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Is nuclear power REALLY a clean-power fix for Africa – as Russia and China push it

Russia, China back nuclear as a clean-power fix for Africa

Money Web , Sebastien Malo, Thomson Reuters Foundation  /  10 February 2019  “…….For now, South Africa is the only country on the continent operating a nuclear power plant.

But in recent years, at least seven other sub-Saharan African states have signed agreements to deploy nuclear power with backing from Russia, according to public announcements and the World Nuclear Association (WNA), an industry body………

Like Ethiopia, emerging nuclear states Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Rwanda, Zambia and Ghana have signed agreements with Russia’s state nuclear corporation, ROSATOM – most since 2016.

Their content ranges from language on the construction of nuclear reactors to assistance with feasibility studies and personnel training, press statements show.

ROSATOM’s solutions for managing spent fuel and radioactive waste vary from country to country, but are normally worked out at the later stages of a nuclear new-build programme “in the strictest compliance with international law”, a spokeswoman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Chinese state-owned nuclear firms have also taken the lead in the region, sealing deals with Kenya, Sudan and Uganda, WNA data shows.

South African student Masamaki Masanja, 23, won a ROSATOM competition for young people to make videos about Africa’s nuclear potential, and got to visit the Novovoronezh nuclear power plant in western Russia in 2017.

“It was mind-blowing,” said the second-year mechanical engineering student, via Skype.

The experience left him with a strong sense that nuclear power should be adapted quickly for Africa’s needs………

Rebel risk

Some political observers, however, are concerned about the prospect of nuclear reactors backed by Russia in some countries with rebel groups and weak government institutions.

An Africa-based Western diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous, doubted Russia’s assurances it would collect nuclear waste from projects it helped establish.

“You could end up with very unfortunate situations in parts of Africa … if you have a decaying nuclear power plant overrun by rebels, with waste that’s not going away,” he said.

Multiple requests for an interview with Russia’s ambassador in Ethiopia were declined.

So-called dirty bombs can combine conventional explosives like dynamite with radioactive material such as nuclear waste. ………

It could take 20 years for Ethiopia to build a nuclear power plant, estimated Hong-Jun Ahn, a Korean electrical engineer who advises the Ethiopian government on its nuclear plans.

Yonas Gebru, director of Addis Ababa-based advocacy group Forum for Environment, said green activists could prove another hurdle amid debate over whether nuclear power is “clean” energy.

“It would be good, and it would be wise also … to better capitalise on already started initiatives such as hydropower, wind energy (and) solar energy,” said Gebru. https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/africa/russia-china-back-nuclear-as-a-clean-power-fix-for-africa/

February 12, 2019 Posted by | AFRICA, China, marketing, Russia | Leave a comment

Despite the severe disadvantages to Uganda, of nuclear power, Uganda’s govt succumbs to China’s nuclear marketing

Uganda to generate nuclear energy amidst safety, environmental concerns, By DAVID MAFABI | PML Daily Senior Staff Writer February 9, 2019 KAMPALA – Uganda is in the final stages of efforts to start generating some 2000 megawatts of electricity from five nuclear plants it plans to build in five districts scattered in the country’s four geographical regions……..

Already memoranda of understanding have been signed with Russia and the China National Nuclear Corporation [CNNC), Beijing on cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy on May 10, 2018.

In both of these documents Uganda is to secure technical expertise and financing to lift the plan off the ground.

According to Ms Sarah Nafuna, the head of Nuclear Energy Unit in the ministry, the MoU with Beijing details areas of technical and engineering cooperation as well as financial support to develop reactors for the nuclear plant……….

Energy ministry’s Nafuna declined to disclose the cost of developing the nuclear plants, but a high-level source that asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak on the matter, estimated the capital and operating costs upward of Shs145 trillion.

This working figure is higher than Uganda’s Shs29 trillion annual budget, raising questions about the country’s ability to mobilise such resources when it is already saddled with a total external debt exposure, including committed but undisbursed debt of USS$12.2 billion debt, [about Shs 45.4 trillion]……….

sceptics also argue that a sunshine-rich country such as Uganda should never think of going the risky route of nuclear energy.  ………

while government officials strongly defend the nuclear project, questions abound about how a country – that has failed to handle minor fire disasters and basic household waste will effectively deal with toxic wastes, which are the by-product of nuclear power generation.

In Kampala for instance, garbage is littered all over, with roads becoming impassable when it rains. Moreover, some hospitals and clinics carelessly dispose their medical waste in landfills, yet the government insists it can handle nuclear waste.

Mr Nandala Mafabi, the secretary general of the FDC, a critic of nuclear power generation says the government should explore safer sources of energy such as solar and wind energy, and only consider nuclear as an energy source later……….

Opponents of the nuclear energy are also worried about health hazards, safety and radioactive waste management, with questions about the country’s preparedness to deal with radioactive waste and accidental leaks which advanced economies like Japan have grappled with.

Mr Frank Muramuzi, the executive director of National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE), also opposed building of nuclear plants and instead pointed the government to harness electricity from other renewable energy sources such as solar.

“Nuclear plants are expensive, have long construction periods of about 10 years and expensive to de-commission the plants at the end of their lifespan, especially disposing of hazardous radioactive waste,” he said………http://www.pmldaily.com/features/2019/02/uganda-to-generate-nuclear-energy-amidst-safety-environmental-concerns.html

February 11, 2019 Posted by | AFRICA, China, marketing | Leave a comment

Investors in Northrop, Boeing, etc rejoice! USA to spend $500 billion on nuclear weapons

Across this nuclear triad, the takeaway for investors is, there’s a lot of money on the table up for grabs………Definitely going to be a bullish sign for these defense contractors going forward.   

