Hitachi chief’s remarks on nuclear industry spark debate, Japan Times, BY PHILIP BRASOR , 20 Jan 19, On Jan. 1, Hiroaki Nakanishi, chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), held press interviews on the outlook of the business community and, at one point, the discussion turned to nuclear energy.
Nakanishi is also the chairman of Hitachi Ltd., a major supplier of nuclear technology, and he said that the commercial possibilities for nuclear energy in Japan, for both “clients,” meaning power companies, and “vendors,” meaning plant manufacturers such as Hitachi, were increasingly limited. If clients can’t make a profit, then neither can vendors, and that will continue to be the case as long as the public is opposed to nuclear energy. The industry can’t force nuclear power on the citizens of a democracy.
Major media were presumably represented at the interviews, but only one outlet, All-Nippon News Network (ANN), reported Nakanishi’s nuclear-related comments. Jan. 1 was a newspaper holiday, which means that no newspapers were published on Jan. 2, but there was still no other mention of his remarks on Jan. 3. On Jan. 5, journalist Hajime Takano commented on this lack of interest to former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama on the latter’s web channel for his East Asian Community Institute. The head of Hitachi, a key company in nuclear technology, had said that the business of nuclear energy is impossible without public support. Since nuclear energy is national policy, the ramifications are huge, Takano said, and yet no other major media had covered the remarks or ANN’s report. Were they afraid of upsetting the government?
As Takano pointed out, the Tokyo Shimbun, which as a regional newspaper doesn’t qualify as “major media” and tends to question the government’s nuclear policy, did mention Nakanishi’s remarks on its front page on Jan. 5, suggesting that the Hitachi chairman was no longer aligned with the administration on nuclear energy. Almost eight years after the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, no nuclear plants in eastern Japan have resumed operation and, without an economic rationale for nuclear power, the policy is pointless.
But the Tokyo Shimbun also reported that Nakanishi said Japan does not have the right environment for renewable energy. This qualification seemed to imply that nuclear power was still preferable, but only if the public could be persuaded to accept it. So while part of Nakanishi’s remarks might give the impression that Japan’s nuclear power industry is throwing in the towel, they need to be contextualized within the larger picture of Hitachi’s business.
……… Ever since Japanese nuclear plant expansion ground to a halt after the Fukushima disaster, the government has promoted overseas nuclear development as a growth strategy, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as the lead international salesman. However, proposed projects in Vietnam, Taiwan and other places have stalled one after another. The collapse of the British project, which was formally announced Thursday, may be the final nail in the coffin.
In that light, Nakanishi’s new year remarks sound fatalistic, but pundits hear something different. Nikkan Gendai interviewed former trade ministry official Shigeaki Koga, who pointed out that Japan’s nuclear energy players are dependent on the government. Without support, there was no way private power companies or vendors could have made money on nuclear energy. They essentially stuck with it because it was national policy. Nakanishi’s remarks, Koga said, were really veiled threats directed at the government: If you don’t help us financially and legally, then we will have no choice but to get out of the nuclear business. If you want us to continue, he added, it’s your job to convince the public that nuclear energy is worth it………. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/01/19/national/media-national/hitachi-chiefs-remarks-nuclear-industry-spark-debate/#.XETXadIzbGg
Hitachi to Cease Work on Nuclear Power Plant in North Wales, NYT, Stanley Reed, Jan. 17, 2019, Hitachi said on Thursday that it was suspending work on a 15 billion pound, or $19.3 billion, nuclear power project in North Wales after failing to agree on financial terms with the British and Japanese governments.
“The decision was made from the viewpoint of Hitachi’s economic rationality as a private enterprise,” the company, based in Japan, said.
Ben Russell, a spokesman for Hitachi’s British venture, Horizon Nuclear Power, said that discussions with the governments would continue but that its staff, currently around 300 people, would be cut to “a minimal handful.”
