What’s more chilling: watching Chernobyl or cogitating on the cost of going nuclear? Michael West Investigative Journalism Jun 20, 2019, The sudden push by the Murdoch media and Coalition right-wingers to overturn Australia’s nuclear power ban ignores the chilling economic cost — huge public subsidies, storing radioactive waste for thousands of years, the heavy costs of decommissioning and, potentially, radiation-related health costs. Veteran nuclear writer Noel Wauchope reports on the popular TV series, Chernobyl, and the economics of nuclear power.
THE frightening TV miniseries “Chernobyl” could put a few Australians off the idea of nuclear power but nuclear economics might turn out to be the bigger scare.
It is bad news for the Minerals Council of Australia and nuclear lobbyists, that Chernobyl has now arrived on some Australian TV screens, but pro-nuclear advocates are continuing to push their campaign anyway.
The miniseries “Chernobyl” has just finished in Europe and USA, outdoing “Game of Thrones” in popularity. HBO’s Chernobyl topped film and TV database IMDB’s list of the greatest 250 TV shows of all time. The first episode was screened on 12 June, 2019 in Australia, on Foxtel.
The series has had a big impact. It was highly praised by numerous reviewers but criticised by pro-nuclear lobbyists, and infuriated some Russian politicians. ………
The Liberal Coalition’s renewed push for nuclear power……
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he is open to considering nuclear power if it can stand on its own two feet. Energy Minister Angus Taylor told The Guardianon 12 June 2019 he wouldn’t rule out revising Australia’s nuclear ban “when there is a very clear business case which shows the economics of this can work”. Two days later, Environment Minister Sussan Ley also told TheGuardian she was open to the review considering a removal of the ban.
But — are the economics of nuclear power viable for Australia?
When even Australia’s former top nuclear promoter has doubts, it doesn’t look promising……….
How viable is nuclear power elsewhere?
Nuclear economics in America is really a tale of woe. You hardly know where to start, in trying to assess how much this industry is costing communities and tax-payers. There are the attempts to save the nuclear industry via subsidies. There are the continuing and ever-increasing costs of radioactive wastes. There are the compensation payments to workers with radiation-caused illnesses, $15.5 billion and counting, and the legal battles over where to put the wastes. Needless to say, really, America is not initiating any new nuclear “big build”. The much touted “Small Modular Nuclear Reactors” are turning out to have no market and little prospect of being economically viable……
The UK nuclear industry is in the doldrums with repeated postponement of new projects – Hinkley Point C, Wylfa Newydd, Moorside, Sizewell C, Oldbury B and Bradwell B……The 2018 forecast for future clean-up of Britain’s aging 17 nuclear power stations has blown out to £121 billion which has had to be spread across the next 120 years……
France’s Flamanville nuclear project is taking years, remains bogged down with costly problems. Electricite de France (EDF) has financial woes but hopes to save itself by switching from nuclear to renewables. France’s former nuclear giant AREVA went bankrupt and has changed its name to Orano and Framatome — and French tax-payers are still caught up in Areva/Orano costly legal corruption scandals.
Canada is up for increasing costs for managing its nuclear wastes. Interestingly, Canada abandoned its nuclear project for producing medical radioisotopes and now leads in non nuclear production of these isotopes.
India had grand plans for nuclear power, but has cut these back, and recently cancelled 57 reactors. It continues to have problems and many outages, at its huge Kudankulam nuclear station. ….
Russia keeps offering “generous” funding to the buyer countries. But will those countries end up with big debts? Reuters reports that in China, “No new approvals have been granted for the past three years, amid spiralling costs” ………. https://www.michaelwest.com.au/whats-more-chilling-watching-chernobyl-or-cogitating-the-cost-of-going-nuclear/
June 20, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AUSTRALIA, business and costs |
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 French Nuclear Power Producer EDF Plans a Turnaround, CFO Xavier Girre is selling assets and trailing new financing tools ahead of a potential reorganization of the company. WSJ By Nina Trentmann June 14, 2019
Aging nuclear reactors, soaring debt and large capital-spending commitments that generate are just some of the problems facing Xavier Girre, the chief financial officer of French electricity supplier Electricité de France SA .
The room to maneuver is limited: Key operating decisions must be taken in conjunction with the French government, EDF’s largest shareholder.
“We are not the decision makers,” Mr. Girre told CFO Journal. “With regards to regulation, the state is.”……..
France’s largest energy producer has also sold assets worth €10 billion ($11.24 billion), and assets worth a further €2 billion to €3 billion are to be divested by 2021. The government recently allowed EDF to give shareholders new shares instead of a cash dividend
A planned restructuring of the company’s assets and a new pricing structure for the French energy market could help Mr. Girre make further improvements, said Claire Mauduit-Le Clercq, analyst at S&P Global Inc.
The plan could allow EDF to separate its nuclear plants—it currently operates 58—from the rest of the business, a move that would enable the company to focus on investments in renewable energy. A large part of the company’s energy production comes from nuclear reactors…….
Analysts say the challenge for EDF will be to fund the turnaround given its hefty debt load. EDF’s net debt—a measure of total loans and financial liabilities less cash and liquid assets—was €33.38 billion at the end of 2018, up from €33.01 billion at the end of 2017.
Further complicating the picture is EDF’s large capital spending program. The company committed in 2014 to spending up to €45 billion by 2025 to extend the lifespan of its nuclear reactors fleet from around 40 to 50 years. The average age of an EDF nuclear power plant currently stands at 33 years.