The $500 Billion Push to Modernize the Nuclear Triad, Cold War-era technology is due for replacement, but the cost is out of this world., Motley Fool Staff, (the_motley_fool), Feb 5, 2019 .

On this segment of Industry Focus: Energy, The Motley Fool’s Nick Sciple and Fool.com contributor Lou Whiteman discuss a Congressional Budget Office report that estimates the U.S. needs to invest nearly $500 billion to modernize its nuclear weapon systems. That includes new submarines, bombers, and rockets, as well as the systems that support them.

A full transcript follows the video…..

Lou Whiteman “……..The CBO just updated a study on the triad. They determined almost $500 billion, $494 billion, needs to be spent in the next 10 years on nuclear triad modernization. That’s up considerably, 20% or more, from their 2017 estimate. Part of that is, we have a road map for some of this spending. Part of it is, now, we’re getting into the years where hopefully, those investments will be made. So, some of that increase was expected. But it’s a massive amount, half $1 trillion is going to go into new bombers, new subs, new rockets, new warheads to put on them, plus all the support. It’s a huge area. The details, some of them have to be worked out, but it’s almost guaranteed revenue for some of these companies, the lucky winners of these, because it’s a huge priority for the United States…….

Sciple: Let’s talk about some of these items. Northrop Grumman is developing a new bomber, the B-21. The number that I saw is, between now and 2028, the Pentagon is expected to spend $49 billion on that program. Can you talk about the significance of that aircraft for Northrop Grumman, as well as for our defense arsenal as a country?

Whiteman: That’s the keystone project for Northrop Grumman. They won that bomber. It’s been a slow road……. This is a huge expense. They’re doing their best to modernize it. It’s replacing an aircraft that isn’t that old…….

Whiteman: Naval is a big part of the bull story on General Dynamics ……….

Whiteman: ………The Minuteman is our go-to rocket. It needs to be replaced. That’s the only part of this triad that we don’t know who the eventual winner is. It’s going to be a big deal for either Northrop or Boeing.

………Sciple: Across this nuclear triad, the takeaway for investors is, there’s a lot of money on the table up for grabs………Definitely going to be a bullish sign for these defense contractors going forward.

Whiteman: Exactly right. You can maybe wonder about individual quarters and exact timing, but over the long haul, if you’re a long-term investor, this is pretty close to guaranteed, that these programs are going to be invested in, and this is revenue that’s going to be coming in.   https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/02/05/the-500-billion-push-to-modernize-the-nuclear-tria.aspx

February 7, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

How the utilities financial system is rigged to give the nuclear industry the advantage

February 4, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Countries going into deep nuclear debt to Russia; Hungary the latest victim of this political blackmail

Hungary seeks to postpone loan payback to Russia for Nuclear power plant: What will the final cost be?Bellona  February 1, 2019 by Charles Digges Budapest is seeking to modify the terms of a loan it must repay to Russia for building two new VVER-1200 type reactors that will eventually replace Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant, according to a report from Reuters.

The reactors, which will constitute a plant called Paks II, will be built by Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear power company, at a cost of 10 billion euro ($12 billion), and will replace the older Soviet-built nuclear plant that supplies half of the country’s electricity.

Rosatom’s construction contract, which includes the loan for Paks II, was the subject of a hotly-debated probe by the EU’s Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, which investigated whether the Russian bid violated European competition statutes.

At the time, EU officials and commentators viewed the deal as a Trojan Horse to help cement Moscow’s influence over the right-leaning, rabidly anti-globalist government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The EU eventually dropped its investigation in 2017 and granted Hungary permission to build the reactors – partly in an effort to entice Orban, who was insistent about contracting Rosatom, back into the democratic fold. Now Budapest is citing the delay caused by the competition review as reason to renegotiate when it begins paying Rosatom back.

Hungarian financial authorities plan to ask Moscow to postpone collecting on the debt until after the new reactors begin to generate electricity – but it is as yet unclear whether Rosatom will accept new terms. The plant’s construction, meanwhile, is running late. The build was supposed to begin last year………

While the terms of the Paks II loan remain in the shadows, other financing arrangements Moscow has made for building nuclear reactors in other countries suggest that the interest alone could prove to be very expensive for Budapest.

An $11.4 billion, 30-year agreement Rosatom signed with Bangladesh to build the Roopur nuclear plant will net Moscow $8 billion in interest. A $25 billion deal Rosatom is pursuing with Egypt to build that country’s Dabaa plant could, over the 35-year term of that loan, swell to $71 billion.

Another enormous $76 billion deal between Rosatom and South Africa was eventually thwarted by environmentalists when it was revealed the project had been secretly negotiated. Had the deal held it would have siphoned off a quarter of South Africa’s gross domestic product before the reactors even began operation.

Terms like this could spell trouble for Hungary in light of Moscow’s tendency to be a kneecapping creditor when it comes to energy projects ­– especially when Russia sours on the politics of its debtors.

In 2014, at the height of East-West tensions over Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Kremlin officials threatened to cut nuclear fuel supplies to Ukraine’s Soviet built reactors – which would have interrupted their chain reactions and likely caused a catastrophic accident.

Rosatom eventually walked the threat back. But the lurid message in Moscow’s head-fake toward igniting a second Chernobyl was clear: Russian-built reactors are a useful new tool for political blackmail………..