Hitachi will also stop planning work on a second project, in Oldbury, England. The company said it planned to take a write-off of 300 billion yen, or $2.75 billion, on the projects.
The decision by Hitachi is a blow to the British government, which is betting heavily on nuclear installations to help meet the country’s electric power needs in the coming decades.
The big question is whether Hitachi’s move will be a death knell for Britain’s campaign to build nuclear plants, which so far has resulted in only one project under construction.
While there are signs that the government is rethinking its energy policy, it was willing to go a long way toward trying to keep Hitachi on board.
In a statement to Parliament on Thursday, Greg Clark, the secretary of state for business and energy, said the government had been willing to consider providing one-third of the equity financing for the project and to take on all of the construction debt. When Hitachi continued to balk, Mr. Clark said, “I was not prepared to ask the taxpayer to take on a larger share.”
…….For Hitachi, though, the announcement could mark the end of a long and expensive saga. The company acquired the Horizon sites from two German utilities in 2012 for £697 million, or about $900 million, and wound up spending around £2 billion in total on design approvals, staff and other matters. It has been hiring apprentices, who have been training at a technical college on the island and going to Spain and Japan for work experience. At times in recent months more than 100 archaeologists were on the site, excavating and recording ancient structures that the construction would have destroyed.
Hitachi hoped Britain would prove to be an international showcase for its reactor designs. Ultimately, the company lost patience with the high level of spending required to land such a project there.
Hitachi had sought to arrive at a financial arrangement that would attract long-term investors like pension funds to the project and reduce its own exposure. But the offers of support from both the British and the Japanese sides were not enough………https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/business/energy-environment/hitachi-horizon-wales-nuclear-plant.html
 Russia, Serbia sign agreement on nuclear cooperation, Agreement includes construction of center of nuclear science, technology and innovation, Yeni Safak January 18, 2019 Anadolu Agency Russia and Serbia signed a strategic cooperation document for the peaceful use of nuclear energy, Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom said on Thursday.
The agreement, signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Serbia, includes the construction of a center of nuclear science, technology and innovation, according to the company’s statement. “In particular, the implementation of the project to build the center of nuclear science, technology and innovation will not only give a powerful impetus to bilateral cooperation between Russia and Serbia in a number of innovative areas, including medicine, industry and agriculture, but will also serve as a platform for cooperation at the level of the entire Central European region,” Likhachev said……… Alexey Likhachev, director general of Rosatom signed the documents on Russia’s behalf, while Nenad Popovich, Serbia’s minister in charge of innovation and technological development, signed them on Serbia’s behalf. The Russian company has 36 nuclear reactor construction projects in different countries, including Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Egypt, Finland, Hungary, India, Iran and Turkey. According to the company, its package of foreign orders in 2018 exceeded $130 billion. https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/russia-serbia-sign-agreement-on-nuclear-cooperation-3472195 |
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  Dave Toke’s Blog 14th Dec 2019 There’s a bunch of highly misleading statements that the Government is to adopt so-called ‘Regulated Asset Base’ (RAB) financing of nuclear power projects.Yes, some of the mechanisms that are being proposed are also used in RAB, but the term is being grotesquely distorted to hide the fact that this is a cover for the Government risking very large sums of money to be lent to nuclear power developers.
Put simply, if the nuclear power projects are as expensive as they usually are the electricity consumer will lose an awful lot of money and prices will be jerked upwards. Either that or the
taxpayer takes a hit and funding of public services suffer big time. You can see the cover up printed in the Sunday Times yesterday where, we are told that ‘Ministers are expected to accelerate plans to introduce regulated asset base (RAB) financing, which is popular in the water and infrastructure sectors, for nuclear plants including the Horizon project’.
Under such schemes the developers are allowed to charge consumers in advance for the capital building projects. What Ministers are not emphasising of course, is that in industries such as water the Government does not lend lots of money to the privatised companies. They raise this on private markets. But in the case of nuclear power plants the bulk of the money needed to build them will be borrowed from the Government.