New plants under construction, for example in Britain’s Hinkley Point, are adding to that cost burden. Total capital expenditures were about €14 billion in 2018. “EDF would not have to sell business after business to fund new investments if this was a viable business model,” AB Bernstein’s Ms. Becker said.
Meanwhile, the company’s net income slumped to €1.17 billion in 2018 from €3.17 billion a year earlier. Fluctuating energy prices, mean “the company lacks visibility into its future earnings,” said Ms. Mauduit-Le Clercq.
“You have a company that faces major investment needs, that has a negative cash flow equation and that has high debt levels—this creates tension in the balance sheet,” she said.
But the company’s financial standing is more vulnerable when other obligations, such as pension liabilities, future obligations to retire certain assets and costs for managing nuclear waste, are factored in. Adjusted net debt was €70 billion at the end of 2018, S&P Global said. https://www.wsj.com/articles/french-nuclear-power-producer-edf-plans-a-turnaround-11560526991
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June 17, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, France, politics, renewable |
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WASHINGTON ,WATCH: IS TRUMP HELPING THE SAUDIS GO NUCLEAR? https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Washington-Watch-Is-Trump-helping-the-Saudis-go-nuclear-592310,BY DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELD, JUNE 12, 2019
US President Donald Trump recently took another step toward bringing Saudi Arabia into the nuclear club. While Israeli-Saudi ties have warmed in recent years, helping the desert kingdom go nuclear – with its ongoing support for the most extreme Islamic radicals in the world – can hardly be good for the Jewish state.
Secret negotiations with the US Energy Department over many months have led Washington to “transfer highly sensitive US nuclear technology, a potential violation of federal law,” to Saudi Arabia, according to House Oversight Committee sources cited by The Washington Post.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) revealed last week that at least two transfers were approved since the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The Saudis say they want to begin building their own nuclear power plants with their own enriched uranium, even though it could be purchased elsewhere more cheaply. That raises suspicions that their real goal isn’t producing electricity. By enriching their own uranium, they could begin diverting it to highly enriched weapons grade, especially if they bar international inspectors, as they’ve insisted.
Given its record of obeisance to Saudi demands for top technology and weapons, it is unlikely the Trump administration would object, but instead continue helping to conceal the kingdom’s plans. Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the de facto ruler, has said that the kingdom would build nuclear weapons if the Iranians did. He may have taken encouragement from a speech in the UAE last month by Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton.
The Iranians are threatening to leave the nuclear pact with the major powers – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – in the wake of the Trump administration’s unilateral exit last year and imposition of sanctions to tighten the economic screws on Tehran.
There’s “no reason” for Iran to walk away from JCPOA, “unless it is to reduce the breakout time to nuclear weapons,” said Bolton, a decades-long advocate of regime change in Iran. Bolton offered no evidence to back his claim.
That should give MBS the rationale he seeks to develop his version of the bomb.
When he turns to Trump for help, he will remind the president that if America won’t sell it to him, there are others who will. Trump is a sucker for that pitch.
North Korea would be a good place to go shopping, since they tried helping Syria build nukes until the Israeli Air Force stopped the plan, something it had done earlier in Iraq. Then there’s Pakistan, which is believed to have built its own nuclear weapons stockpile with Saudi financial help.
THERE MIGHT BE some resistance on Capitol Hill, where Saudi support is low and sinking, but Trump has shown himself more responsive to the wishes of the Saudis than the US Congress.
Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina may moan and groan and make threatening sounds toward Riyadh, but he and majority leader Mitch McConnell are Trump’s poodles, and will make sure the president gets what he wants.
All US administrations – Republican and Democratic – have indulged the Saudi appetite for top technology and weapons. They’ve been driven by pressure from industry and its friends in the Pentagon to sell, sell, sell – and an inexplicable attitude that we need the Saudis far more than they need us. Trump has just raised this to a new level.
Trump’s latest selling spree includes 120,000 conversion kits to produce smart bombs. It is part of an $8.1 billion package that Trump labeled “emergency” to bypass Congressional review.
Most alarming is the Trump administration’s approval for the transfer of highly sensitive weapons technology and equipment to Saudi Arabia so the kingdom can produce electronic guidance systems for Paveway precision-guided bombs, according to congressional sources cited by The New York Times.
The administration assured Congress that it is confident in the Saudi ability to protect the technology, that the need is urgent and that it won’t alter the balance of power in the region – which is exactly what it is intended to do.
Look for Trump to justify massive sales to the Saudis and the UAE as also helping protect Israel from Iran. Historically, all administrations have justified arms sales around the Middle East as harmless to Israel’s qualitative military edge. But they aren’t. Especially when the US is selling the Arabs the same planes, missiles and technology it sells Israel. Trump values his oil-rich customer so much that he has rejected the findings of his own CIA that the crown prince was complicit in Khashoggi’s murder.
Saudi Arabia is the Pentagon’s favorite cash cow. Arms sales are a lucrative business for the US Defense Department, which charges commissions and other fees, and gets economies of scale for its own purchases while selling off old inventory to help pay for replacements. Military attachés around the world are top salesmen for defense contractors as they lay the groundwork for post-uniform careers. Then there are the former – and possibly future – defense industry executives at the highest levels of the Pentagon, starting with the Secretary of Defense.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) said the administration “has effectively given a blank check to the Saudis – turning a blind eye to the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi and allowing their ballistic missile program to expand.”
