Military chiefs must find an extra £300 million in savings this year to
cover a rise in the cost of Britain’s replacement fleet of Trident
submarines, The Times can reveal. The army is set to take a hit, with
commanders ordered to make at least £100 million of efficiency savings on
top of hundreds of millions of pounds that have already been squeezed out
of threadbare budgets for training, maintenance, accommodation and travel.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/forces-must-find-300m-for-rising-trident-costs-bmxnl9
October 29, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, weapons and war |
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FITCH: MAHLOBO APPOINTMENT SENDS MIXED SIGNALS ON SA NUCLEAR PROGRAMME http://ewn.co.za/2017/10/27/fitch-mahlobo-appointment-sends-mixed-signals-on-sa-nuclear-programme
While Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba indicated that we don’t have enough money for the project, Fitch says it seems that government is still pushing for the project to go ahead with the new Energy Minister driving the process. Ilze-Marie Le Roux , 27 Oct 17, CAPE TOWN – Global ratings agency Fitch has raised questions about whether South Africa’s big nuclear build really is on the back burner.
Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, in his medium-term budget policy statement, indicated that we don’t have enough money for the project.
But in a bleak statement released on Thursday, Fitch says that the appointment of David Mhlobo as the new Energy Minister sends contradictory signals.
Fitch is sceptical about the status of the nuclear build, as the massive programme would see the construction of between six and eight nuclear plants with a very hefty price tag, a price tag South Africa just can’t afford at the moment.
Gigaba made that point crystal clear in his medium-term budget speech but ratings agency Fitch says it seems that government is still pushing for the project to go ahead with the new Energy Minister driving the process.
Fitch’s statement also raised concerns about the lack of a proper plan to cut spending or to raise revenue, saying that it suggests deep divisions within the ruling party.
Fitch has already downgraded both the country’s foreign and local denominated debt to sub-investment grade.
Moody’s and S&P Global have taken a wait and see approach.
October 28, 2017
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business and costs, South Africa |
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French power group EDF lowers 2017 earnings and nuclear output targets, Reuters Staff, PARIS, Oct 27 (Reuters) – French state-controlled power group EDF lowered its 2017 targets for nuclear power output and for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), following restart delays at its Tricastin nuclear plant.
October 28, 2017
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business and costs, France |
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Standard & Poors Global Market Intelligence 16th October 2017, Nuclear energy is in irreversible decline across the world, with the construction of new units appearing to bottom out, a new report found. “The deterioration of the situation is accelerating,” warned Paris-based nuclear consultant Mycle Schneider at the U.S. launch of the World Nuclear Industry
Status Report on Oct. 12 in Washington, D.C. The event was hosted by the anti-nuclear Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the German Green Party-linked Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America foundation.
The 10th annual edition of the report provides a grim assessment of the worldwide nuclear industry. According to the report’s 2017 edition, the mean age of the world’s 403 reactors in operation as of
July 1 is approximately 29 years while the mean age at retirement of the 169 reactors that have shut down was roughly 25 years.
https://www.snl.com/web/client?auth=inherit#news/article?id=42284954&cdid=A-42284954-123
October 27, 2017
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New nuclear power plants linked to Trident weapons http://www.tribunemagazine.org/2017/10/new-nuclear-power-plants-linked-to-trident-weapons/ By: David Hencke: October 22, 2017 Senior civil servants have revealed that the government’s decision to build a new generation of civil nuclear power stations starting with Hinkley Point is linked to maintaining enough skills to keep Britain’s nuclear deterrent.
The disclosure came at a hearing of the Commons Public Accounts Committee looking at the huge cost of building Hinkley Point power station which critics see as uneconomic and not properly costed.
It was raised in a paper submitted to the committee by Professor Andy Stirling, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and Dr Phil Johnstone, from the Science Policy Research Unit, Sussex University, which questioned whether the Ministry of Defence is being subsidized by the civil nuclear industry.