Many in Europe – Hungary included – subsequently sought to diversify their energy supply in favor of nuclear. Yet, in a devious twist, Rosatom has emerged as the most stable and eager nuclear builder on the international market.

For now, Rosatom can afford to offer risky loans thanks to the enormous state subsidies it receives. These subsidies can be funneled into more loans, and the loans then boost the company’s profits on paper. But for the past several years, it has become clear that these subsidies to the company will likely decrease or dry up altogether in 2020.

As a result, Rosatom is amassing so-called memorandums of understanding from any country vaguely interested in nuclear power. The company says is currently has dozens of these MOUs amounting to more than $130 billion in incoming business.

But that claim should be viewed skeptically, as many of the countries for which Rosatom is promising to build reactors – countries like Jordan, Algeria, Nigeria, the Republic of Congo and Bolivia – won’t have the infrastructure to support nuclear power for decades.

For now, it’s not difficult to imagine Moscow extending the terms of its loan to Hungary for as long as Budapest likes. It will, after all, remain profitable on paper. But in the end, Budapest will be left holding the bag for Rosatom’s over extended balance sheet. But so long as Orban’s government continues it rightward lurch, Moscow is unlikely to call in its marker. http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2019-02-hungary-seeks-to-postpone-loan-payback-to-russia-for-nuclear-power-plant-what-will-the-final-cost-be

 

February 4, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, marketing, politics, politics international, Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

FirstEnergy nuclear bailout would be crony capitalism at its worst 

 

 Should legislators help save Ohio nuclear plants? NO: FirstEnergy bailout would be crony capitalism at its worst Columbus Dispatch, 4 Feb 19,  Crony capitalism is never acceptable and should be always met with public outrage. But more-covert pay-to-play schemes that affect Ohio’s long-term economic health are particularly egregious. Take for instance the campaign-contributions scheme from FirstEnergy Solutions over the past year. While transactions to more than a dozen of Ohio policymakers may seem normal to the average voter, recent activity in Columbus reveals a much more calculated operation that seemly puts FirstEnergy’s nuclear agenda ahead of Ohio’s future.

In April 2018, FirstEnergy Solutions filed for bankruptcy in the wake of massive financial problems arising from the company’s competitive power-generation fleet. The company announced it would shut down its Ohio nuclear plants over a three-year period because continued operation wasn’t profitable. FirstEnergy had been unsuccessfully pursuing bailouts from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio since 2014 and seeking a nuclear subsidy in the legislature since 2016 without success.

So it scrambled desperately for a lifeline, hatching a plan to offer sizable campaign donations to candidates hoping to gather up political allies to support its demand for $300 million a year to keep its plants operational.

What did FirstEnergy cough up for its legislative lifeline? For starters, the company gave $172,000 in total to Ohio House candidates, many of whom had no legislative or energy-industry experience. It also donated $565,000 to the Republican Governors Association, an amount more than five times what the company gave to Governor Mike DeWine’s Democratic counterpart.

We can clearly see the pay, but what exactly was the play? Conveniently, on the first day of the new General Assembly a standing committee on power generation was established, setting the stage to justify passage of a nuclear bailout and help out FirstEnergy. Additionally, FirstEnergy recently announced a debt-restructuring agreement with its creditors. Not coincidentally, this surprise development came on the tails of securing state-lawmaker support to bail out FirstEnergy.

This situation is pay-to-play politicking at its worst, flying in the face of the new administration’s promises to be the most innovative administration in Ohio’s history. Part of an innovation agenda should include rejecting political favoritism toward uncompetitive and less technologically advanced nuclear power plants. Ohioans need to know that FirstEnergy’s attempt to influence a bailout for its failing nuclear plants isn’t just bad ethics. It’s also awful public policy.

Incidentally, natural gas is fueling jobs and consumer cost savings across America. This is especially true in Ohio, …………https://www.dispatch.com/opinion/20190203/column-should-legislators-help-save-ohio-nuclear-plants-no-firstenergy-bailout-would-be-crony-capitalism-at-its-worst

February 4, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

India’s Kudankulam nuclear power station means big debt to Russia

Kudankulam: Nuclear power utility struggles to repay Russia for supplies https://indianexpress.com/article/india/kudankulam-nuclear-power-utility-struggles-to-repay-russia-for-supplies-5563744/    The sanctioning of lower than requisite funds comes at a time when NPCIL’s budgetary support requirement has gone up in light of the utility taking up 10 new projects that had been cleared by the government in May 2017.  by Anil Sasi |New Delhi  February 1, 2019  Inadequate budgetary support to the strategic nuclear energy sector over the last two financial years has squeezed funds earmarked under the investment head for the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), resulting in India’s frontline nuclear utility slipping back on its repayment obligations to the Russians for equipment supplies to the Kudankulam nuclear project.

The sanctioning of lower than requisite funds comes at a time when NPCIL’s budgetary support requirement has gone up in light of the utility taking up 10 new projects that had been cleared by the government in May 2017.

The problem of non-payment of Russian credit on account of a reduction in the provision for Russian credit to NPCIL was discussed before a parliamentary panel, responding to which the Department of Expenditure in the Finance Ministry subsequently “conveyed” the concerns to the Budget Division of the Department of Economic Affairs in the same Ministry for “further necessary action”.

Under a credit arrangement between the governments of Russia and India, as soon as equipment leaves Russia for Indian projects such as the nuclear station in Kudankulam, that much money is released by the Russian government to the suppliers, which then becomes a loan on the Government of India. This loan is then supposed to be routed to NPCIL by way of a budgetary provision. Against that, the same money would be given back to the Government of India so that it becomes a loan on NPCIL.