So if the nuclear plant has very big delays and cost overruns (as has happened to ALL nuclear power plant built in the West this century), the Government loses shedloads of money. The Treasury is likely to insist that this gets paid for by adding the (large) sums to electricity consumer bills. RAB has been used to try to finance nuclear power plant in the USA, in the states of Georgia and South Carolina recently.
The result was disaster and the developing company, Westinghouse, went bust. But this was ‘normal’ RAB where the developer takes the risk of cost overruns. But in the proposed UK
nuclear version it will be the electricity consumer who goes bust when the almost inevitable cost-overruns set in! The nuclear RAB is really a cover for a nuclear bailout. So let’s call it a ‘nuke bailout RAB’.
https://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2019/01/government-spreads-big-lie-about-rab.html |
FT 13th Jan 2019 Nick Butler: Who could blame the board of the Japanese company Hitachi if
its members decide at their meeting this week to scrap plans for a new nuclear power station at Wylfa on the North Wales island of Anglesey?
Hitachi has invested more than £840m in the project over the past six years. The technology has passed all the tests set by the UK’s nuclear regulator. But the company has been unable to get the government to put in place the clear and credible financial structure necessary to underpin the investment.
That failure has already led other investors to abandon the new plant planned at Moorside in Cumbria. Talk of scrapping the Wylfa project could be a bargaining tactic on the part of Hitachi but the reality is probably much simpler. Hitachi’s doubts have been well signalled during the
past few months and the company’s purchase of ABB’s power grid business at the end of last year gives it a range of investment choices.
Given Whitehall’s chronic indecision, the company is ready to use its capital elsewhere. Hitachi’s withdrawal would mark the collapse of the energy policy adopted in 2013 by the UK’s coalition government. Facing what were believed to be ever-rising energy prices the policy plumped for new nuclear, promising that 35 gigawatts of new capacity would be on stream by the mid 2030s – more than replacing the first generation of nuclear plants, which would by then have reached the end of their useful lives.
Because the price of gas seemed doomed to keep rising, new nuclear would come to look highly competitive over time as well as reducing dependence on imports. Since then much has changed, and the assumptions which underpinned the old policy now look laughably wrong.
The costs of all forms of energy (apart from nuclear) have fallen dramatically and there is no shortage of supply. Electricity demand is down thanks to efficiency gains and new technology.
The contract for the first new nuclear station being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset, which enjoys a guaranteed index-linked price for 35 years from the moment the plant is commissioned, looks exorbitant. The demise of Wylfa forces the need for a comprehensive review of energy policy.
Since the UK government is too busy preparing for Brexit to focus seriously on any other issue, the review should be conducted independently. Advances in energy technology offer more
possibilities each year. But those options will never be taken up unless the old outdated policy is scrapped and a more realistic approach put in place.
https://www.ft.com/content/7b33e9fa-1648-11e9-9e64-d150b3105d21
PG&E ex-CEO gets $2.5 million severance amid wildfire woes
Former PG&E CEO Geisha Williams lands $2.5 million in cash for severance pay despite being in charge during lethal wildfires of 2017 and 2018
PG&E to file for bankruptcy due to wildfire lawsuits; shares tank
Utility cites ‘challenges’ from California wildfires, East Bay Times, By LEVI SUMAGAYSAY | lsumagaysay@bayareanewsgroup.com and GEORGE AVALOS | gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group January 14, 2019 Citing “extraordinary challenges” from the devastating 2017 and 2018 California wildfires, PG&E said Monday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the utility that serves 16 million Californians gave the 15-day notice required by law for filing for bankruptcy, one day after it announced the departure of Chief Executive Geisha Williams. The company’s stock dropped by more than half Monday in response to the early-morning announcement……..