The United States is not allowed to sell ballistic missiles, so the Saudis have turned to China. CNN reported last week that American intelligence believes Beijing is helping enhance the kingdom’s strategic missile program. In the 1980s, it secretly bought Chinese DF-3 missiles and based them within range of Israel. It bought more advanced missiles in 2007 with the approval of then-president George W. Bush. Unconfirmed published reports suggest they also bought other missiles from Pakistan, which produces a version of the North Korean Nodong missile.
If the Saudis decide to pursue nuclear weapons, they can turn to Trump’s dear friend Kim Jong Un, whose cash-strapped regime has developed its own and the missiles to deliver them.
With Trump looking for business that will create jobs he can claim credit for – and with John Bolton rattling sabers and B-52s, and calling for regime change in Iran – can Saudi Arabia be knocking on an open door to the nuclear club?
June 13, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, politics, politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA |
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Once again, the media here mindlessly regurgitates nuclear lobby propaganda that nuclear power is “zero carbon”. It’s not. Even the reactor’s operation emits a timy amount of carbon 14. But, more importantly, the entire fuel chain, and all its transport, from uranium mining through to the disposal of wastes and of the dead reactor – is highly carbon emitting.
Even if nuclear power were low carbon (which it’s not), it would require thousands of reactors to be built very very quickly, in order to have any effect on global warming.
Meanwhile, funds, and energy are being diverted from genuinely useful measures, in renewable energy, and above all, in energy conservation.
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China eyes Argentina in global nuclear roll out, China Dialogue, Lili Pike, Fermín Koop, 04.06.2019 “……. Costs, emissions and safety at stake as Argentina and China look set to seal a nuclear power ……… With China looking to increase its nuclear power exports and countries seeking low-carbon electricity, the project in Argentina could be the beginning of a China-led renaissance. However, concerns over the cost and safety of nuclear power continue to plague the technology…….
The Atucha III project is part of an agreement signed in 2015 by former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, which approved two nuclear plants: one using Canadian technology in Argentina’s existing plants, and one using Chinese technology.
Macri scrutinised the deal on taking office, amid doubts over whether nuclear was a sufficiently economical energy source. He eventually approved construction, but Argentina’s economic crisis led one of the plants to be shelved to reduce the size of the loan.
“Argentina is going through an economic crisis and money is tight. Investing in nuclear requires a long-term commitment, but China can offer subsidised capital to its foreign customers,” said Mark Hibbs, senior fellow at Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program.
“This gives China an advantage over other nuclear exporting countries.” …….
Backlash
The nuclear deal attracted criticism from a group of former energy secretaries, who claimed in a November press release that it would be cheaper to develop solar and wind projects.
“Any future energy projects have to be part of a national and long-term energy plan, which now doesn’t exist. All new projects should be economically competitive and should be in line with the country’s mitigation commitments,” said Jorge Lapeña, a former energy secretary.
Environmental organisations that prioritise wind and solar proliferation agree.
“We don’t consider nuclear as renewable energy, it has many risks regarding the functioning of the reactors and waste. It’s not suitable for Argentina,” said Andrés Nápoli, head of Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN).
He added: “A new nuclear plant would require risk and impact studies and we haven’t seen any.”……….
The Argentina deal is one of the first success stories for Chinese nuclear overseas. Since 2000, Russia has dominated overseas nuclear power, supplying 45% of total capacity. China is the fifth largest exporter, supplying just 9%. So far, the only Chinese reactors constructed overseas are in Pakistan.
Beyond the Argentina and Pakistan deals, it is unclear whether China’s nuclear power reactors will find other markets.
“After the Fukushima accident, global demand for nuclear power hasn’t been strong, and the US, Germany, South Korea and others are phasing it out,” said Zhang Hua, a senior engineer at the State Power Investment Corporation’s Institute of Science and Technology.
“Demand from South Africa, Turkey, Argentina and other countries is also not as high as expected. The current outlook for China’s nuclear power exports is not optimistic,” Zhang added……….
Weighing risks
Even as the climate crisis deepens, countries may reject nuclear because of concerns over safety and cost.
While Generation III reactors are safer, nuclear power still
poses myriad risks. These include radiation exposure from uranium mining, meltdowns like Fukushima and using the technology to produce nuclear weapons………..
Geopolitical tensions could also stymie China’s export ambitions. In the UK, where the utility China General Nuclear Power has gained a foothold through investment in nuclear plants and plans to build a Hualong One, critics have raised concerns over China’s involvement in sensitive infrastructure.
In markets new to nuclear power, researchers also warn that the regulatory environment may not be mature enough to assess and safely manage new Chinese plants.
In Argentina, several civil society groups oppose nuclear. Rio Negro province has already passed a law banning it………..
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/11293-China-eyes-Argentina-in-global-nuclear-roll-out
June 10, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
China, marketing, SOUTH AMERICA |
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McClatchy reports: 33,480 Americans dead after 70 years of atomic weaponry
“….. The number of deaths has never been disclosed by federal officials. It’s more than four times the number of American casualties in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it looms large as the nation prepares for its second nuclear age, with a $1 trillion plan to modernize its nuclear weapons over the next 30 years…..
A total of 107,394 workers have been diagnosed with cancers and other diseases after building the nation’s nuclear stockpile over the last seven decades. The project includes an interactive database that offers details on all 107,394 workers.