Their paper pointed out this is never publicly discussed but added: “If a UK withdrawal from civil nuclear power on grounds of uncompetitive economics were to leave these shared costs borne entirely on the military side, then UK military nuclear infrastructures would be significantly more expensive.
“If civil nuclear commitments are being maintained (despite adverse economics) in order to help cover these shared costs, then it is this that amounts to a cross-subsidy.”
The point was taken up by Meg Hillier, chair of the PAC, last week. She questioned Stephen Lovegrove, former Permanent Secretary, Department for Energy and Climate Change, on the issue.
“Mr Lovegrove, there has been an argument put forward by Sussex University that Hinkley is a great opportunity to maintain our nuclear skills base. With your hat on at the Ministry of Defence, are you having discussions with the business Department about this?”
Lovegrove replied: “We are, yes. In my last year at DECC, I was in regular discussion with Jon Thompson, former Permanent Secretary at the MOD, to say that as a nation we are going into a fairly intense period of nuclear activity … We are building the new SSBNs (nuclear armed nuclear submarines) and completing the Astutes … We are completing the build of the nuclear submarines which carry conventional weaponry. We have at some point to renew the warheads, so there is very definitely an opportunity here for the nation to grasp in terms of building up its nuclear skills.
“I do not think that that is going to happen by accident; it is going to require concerted Government action to make it happen. We are speaking to colleagues at BEIS ( Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) fairly repeatedly about it, and have a number of forums in which we are doing that.”
The Sussex University paper also pointed out that private industry was making the link. Their paper said: “Rolls Royce acknowledged for the first time in a major public statement, that there also exists a deep interlinkage between British civil and military nuclear industrial capabilities … stating that “expansion of a nuclear-capable skilled workforce through a civil nuclear UK programme would relieve the Ministry of Defence of the burden of developing and retaining skills and capability. This would free up valuable resources for other investments.”
October 27, 2017
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India-US nuke deal signed without ground work: Ex-US Senator PTI|Oct 26, 2017, WASHINGTON: The landmark India-US civil nuclear deal was “dead at the very beginning” as it was signed without ground work, a former top Republican Senator has alleged, describing the agreement as more of an “arms deal” for American defence manufacturing companies.
Former Senator Larry Pressler, who has served as chairman of the US Senate’s Arms Control Subcommittee, told a Washington audience that the deal was much-praised “but there is no chance of it being implemented as the liability issues have not been addressed and it has not been worked through.”
He said that the India-US civil nuclear deal “was dead at the very beginning.
Pressler said that there was “no groundwork done” in India or the US on the civil nuclear deal.
The India-US nuclear cooperation agreement was signed in October 2008, ending India’s isolation by the West in the nuclear and space arena. The deal has given a significant boost to India’s nuclear energy production.
Pressler was speaking at an event organised by The Hudson Institute, a top American think-tank, to discuss his latest book ‘Neighbours in Arms: An American Senator s Quest for Disarmament in a Nuclear Subcontinent’.
“…There was nothing to it really. If you look into it, it is more of an arms sale agreement,” he alleged.
Pressler claimed the then US president Barack Obama’s visit to New Delhi was “largely an arms sale trip”.
“The then president Obama’s last trip to India was an arms sales trip and the poor people of India have to pay for all of these new arms that their country is buying from the US. This is really one of us but it’s a new friendship we’re told. But we have to be very careful. I’m somewhat critical that India has accepted that on those terms,” the former American Senator said. …….https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/india-us-nuke-deal-signed-without-ground-work-ex-us-senator/articleshow/61236998.cms
October 27, 2017
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India, marketing, USA |
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Nuclear power ‘still unaffordable’ https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017-10-26-nuclear-power–still-unaffordable/ 26 October 2017 BY BUSINESSLIVE Nuclear remained in the energy mix but a large-scale nuclear power project was not affordable, Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba told reporters on Wednesday.
He was speaking ahead of his medium-term Budget speech, which did not mention nuclear power plans.
A new integrated resource plan on energy would provide more clarity, he said.
Proposals for a nuclear building project have been debated with a new urgency since weekend reports that President Jacob Zuma had recently met a Russian delegation.
