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Russia’s nuclear company Rosatom in financial trouble trying to fund nuclear project in Turkey

December 2, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, Russia, Turkey | Leave a comment

Russia’s Rosatom planning to market Small Modular Nuclear Reactors to Europe

December 2, 2019 Posted by | marketing, Russia, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors | Leave a comment

Persistent outages plaguing Grand Gulf nuclear plant are adding millions to the bills of New Orleans customers

by MICHAEL ISAAC STEIN, NOVEMBER 27, 2019  Entergy’s Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Port Gibson, Mississippi is enormous. With the largest nuclear reactor in the US, it has an output capacity of 1,443 megawatts, 11 times more than the company’s controversial gas plant project in eastern New Orleans. Entergy New Orleans — the Entergy subsidiary that serves the city of New Orleans — has had an agreement to purchase 17 percent of the plant’s energy since it started operating in 1985.

Grand Gulf is supposed to run almost every single day at full capacity, acting as a foundational “base load” plant in the region’s energy system. It represents roughly one-fifth of all the generation that Entergy New Orleans owns or has purchase agreements for.

But over the last few years, Grand Gulf has been beset by a series of planned and unplanned outages that have made it the least reliable nuclear generator in the US, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group. In fact, the plant was in the middle of an outage this week.

These outages cost New Orleans residents millions of dollars, according to figures Entergy has provided the City Council…. …..https://thelensnola.org/2019/11/27/persistent-outages-plaguing-grand-gulf-nuclear-plant-are-adding-millions-to-the-bills-of-new-orleans-customers/

 

November 28, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

The global uranium industry is really on the skids

Uranium bulls ‘as rare as white unicorns’ Jim Green, Online Opinion, 26 November 2019, https://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20623&page=0

Uranium bulls are “as rare as white unicorns” according to a commentary in FNArena in September 2019, and the market is “sick and dying” with uranium “quickly becoming a dinosaur of a commodity”.

Canadian company Cameco recently said it cannot see any case for construction of new uranium mines for some years to come. Chief financial officer Grant Isaac said that new mines will not win financial backing without a far stronger recovery in demand for uranium than is currently on the horizon.

“It’s pretty hard to say you’re going to take the risk on an asset … that isn’t licensed, isn’t permitted, probably doesn’t have a proven mining method, when you have idle tier one capacity that’s licensed, permitted, sitting there,” Isaac said.

Moreover, Cameco has no plans to restart mines put into care-and-maintenance in 2016 and 2017: McArthur River (and the Key Lake mill) and Rabbit Lake in Canada, and the Crow Butte and Smith Ranch-Highland in-situ leach mines in the US. Plans to expand Crow Butte were abandoned in March 2019.

Instead, Cameco will continue to meet its contracts by purchasing uranium on the spot market. Delivering the company’s third-quarter results (a small loss), chief exec­utive Tim Gitzel said that only 9 million pounds of uranium oxide will be produced from its mines next year, with the remainder of its requirement of 30‒32 million pounds supplied from spot market purchases.

Cameco’s workforce in Canada has halved. Before the Fukushima disaster, the company employed more than 2,100 people in Saskatchewan. Since then, 810 mine and mill workers have been sacked, along with 219 head office employees in Saskatoon. Continue reading →

November 26, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, Reference, Uranium | Leave a comment

France’s Flamanville nuclear financial catastrophe gets worse

 


Le Monde 22nd Nov 2019, Jean-Martin Folz’s report on the construction of the Flamanville EPR, handed out on October 28 , is without appeal for the French nuclear power industry. The financial catastrophe continues to worsen. The project is currently 10 years late and 9 billion euros over budget. He helped engulf Areva, flagship of the French nuclear industry, declared bankrupt in 2016, which owed its salvation to a bailout on public funds of 4.5 billion euros.
It now weighs on the accounts of EDF, a new prime contractor since the
wreck of Areva, which no longer hopes to connect the reactor to the network
before 2022.