McClatchy’s yearlong investigation, set in 10 states, puts readers in the living rooms of sick workers in South Carolina, on a picket line in Texas and at a cemetery in Tennessee…..
— Federal officials greatly underestimated how sick the U.S. nuclear workforce would become. At first, the government predicted the compensation program would serve only 3,000 people at an annual cost of $120 million. Fourteen years later, taxpayers have spent sevenfold that estimate, $12 billion.
— Even though costs have ballooned, federal records show that fewer than half of those workers who sought help had their claims approved by the U.S. Department of Labor.
— Despite the cancers and other illnesses among nuclear works, the government now wants to save money by cutting current employees’ health plans, retirement benefits and sick leave….. … https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article49216310.html (photo: Ralph and Jodi Stanton)
Disastrous health effects of uranium mining, on the people of Jharkhand, India
the financial benefits are meaningless when weighed against what his group says is an alarming rise in stillbirths, birth defects, and adults and children diagnosed with cancer, kidney disease, and tuberculosis.
report showed a far greater incidence of congenital abnormality, sterility, and cancer among people living within 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) of the mines than those living 35 kilometres away. Mothers in villages close to the mine sites were also twice as likely to have a child with congenital deformities, …. us”…http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i1G4YWJkajit3t0xD2ddl4UXwN7g?docId=CNG.5b3137d37ca033f82d1946db0c21911c.951
June 8, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
Christina's themes, employment |
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Top Uranium Producer Is Gloomy About Nuclear Power, for Now, Bloomberg, By Will Wade, June 7, 2019, Don’t expect an upswing in the global uranium market anytime soon.
“In our models, we don’t get excited on the demand side,” said Galymzhan Pirmatov, chief executive officer of Kazatomprom, Kazakhstan’s state-owned mining company that’s the world’s biggest supplier.
With construction of nuclear power plants at a 10-year low, uranium demand remains weak. That’s holding prices so low that mining companies have been wary of increasing production. Kazatomprom’s output will increase about 5% this year, to as much as 22,800 tons, and then will be flat in 2020, Pirmatov said Wednesday in an interview in New York. While he hasn’t yet made a decision on 2021, he doesn’t see much to get excited about, at least in the short term.
“I do believe prices are too low,” he said. Uranium has slumped 15% this year to $24.35 a pound as of Wednesday. Kazakhstan controls about 40% of the world’s supply of the metal, and Kazatomprom accounts for half of that, making it the biggest producer………
U.S. Closings
In the U.S., flush with abundant and cheap natural gas, utilities are closing nuclear plants. The U.S. is also considering whether to impose tariffs on uranium, after two small domestic mining companies filed a trade case last year, arguing that imports are a threat to national security. The Commerce Department concluded its investigation in April, but the results haven’t been made public……..https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-05/top-uranium-producer-is-gloomy-about-nuclear-power-for-now
June 8, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, business and costs, Uranium |
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Germany’s env min and plant operators dismiss call for nuclear lifetime extensions,Clean Energy Wire
Germany’s env min and plant operators dismiss call for nuclear lifetime extensions, Germany certainly does not need to return to nuclear energy and should push through with its energy transition instead, according to environment minister Svenja Schulze. Following isolated calls to extend the lifetime of the country’s nuclear plants, Schulze said the technology is very expensive, on closer inspection not CO₂-neutral, and always carries the risk of an accident. Germany’s remaining nuclear power plant operators RWE, E.ON and EnBW also rejected the idea to upend the country’s societal consensus to phase out nuclear power by the end of 2022.
Germany’s environment minister Svenja Schulze has dismissed recent isolated calls for a postponement of the country’s nuclear exit to protect the climate. “We certainly don’t need a return to nuclear power. That would cause nothing but problems,” Schulze told energy managers at utility association BDEW’s annual conference.
The technology is very expensive, on closer inspection not CO2-neutral, and always carries the risk of an accident, according to Schulze, whose ministry is also in charge of nuclear security……
Opposition to nuclear power has been particularly strong in Germany, and there is a broad societal consensus to phase it out as part of Germany’s landmark Energiewende (energy transition). While the country struggles with aspects of the phase out – such as what to do with the waste – one issue that isn’t a problem is public consent. The vast majority of Germans want to see nuclear power gone sooner rather than later. ……
With reference to Germany’s unsolved challenges of dealing with nuclear waste, Schulze said the country had used nuclear power for only three generations, and now left radioactive waste for thousands of following generations to deal with. Schulze also said nuclear power stations would not fit into Germany’s future electricity system. “Nuclear power would only block the grid. We don’t need more inflexible large power stations in a decentralised flexible system.”……
Plant operators have repeatedly said nuclear power will come to an end by the end of 2022 as planned and utility association BDEW said that reaching climate targets in the energy sector does not require a longer operating life for nuclear power plants. “It doesn’t make sense at all to start a discussion about lifetime extensions shortly before reaching the finishing line,” BDEW head Stepan Kapferer said at the conference, adding the operators had already clearly rejected the idea anyway. Nuclear power in Germany “is finished”, plant operators E.ON, RWE and EnBW told Jakob Schlandt for an article in Tagesspiegel Background. “This chapter is over,” said a RWEspokesperson……
The BDEW expressed confidence that its companies can benefit hugely from the energy transition. The Energiewende offered “huge opportunities for growth”, said BDEW head Stefan Kapferer in his opening remarks with reference to renewables and the charging infrastructure for electric mobility. He repeated his association’s call for a CO2 price for heating and transport. “It’s a joke that electricity, as the greenest available form of energy, is also the most expensive,” Kapferer said. https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/germanys-env-min-and-plant-operators-dismiss-call-nuclear-lifetime-extensions
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June 6, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, Germany, politics |
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 Plymouth Nuclear Power Station Shut Down for Good, BY EXCHANGEMONITOR, 5 June 19,
The Plymouth Nuclear Power Station shut down permanently late Friday afternoon.
