Kobe’s management admitted that its employees faked quality inspection reports on its steel and other metal products used domestically in automobiles, bullet trains and nuclear power stations. So far, corporate announcements have been vague, offering little clarity about the duration of the quality control lapses or, more important, the type of components involved.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.T) just announced that it replaced a Kobe-made piece of equipment, offering no other details. Kobe, however, is a major producer of nuclear power plants components. Even if quality control lapses did not extend to those operations, the onus may be on Kobe to prove its innocence.
So what should we expect? If these QA/QC lapses began recently, it should have little or no effect on most of the nuclear assets in the United States. Most of them were built decades ago.
Plants under construction, however, or those recently completed are another matter. In the last period of nuclear new build in the U.S. (basically the 1970s), a relatively muscular Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) took its safety responsibilities seriously, and woe to the builder that thought the rules excessive.
Unfortunately, a raging period of inflation only added to the nuclear builder’s troubles. Toward the end of the decade, the only appropriate choice for some would have been between cigarette or blindfold. Those safety requirements added to plant cost. And in an attitude that today would seem remarkable, that fact didn’t deter the NRC’s administrators.
If a nuclear power plant has to shut down due to concerns regarding the integrity of Kobe’s products, it’s needless to say it could get expensive. A typical 1,000 MW nuclear facility operating at full capacity can generate annual revenues of between $500 million and $1 billion.
Unlike a coal or natural gas fired power plant, shutting a nuclear plant down does little to reduce costs. Most nuclear costs are fixed, that is, they are spent before the thing is even turned on. Therefore, the plant’s owner will likely try to foist extraordinary expenses like these onto consumers (this is not possible in competitive markets). Or, power plant owners can stand on their rights and demand compensation from Kobe. While perhaps fruitful, it’s doubtful this process would be brief.
Thus, investors in nuclear power have reason for some near-term heightened sense of concern. Questions will be asked as to the provenance of equipment and components. Certain corporations especially under duress might adopt “truth on the installment plan” policies. All the negative news is eventually disclosed—but only after PR efforts downplay the likelihood of meaningful corporate impact.
What’s an investor to do? At this stage, with so little information available, we can’t judge whether Kobe’s latest news will make any financial difference to the nuclear industry.
But it underlines the need for trust and compliance throughout the manufacturing and operating process within the industry. And perhaps more standardization.
This is the second major QA/QC scandal involving a steel supplier of nuclear reactor components. Le Creusot Forge, now part of France’s Areva, was similarly accused of fabricating data for nuclear plant components.
We’re reminded here of the great bridge builder Roebling. When informed that his suppliers had short-changed him, he reportedly responded that he assumed they would—and designed accordingly.
Do today’s nuclear plant builders have the same dim view of human nature as Roebling? If not, the Kobe story should be regarded as serious until you hear otherwise.
Brexit Is a Game Changer for the British Nuclear Industry, Bloomberg, By, Jonathan Stearns and Nikos Chrysoloras,
U.K. withdrawal from nuclear treaty mirrors EU-exit challenges
Going it alone signals higher costs for companies, taxpayers
To understand the implications of Brexit, it helps to go nuclear.
Of all the international regulatory challenges created by the U.K.’s impending departure from the European Union, the atomic-energy industry may best encapsulate the decision’s bottom-line effect: more bureaucracy and costs for a country that has long fought to curb both within the EU.
Untwining the U.K. from decades of centralized European supervision of nuclear material for civilian use mirrors the broader Brexit process. Each involves abandoning treaty-bound organizations, re-establishing links on less integrated terms and, in the meantime, creating uncertainty for everybody from executives to researchers.
“Brexit is a complete game changer for the nuclear industry in Britain, altering the regulatory environment, creating major complexity and leading the way to higher costs for businesses, the state and ultimately the British taxpayer,” said Simone Tagliapietra, a research fellow on energy at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels. “It’s a huge, self-inflicted problem.”
Brexit Microcosm
The EU’s nuclear framework is a microcosm of the Brexit hurdles because, like Europe’s single market and free-trade deals, it offers the U.K. benefits that the British government is keen to retain after the country withdraws from the 28-nation bloc in March 2019. Yet the act of leaving makes preserving those advantages difficult or even impossible.