November 25, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics | Leave a comment

Georgia’s Nuclear Plant Vogtle behind schedule, with costs escalating

State staff: Georgia Power nuclear timeline ‘significantly challenged’  AJC CONTINUING COVERAGE Nov 23, 2019, By Matt Kempner 

Georgia Power’s nuclear expansion of Plant Vogtle is falling further behind schedule, according to a filing Friday by Georgia Public Service Commission staff and consultants.

Unless performance improves considerably, the latest deadlines for commercial operation of two new reactors by November 2021 and November 2022 are “significantly challenged,” according to the filing. It also flagged safety risks for workers.

The project is already years behind its original schedule and billions of dollars over budget. More delays could add costs. And if the price tag rises, electric consumers in much of Georgia could be at risk of increases in their monthly bills. Ultimately, elected members of the PSC will decide how much of the costs get passed along to Georgia Power customers. Many electric membership corporations and city utilities in Georgia are also connected to the project and will have to make decisions about how to recoup costs.…….

Georgia Power already has spent 10 years and incurred billions of dollars in costs to get as far as it has. That includes $2 billion in financing costs already recovered from customers through a special fee in monthly bills, years before the new reactors produce power.  https://www.ajc.com/news/state-staff-georgia-power-nuclear-timeline-significantly-challenged/i1Ff7BnBp6grU5ht1WBHeO/

November 25, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

A call for John Hopkins University to stop helping nuclear weapons industry

Hopkins must take a stand against its nuclear weapons production,  https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2019/11/hopkins-must-take-a-stand-against-its-nuclear-weapons-production

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD | November 21, 2019 After years of protests from students, the University continues to invest in fossil fuel companies. It has an exclusivity contract with PepsiCo, a company that uses suppliers who violate child labor laws, going against ethical and sustainable business practices. Most recently, the University was slow to end contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the government agency that is responsible for separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The University’s involvement in these contracts has been well publicized and heavily criticized by students and professors alike. Adding to this list of questionable practices is a partnership that is less well-known, but just as problematic: a contract with the U.S. government to take part in nuclear weapons research.

On Nov. 13, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) published a report stating that 49 U.S. universities are complicit in the production of nuclear weapons. The group calls on students and faculty to “demand their universities stop helping to build weapons of mass destruction.”

The report is scathing. It repeatedly mentions Hopkins, highlighting its involvement in creating nuclear weapons for the U.S. ICAN notes that Hopkins receives twice as much funding as any other university from the Department of Defense (DOD) largely because of the work of its renowned Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). Created in 1942 for weapons development in World War II, the APL has since served as a technical resource for the U.S. government, developing numerous technologies for air and missile defense, naval warfare, computer security and space science.

In 2017, the APL received a seven year contract with the DOD for $93 million to continue the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center’s strategic partnership. This contributes to the multi-year contract with the agency that is now worth more than $7 billion.

The research involved in this deal is largely classified. On the surface, this seems to contradict the University’s policy against classified research. However, the APL is exempt from this policy, as it is the only part of the University listed as a “non-academic division.”

The University continues to brand itself as an ethical research institution. However, its direct involvement with the development of weapons of mass destruction is contradictory to these actions.

We believe that Hopkins should remove itself from all contracts associated with nuclear weapons. Instead, the APL should focus on research that does not have the same devastating and inhumane implications that nuclear weapons do.

Those who support the University’s work with nuclear weapons may argue that Hopkins receives a high monetary benefit from their partnership with the Department of Defense. They may also claim that Hopkins, which is just one of nearly 50 universities conducting research, can’t make any difference on its own. Even if Hopkins ends the contracts, why would other schools do the same?

These arguments are valid, and we understand the concerns that are associated with terminating the contracts. It is true that Hopkins receives a hefty sum for its involvement with the DOD. According to ICAN, “the funding ceiling for its ongoing contract was extended beyond $7 billion” in 2019.

There is also a turning tide against nuclear weapons development across the world. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, introduced to the United Nations in 2017, bans the development and use of nuclear weapons by signatories. So far, 122 countries have signed on, though the U.S. and most western countries have not. If Hopkins and other reputable institutions take a stand against nuclear weapons development, it will send a sign to the world at large that we want to move on from using these weapons of mass destruction.