Entergy hopes by the end of the year to sell the Cape Cod property to Holtec International, which would assume all responsibility for cleanup and spent fuel management, along with the trust fund that will pay for the work.
In 2015, the New Orleans-based power company announced it would retire Massachusetts’ last nuclear power plant this year, saying increasing operating costs and competition with natural gas as a power source had made the 690-megawatt boiling water reactor economically unviable……
Holtec, an energy technology company based in Camden, N.J., is also planning separate acquisitions for two other Entergy sites: the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan, due for retirement in 2022, and the three-reactor Indian Point site in New York in 2021 after its final reactor shuts down. It also aims to buy Exelon’s newly closed Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey. https://www.exchangemonitor.com/plymouth-nuclear-power-station-shut-good/
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June 6, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA |
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Lightbridge fuel development gains DOE funding, WNN 30 May 2019, Framatome has received a voucher through the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) programme to support development of Lightbridge Fuel in collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory (INL).
….. Enfission – a joint venture of Lightbridge Corporation and Framatome – was set up in January 2018 to commercialise nuclear fuel assemblies based on this technology. The GAIN initiative was launched in November 2015 to provide a way to fast-track nuclear innovation,…..
This is Framatome’s third GAIN voucher and its first supporting the Lightbridge Fuel design.
Framatome said its collaboration with INL under this GAIN voucher will “leverage the laboratory’s experience in fuel and material development, as well as its performance knowledge, to facilitate Framatome’s understanding of phenomena unique to uranium-zirconium metallic fuel”.
…… For this work DOE will fund INL at a value of USD477,000…… https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Lightbridge-fuel-development-gains-DOE-funding
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June 1, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, politics international, technology |
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Uranium Week: Buyers’ Market. https://www.fnarena.com/index.php/2019/05/28/uranium-week-buyers-market, By Greg Peel, May 28 2019
Sellers continue to chase down ever more empowered buyers in an ongoing weak uranium market.
-Uranium spot price continues to fall
-Rio Tinto may shut down Rossing
-US production falls dramatically
It was Groundhog Week last week in the uranium market. With utilities largely out of the market pending a section 232 decision, sellers continue to lower prices in order to flush out buying interest.
And the buyers are not making it easy. Having the upper hand, they are not simply insisting on lower prices, industry consultant TradeTech reports, but on specific origins, delivery locations and other restrictive terms and conditions.
Four transactions totalling 500,000lbs U3O8 equivalent were recorded in the spot market last week. TradeTech’s weekly spot price indicator has fallen -US20c to US$24.30/lb.
The spot price has now fallen -16% in 2019, whittling a 12-month gain down to 6%.
There were no transactions reported in uranium term markets. TradeTech’s term price indicators remain at US$28.50/lb (mid) and US$32.00/lb (long).
Supply Response
Australian-listed diversified miner Rio Tinto ((RIO)) has announced it will advance the closure of its 69% owned Rossing uranium mine in Namibia to June 2020 if the Namibian competition regulator blocks the US$104m sale of the mine to China National Uranium Corp.
Rio cannot continue to operate the loss-making business and would rather cease operations ahead of a forecast 2025 mine life if the sale is rejected.
The Namibian government owns a 3% stake in Rossing but 51% of the voting rights. The Iranian Foreign Investment Co holds 15% and the Industrial Development Corp of South Africa owns 10%.
Persistently low uranium prices continue to impact on global supply. Last week the US Energy Information Agency reported US uranium mines produced 700,000lbs U3O8 in 2018, down -37% from 2017.
Total shipment of uranium concentrate from US mills fell -35%. US producers sold 1.5mlbs of concentrate at an average price of US$32.51/lb.
May 30, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, business and costs, Uranium |
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Nuclear waste: A hot business? https://thebulletin.org/2019/05/nuclear-waste-a-hot-business/, By Thomas Gaulkin, May 24, 2019 It usually takes decades for defunct nuclear plants in the United States to be taken apart and cleaned up so the land can be developed for other purposes. Long after the main facilities are dismantled and their sites remediated, spent fuel remains radioactive and takes years to cool off in pools before it can be safely placed in concrete cylinders—dry casks, in industry lingo—for interim storage that could last years or even decades. Utility companies stuck with these useless sites often delay the costly cleanups as long as they possibly can.
But Bob Salsberg reports for the Associated Press that a profit-hungry industry is emerging to rescue electric utilities that have little enthusiasm for dismantling their own aging nuclear power plants. Behind a promise of dramatically reduced decommissioning times, in some cases by as much as 50 years, a group of companies wants to buy the retired plants, take on the work of demolishing them, and manage storage of the spent fuel rods that will likely be stuck on the plants’ grounds for a very long time.