Both the Presidency and the Russian embassy in Pretoria have denied that there was such a meeting, at which Zuma was said to have come under pressure to start implementing the nuclear power project with Russia.
Zuma’s cabinet reshuffle last week included the appointment of David Mahlobo as energy minister.
Mahlobo was reported to have travelled to Russia with convicts Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene to facilitate a R5-billion nuclear deal with Russian company Rosgeo. Mahlobo was state security minister at the time of the trip.
Allegations that the energy sector has been captured go beyond the nuclear project. PetroSA is also being investigated.
October 27, 2017
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business and costs, politics, South Africa |
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Independent 25th Oct 2017. A subsidy ban for new onshore wind farms could add £1bn onto energy bills
over five years by eschewing one of the cheapest forms of clean energy.
Generating power from new onshore wind farms would be £100m a year cheaper
than doing so from new nuclear reactors or biomass plants, and at least
£30m cheaper than under the latest offshore wind-power contracts,
according to research by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit, a
London-based non-profit group.
Savings would reach £1bn over five years if
1 gigawatt of capacity was installed in the first year and another 500
megawatts in following years, said ECIU, which urged Theresa May’s
Conservative government to allow wind farms to compete for contracts in the
next power auction, due to be held in 2019.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/onshore-wind-farms-uk-subsidy-ban-energy-bills-rise-1-billion-a8018561.html
October 27, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, renewable, UK |
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Regulators absolve Duke Energy customers of lingering Levy costs, By Malena Carollo, Times Staff Writer, October 25, 2017 TALLAHASSEE — For Duke Energy Florida customers, the never-built Levy Nuclear Project is finally,officially behind them. Per a unanimous decision by regulators Wednesday, Duke customers, who have doled out nearly $1 billion for Levy costs from 2009 to 2015, will not have to pay any more.
“I think that this settlement as a whole benefits consumers and is ultimately in the public interest,” said Ronald Brisé, commissioner with the Florida Public Service Commission, at Wednesday’s hearing
“We feel like the cost of Levy being written off is a small price to pay for moving forward,” Harry Sideris, president of Duke’s Florida operations, said in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times in late August.
The nuclear elephant-in-the-room resulted from Progress Energy, Duke’s predecessor, asking ratepayers for money up front for a future nuclear facility in Levy County. It was intended to reduce energy costs going forward, and paying ahead of time would speed the process along.
Though ratepayers were charged the upfront costs, Duke pulled the plug on the project in 2013.
According to Duke representatives at the Wednesday PSC hearing, customers will also not be charged for the cost of the land that the facility was meant to be built on. It will be considered for potential solar or natural gas facilities.
The agreement also signals a significant shift toward use of solar power. Over the next four years, Duke will add 700 megawatts of solar power, about 75 megawatts of which will come online by early 2019.
The utility also plans invest in 50 megawatts of solar power battery storage, research more efficient solar storage methods and implement electric vehicle infrastructure. http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/hearing-could-absolve-duke-customers-from-paying-for-levy-nuclear-plant/2342259
Contact Malena Carollo at mcarollo@tampabay.com or (727) 892-2249. Follow @malenacarollo on Twitter.
October 27, 2017
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Business Green 25th Oct 2017, The government’s “outdated” ban on developing new onshore wind farms on
mainland Britain is blocking access to the cheapest available form of new
electricity generation, and having a negative impacts on bills, climate
change targets, and businesses.
That is the conclusion of new research by
the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) think tank, which estimates
electricity from 1GW of new onshore wind farms would cost £30m a year less
than obtaining the same amount of power from new offshore wind farms, even
when recent cost reductions from the offshore wind sector are taken into
account.
https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3019755/report-uks-outdated-onshore-wind-ban-blocks-cheapest-form-of-new-energy
October 27, 2017
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business and costs, politics, renewable, UK |
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National Day of Remembrance commemorating atomic energy workers RIVER BENDER.com October 24 2017 ST. PETERS, MO – Each year on Oct. 30th atomic energy workers across the nation are commemorated for the National Day of Remembrance. “……Many atomic energy workers unknowingly worked with hazardous chemicals and radiation without consent or proper protective gear during this construction. As a result, countless numbers of individuals are now sick or deceased because of occupational induced illnesses……… Today, the sacrificial work displayed by nuclear weapons workers for their nation and families is remembered……..