Large scale change starts small, and it starts with us. We encourage students to take a stand for what they believe in. As with any other issue, there are multiple ways to tell Hopkins that it’s time for a change. On their website, ICAN outlines three ways that students can speak out. They recommend publicizing the issue, demanding transparency from universities and calling on them to end their work with nuclear weapons.

We know that there’s no guarantee that Hopkins will end its contracts and stop working on nuclear weapons development. But by speaking out, we can initiate the change. Activists who are part of sustainability and pro-peace groups can protest against nuclear weapons production. Students who are majoring in STEM fields can take a stand against working at the associated departments at the APL, and should be aware of the larger implications of any research they are involved in. All students can tell Hopkins that we demand an explanation and that we take issue with the greater mission behind the research.

The University’s mission statement, in part, mentions that its goal is “To educate its students and cultivate their capacity for lifelong learning, to foster independent and original research, and to bring the benefits of discovery to the world.” We hope that the University will refocus its attention on these goals. If Hopkins turns away from nuclear weapons research, other institutions may follow in our path. Making the world a safer place is the best way to bring the benefits of our discovery to everyone.

November 23, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, Education, USA | Leave a comment

France’s company EDF selling out of USA nuclear plants, Exelon to buy.

EDF Will Bail on Three Nuclear Plants, Exelon Holds the Bag, Power Mag 11/21/2019 | Aaron Larson   Exelon Generation said EDF Group—a French integrated electricity company—is exercising a put option to sell its 49.99% interest in the R.E. Ginna, Nine Mile Point, and Calvert Cliffs nuclear energy facilities. The two companies will now begin negotiations for Exelon to acquire full ownership of the plants.

EDF’s involvement in the facilities was through the Constellation Energy Nuclear Group (CENG), a joint venture between it and Constellation Energy, which was negotiated in 2009. Exelon acquired its majority stake in the plants as part of a merger with Constellation Energy, a deal that closed in March 2012.

EDF said the disposal of CENG shares is part of a previously announced non-core-asset disposal plan. The put option could have been exercised by EDF anytime between Jan. 1, 2016, and June 30, 2022. A transaction price will follow from the determination of the fair market value of CENG shares pursuant to the contractual provisions of the put option agreement, EDF said.

……..  The facilities consist of the single-unit 576-MW R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant (Figure 1) and the dual-unit 1,907-MW Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station, which are both in upstate New York, and the dual-unit 1,756-MW Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Maryland. The upstate New York plants were under economic pressure and faced possible closure a few years ago, but subsidies approved by the state have kept the units financially viable.

Exelon said if an agreement cannot be reached, the price will be set through a third-party arbitration process to determine fair market value. The transaction will require approval by the New York Public Service Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The process and regulatory approvals “could take one to two years or more to complete,” Exelon said.  …….. https://www.powermag.com/edf-will-bail-on-three-nuclear-plants-exelon-holds-the-bag/

November 23, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, France, USA | Leave a comment

Holtec’s proposed nuclear storage facility of little benefit to New Mexico

“There is no guarantee that high-level nuclear waste can be safely transported to and through New Mexico.”

“There is no guarantee that this site will truly be ‘interim’ and won’t become the permanent dumping ground for our nation’s nuclear waste.”

“I’ve never understood what the rationale was for transporting this nuclear waste for these many miles all the way down to New Mexico. I don’t have an answer as to why it can’t be stored close to where it was created,”

“We really have to think about our land use, to think about being able to build other kinds of businesses that don’t end up spoiling the land and air,”

November 21, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, USA, wastes | 2 Comments

France’s nuclear company EDF – report – a litany of failures

EDF gives Macron little reason to come clean on nuclear, Problems at a flagship nuclear reactor means French government can take time over future of EDF. BEN HALL 20 Nov 19

The earthquake that shook the Rhone valley in south-east France last week could have been another financial disaster for energy giant EDF in what has been a bruising year. Its share price has taken a battering over concerns that it will struggle to pay for the upkeep of its ageing fleet of reactors, find money to build new ones and service its €37bn of net debt. The worries have been amplified by further delays and cost overruns at the mammoth nuclear plant it is building on the Normandy coast. The Rhone valley is home to four of the country’s 19 atomic power stations and a nuclear fuel processing facility, all operated by EDF. The tremor was the worst to hit France in 16 years. Three reactors at Cruas had to be shut down until mid-December for mandatory safety checks.   ……..

