking in the graphite blocks that are part of the control mechanism. The company has spent two years trying to justify continuing to operate the reactors to the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR).
Similarly, at the other end of the UK, at Dungeness in south-east England, the station is also closed for extensive repairs, an outage that was going to take weeks has now stretched to two years – and the start-up date has just been put back again.
Looking on the bright side
One of the features of all of EDF’s activities is the extraordinary optimism the company seems to have, particularly about when reactors will be finished or ready to restart after repairs. With the Hunterston reactors restart dates have been announced nine times, only to be postponed each time.
This track record led the Climate News Network to ask EDF some searching questions, including why they continued to offer optimistic start-up dates that were repeatedly postponed. We also asked why the company kept the Hunterston and Dungeness stations open at all, since repairing them was costly and they were already near the end of their operating lives.
We asked EDF: “At what point do you cut your losses and close the stations permanently?” After five days of pleading for more time to answer, it sent us already published press releases extolling the virtues of the plan to build Sizewell, and several comments. …….HTTPS://CLIMATENEWSNETWORK.NET/UNANSWERED-QUESTIONS-DOG-UKS-NEW-NUCLEAR-PLAN/, l
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June 13, 2020
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, France, UK |
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