Atomic Resource Coalition (ARC) extends a thank you to all those who have served. The price that has been paid does not go a day unnoticed.
ARC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that assists and educates current and former atomic energy workers, as well as their family members, about the benefits which may be available to them under the Department of Labor’s Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. Workers and survivors of workers that have been effected by an occupational illness at a nuclear weapons plant are encouraged to contact ARC to see if they qualify for medical benefits and/or monetary compensation. https://www.riverbender.com/articles/details/national-day-of-remembrance-commemorating-atomic-energy-workers-24387.cfm
October 25, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
employment, USA |
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Who gets $60 million when nuke project fails? SCANA execs with golden parachutes could, Myrtle Beach Online, BY AVERY G. WILKS awilks@thestate.com 21 Oct 17 Top SCANA Corp. executives who led a failed nuclear project that cost S.C. power customers and shareholders billions could be paid roughly $60 million more if the Cayce-based company is sold in the aftermath of the V.C. Summer fiasco.
So-called “golden parachutes,” written into the contracts of those executives in case of a sale or takeover, could trigger payments estimated at $28 million for Chief Executive Kevin Marsh and roughly $12 million each for two other SCANA leaders, according to The State newspaper’s review of the company’s federal filings.
The Fortune 1000 company’s executive pay has enraged S.C. legislators who are investigating the nuclear project’s demise and power customers who still are paying an average of $27 a month for the abandoned reactors.
Total compensation for SCANA’s executive team has nearly doubled over the past 10 years, as company leaders accepted millions in bonuses for their work on the doomed project…….
‘Golden parachutes’ common
Golden parachutes are common in the corporate world, where companies want executives to put shareholders’ interests ahead of their own, according to University of South Carolina management professor Anthony Nyberg…….
$3 million in V.C. Summer bonuses already paid
As the power bills rose, so did SCANA’s executive pay.
Total compensation for SCANA’s company’s executive team rose to $14 million in 2016 from $8.5 million in 2007, the year S.C. legislators passed a law that green lighted the nuclear project.
Since 2008, Marsh’s team also has collected nearly $3 million in performance-related bonuses for their work on the doomed V.C. Summer project, according to documents SCANA recently provided to a state Senate panel investigating the nuclear venture.
More than $432,000 of those bonuses were paid in 2016, after a Feb. 5, 2016, independent report diagnosed critical problems at the Jenkinsville site.
“That’s just absolute insanity,” state Rep. Kirkman Finlay, R-Richland, said Thursday. “How do you pay a bonus on a plant that is a year from being bankrupt?”……
Golden parachutes written into the contracts of SCANA’s top executives ensure each could be paid millions of dollars if the Cayce-based company is sold. According to the utility, here is how much each would have been owed if those provisions were triggered in December 2016:
▪ Chief executive Kevin Marsh: $28 million
▪ Chief nuclear officer Stephen Byrne: $12.8 million
▪ Chief financial officer Jimmy Addison: $11.8 million
▪ Senior vice president Keller Kissam: $5 million
▪ Former SCANA general counsel Ronald Lindsay: $8.8 million (1)
(1) Subsequently, retired and no longer eligible for a payout
October 23, 2017
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TRANSPARENCY CALL Nobel Foundation accused of indirect nuclear arms investments https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/transparency-call_nobel-foundation-accused-of-indirect-nuclear-arms-investments/43614160 The Swiss-based winner of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize has called on the Nobel Foundation
external link to be more transparent about how it invests its money. This follows allegations that the body has indirectly invested in companies linked to the United States’ nuclear arms programme.