  a damning report commissioned by the government into what has gone wrong in Normandy, with France’s first European Pressurised Reactor, a bigger, safer and more efficient type of plant. The EPR at Flamanville was supposed to have cost €3.3bn and taken four and a half years to build. Instead, the price has ballooned fourfold and construction will last 15 years.
 The report, by Jean-Martin Folz, a former boss of Peugeot, identified a litany of failures, starting with EDF’s initial gross underestimation of costs and construction challenges, multiple delays, faults and technical problems, poor project management, chronic tensions among contractors and partners and a lack of technical skills. Many of the flaws in construction have come from substandard welding contractors. The report also pointed to the stop-start nature of France’s nuclear reactor construction after the 1980s splurge. Work at Flamanville began in 2007. Work on the last reactor before that began in 1991  .
The French government, which owns 83.7 per cent of the company, is giving mixed messages about the way forward. It will not decide whether to build more EPRs until Flamanville is up and running — conveniently after the 2022 presidential election, allowing Emmanuel Macron to avoid the wrath of France’s increasingly powerful environmental movement. But according to Le Monde newspaper, the government has also secretly ordered EDF to draw up a feasibility study for six new EPRs built in pairs.
Under an energy planning law enacted this year, France must reduce the share of its electricity produced by nuclear from 72 per cent to 50 per cent by 2035, with the rest coming from renewables. EDF will have to shut down 14 ageing reactors. Given the expected rise in energy demand, though, it will have to extend the life of many others. So for Jean-Bernard Lévy, EDF chief executive, a bigger problem than when to build new EPRs is persuading the government to raise electricity prices to help the company finance a vast maintenance and investment programme — not easy when your big flagship project has been so badly managed. UBS estimates a total investment requirement of more than €100bn, if 80 per cent of today’s reactors secure a 20-year life extension.

…………The failures at Flamanville have given Paris reason to withhold the clarity EDF needs — even if Mr Macron’s regards the nuclear industry as a strategic asset for France and Europe. The risks of nuclear power to health and safety and the costs of decommissioning and waste storage may be overblown, as Jonathan Ford has argued in this column. But if the more basic challenge of building vaguely on time or on budget cannot be met, nuclear energy soon loses its appeal. ben.hall@ft.com   https://www.ft.com/content/adbe9da6-0ab8-11ea-bb52-34c8d9dc6d84

 

November 21, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, France, politics | Leave a comment

Desperate times for the nuclear industry – could Australia be its saviour?

the number one goal of the nuclear lobby is to remove Australia’s national and state laws that prohibit the nuclear industry.

the campaign by the global nuclear industry, particularly the American industry, to kickstart another “nuclear renaissance”, before it’s too late.

Australia is the great ‘white’ hope for the global nuclear industry, Independent Australia, By Noel Wauchope | 19 November 2019, The global nuclear industry is in crisis but that doesn’t stop the pro-nuclear lobby from peddling exorbitantly expensive nuclear as a “green alternative”. Noel Wauchope reports.

The global nuclear industry is in crisis. Well, in the Western world, anyway. It is hard to get a clear picture of  Russia and China, who appear to be happy putting developing nations into debt, as they market their nuclear reactors overseas with very generous loans — it helps to have stte-owned companies funding this effort.

But when it comes to Western democracies, where the industry is supposed to be commercially viable, there’s trouble. The latest news from S&P Global Ratings has made it plain: nuclear power can survive only with massive tax-payer support. Existing large nuclear  reactors need subsidies to continue, while the expense of building new ones has scared off investors.

So, for the nuclear lobby, ultimate survival seems to depend on developing and mass marketing “Generation IV” small and medium reactors (SMRs). …..

for the U.S. marketers, Australia, as a politically stable English-speaking ally, is a particularly desirable target. Australia’s geographic situation has advantages. One is the possibility of making Australia a hub for taking in radioactive wastes from South-East Asian countries. That’s a long-term goal of the global nuclear lobby.   …..