With negotiations on the divorce terms stalled, numerous industries in Europe are stepping up calls for transitional arrangements that would maintain the status quo between the time of Brexit and the entry into force of any permanent agreements on future U.K.-EU ties.
While the EU’s national governments retain many of the policy powers associated with nuclear energy, the Euratom treaty creates a federal structure for some key elements. The centralized features include non-proliferation inspections, supply agreements with non-EU nations and research funding, all of which will fall on Britain to arrange for the first time in four decades.
When notifying its plan to withdraw from the EU, the government of British Prime Minister Theresa May also announced its intention to quit Euratom, which is governed by the bloc’s institutions. The move disappointed the U.K. nuclear industry, which had argued that post-Brexit Britain should stay in Euratom.
Risk of Disruption
Britain is a leading European nuclear nation, with 15 reactors accounting for about a fifth of domestic electricity production. The British atomic-energy industry employs more than 65,000 people and features companies ranging from plant operator EDF Energy and developer Horizon Nuclear Power — a unit of Hitachi Ltd. — to fuel producer Westinghouse Electric Co. and uranium enricher Urenco Ltd…….
The U.K., Euratom and the International Atomic Energy Agency are united under a single non-proliferation agreement. Under the three-party accord, Euratom helps carry out IAEA-mandated inspections on civil nuclear facilities in Britain to ensure that no material is diverted for atomic weapons.
In leaving Euratom, the U.K. will have to negotiate an inspection agreement of its own with the Vienna-based IAEA and beef up the national nuclear authority. Britain held an initial discussion with the IAEA on a new accord in September, according to the agency. The country also published draft legislation on Oct. 11 to create a domestic nuclear-safeguards system to replace provisions under Euratom.
Nuclear Accords
Post-Brexit Britain will also no longer be covered by cooperation accords that Euratom has with a range of non-EU countries including Australia, Canada, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Africa and the U.S. As a result, the U.K. will have to negotiate its own such deals, known as Nuclear Cooperation Agreements, or NCAs, including with the EU itself…….
The outlook for nuclear research in the U.K. is also hazy. As a member of the EU and host of a nuclear-fusion project known as Joint European Torus, the country sees 56 million euros ($66 million) a year directed from the Euratom research budget to the JET site in Oxfordshire where around 500 people are employed and about 350 scientists from Europe visit annually.
The funds for JET, which is a prototype for the world’s largest nuclear-fusion project called ITER in France, are part of a 1.6 billion-euro Euratom research budget for 2014-2018. Britain will have to negotiate access as of 2019 to this scientific network with the EU, which requires non-member countries participating in its research programs to make a financial contribution. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-15/brexit-takes-bureaucracy-to-the-atomic-level-for-u-k-industry
Europe’s nuclear trade body pushes for swift ‘Brexatom’ deal with UK, Telegraph, James Rothwell, brexit correspondent, brussels 11 OCTOBER 2017
Europe’s nuclear trade body has said it sees no reason why the UK cannot quickly sign a nuclear deal with the EU after Brexit which mirrors agreements the bloc already holds with the US and Japan.
Foratom, which is based in Brussels and represents nearly 800 nuclear firms across the EU, said it “absolutely” wanted to maintain close links with the British nuclear industry, even after its departure from the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom).
The government’s announcement that Britain will leave Euratom – a process dubbed “Brexatom” – is controversial, as it would force the country to establish its own nuclear safeguards regime and sign complex nuclear co-operation agreements with trading partners.But Berta Picamal, a member of Foratom’s executive office, said it was eager to set up a partnership that was “as close as possible” to the current regime as it would be mutually beneficial.
“It is in our interests to put in a regime as soon as possible that is as close as possible to the one we have,” she told the Telegraph.
“We are now analysing nuclear cooperation agreements that we have with third countries to see to which extent we can replicate what we have with the US or Japan with the UK.”
She added: “We do not foresee this not being solved, it’s not an option. Theresa May said she would cooperate on continued research and development projects. It’s key.”
Founded in 1957, the Euratom treaty oversees the international movement of nuclear materials, people and services through a framework which governs safety standards and research.
Though technically not part of the EU, Euratom is under the ultimate jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and requires the free movement of nuclear scientists between EU member states.
Both of these requirements are red lines for the British government, which has vowed to end free movement and direct jurisdiction of the EU over UK laws after Brexit.