This arrangement has come under strain due to the reduction in budgetary allocation under the ‘investment in PSUs’ head, which has affected the loans payable to NPCIL towards ‘Russian credit utilisation’ that is outstanding in the books of the Controller of Aid Accounts and Audit. The CAAA is the division within the Department of Economic Affairs entrusted with the responsibility for withdrawal of loan and grant proceeds for all official development assistance where India is the recipient.

While the extent of the slip-up in the payment obligation to the Russians could not be ascertained, the trend was seen as serious enough for the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment and Forests to flag this an issue to which the Ministry of Finance responded in the affirmative, a senior government official involved in the exercise confirmed. Queries sent to K N Vyas, Secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, did not elicit a response.

According to official estimates, while budgetary support to NPCIL had gone up from Rs 370 crore in the budget estimate for 2017-18 to Rs 1435 crore in the revised estimate for the year (entailing a total of Rs 685 crore under the investment head and Rs 750 crore as loan), the actual requirement in form of budgetary support submitted by the DAE was thrice that amount — Rs 4305 crore. The higher amount, official said, was primarily on account of a shortfall of earlier years in receipt of equity to the tune of Rs 402 crore and obligations under the Russian Credit of Rs 3,903 crore.

For 2018-19, while the allocation was hiked to Rs 1,665 crore in the budget estimate, it still left a funding gap of around Rs 2,870 crore, according to DAE estimates. The situation was exacerbated by 10 new projects based on the indigenous 700 MWe (mega watt electric) pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) that had been sanctioned in mid-2017, due to which budgetary support requirement had also increased.
NPCIL is currently operating 22 commercial nuclear power reactors with an installed capacity of 6,780 MWe, while it has another eight reactors under various stages of construction totaling 6200 MWe capacity.

Russia and India had, in 2015, agreed to actively work on projects deploying 12 additional Light Water Reactor (LWR) nuclear reactors, for which, the localisation of manufacturing in India under the NDA government’s flagship ‘Make in India’ initiative and the commencement of serial construction of nuclear power plants was flagged as a joint initiative.

In this context, the Programme of Action for localisation between Russian state-owned utility Rosatom and the DAE was finalised during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Moscow visit in 2015. At the Kudankulam site, where the two Russian-designed VVER-1000 series reactors have being installed, nearly 100 Russian companies and organisations are involved in documentation, supply of equipment and controlling construction and equipping process. At the same site, four more Russian reactor units are slated to come up in the coming years.

February 2, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, India, politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Cleanup estimate for Hanford nuclear site increases by $82B

February 1, 2019 The Hanford nuclear site in Washington state became contaminated following the production of about two-thirds of the country’s plutonium for nuclear weapons programs. A new estimate puts the cost of remaining cleanup efforts at $242 billion, which is $82 billion more than previously thought……. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/cleanup-estimate-for-hanford-nuclear-site-increases-by-82b/

February 2, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, wastes | Leave a comment

Rapidly climbing costs to USA tax-payers for nuclear waste cleanup – rose by $100 billion in one year!

America’s Chernobyl’: Inside The Most Toxic Place In The Nation | TODAY

 

Cost to taxpayers to clean up nuclear waste jumps $100 billion in a year https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/cost-taxpayers-clean-nuclear-waste-jumps-100-billion-year-n963586 , 30 Jan 19, An Energy Department report shows the projected cost for long-term nuclear waste cleanup overseen by DOE jumped $100 billion in just one year.  Jan. 29, 2019, By Laura Strickler, WASHINGTON — The estimated cost of cleaning up America’s nuclear waste has jumped more than $100 billion in just one year, according to a DOE report — and a watchdog warns the cost may climb still higher.

The Energy Department’s projected cost for cleanup jumped from $383.78 billion in 2017 to $493.96 billion in a financial report issued in December 2018.

A government watchdog and DOE expert said the new total may still underestimate the full cost of cleanup, which is expected to last another 50 years. “We believe the number is growing and we believe the number is understated,” said David Trimble, director of the Government Accountability Office’s Natural Resources and Environment team.

The cost was calculated by the accounting firm KPMG under contract to DOE.

Eighty percent of the increase comes from new projections of the costs of cleaning up radioactive waste and hazardous chemicals at the Hanford site in southeastern Washington.

The 586-square-mile site, home to nine former production reactors and processing facilities, produced plutonium for America’s nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.

Cleaning up Hanford has already cost taxpayers $170 billion over 30 years, but government auditors say the most challenging parts of the clean-up work are yet to be done.

Still not cleaned up are 56 million gallons of what the DOE’s inspector general has described as “hazardous and highly radioactive waste.” The rise in projected cost is due to updated estimates for building and running a waste treatment plant, including “operating costs, tank farm retrieval and closure costs” at the site, according to the report. The report also refers to changes in “technical approach or scope” and “updated estimates of projected waste volumes.”

Trimble of the GAO believes the Energy Department “does not have a coherent strategic plan on how to address its cleanup mission.”

A spokesperson for the Energy Department said in an emailed statement that the office that oversees the cleanup is “committed to making progress on the ground at Hanford, and mitigating the years of escalating liabilities at the site.”

The spokesperson said DOE expects more cost increases “and is working with regulators and stakeholders on best options to treat and dispose of radioactive waste.”

Energy Secretary Rick Perry has proposed a reclassification of the radioactive waste at Hanford to make its disposal less expensive, a suggestion opposed by environmental groups in the Pacific Northwest.