In particular, small nuclear reactors are marketed for submarines. That’s especially important now, as a new type of non-nuclear submarine – the Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) submarine, faster and much cheaper – could be making nuclear submarines obsolete. The Australian nuclear lobby is very keen on nuclear submarines: they are now promoting SMRs with propagandists such as Heiko Timmers, from Australian National University. This is an additional reason why Australia is the great white hope.

I use the word “white” advisedly here because Australia has a remarkable history of distrust and opposition to this industry form Indigenous Australians…..

The hunt for a national waste dump site is one problematic side of the nuclear lobby’s push for Australia. While accepted international policy on nuclear waste storage is that the site should be as near as possible to the point of production, the Australian Government’s plan is to set up a temporary site for nuclear waste, some 1700 km from its production at Lucas Heights. The other equally problematic issue is how to gain political and public support for the industry, which is currently banned by both Federal and state laws. SMR companies like NuScale are loath to spend money on winning hearts and minds in Australia while nuclear prohibition laws remain.

Ziggy Switkowski, a long-time promoter of the nuclear industry, has now renewed this campaign — although he covers himself well, in case it all goes bad, noting that nuclear energy for Australia could be a “catastrophic failure“. ……

his submission (No. 41) to the current Federal Inquiry into nuclear power sets out only one aim, that

‘… all obstacles … be removed to the consideration of nuclear power as part of the national energy strategy debate.’

So the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act) should be changed, according to Switkowski. In an article in The Australian, NSW State Liberal MP Taylor Martin suggested that the Federal and state laws be changed to prohibit existing forms of nuclear power technology but to allow small modular reactors.

Switkowski makes it clear that the number one goal of the nuclear lobby is to remove Australia’s national and state laws that prohibit the nuclear industry. And, from reading many pro-nuclear submissions to the Federal Inquiry, this emerges as their most significant aim.

It does not appear that the Australian public is currently all agog about nuclear power. So, it does seem a great coincidence that so many of their representatives in parliaments – Federal, Victorian, New South Wales, South Australia and members of a new party in Western Australia – are now advocating nuclear inquiries, leading to the repeal of nuclear prohibition laws.

We can only conclude that this new, seemingly coincidental push to overturn Australia’s nuclear prohibition laws, is in concert with the push for a national nuclear waste dump in rural South Australia — part of the campaign by the global nuclear industry, particularly the American industry, to kickstart another “nuclear renaissance”, before it’s too late.

Despite its relatively small population, Australia does “punch above its weight” in terms of its international reputation and as a commercial market. The repeal of Australia’s laws banning the nuclear industry would be a very significant symbol for much-needed new credibility for the pro-nuclear lobby. It would open the door for a clever publicity drive, no doubt using “action on climate change” as the rationale for developing nuclear power.

In the meantime, Australia has abundant natural resources for sun, wind and wave energy, and could become a leader in the South-East Asian region for developing and exporting renewable energy — a much quicker and more credible way to combat global warming. https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/australia-is-the-great-white-hope-for-the-global-nuclear-industry,13326

November 19, 2019 Posted by | AUSTRALIA, marketing, politics, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear power allows climate change to speed up, while renewables are faster, cheaper, and more efficient

In sum, the nuclear industry seeks its own sales arrangements protected from competition, its own prices determined by political processes rather than markets, and diminished opportunities for its carbon-free competitors to express their value, reach their customers, and discover their own prices. This could be good for compliant legislators’ campaign contributions, but hardly in the national interest or helpful for climate protection.

If you haven’t heard this view before, it’s not because it wasn’t published in reputable venues over several decades, but rather because the nuclear industry, which holds the microphone, is eager that you not hear it. Many otherwise sensible analysts and journalists have not properly reported this issue. Few political leaders understand it either. But by the end of this article, I hope you will.

to protect the climate, we must save the most carbon at the least cost and in the least time, counting all three variables—carbon and cost and time. Costly options save less carbon per dollar than cheaper options. Slow options save less carbon per year than faster options. Thus even a low- or no-carbon option that is too costly or too slow will reduce and retard achievable climate protection.

anti-market monkeybusiness cannot indefinitely forestall the victory of cheaper competitors, but it can delay and diminish climate protection while transferring tens of billions of unearned dollars from taxpayers and customers to nuclear owners.