French-backed Finnish nuclear plant delayed again https://www.ft.com/content/99922334-acc8-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e130 High-profile power station likely to start production more than a decade late OCTOBER 9, 2017 by Richard Milne, Nordic Correspondent A high-profile French-backed nuclear power plant in Finland has been delayed yet again, meaning it is likely to start production more than a decade late. Western Europe’s first new nuclear power station for more than two decades will now start production in May 2019 rather than at the end of 2018 as previously announced, according to the Finnish consortium behind the Olkiluoto-3 plant.
Using a similar European pressurised reactor to the one envisaged for the UK’s controversial Hinkley Point plant, the Finnish project — led by French reactor manufacturer Areva — has been regularly beset by delays and huge cost overruns. Olkiluoto-3 was originally meant to start production in spring 2009 and cost €3.2bn but the last price estimate was almost three times as high. “We are very disappointed by this additional delay. There is still substantial work to be accomplished in the project and it is essential that all the necessary technical, human and financial resources are allocated to the project,” said Jouni Silvennoinen, head of the Olkiluoto-3 project at operator TVO.
TVO is particularly concerned about the reorganisation of the French nuclear industry under which utility EDF has taken over the lead role for the development of Hinkley Point. The Finnish nuclear plant operator is worried that France will prioritise another much-delayed project locally in Flamanville over Olkiluoto. “The restructuring of the French nuclear industry must not compromise [that enough resources be directed to Olkiluoto],” Mr Silvennoinen said. TVO took the unusual step last month of complaining to the European Commission that French state aid for Areva was not enough.
Areva, along with its one-time partner Siemens, and TVO have sued each other for billions of euros in a long-running arbitration dispute. The International Chamber of Commerce tribunal made a partial award in TVO’s favour last year but did not specify how much the Finnish group might receive.
The most recent delay is only the latest in a series of problems behind nearly all new nuclear reactors being built in western Europe. Operators complain about a lack of expertise after few reactors were built following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Another Finnish project, Fennovoima, took the decision to go for Russian nuclear technology as manufacturer Rosatom has continued building power plants. But Fennovoima was forced this year to admit a delay of a year in obtaining its construction licence, an embarrassing setback for a project that had touted its ability to learn from the problems at Olkiluoto-3.
Flamanville is running at least six years late and three times over its original budget while Hinkley Point is under scrutiny both for its elevated and rising cost of £20bn and a guaranteed price for electricity that is well above the current wholesale level. TVO said Areva-Siemens had told it the first connection to the grid at Olkiluoto-3 would take place in December 2018 with the start of regular production forecast for May 2019.
Russia Ready to Offer Nuclear Technologies to Algeria, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that Russia is ready to offer Algeria its technologies and technical solutions if a decision is made to establish a national nuclear industry as well as to develop cooperation in other spheres.MOSCOW (Sputnik)— Russia is ready to offer Algeria its technologies and technical solutions if a decision is made to establish a national nuclear industry, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with the Algerian news agency APS ahead of his visit to the country.
Russia is already preparing nuclear industry specialists for Algeria, the prime minister noted.
Dave Elliott’s Blog 5th Oct 2017, The UK Trade Unions currently mostly back nuclear power.
In 2016, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady noted that the Hinkley project ‘will
be the largest construction project in the UK, creating 25,000 high-quality
jobs and 500 apprenticeships’.
It wasn’t always like this. In 1986, in
the wake of Chernobyl, the TUC backed a nuclear ‘moratorium and review’
policy. In the same year, the Labour Party had confirmed its 1985 anti
(civil) nuclear power stance, with a two thirds majority for phasing it
out.
The then quite dominant Transport and General Workers Union said it
was ‘clear and unambiguous in its position on nuclear power. We support a
halt to nuclear expansion and a safe and planned phase out of nuclear power
in this country.’
So what has changed? Well it’s taken nearly 30 years,
but renewables are now big (25%) growing, and creating jobs- with nearly
126,000 people employed in the UK renewable energy industry in 2017
according to the REA.