One estimate, from Moody’s Investor Services, puts PG&E’s wildfire liabilities at $15 billion but PG&E said it may face liabilities of $30 billion or more. In its filing Monday, PG&E said it is aware of about 50 complaints from at least 2,000 plaintiffs related to November’s Camp Fire and said it expects more. It also said it knows of about 700 complaints on behalf of at least 3,600 plaintiffs from the 2017 California wildfires. PG&E further stated that if it is found liable for the 2017 and 2018 fires, “punitive damages, fines and penalties could be significant.” ………
San Francisco-based PG&E’s shares plunged 52.4 percent to close at $8.38 on Monday. Since October 2017, when it first became clear that PG&E might be liable for some wildfires, PG&E’s shares have nose-dived by 88 percent……… https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/01/14/pge-to-file-for-bankruptcy-shares-tank/
Times 13th Jan 2019 Ministers will be forced to pioneer a new way of financing nuclear power after Hitachi walked away from a £16bn plant in north Wales. The suspension of the Japanese giant’s Horizon project on Anglesey, expected to be confirmed at a board meeting tomorrow, will force the government to lure investors with a financing method that would pile costs on to consumers, even before a plant has been built.
Japan’s nuclear rethink could derail UK energy plans, https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/01/09/japan-uk-nuclear-plans-go-awry/, Doug Parr, 11 Jan 19, Reports in the Japanese press claim Hitachi is set to suspend all work on Wylfa, its nuclear power project in Wales.
Hitachi to suspend UK nuclear power ops, post $2 billion special loss https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/power/hitachi-to-suspend-uk-nuclear-power-ops-post-2-billion-special-loss/67484807
Hitachi is set to vote on the planned suspension at its board meeting next week, the Nikkei said without citing sources REUTERS | January 11, 2019, TOKYO: Hitachi has decided to suspend its 3 trillion yen ($28 billion) nuclear project in Britain and to post a special loss of about $2 billion for the year ending March, the Nikkei business daily reported on Friday.
Hitachi is set to vote on the planned suspension at its board meetingnext week, the Nikkei said without citing sources.
The loss is expected to be 200 billion to 300 billion yen ($1.9 billion to 2.8 billion), it said.
Hitachi representatives could not be immediately reached for comment
Hitachi set to cancel plans for £16bn nuclear power station in Wales Guardian, Adam Vaughan@adamvaughan_uk-12 Jan 2019
Move by Japanese firm would be blow to UK plans to replace coal plants and ageing reactors The Japanese conglomerate Hitachi looks certain to cancel its plans for a £16bn nuclear power station in Wales, leaving Britain’s ambitions for a nuclear renaissance in tatters.
An impasse in months-long talks between the company, London and Toyko on financing is expected to result in the flagship project being axed at a Hitachi board meeting next week, according to the Nikkei newspaper.
The company has spent nearly £2bn on the planned Wylfa power station on Anglesey, which would have powered around 5m homes.
Another Japanese giant, Toshiba, scrapped a nuclear plant in Cumbria just two months ago after failing to find a buyer for the ailing project.
Withdrawal by Hitachi would be a major blow to the UK’s plans to replace dirty coal and ageing reactors with new nuclear power plants, and heap pressure on ministers to consider other large-scale alternatives such as offshore windfarms.
It would also mark an end to Japan’s hopes of exporting its nuclear technology around the world.
Hitachi and the UK and Japanese governments have been negotiating over a guaranteed price of power from Wylfa and a potentially £5bn-plus UK public stake in the scheme.
Talks have proved “tricky to find a solution that works for all parties”, industry sources said.
Unions said the prospect of Wylfa being cancelled was extremely worrying and losing two projects in such a short period “should set alarm bells ringing” about the government’s commitment to nuclear………
an insider said: “There has been a serious rift in Hitachi, and the group that said this is too large and risky an investment of Japanese capital have won out. They pointed to the uncertainty created by Brexit to say this was another reason to pull the plug.” ……….