Does Nuclear Power Slow Or Speed Climate Change? Forbes  Amory B. Lovins-18 Nov 19, Most U.S. nuclear power plants cost more to run than they earn. Globally, the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2019 documents the nuclear enterprise’s slow-motion commercial collapse—dying of an incurable attack of market forces. Yet in America, strong views are held across the political spectrum on whether nuclear power is essential or merely helpful in protecting the Earth’s climate—and both those views are wrong.

 In fact, building new reactors, or operating most existing ones, makes climate change worse compared with spending the same money on more-climate-effective ways to deliver the same energy services.

November 18, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, climate change, renewable | Leave a comment

The emerging potential new nuclear industry political scam

an emerging potential scam that could end up with ratepayers’ and federal taxpayers’ getting stuck with vast decommissioning and waste-management liabilities.
Does Nuclear Power Slow Or Speed Climate Change? Forbes,  Amory B. Lovins 17 Nov 19, 
“……….The previous six forms of payment were:1.     Taxpayers paid to create the nuclear industry, build its fueling infrastructure, and finance the reactor fleet via a vast array of often opaque and generally permanent federal subsidies that cost more than building the plants and more than the value of their output.

2.     Through generally regulated utility tariffs, customers paid for the plants’ construction and financing, including a just and reasonable return on capital.

3.     Customers paid over decades for the plants’ operation, including major repairs, power upratings, and safety upgrades.

4.     Many customers reimbursed owners for “stranded-asset costs” totaling upwards of $70 billion to support the owner-demanded transition to competitive wholesale markets.

5.     Over the past few years, when reactors generating 2 percent of U.S. electricity proved unable to compete in those wholesale markets (though most of their owners kept their finances secret and kept reporting profits to investors), the owners persuaded state legislators in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Ohio to vote billions of dollars a year for new multi-year operating subsidies.

6.     Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear operator and the leading player in the previous two steps, successfully sought Federal regulatory approval for greater capacity payments from power pools whose auctions found nuclear power uncompetitive and whose own rules were thrown off-balance by the new state subsidies. And now, as the annual logrolling season of “tax extenders” rolls around in Congress:

7.     For the third year, Exelon is advancing a “Nuclear Powers America Act” to create a new federal investment tax credit on nuclear fuel and maintenance expenses to “help level the playing fuel with other clean energy sources”—whose temporary tax credits are meanwhile being phased down or out. This follows a longstanding pattern of giving different kinds of subsidies to renewables than to nuclear, then “leveling the playing field” by trying to duplicate renewables’ specific forms of subsidies with new ones for nuclear, but never the reverse.

This saga of selling the same hay seven times—and those clever lawyers aren’t done yet—doesn’t include many additional federal and state subsidies. It also doesn’t include an emerging potential scam that could end up with ratepayers’ and federal taxpayers’ getting stuck with vast decommissioning and waste-management liabilities. This emerging pattern has an LLC buy a closed reactor. Absent oversight or rules to stop misbehavior, the LLC could then choose to strip the accumulated customer-funded multi-billion-dollar cash decommissioning fund, not finish the job, and walk away, leaving the parent company whole and electricity customers or taxpayers holding the bag. Watch this space.

Exelon’s proposed “nuclear investment tax credit” has ingenious new features:

–         By redefining normal accounting categories so fuel becomes a capital investment, it repays utilities for an “investment” that’s really just a normal operating cost—thus trying to make nuclear operating costs look small by shifting much of them to taxpayers.

The nuclear operating costs it covers have no counterpart for renewables (fuel, nuclear waste management, protection against catastrophic releases of radioactivity), or almost none (operation & maintenance costs), so a tax credit for them would specifically advantage nuclear against renewables.

–         Nuclear owners may be able to double-dip, collecting the new federal subsidy and new state subsidies for the same plants and thus turning dead dinosaurs into juicy cash cows.

–         There’s virtually no “means test”: the new federal subsidy would apply to about 95% of US operating reactors, including those that the industry claims are currently profitable.