However, the unions still seem unsure, and some have
taken to recycling dubious statistics and arguments to try to undermine the
case for renewables. At its 2016 annual Congress the GMB Union’s National
Secretary, Justin Bowden, noted that‘over the last 12 months there were
46 days when wind was supplying 10% or less of the installed and connected
wind capacity to the grid’ and insisted that ‘until there is a
scientific breakthrough on carbon capture or solar storage, then nuclear
and gas are the only reliable shows in town which those advocating a
renewable energy-only policy have to accept.”
This doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. For over half of those 46 low-wind days
i.e. outside of winter, and for most of the nights, overall energy demand
would have been low, so a low wind input would not matter. When it did,
existing gas plants would have ramped up a bit more to provide the extra
energy needed e.g. as they do any way to meet daily peaks. As more
renewables come off the grid, other balancing measures can also be used, so
there is not really a problem. But inflexible base-load nuclear plants are
no use for this – they can’t vary output regularly, quickly and safely.
They just get in the way of the flexible supply and demand approach that is
needed.
SMR Supply Chains, Costs, are Focus of Key Developments, Neutron Bytes, Dan Yurman October 4, 2017
Small modular reactors won’t be able to compete with natural gas plants combined with renewables unless and until they get enough orders to justify building factories to manufacture them in a mass production environment.
Holtec Opens SMR Manufacturing Center in New Jersey
In September Holtec announced the grand opening of a $360M, 50 acre SMR manufacturing center in Camden, N.J. The firm was incentivized by the State of New Jersey to locate there with $260M in tax breaks. According to Holtec the Camden plant will eventually employ up to 1,000 people……….
Dr. Singh, Holtec’s President and CEO, declared the factory to be “Ground Zero” for the renaissance of nuclear energy and heavy manufacturing in America.
“It will serve as the launching pad for the regeneration of manufacturing in the United States.”
He added, “We will build nuclear reactors here, and they will sail from the port of Camden to hundreds of places around the world.”
Is Holtec Headed for Ukraine to Manufacture SMRs for Europe & Asia?
The maturing of an American supply chain to support mass production of components for SMRs might develop, but not all of it may be in the U.S. Holtec International, is reportedto be in talks about planning to arrange the production of small modular reactors (SMRs) for nuclear power plants in Ukraine, and for export to Europe and Asia.
The Interfax wire service report, which was not confirmed by Holtec, comes on the heels of the firm’s grand opening of a $360M nuclear energy component manufacturing center in Camden, NJ. It is the second report in three months providing details of Holtec International’s discussions with Energoatom. However, a spokesperson for Holtec declined to comment on these discussions as reported by Interfax.
The Intefax report quotes Energoatom National Nuclear Energy Generating Company of Ukraine President Yuriy Nedashkovsky who said,
“There is a very interesting offer made by Holtec International CEO Kris Singh to President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko – to create a hub in Ukraine, distributing small modular reactors to Europe, Asia and Africa, with the localization of production and a large number of equipment at Ukrainian enterprises.”
According to Nedashkovsky, Ukraine’s Turboatom has already been involved in the project, as it has the required turbines in its production line.
“This project has already been developed conceptually. The launch of licensing procedures (in the U.S.) is expected next year, and an active phase of construction – approximately in 2023.” Nedashkovsky added.
Talking of the long-term prospects, Nedashkovsky noted that the demand for small modular reactors after 2025 was estimated to grow over time.
Is the Ukraine SMR Story Ahead of Holtec’s Headlights?
What’s unclear is whether Nedashkovsky was speaking off-the-top-of-his-head, commenting officially on behalf of Holtec International, Continue reading →
Japan nuclear stocks down on opposition party’s phase-out plans, https://www.ft.com/content/1d201ea0-a9a9-3ead-b6e5-b430b59ccedc by Edward WhiteJapanese nuclear power companies were losing ground on Friday after the opposition party affirmed its intention to phase out nuclear energy by 2030. Kansai Electric was the biggest loser, down 1.1 per cent, followed by Tokyo Electric, which was down 0.8 per cent. Kyushu Electric and Chugoku Electric Power lost 0.5 per cent and 0.3 per cent respectively.
That saw that utilities segment drop 0.6 per cent, dragging on the broader Topix index which was up 0.2 per cent in morning trading. Those same stocks had fallen around 5 per cent in late September in response to Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, whose Party of Hope will challenge prime minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party in the upcoming snap election, declaring her support for phasing out nuclear energy by 2030.