In mid-December, DOE issued a financial report with a signed letter from U.S. Energy Department Secretary Rick Perry on the fourth page. Perry’s letter lists the agency’s accomplishments and describes the agency’s environmental cleanup activities. He cited the completion of an underground project at Hanford, but does not mention the projected increase in costs to taxpayers.

“PLAGUED WITH MISMANAGEMENT”

For decades, government auditors have raised serious concerns about the lack of clear goals for the site and long term problems with the cleanup.

A 2018 report from the DOE’s inspector general rolled up 38 investigations the IG had conducted on the environmental management efforts at Hanford.

The IG concluded Hanford has been “plagued with mismanagement, poor internal controls, and fraudulent activities, resulting in monetary impacts totalling hundreds of millions of dollars by the various contractors at the site.”

Bechtel, one of the large government contractors that manages site cleanup, was part of a group of contractors that paid a $125 million settlement in 2016, the largest settlement ever obtained by the agency’s inspector general.

The U.S. had alleged Bechtel improperly used federal taxpayer dollars to fund a multi-year lobbying effort in Congress to continue the funding of its contract.

Under the final settlement agreement, Bechtel National Inc. admitted no wrongdoing.

In response to the recent Energy Department report Bechtel spokesperson Fred deSousa notes that the waste treatment plant they are building in Hanford is “the most complex project of its kind in the world.” DeSousa also told NBC in his statement that the project has gone through multiple independent reviews resulting in changes to its contract. “Today the project is bigger, more robust, and has more stringent operating and safety margins,” he said.

The new Democratic chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee says the committee will increase its oversight of Hanford.

“It is essential that DOE better manage and oversee its contractors to ensure that taxpayers, workers and the environment are being protected” said Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J. “The Committee will continue to have questions for DOE as to whether cleanup efforts at Hanford and other sites are being properly managed.”

January 31, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, USA, wastes | 2 Comments

Nuclear propaganda keeps spinning, despite the gloomy reality of the industry

Nuclear power down for the count, Jim Green, Online Opinion, 31 January 2019, http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=20138&page=0  

Last year was a “positive year for nuclear power” according to the World Nuclear Association (WNA). And indeed it was, compared to 2017, which was one of the industry’s worst-ever years.

The WNA cited nuclear power’s net gain in 2018 (nine reactor grid connections compared to six permanent shutdowns). A superficial look at the numbers suggests some more good news for the industry. The number of reactor grid connections (start-ups) over the past five years (38) almost doubled the number in the five years before that (21). If the number doubled again, the much-hyped nuclear renaissance would be upon us.

A casual observer might also be impressed by the fact that the number of reactor grid connections (59) and construction starts (71) over the past decade exceeded the number of permanent reactor shutdowns (50).

And some more good news for the industry: according to the WNA, 41 reactors will enter commercial operation in the four years from 2019-22. But after that, the pre-Fukushima mini-renaissance (38 reactor construction starts from 2008-2010) slows dramatically with an estimated total of just nine reactor start-ups in the following four years.

Ominously for the industry, the 22 construction starts from 2014-18 was less than half the number (49) from 2009-13.

The (independent) World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR) noted in early January that 49 reactors are under construction worldwide ‒ the first time the number has fallen below 50 in a decade, down 19 since 2013, and the number has decreased for five years in a row.

If all these contradictory good-news, bad-news figures seem a little … contradictory, that’s because nuclear power currently reflects two opposing dynamics: the mini-renaissance is evident but will subside by the mid-2020s, and the Era of Nuclear Decommissioning (discussed later) has begun and will be in sharp focus by the mid-2020s.

By contrast, renewable power generation continues to expand rapidly and costs continue to fall dramatically. Renewables accounted for 26.5 percent of global electricity generation in 2017 compared to nuclear power’s 10.3 percent.

Ageing reactor fleet

The industry faces severe problems, not least the ageing of the global reactor fleet. The average age of the fleet continues to rise and reached 30 years in mid-2018. A reasonable estimate is that the average lifespan of the current reactor fleet will be about 40 years.

There will likely be an average of 8-11 permanent reactor shutdowns annually over the next few decades:

·         The International Energy Agency expects a “wave of retirements of ageing nuclear reactors” and an “unprecedented rate of decommissioning” ‒ almost 200 reactor shutdowns between 2014 and 2040.

·         The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) anticipates 320 gigawatts (GW) of retirements from 2017 to 2050 (that’s about 80 percent of the current worldwide reactor fleet).

·         Another IAEA report estimates up to 139 GW of permanent shutdowns from 2018-2030 and up to 186 GW of further shutdowns from 2030-2050.

·         The reference scenario in the 2017 edition of the WNA’s Nuclear Fuel Report has 140 reactors closing by 2035.

·         A 2017 Nuclear Energy Insider article estimates up to 200 permanent shutdowns over the next two decades.

So an average of 8-11 construction starts and grid connections will be required to maintain current nuclear generation. Yet construction starts have averaged just 4.5 over the past five years.

Grim prospects

For the first time in many years, perhaps ever, the IAEA was up-front about the grim prospects for nuclear power in a September 2018 report. The IAEA said:

“Nuclear power’s electricity generating capacity risks shrinking in the coming decades as ageing reactors are retired and the industry struggles with reduced competitiveness … Over the short term, the low price of natural gas, the impact of renewable energy sources on electricity prices, and national nuclear policies in several countries following the accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011 are expected to continue weighing on nuclear power’s growth prospects … In addition, the nuclear power industry faces increased construction times and costs due to heightened safety requirements, challenges in deploying advanced technologies and other factors.”