Companies like Holtec International (which Salsberg reports has deals for several plants that are being retired up and down the east coast and in Michigan) will take on the nuclear facilities, their multibillion-dollar funds set aside for the decommissioning process, and the prospect of lucrative government compensation. (Since there’s no national long-term disposal site for high-level civilian nuclear waste, the concrete cylinders have to stay where they are until a long-term repository is created.)
Holtec claims it can safely store spent fuel in its specialized cylinders after only two years of cooling, instead of the five to 10 years of cooling now required. But opponents and some officials worry that encouraging commercialization of nuclear waste storage will jeopardize safety, and that the speedier decommissioning projects will hit more snags than they already do. Salsberg notes that Holtec International has “never managed a decommissioning start to finish.”
It’s also not clear that moving spent fuel from cooling pools into storage canisters a few years more quickly than it otherwise might be moved will make the former sites of nuclear power plants—still burdened with dry casks full of nuclear waste—all that attractive as developments sites.
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May 28, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, decommission reactor, USA |
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 As nuclear weapons risk escalates, debate grows about ‘vintage’ US arsenal, By Hollie McKay | Fox News, 24 May 19, The threat of a nuclear weapon being used is higher now than at any point since the conclusion the World War ll, a top United Nations security expert cautioned this week, calling the matter an “urgent” one that requires global attention.
Renata Dwan, director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research warned in Geneva that the heightened risk comes in large part as a result of disarmament negotiations that have chilled during a two-decade stalemate. But Dwan says the threat is also amplified by the increasing competition between nuclear-armed U.S. and China and other nuke-capable nations issuing plans for modernization.
But how does the arsenal of American — the only country to use a nuke against an enemy — compare to those other states?
“Other nuclear-armed states, notably Russia and China, are upgrading their arsenals and have tested, produced and deployed more brand-new weapons than the United States over the past decade,” Kingston Reif, Director of Disarmament and Threat Reduction Policy at the Arms Control Association, told Fox News. “But this does not mean the U.S. has fallen behind. The U.S. military has refurbished and improved nearly all of its existing strategic and tactical delivery systems and many of the warheads they carry, too, last well beyond their planned service life.”
As it stands, nine countries are known to possess nuclear weapons: the U.S., China, Russia, U.K, France, Israel, Pakistan, India, and murkily, North Korea. However, only the first three countries are believed to possess what is known as the “nuclear triad,” a three-pronged structure that consists of missiles that can be launched from land, air and sea.
Harry Kazianis, a senior director at the Center for National Interest, stressed that while many parts of America’s nuclear arsenal are quite old and were designed decades ago, the U.S. “clearly possesses the most advanced and sophisticated atomic arsenal on the planet.”
“Washington’s nuclear weapons arsenal is so powerful it could bring to an end any nation on the planet in less than 60 minutes if it wanted to—and kill billions of people in the process,” he acknowledged. “That amount of power is almost impossible for the mind to fathom, but it is a reality.”
Nonetheless, others painted a far more dire picture of America’s capabilities……..
The Trump administration, however, is proposing to broaden the circumstances under which the United States would consider the first use of nuclear weapons, develop two new sea-based, low-yield nuclear options — and laying the groundwork to grow the size of the arsenal, Reif pointed out.
In addition, the administration has announced the United States will leave the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in August 2019 and expressed hostility towards extending the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,” Reif said. “In short, the administration is preparing to compete in a new nuclear arms race while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of such a contest.”
But the biggest issue Washington has to contend with when it comes to nuclear upgrade ambitions — bigger than Russia, China or North Korea — is cost.
Mark Olson, a defense consultant and former Lieutenant Commander, Combat Systems Officer, and Missile Defense Expert with extensive experience in European Ballistic Missile Defense, noted that the Congressional Budget Office estimates nuclear weapons spending will cost taxpayers $1.2 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars between fiscal years 2017-2046, or 6 percent of national defense spending.
“Proposals are underway to modernize the U.S. arsenal over the next twenty years; however, cost remains a critical obstacle and one which appears destined to compel budgeteers to hack at innovation in other, arguably more critical, areas,” Olson said…….. https://www.foxnews.com/us/nuclear-weapons-risk-escalating-debate-over-vintage-u-s-arsenal
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May 25, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA, weapons and war |
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Is The Nuclear Industry Abusing Subsidies? https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Is-The-Nuclear-Industry-Abusing-Subsidies.html By Haley Zaremba – Mar 27, 2019, Although nuclear is often touted as an ultra-efficient and therefore affordable as well as clean alternative to fossil fuels, some states are beginning to discover that this is not necessarily the case as their local governments pour more and more money into nuclear plant subsidies only to see the nuclear industry come back with palms outstretched again and again.One such state is Connecticut, where local news source the Connecticut Mirror just published a direct-to-the-point op-ed aptly titled “Nuclear plants will require ever-increasing subsidies”. The author Joel Gordes, a Connecticut-based energy and environmental strategist, argues that since the very beginning of nuclear energy in their country, when the argument for the resource was that nuclear energy was dirt cheap, nuclear has been deceptively pricey and getting pricier all the time.
“Please consider,” Gordes implores the reader, “the very basic fact that we have gone from nuclear technology sold in the 70s on the basis of being ‘too cheap to meter’ to one where they have been begging and receiving for what amounts to yet more subsidies. Even with the ‘too cheap to meter’ claim, in its heyday the nuclear industry was the recipient of huge amounts of subsidy in numerous forms.”