That anti-nuclear policy was listed as part of a campaign platform released on Friday by the Party of Hope. Fifty nuclear reactors were shut down in Japan after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. Despite public concern, Japan’s nuclear safety watchdog on Wednesday issued an initial approval to restart two reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, the world’s largest nuclear generating site.
SMR Supply Chains, Costs, are Focus of Key Developments, Neutron Bytes, Dan Yurman October 4, 2017 “…….Westinghouse Says It Remains Committed To UK SMR Development
(NucNet) Westinghouse Electric Company said last week it remains committed to developing a 225-MW small modular reactor (SMR) that the company believes will allow the UK to move from buyer to global provider of SMR technology.
The company said in a statement that more than 85% of its SMR’s design, license and procurement scope can be delivered by the UK. The fuel would be manufactured at its Springfields facility in northern England.
“This is a special offering that only Westinghouse, with UK partners, can deliver,” the statement said.
Media reports in the UK have suggested that ministers are ready to approve the development of a fleet of SMRs to help guard against electricity shortages as older nuclear power stations are decommissioned………
Westinghouse said it filed for bankruptcy protection in the US to protect its core businesses and give the company time to restructure for continuing operation.
Rick Perry’s new coal subsidy could wreck America’s power markets, The Hill, BY HAL HARVEY, — 10/05/17 When old, established industries are threatened by new, better technologies, they often go running to Washington for special protections. It is an old practice, generally taxing the common good for private interests. Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Energy has set a new record for gall in this practice in a fairly stunning move that would impose a new tax on electricity consumers and roil America’s power markets for years to come.
Here’s the story: Renewable energy — especially wind and solar — has plummeted in price. Today a new wind farm, for example, is often cheaper than just the operating costs of an old coal power plant. Cheap natural gas creates additional price threats to existing coal or nuclear. And these favorable economics for renewables and gas don’t even count the public benefits they create through clean air, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and avoided fuel price spikes.
This transition motivated DOE’s recent study of grid reliability, after coal and nuclear owners warned that closing their plants and adding renewables would cause blackouts. It turns out, though, even DOE’s study found this wasn’t the case, and that clean energy works just fine on our grid.
So, across the country, in power grids where economic dispatch reigns, renewables are booming, and coal plants are shutting down. This is not a “war on coal” nor is this reality susceptible to change through political pro-coal statements. It is free-market economics, plain and simple.
What can the owners of these old power plants do? They posit changing the rules, so instead of simply being paid for electricity, they get paid for “other attributes” as well, including a novel term among utilities, “fuel-secure power plants.” The idea is that having a pile of coal next to your uneconomical power plant should be richly rewarded, bringing your 1970s technology back into the black.
At first blush, this may seem sensible. Surely having a deep inventory of on-site fuel, be it a pile of coal, nuclear fuel or water behind the dam benefits the grid? Well, it turns out that reliable power is better delivered by a diversity of sources, rather than a few huge power plants. It also turns out that wind, for example, is often more reliable than coal. ……..
Energy Secretary Rick Perry has ignored this evidence, and proposed a rule to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to subsidize the oldest power plants on the grid. His request is anti-innovation, anti-economy, and anti-environment. It is a wholesale repudiation of the free market. And it flatly contradicts Texas’ experience………
Rick Perry’s plan to subsidize coal and nuclear plants is bonkers, By keeping uncompetitive plants open, it would blow up energy markets. VOX by David Roberts@drvoxdavid@vox.comThe Trump administration has not typically put a premium on transparency or fealty to empirical fact. So it was somewhat puzzling when the Department of Energy released its long-awaited study of power grid reliability in August and it looked … mostly normal.
By all accounts, DOE’s experts were allowed to work on it unimpeded. Its conclusions lined up with the broad consensus in the energy field: The loss of coal plants has not diminished grid reliability; in fact, the grid is more reliable than ever. Reliability can be improved further through smart planning and a portfolio of flexible resources. Regulators should work on ways to better compensate reliability in competitive energy markets.
The summary bits of the report added a bit of political spin, but the analytic work and core conclusions were solid — and very much not in line with the administration’s position, which is that reliability is immediately threatened and coal and nuclear plants are necessary to preserve it.