The IAEA’s low and high projections for global nuclear power capacity in 2030 are both 36 percent lower than the same projections in 2010, the year before the Fukushima disaster.

Former World Nuclear Association executive Steve Kidd noted in an August 2018 article:

“The current upward spike in reactor commissioning certainly looks impressive (at least compared with the recent past) but there are few signs that here will be a further uplift in the 2020s. What we see today is largely the result of rapid growth in the Chinese industry, which has now seemingly ended. … In Asia, the sharp downturn in Chinese interest in nuclear is unlikely to be replaced by India or by a combination of the other populous counties there. It is clear that without a strong lead from the established nuclear countries, a worldwide uplift in reactor construction is not going to happen.”

And therein lies a fundamental problem for the nuclear industry: it is in a frightful mess in the three countries that accounted for 56 percent of global nuclear power capacity just before the Fukushima disaster: the US, France and Japan. A 2017 EnergyPostWeekly article said “the EU, the US and Japan are busy committing nuclear suicide.”

Spin

Bright New World, an Australian pro-nuclear lobby group (that accepts secret corporate donations) listed these wins in 2018:

1. Taiwanese voters voiced support for overturning legislation to eliminate nuclear power.

2. Poland announced plans for a 6-9 GW nuclear sector.

3. China connected the world’s first AP1000 and EPR reactors to the electrical grid.

4. Some progress with Generation IV R&D projects (Terrestrial Energy, NuScale, Moltex), and the passing of the US Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act which aims to speed up the development of advanced reactors.

Those are modest and pyrrhic wins. To take each in turn:

1. Taiwan’s government remains committed to phasing out nuclear power although the 2025 deadline has been abandoned following a referendum in November 2018.

2. Poland might join the club of countries producing nuclear power ‒ or it might not. Currently it is a member of a group of countries that failed to complete partially-built power reactors and have never generated nuclear power, along with Austria, Cuba, the Philippines, and North Korea.

3. China’s nuclear power program has stalled ‒ the country has not opened a new construction site for a commercial reactor since December 2016. The most likely outcome over the next decade is that a small number of new reactor projects will be approved each year, well short of previous projections and not enough to match the decline in the rest of the world.

4. Generation IV fantasies are as fantastical as ever. David Elliot ‒ author of the 2017 book Nuclear Power: Past, Present and Future ‒ notes that many Generation IV concepts “are in fact old ideas that were looked at in the early days and mostly abandoned. There were certainly problems with some of these early experimental reactors, some of them quite dramatic.”

One example of the gap between Generation IV rhetoric and reality was Transatomic Power’s decision to give up on its molten salt reactor R&D project in the US in September 2018 ‒ just weeks before the public release of the New Fire propaganda film that heavily promotes the young entrepreneurs who founded Transatomic. The company tried but failed to raise a modest US$15 million for the next phase of its R&D project.

An article by four current and former researchers from Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Engineering and Public Policy, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science in July 2018, argues that no US advanced reactor design will be commercialised before mid-century.

Further, the Carnegie authors systematically investigated how a domestic market could develop to support a small modular reactor industry in the US over the next few decades ‒ including using them to back up wind and solar, desalinate water, produce heat for industrial processes, or serve military bases ‒ and were unable to make a convincing case.

Long-time energy journalist Kennedy Maize recently argued in POWER magazine that Generation IV R&D projects are “longshots” and that the “highest profile of the LWR apostates is TerraPower … backed by Microsoft founder and multi-billionaire Bill Gates. Founded in 2006, TerraPower is working on a liquid-sodium-cooled breeder-burner machine that can run on uranium waste, while it generates power and plutonium, with the plutonium used to generate more power, all in a continuous process.”

TerraPower recently abandoned its plan for a prototype reactor in China due to new restrictions placed on nuclear trade with China by the Trump administration.

Cost blowouts

The Bright New World lobby group might have cited some other pyrrhic wins in 2018. The French government abandoned previous plans to reduce nuclear power to 50 percent of total electricity generation by 2035 (compared to 71.6 percent currently) but still plans to shut 14 reactors by 2035. Cost estimates for two French-built reactors ‒ one in France and the other in Finland ‒ have increased by a factor of 2.5‒3and the reactors are the best part of a decade behind schedule.

The Vogtle reactor project in the US state of Georgia came close to being abandoned last year but it was rescued despite multi-year delays and monumental cost overruns (the estimate for two AP1000 reactors has doubled from US$14 billion to US$28 billion).

The current cost estimate for Vogtle reactors #3 and #4 is an order of magnitude greater than Westinghouse’s 2006 estimate of US$1.4-$1.9 billion to build one AP1000 reactor. To find another blowout of that magnitude you’d need to go back to … Vogtle #1 and #2! Built in the 1970s and 1980s, the cost of the first Vogtle twin-reactor project skyrocketed 13-fold, from US$660 million to US$8.7 billion (around US$18 billion in today’s money).

The only other reactor construction project in the US ‒ a twin-reactor AP1000 project in South Carolina ‒ was abandoned in 2017 after the expenditure of US$9‒10.4 billion. That disaster bankrupted Westinghouse and almost bankrupted its parent company Toshiba. So much for the nuclear renaissance.

The Era of Nuclear Decommissioning

In many countries with nuclear power, the prospects for new reactors are bleak and rear-guard battles are being fought to extend the lifespans of ageing reactors that are approaching or past their design date. A new era is approaching ‒ the Era of Nuclear Decommissioning ‒ following on from nuclear power’s growth spurt from the 1970s to the 1990s then 20 years of stagnation.