Gordes goes on to finish his denunciation of his state’s nuclear policy by imploring the government to rethink their history handouts: “With that, I suggest our leaders and regulators very carefully consider any actions contemplated to further subsidize this technology since that might add to its eventual stranded cost that will hold up newer, lower cost decentralized, modular and more secure options. Even more important is that aging plants may, themselves, present an existential danger to the citizens of the state.”
Meanwhile, energy insiders in Illinois are singing a similar tune. Chicago-based nuclear electric power generation company Exelon won ratepayer-funded subsidies for two nuclear plants in its home state just three years ago, and now it’s back in Springfield to ask for similar monetary support for other cash-strapped nuclear plants that have not yet had the benefit of a bailout. The bill will be voted on by the State of Illinois’ House Public Utilities Committee this week.
While Exelon is lobbying hard for more government support, however, it is receiving a fair amount of scrutiny and backlash. Just this month Monitoring Analytics released a “bombshell report” with the surprising findings that all five of Exelon’s nuclear plants in Northern Illinois are not in dire financial distress, but are in fact profitable, and are projected to continue to be so through 2021–by conservative estimates.
According to the Monitoring Analytics report, Exelon’s five Illinois-based nuclear plants will see a total estimated profit of approximately $472 million this year alone. What’s more, each individual plant will turn its own profit. Even in 2021, when it is anticipated that revenue will begin to decline, altogether the plants are still projected to earn a profit of $228 million–much lower, to be sure, but still a far cry from bankruptcy. The report has thrown doubt upon Exelon’s stance that the subsidy bill up for vote this week, which would legislate a very complex matter with massive consequences for Illinois’ power industry and energy market, is a matter of both urgency and necessity.
From Exelon’s point of view, positive profit margins notwithstanding, the nuclear industry needs help, and they are no exception. Exelon executives use the fact that neither their Morris, Illinois-based plant nor most of the Byron station near Rockford could clear the 2021-22 capacity auction as evidence for their financial need. In a Securities & Exchange Commission filing this year, Exelon claimed that these two plants as well as the Will County-based Braidwood station could be contenders for “early retirement” in light of their deteriorating financial circumstances.
Exelon’s search for ratepayer-funded subsidies is not just limited to Illinois. They have appealed to the State of Pennsylvania as well, underscoring the fact that while nuclear subsidies may operate on a state by state basis, it is far from an isolated issue. With nuclear becoming more and more of a buzzed about energy alternative in the wake of the Green New Deal and innumerable op-eds lavishing praises on the energy-efficient fuel source, nuclear subsidies will have to become a bigger part of the conversation as well.
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May 23, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, politics, USA |
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Companies are buying defunct nuclear reactors, planning to demolish them quickly https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nuclear-reactors-fast-decommission-radioactive-20190522-story.html BOB SALSBERG, 22 May 19 Companies specializing in the handling of radioactive material are buying retired U.S. nuclear reactors from utilities and promising to clean them up and demolish them in dramatically less time than usual — eight years instead of 60, in some cases.
Turning nuclear plants over to outside companies and decommissioning them on such a fast track represents a completely new approach in the United States, never before carried to completion in this country, and involves new technology as well.
Supporters say the accelerated method can get rid of a hazard more quickly and return the land to productive use sooner. But regulators, activists and others question whether the rapid timetables are safe and whether the companies have the expertise and the financial means to do the job.
“We were up in arms that it was 60 years,” Janet Tauro, head of the environmental group New Jersey Clean Water Action, said of the initial plans for decommissioning the Oyster Creek plant in Forked River, N.J. “And then we hear it’s going to be expedited to eight years. It’s great to get it over with, but are there corners that are going to be cut?”
Once a reactor is shut down, the radioactive mess must be cleaned up, spent nuclear fuel packed for long-term storage and the plant itself dismantled. The most common approach can last decades, with the plant placed in a long period of dormancy while radioactive elements slowly decay.
Spent fuel rods that can no longer sustain a nuclear reaction remain radioactive and still generate substantial heat. They are typically placed in pools of water to cool, staying there at least five years, with 10 years the industry norm, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. After that, they are removed and placed in giant cylindrical casks, typically made of steel and encased in concrete.
But Holtec International, which in the last year has been buying up several retired or soon-to-be-retired nuclear plants in the United States, has designed a cask it says can accept spent fuel after only two years of cooling.
Holtec, a corporation with more than 30 years of experience in handling radioactive waste, struck a deal last year to buy the Oyster Creek plant.
It also has deals in place to buy several plants owned by Entergy Corp., including Pilgrim, in historic Plymouth, Mass., closing May 31; Palisades, in Covert, Mich., set to shut down in 2022; and two reactors expected to close within two years in Buchanan, N.Y.
“Our commitment to the nuclear industry includes taking ownership of shut-down nuclear plants so that we can safely and efficiently decommission the plants so that the land can be returned to productive use,” Holtec spokeswoman Joy Russell said in an email.
The proposed sales await NRC approval, with decisions expected in the coming weeks and months.
Similarly, in January, NorthStar Group Services, a specialist in nuclear demolition, completed the purchase of Vermont Yankee from Entergy with plans for its accelerated decommissioning.
The full financial details of the pending deals have not been disclosed. But if the agreements are approved, Holtec will inherit the multibillion-dollar decommissioning trust funds set up by the utilities for the plants’ eventual retirement.
The company could keep anything left over in each fund after the plant’s cleanup. Holtec and Northstar are also banking on the prospect of recouping money from the federal government for storing spent fuel during and after the decommissioning, because there is no national disposal site for high-level nuclear waste.