Where, wondered the more cynical observers [waves], was the hackery? Where was the political interference to prop up a favored industry, the blithe disregard of expert knowledge? This is not the Trump administration we’ve come to know and … know.
Well, it turns out, we just needed a little patience. The hackery has landed. Repeat: The hackery has landed.
Unfortunately, the hackery comes obscured by a thick cloak of acronyms — it’s an NOPR from DOE about ISOs that contradicts NERC, FFS — so it takes a little unpacking.
Here’s the short summary: Perry wants utilities to pay coal and nuclear power plants for all their costs and all the power they produce, whether those plants are needed or not.
That may sound a little blunt and ridiculous to you, but don’t worry. Once you understand some of the background and the technical details, you will see that it is in fact more blunt and ridiculous than you could have imagined.
DOE has lurched, on this subject, from minimum to maximum hackery. Even in our new Trumpian world, it is astounding.
Let’s walk through it.
DOE to FERC: address a crisis we determined does not exist
Remember, the administration’s position is that, as Perry put it in his memo requesting a grid study, “regulatory burdens, as well as mandates and tax and subsidy policies, are responsible for forcing the premature retirement of baseload power plants.”
Suffice it to say, he’s not referring to the regulations, mandates, tax, and subsidy policies that benefit coal and nuclear plants. He means renewable energy subsidies, which he says “create acute and chronic problems for maintaining adequate baseload generation and have impacted reliable generators of all types.”
Putting it more explicitly, the administration’s claim is twofold: First, that power plants with large amounts of fuel on-site — coal and nuclear, basically — are necessary to grid reliability, and second, that those plants are unfairly being driven out of business by subsidies to renewable energy.
The problem is, neither claim is true, which poses something of a dilemma for Perry, who has been put in charge of an agency filled with genuine technical experts. And sure enough, DOE’s grid study found, as many other studies before it have, that a) the loss of coal and nuclear plants has not diminished reliability, and b) it is cheap natural gas, not renewable energy subsidies, that has driven coal and nuclear out of business.
Whether through ignorance or cleverness, Perry stumbled on a different communications strategy. He seems to have realized that he didn’t need to mess with the study at all. Why bother? He could simply pretend that it supported the administration’s position. The media would he-said, she-said it for a day or two and then move on. He simply behaved as though the study had confirmed his claims.
Which brings us to last Friday, when DOE proposed a new rule for the electricity system, premised on the very suppositions its own grid study disproved. To wit:
The resiliency of the nation’s electric grid is threatened by premature retirements of power plants that can withstand major fuel supply disruptions caused by natural or man-made disasters and, in those critical times, continue to provide electric energy, capacity, and essential grid reliability services. These fuel-secure resources are indispensable for the reliability and resiliency of our electric grid — and therefore indispensable for our economic and national security. It is time for the Commission to issue rules to protect the American people from energy outages expected to result from the loss of this fuel-secure generation capacity.
Again, this is all wrong. Having fuel on-site does little for resilience. The plants are not indispensable. No one expects energy outages if baseload plants continue closing.
Nonetheless, based on these faulty premises, DOE issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) to the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC), suggesting that FERC adopt a rule forcing utilities in competitive energy markets to pay the full cost of plants that have 90 days’ worth of fuel on-site.
This is a deeply messed-up thing to do, on so many levels it’s difficult to know where to begin. It is the crudest imaginable intervention on coal’s behalf.
But let’s start with a quick note on the authorities involved here.
FERC will determine the fate of this monstrosity
When Congress consolidated various agencies into DOE with the Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977, it deliberately maintained a separate regulatory authority (the Federal Power Commission, renamed FERC).
A quirk of the law allows DOE to propose rules to FERC — an authority is has used only rarely, and for fairly small matters.
But FERC is independent. It is not under DOE’s authority and does not have to do what DOE proposes.
It is highly unlikely to adopt this rule as-is. (It would effectively be impossible, for reasons we’ll discuss.) But it’s also unlikely to ignore the NOPR. These are, after all, both Trump administration agencies, run by Trump appointees.
So what exactly FERC does with the NOPR — what balance of expertise and hackery it brings to bear — will determine the actual impacts of this thing.
Behind the Backlash to Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s Demand for Coal-Nuclear Market Intervention, Almost everyone outside the coal and nuclear industries wants FERC to turn down DOE’s grid market rule. Here’s why.