The Era of Nuclear Decommissioning will entail:

·         A decline in the number of operating reactors.

·         An increasingly unreliable and accident-prone reactor fleet as ageing sets in.

·         Countless battles over lifespan extensions for ageing reactors.

·         An internationalisation of anti-nuclear opposition as neighbouring countries object to the continued operation of ageing reactors (international opposition to Belgium’s ageing reactors is a case in point and there are numerous other examples).

·         Battles over and problems with decommissioning projects (e.g. the UK government’s £100+ million settlement over a botched decommissioning tendering process).

·         Battles over taxpayer bailout proposals for companies and utilities that haven’t set aside adequate funds for decommissioning and nuclear waste management and disposal. (According to Nuclear Energy Insider, European nuclear utilities face “significant and urgent challenges” with over a third of the continent’s nuclear plants to be shut down by 2025, and utilities facing a €118 billion shortfall in decommissioning and waste management funds.)

·         Battles over proposals to impose nuclear waste repositories and stores on unwilling or divided communities.

January 31, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Oh goody! It’s a rosy time coming for investors, (such as Donald Trump) in nuclear weapons!

What It Would Cost to Modernize the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal — and Who Would Benefit, Yahoo Finance Lou Whiteman, The Motley Fool, Motley Fool, January 28, 2019  The United States would have to spend $494 billion over the next decade to enact its plan to modernize its nuclear arsenal, a figure that highlights the opportunity before contractors as the Pentagon seeks ways to pay for one of its top priorities. The total, which comes from a biannual report put out by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), is 23% higher than the $400 billion price tag in the 2017 estimate. It comes at a delicate time for the Pentagon, which, after enjoying two years of steady budget increases, is facing a much less certain fiscal 2020 allocation.

……..Here’s who stands to benefit from the push to renew the nuclear triad.

Next-generation bombers

Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) in late 2015 beat a team including Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin to design and build a new long-range bomber. The Pentagon is expected to purchase at least 100 aircraft, with deliveries expected to begin in the mid-2020s and extend for a decade.

The plane, now known as the B-21, has been a near-casualty of Congressional budget battles in recent years, but the Pentagon continues to spend upwards of $2 billion per year on development. Overall, the CBO expects the Pentagon to spend $49 billion on bomber acquisition between now and 2028, which would easily make the B-21 Northrop’s most important platform……….

America’s most important deterrent

The Columbia-class submarine, designed to take over for the Ohio-class ballistic missile sub and house the nation’s stockpile of Trident sub-launched ballistic missiles, features a stealth electric drive propulsion system and improved maneuverability. The sub, to be built by General Dynamics’ (NYSE: GD) Electric Boat subsidiary with support from Huntington Ingalls (NYSE: HII), is due to be operational by 2028 to ensure second-strike capability should the U.S. be hit by a catastrophic attack………

A new rocket competition

The only major piece of the triad renewal still up for grabs is the task of replacing the nation’s arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles. …….In August 2017, the Air Force awarded Boeing and Northrop Grumman $349 million and $329 million, respectively, to develop competing new designs, with a goal of selecting a winner next year. The government is expected to spend more than $60 billion on ICBMs over the next decade, meaning the award would be a needle-mover for the eventual winner.

The stakes are also high for the two potential manufacturers of the solid-propellant rocket engines that will be used to power the missiles. Northrop brought one of the two contenders in-house last year with its $9.2 billion deal for Orbital ATK. The other, Aerojet Rocketdyne (NYSE: AJRD), has warned the Air Force and lawmakers it needs to win at least part of this procurement to remain a viable supplier.

Given the Pentagon’s priority to nurture a healthy and competitive supply base, it would not be a surprise to see both Aerojet and the former Orbital business split the ICBM engine award.

How to invest

…….for long-term investors who have seen defense holdings battered by near-term budget concerns, the longer timeline should provide some peace of mind. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cost-modernize-u-nuclear-arsenal-163400604.html

January 29, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, USA, weapons and war | 1 Comment

USA hoping to profit from nuclear power, by exporting waste clean-up technology

US to Offer Nuclear Waste Technology to Other Countries https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/us-to-offer-nuclear-waste-technology-to-other-countries/4758652.html  Susan Shand.  The U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear security office is developing a project to help other countries deal with nuclear waste. The information comes from two sources who spoke to the Reuters news agency. They asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.The sources say the plan aims to keep the United States competitive against other countries that are developing their own waste technology. For example, both Russia and France offer services to take care of nuclear waste.

Dov Schwartz is the spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration. He confirmed the group is thinking about how to help other countries reduce nuclear waste. However, Schwartz did not give details.

The NNSA also declined a Reuters request for an interview with Brent Park, who is leading the effort.

What would the technology do?

The unnamed sources say the technology could involve crushing, heating or sending an electric current through nuclear waste to reduce its size.

The machinery to do so would be put in a “black box” the size of a shipping container. It would be sent to other countries with nuclear energy programs; however, it would remain owned and operated by the United States, the sources said.

The sources did not name countries to which the service would be offered. They also did not say where the waste would be stored after it is run through the equipment. But they said they were worried the processes could increase the risk of dangerous materials reaching militant groups or nations unfriendly to the United States.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter banned nuclear waste reprocessing in 1977. The reprocessing opens pure amounts of uranium and plutonium, both of which could be used to make nuclear bombs.

NNSA spokesperson Dov Schwartz said the plans under consideration do not involve reprocessing. But he did not say what technologies could be used.