–         The proposed legislation, obscurely written in tax-law jargon, appears to be a 30% tax credit (phasing down to 26% in 2024, 22% in 2025, and a permanent 10% in and after 2026), and to cost ~$22–26 billion over the first decade, or ~$33 billion counting the crowding-out of cheaper competitors. Every billion dollars thus bilked from taxpayers is unavailable to provide more electrical services and save more carbon by cheaper means.

–         By further distorting the delicate balance between federal, regional, and state regulation, the subsidy seems tailored to weaken or destroy the efficient regional power markets where renewables beat nuclear power. The goal is thus to pay nuclear power for values it doesn’t deliver, while blocking its most potent competitors from continuing to provide the values they do deliver.

–         Unlike renewable credits that have helped to mature important new technologies, the nuclear credit would elicit no new production, capacity, or innovation. It would simply transfer tens of billions of dollars to the owners of uncompetitive nuclear assets bought decades ago—if they apply for license extension by 2026, as nearly all have done.

This covert attack on renewables is logical because renewables are now the supply-side competitor nuclear must beat but can’t. The nuclear industry is reluctant to admit that renewables are a legitimate competitor, since this would contradict its claims that renewables can’t supply reliable power. Renewables, unlike nuclear power, are also widely popular. Nuclear advocates therefore tend to blame their woes instead on cheap natural gas. However, new and often even existing combined-cycle gas-fired power plants no longer have a business case: a September 2019 study found that at least 90% of the 88 proposed US gas-fired plants are pre-stranded assets. ………https://www.forbes.com/sites/amorylovins/2019/11/18/does-nuclear-power-slow-or-speed-climate-change/#5b47c988506b

November 18, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Hinkley Point C nuclear, a super-expensive project for a dubious short term gain

This is the West Country 17th Nov 2019, Stop Hinkley spokesman Roy Pumfrey questions whether the economic boost from Hinkley C is worth the cost   I get tired of reading how easily impressed councillors are when they visit the giant incomplete building site that is HPC.
Why does Cllr Ann Bown assume that we all think the
“biggest economic boost” is necessarily a good thing when it is also hugely
problematic and costly for anyone not directly involved? In our case,
economic growth also means a host of problems. There are more traffic jams
all around gridlocked Bridgwater. I’d like to travel from Bridgwater to
Taunton using the Taunton Road, but that simply adds 30 minutes to the
journey time.
Air and light pollution (if you live on the ‘Dark Side’ of the Quantocks, try a trip to a summit on a cloudy evening to see what I mean) have increased as a result of HPC. Rents, particularly of one-bedroom properties anywhere close to the HPC bus routes, have gone sky high due to well-paid HPC contractors and one wonders what the seven hotels built or in the pipeline will become after the HPC Gold Rush is history.
And it will be electricity consumers from Lands End to John O Groats who will have to fund this excessively expensive project to the tune of around £50bn over the next 35 years. That assumes that HPC ever works, unlike its sister reactors in Finland and France, both massively over-budget and years behind
schedule.
Instead of uncritically absorbing EDF’s spin on the project, councillors and council officers should be asking EDF why they pretended for over a year that all was going well when, in fact, they must have known that ‘challenging ground conditions’ and ‘bad weather’ meant that the cost was rising by another £2.9billion and further delay was inevitable.
A massive house retrofit programme across the south-west, for instance, would also be a big economic boost for the region, but a much more sustainable investment with the benefits accruing to ordinary consumers.
When Cllr Bown has finished closing her eyes to the problems Hinkley C poses and taking in pro-nuclear fantasies, perhaps she can open
\ them to the reality of the massive hazard an untried new nuclear power
station running adjacent to her constituency represents.
Building a new  nuclear power station with a sixty year life span on a vulnerable coastline with the latest concerns about sea level rise is a gamble. People need to think about the legacy being left for their grandchildren before talking about ‘progress’ and short term ‘economic boosts’.

https://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/news/somerset_news/18041205.letter-economic-growth-hinkley-c-worth-costs/

November 18, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

The plight of Fukushima nuclear workers getting leukaemia

November 16, 2019 Posted by | employment, health, Japan, media, politics | Leave a comment

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