Greentech Media, by Jeff St. John , October 05, 2017 Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s demand for market-disrupting price supports for coal and nuclear power plants has broken multiple rules for how energy policy is made, from upending the facts to subverting regular order. And it’s being pushed through on a hyper-fast, 60-day review period that’s not only unjustified by the Department of Energy report it cites as justification, but “practically and legally impossible” to meet.
This is a collection of the critiques that have emerged since Friday’s shock DOE filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In a rarely used notice of public rule making (NOPR), DOE asked FERC to create market rules to provide compensation for power plants that, among other features, have a 90-day supply of fuel on hand — something that only coal and nuclear power plants can do.
The NOPR cited the grid reliability study ordered by Perry in April to argue that baseload power plants need compensation to shore up grid reliability. But as we covered when it was released in July, the report doesn’t actually support that conclusion, stealing some of the thunder from clean energy and environmental groups’ arguments that the report was a Trojan horse for pro-coal and nuclear power policies all along.
Nuclear expansion expected to slow in the coming years, IAEA report says https://dailyenergyinsider.com/news/8285-nuclear-expansion-expected-slow-coming-years-iaea-report-says/October 05, 2017 by Alex Murtha While nuclear power’s global potential up to the year 2050 remains high, its expansion is expected to slow in the coming years, according to a recently published report on energy and electricity projections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The report, titled Energy, Electricity and Nuclear Power Estimates for the Period up to 2050, also stated that interest in nuclear power remains particularly strong within the developing world. However, compared to the prior year’s projections for 2030, estimates were reduced by 45 gigawatts (GW) in both high and low cases.
In the short term, the impact of renewable energy sources on electricity prices, the low price of natural gas and country-specific nuclear policies following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster are all expect to affect nuclear growth prospects, the report said.
Compared to 2016 levels, high projections indicate an increase by 42 percent in 2030, by 83 percent in 2040 and by 123 percent in 2050. Yet, the low projections indicate a decline in capacity by 12 percent in 2030, 15 percent in 2040 before rebounding to current levels by 2050.
According to the IAEA, the wide range of the projections is also due to the considerable number of reactors scheduled to be retired by approximately 2030 and beyond, particularly in North America and Europe, along with whether or not new nuclear capacity would be built to replace retired reactors.
U.S. PREPARES NEW MISSILES FOR JAPAN AFTER NORTH KOREA THREATENS NUCLEAR WAR, newsweek BY TOM O’CONNORThe U.S. has moved closer to selling dozens of state-of-the-art missiles to Japan as part of President Donald Trump’s pledge to boost military support for Pacific allies opposed to nuclear-armed North Korea.
The State Department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Wednesday it would back the Japanese government’s request for up to 56 AIM 120C-7 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs). The sale, which is estimated at $113 million and requires congressional approval, would also reportedly include various logistical, technical, engineering and weapons support services. It comes as Japan reconsiders its traditionally pacifist post-World War II stance on defense in the face of threats from North Korea, which has shot two missiles over Japanese territory in the past two months.
The proposed sale will provide Japan a critical air defense capability to assist in defending the Japanese homeland and U.S. personnel stationed there,” the agency said in a statement.
“Japan will have no difficulty absorbing these additional munitions into the Japan Air Self-Defense Force,” it added…….
Les Echos 4th Oct 2017 [Machine Translation]Members of the board of directors of EDF and the
executive committee – met Tuesday in Hinkley Point, south-west England, for
a “delocalized strategic seminar” and to visit the site of the two EPRs.
Because of its location, project governance is much more complex than that
of the EPR project in Flamanville (Manche). Three teams are at work, with
about 700 people in Montrouge (France), 850 in Bristol (Great Britain) and
construction teams in Hinkley Point.
It is also necessary to integrate
Areva’s teams into Edvance, the new engineering structure resulting from
the restructuring of the nuclear industry. “There are many issues to be
discussed on the connection between EDF and NNB units in England,” said a
member of EDF’s board of directors before the summer. A site for Simone
Rossi, who will take over the management of EDF Energy on November 1, to
replace Vincent de Rivaz. https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/energie-environnement/030655436090-edf-une-nouvelle-direction-pour-les-epr-anglais-2119323.php
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