Concerns

The government of U.S. President Donald Trump has made promoting nuclear technology abroad a high priority. The U.S. Energy Secretary, Rick Perry, visited Saudi Arabia this month for talks on a nuclear energy deal with the kingdom. And the American business Westinghouse hopes to sell nuclear power technology to countries from Saudi Arabia to India.

But a top arms control officer during the Obama administration questions the direction of the Trump government. Thomas Countryman said the U.S. should improve its ability to get rid of its own nuclear waste before helping other countries.

A nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists also expressed some doubt about the NNSA plan. Edwin Lyman said NNSA should not be focused so much on reducing the size of nuclear waste. Instead, it should be concerned about the dangers of nuclear waste that make it hard to store.

Lyman said even a small amount of nuclear waste gives off radioactivity and heat. It “remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years,” he said.

January 29, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

French nuclear company EDF considering retreating from operations in UK

Telegraph 26th Jan 2019 The developer of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant is exploring a ­retreat from the UK as government ­energy policies take a toll on the industry’s largest players. Cash-strapped French utility EDF is weighing a range of options to distance itself from the British energy market.
The Sunday Telegraph understands from multiple industry sources that they include a potential spin-off of its energy-supply business in a merger with a fast-growing start-up. The move has been “on the table for at least a
year”, according to one senior figure, but it is being approached with caution by EDF’s Paris head office amid concern over the political implications.
A retreat by EDF would be likely to anger the Government. Ministers agreed to fund the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in a complex deal which is likely to cost energy bill payers about £50bn over the lifetime of the project. EDF has remained committed to supplying gas and power to about 5m UK customers despite making losses for almost a decade, according to ­official figures.
Its place as one of the Big Six energy incumbents is considered politically important as it pushes ahead plans for
another two nuclear power projects with support from China. EDF is locked in negotiations with the Government over plans to fund its plans for a reactor at Sizewell C. Discussions about a step back from the energy-supply
market began after the departure of long-serving boss Vincent De Rivaz in 2017.
The radical proposal came as EDF faced mounting pressure from the Government’s energy price cap, and rising competition from the flood of start-ups into the market. Energy bosses are up in arms over the Government’s conflicting energy policies which demand companies keep bills low while paying higher costs for clean energy and the roll-out of smart meters.
EDF’s challenges are further complicated by its ageing portfolio of existing nuclear plants, where profits are falling due to low market prices for electricity and the weak pound. It is considering the sale of a minority stake in the reactors, which supply a fifth of the UK’s electricity, alongside its partner Centrica. The parent company of British
Gas has confirmed plans to sell its 20pc stake in the reactors and industry sources say EDF hopes to sell another 29pc from its share within the same transaction. The deal is understood to have caught the eye of a consortium
of ­pension funds which would hold a ­minority share of the business while EDF remains the operator of the ­nuclear reactors.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/01/26/edf-weighing-retreat-energy-market-uk/

January 28, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, France, UK | Leave a comment

Shares slump for Europe’s biggest publicly traded power company, due to Czech Republic’s PM’s nuclear power dream

A Billionaire Prime Minister’s Nuclear Dream Is Spooking CEZ Investors Bloomberg,  By Krystof Chamonikolas and Peter Laca January 25, 2019,

  • Government is revamping panel discussing reactor financing
  •  
    Analysts say state is unlikely to force CEZ to foot the bill

  • Billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s ambition to build new nuclear reactors in the Czech Republic is denting CEZ AS’s shares well in advance of any deal actually being struck.

    That’s particularly unfortunate for the investors in eastern Europe’s biggest publicly traded power company, who should under normal circumstances be benefiting from a rally in electricity prices to near a seven-year high.  CEZ is lagging peers because politicians keep dragging their feet about deciding who’ll pick up the multibillion-dollar bill for new reactors that would be unprofitable even at today’s prices

    This protracted saga is yet another example of how nuclear energy once seen as the main low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels is struggling to get off the ground because of mounting costs. Only last week, Japanese conglomerate Hitachi Ltd. took a $2.8 billion charge after scrapping a U.K. project even though the U.K. government put its most generous offer yet on the table to help fund the Wylfa plant in Wales. ……..

    The unfavorable math forced CEZ to cancel a tender for new reactors in 2014, after years of price negotiations and legal disputes with potential suppliers.

    With the cost of renewable technologies plummeting, making wind and solar plants even more attractive to nations phasing out fossil fuels, the surge in costs from contracts to completion for new nuclear plants in Finland and France is evidence of how the technology is falling behind competitors. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-25/nuclear-dream-of-billionaire-premier-is-spooking-cez-investors

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January 26, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Hungary’s problems in financing new nuclear power plant

Hungary working to modify funding for Russian-built nuclear plant, Marton Dunai, BUDAPEST (Reuters) 26 Jan 19- Hungary is working to modify financing for a nuclear plant being built by Russia so it only starts repaying the loan once the two reactors begin supplying power, a Hungarian minister said, after an EU review of the plans contributed to delays in the project.

……..Hungary awarded Russia’s state-owned Rosatom a contract to build a similar-sized plant to replace the existing one, but construction has faced long delays, partly because of a European Union review of the project, including the way it was funded.

“Once we know the deadlines for the technical contract, we will modify this (financing) contract,” said Janos Suli, the minister in charge of the project, adding that this would meet procedures set by the EU executive……….https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hungary-nuclearpower-financing/hungary-working-to-modify-funding-for-russian-built-nuclear-plant-idUSKCN1PJ153

January 26, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE | Leave a comment

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