Nuclear critics said a collapse of the scheme was not a disaster but an opportunity for a policy shift. Doug Parr, the chief scientist of Greenpeace UK, said: “We could have locked ourselves into reliance on an obsolete, unaffordable technology, but we’ve been given the chance to think again and make a better decision.”
Sara Medi Jones, the acting secretary general of CND, said: “With offshore wind now cheaper than nuclear it’s clear there is a clean and workable alternative. We just need the political will to make it happen.”
Just one new nuclear power station, EDF Energy’s Hinkley Point C in Somerset, has been given the green light and begun construction. The French company and Chinese firm CGN both want to build more. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/11/hitachi-cancel-plans-nuclear-power-station-angelsey-wales
State board OK’s Alliant ending nuclear power purchase, The Gazette, 11 Jan 19, Alliant Energy’s request for a settlement that will allow the utility to end its purchase of energy from Duane Arnold Energy Center has been approved.
The Iowa Utilities Board’s approval of Alliant’s request to recover a one-time $110 million payment allows the utility to end its purchase of power from the state’s sole nuclear power plant. The plant, based in Palo, is slated to shut down in late 2020 — five years sooner than the current power purchase agreement between NextEra Energy Resources and Alliant Energy.
The Iowa Utilities Board announced the settlement agreement in a Thursday news release.
Duane Arnold, which first began producing power in 1975, is about 9 miles northwest of Cedar Rapids and is one of the larger employers in Linn County. The power plant, at 3277 Daec Road, is owned by Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources……..https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/business/state-board-approves-alliants-plan-to-close-duane-arnold-in-2020-20181213
Nikkei Asian Review 11th Jan 2019 , Hitachi to suspend all work on UK nuclear plant. Funding deadlock looks set to sink Japan’s last overseas nuclear project. Hitachi plans to put a U.K.
Japan’s Nuclear Export Struggles Narrow the Field of Suppliers, Only a handful of nations now seem capable of building new reactors, with the ability of the U.S. also in doubt. Greentech Media, JANUARY 10, 2019 Japan is struggling to find viable foreign buyers for its reactor technology in an expensive and competitive global nuclear market.
Only half a dozen nations currently have credible nuclear export capabilities. And besides Japan, the true export potential of at least two — the U.S. and France — is in doubt.
A recent report in the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun said a government strategy to export nuclear power technology had “run aground amid rising safety costs and deteriorating prospects for project profitability.” Proposed projects in Turkey and the United Kingdom had both hit roadblocks, the Mainichi Shimbun noted……..
Also, and perhaps more importantly, Japanese nuclear vendors are not state-owned like developers from China, Russia and South Korea. That puts Japanese firms at a disadvantage in terms of accessing finance and accepting risk.
These problems are not restricted to Japanese firms, though. They also apply to U.S. vendors.
Struggles in the U.S. nuke sector
While Japanese nuclear is at least enjoying something of a gradual recovery at home, with nine reactors back online after Fukushima and a further 17 looking to restart, in the U.S. the domestic sector is a mess.
This month saw Dominion Energy absorbing Scana Corporation after the latter failed to keep construction of two reactors at the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station afloat.
A little over 100 miles away, Georgia state lawmakers have expressed concerns that a couple of new reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, which are already half a decade behind schedule, could see further delays.
Six reactors out of a total of 104 have shut down across the U.S. since 2012, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, and a further 13 are due to close before 2025.
Meanwhile, a 2017 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found two-thirds of U.S. nuclear power capacity could become unprofitable over the next few years.
When publicly owned U.S. nuclear developers do not even have a viable domestic market to play in, it is hard to see how they might compete overseas. There are efforts underway to revive the U.S. nuclear industry, but industry advocates say much more support is needed.
U.S. nuclear export prospects are thus beginning to look a lot like those in Japan — and also those in France, which has been struggling to launch its Evolutionary Power Reactor technology. Like the U.S. and Japan, France seemingly has little appetite to attach state guarantees to nuclear projects abroad……
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