The companies jumping into the business believe they can make a profit. For the utilities, such deals free them from having to oversee long, complex projects involving decades of work and round-the-clock guarding of the dangerous waste.
While there are risks in transferring spent fuel too quickly, experts also note there are dangers while the fuel rods are sitting in the pools, including the chances of a catastrophic fire or leak resulting from a natural disaster, terrorist attack or other event.
There’s a natural tendency to say, ‘Oh, they’re doing it fast, they’re going to make mistakes, it’s not going to be safe,’” said Rod McCullum, senior director of decommissioning and used fuel at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based advocacy group for nuclear power. “You’re actually getting safer by getting faster.”
In legal briefs filed with the NRC, however, Massachusetts state officials have expressed skepticism about Holtec’s plan to decommission Pilgrim on an expedited schedule “never before achieved.” Holtec has never managed a decommissioning start to finish.
Holtec has come under scrutiny over its role in a mishap last August during the somewhat less aggressive decommissioning of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on the northwestern edge of San Diego County, where two reactors were retired in 2013 and the estimated completion date is 2030.
Holtec contractors were lowering a 45-ton spent fuel cask into an underground storage vault at San Onofre when it became misaligned and nearly plunged 18 feet, investigators said. No radiation was released.
Federal regulators fined Southern California Edison, the plant’s owner, $116,000, and an investigation found that some Holtec procedures had been inadequate or not properly followed.
Massachusetts officials have stopped short of asking the NRC to block Pilgrim’s sale but have cited the San Onofre incident while questioning whether the money in Pilgrim’s decommissioning trust fund is sufficient to cover unexpected delays or overruns.
By Holtec’s accounting, the Pilgrim decommissioning will cost an estimated $1.13 billion, leaving $3.6 million in the fund. State officials have described that cushion as “meager” and have warned of “significant health, safety, environmental, financial and economic risks.”
Holtec said its equipment has never been involved in a major accident and stands by its cost estimates.
Pilgrim, which is along scenic, environmentally sensitive Cape Cod Bay and is being retired after 47 years, has a history of unscheduled shutdowns and was only recently removed from an NRC list of the nation’s least safe reactors.
The citizen group Pilgrim Watch, which has long pushed for the closing of the plant, is leery of what lies ahead during the decommissioning.
“The story isn’t over. There’s a sequel,” said Mary Lampert, the organization’s director. “And sometimes the sequel, like in the movies, is worse than the main show.”
May 23, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, USA, wastes |
1 Comment
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  Job-exposure matrix sheds light on plutonium workers’ radiation exposure https://physicsworld.com/a/job-exposure-matrix-sheds-light-on-plutonium-workers-radiation-exposure/
Internal exposure to plutonium, which decays via alpha particle emission, is a recognised health hazard. But with little specific information available, potential risks from plutonium exposure have largely been assessed through knowledge of radiation exposure risks in general, much of which comes from external exposure to photon radiation such as gamma and X-rays. However, due to its high linear energy transfer rate, alpha particle radiation exhibits significantly enhanced biological effects at the cellular level, creating a specific need to investigate the associated exposure risks.
To obtain more direct estimates of potential internal exposure risks, epidemiological studies of plutonium workers need to be conducted,” explains lead author Tony Riddell, from Public Health England’s Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards. “These studies require individual plutonium exposure estimates that are as accurate and unbiased as possible.”
The Sellafield workforce includes one of the world’s largest cohorts of plutonium workers. Through the support of the workforce, this group has been comprehensively monitored for internal exposure to plutonium, primarily through inhalation.
However, for 630 workers employed there at the start of plutonium operations, from 1952 to 1963, the historical urinalysis results available do not provide sufficiently accurate and unbiased exposure assessments. These results were based on a threshold level of urinary plutonium excretion, which was suitable for operational protection purposes at the time, but tended to overestimate exposure, leading to underestimation of any risks if used in epidemiological analyses.
“This means these early workers are excluded from epidemiological studies of exposure risks, which significantly reduces the power of these studies,” says Riddell. “Early workers are important for assessing potential exposure risks because they usually received some of the highest plutonium exposures and, due to the passage of time, health outcomes for these workers will now be largely known.”
To solve this problem, Riddell and colleagues employed an approach called a job-exposure matrix (JEM). The JEM approach uses exposure data from other sources to estimate the average exposure that a typical worker (in the same work group) would have received in a given period. Substituting the missing data with these JEM estimates allowed the researchers to build a more reliable picture of the early workers’ radiation exposure.
“To overcome the problem of missing or deficient exposure data, we used more reliable data from other relevant workers (‘exposure analogues’) along with statistical, mathematical and empirical analyses to estimate the average exposures for a typical worker at Windscale/Sellafield for all combinations of specific occupation and year required to build the JEM,” explains principal investigator Frank De Vocht from the University of Bristol.
The authors note that the exposure analogues approach developed in this study provides a generic methodological advance that is potentially transferable to other internally exposed workers, and which may permit other epidemiological cohorts to include significant groups of workers who otherwise might have been excluded due to the lack of reliable exposure information.
“It’s likely that replacing the missing or unreliable exposure data with JEM-derived values in future epidemiological studies could have considerable impact on the risk estimates which can be produced,” adds De Vocht.
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May 23, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
- plutonium, employment, Reference, UK |
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