Last month, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weaponsexternal link (ICAN) received the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts in the process to bring about a global treaty to ban nuclear arms.
But the German NGO Facing Finance, together with Norwegian environmental organisation Framtiden and German television channel ZDF, have uncovered evidence that the Nobel Foundation has invested in an index fund that includes Lockheed Martin, Textron and Raytheon. All three companies have been active in US nuclear weapons manufacturing.
Geneva-based ICAN has its own investment tracker called Don’t Bank on the Bomb, which encourages investors to publicly divest from companies associated with the production of nuclear weapons. But this system looks specifically at financial sector investments, and does not reveal individual investors.
ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn called on the foundation to open its books more fully to public scrutiny.
“There are public reports that the Nobel Foundation has an ethical investment policy not to invest in weapons prohibited by international treaty, and we encourage the Nobel Foundation to be more public and transparent about how they implement this policy,” she said in an email to swissinfo.ch.
New direction
ICAN will officially receive the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10. Fihn said that ICAN would use the prize “to strengthen the work of prohibiting and eliminating nuclear weapons”.
In an emailed response to swissinfo.ch, the Nobel Foundation said it invested in funds rather than picking specific companies. Since the beginning of the year, it has changed its investment policy to find “more sustainable alternatives to our equity index funds”.
“Today, the Nobel Foundation has clear guidelines regarding ethics and sustainability. No new investments are made in funds that invest in companies that violate international conventions regarding, for example, land mines or cluster bombs, or who have investments in nuclear weapons,” Nobel Foundation Executive Director Lars Heikensten told swissinfo.ch.
“Our current investments are being investigated based on these guidelines. In addition, we have joined the UN initiative Principles for Responsible Investments (PRI), and have thereby incorporated environmental, social and governance factors into our investment decisions.”
He added that the foundation was “considering using our position to make active investments in sustainable projects and in this way, make a real difference”.
October 20, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, business and costs, Switzerland, weapons and war |
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Platts 17th Oct 2017, UK annual inflation hit 3% in September for the first time since March
2012, up from 2.9% in August, the Office for National Statistics said
Tuesday. Monthly CPI as published by the ONS is used as an input in strike
prices awarded to low-carbon projects under the Contracts for Difference
regime. One of the early commercial agreements was for the Hinkley Point C
nuclear power station. LCCC data show the initial GBP89.50/MWh ($118/MWh)
strike price for the plant (2012 money) has risen GBP7.64/MWh to
GBP97.14/MWh. This initial strike price assumes a second EDF project at
Sizewell C proceeds. If not, the initial strike price rises to
GBP92.50/MWh. https://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/london/uk-inflation-hits-3-in-september-strike-price-26822470
October 20, 2017
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Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 17th Oct 2017, Mark Cooper: In 2008, the “nuclear renaissance” hype was in full swing. South Carolina was one of the first states to hop on the bandwagon. Public
and investor-owned utilities rushed to sign a contract for two new reactors at the V. C. Summer nuclear station before the design for the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors was finalized, to avoid the price run-up that was expected to occur when orders for dozens of reactors were signed.
There was no rush of orders, but there were 17 formal revisions before the design was
finalized, and perhaps many hundreds more made in a more informal manner.
Adecade later, the nuclear industry is in shambles. Billions of dollars were spent on the two now-abandoned reactors at V. C. Summer, and only two other reactors remain under construction, at a plant in Georgia. The South Carolina reactors were so far behind schedule and over budget that they
triggered the bankruptcy of the reactor vendor (Westinghouse), the near-bankruptcy of its corporate parent (Toshiba), and the resignation of the CEO of the utility (Santee Cooper) that owns 45 percent of the V. C. Summer project.
The nuclear industry’s collapse is stunning, but it should come as no surprise. This is exactly what happened during the first round of nuclear construction in the United States, in the decade between
1975 and 1985. History is repeating itself because of a dozen factors and trends that render nuclear power, new and old, inevitably uneconomic.
https://thebulletin.org/dozen-reasons-economic-failure-nuclear-power11196
October 20, 2017
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