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$110 million deal to keep FitzPatrick nuclear facility operating, NRC approves transfer from Entergy to Exelon

NRC approves transfer of Entergy’s Fitzpatrick nuclear plant to Exelon       Utility Dive      8 Mar 17@TeamWetDog    Dive Brief:

  • The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week approved the transfer of the operating license belonging to Entergy’s FitzPatrick nuclear facility to Exelon as part of a $110 million deal to keep the plant operating.
  • The NRC’s approval is the last regulatory hurdle of the deal, Syracuse.com reports, with Exelon officials anticipating to close out the deal later this month.
  • Entergy had planned to shutter the struggling FitzPatrick plant, but Exelon agreed to purchase it with the caveat that New York developing a Clean Energy Standard subsidy program to keep it profitable. But the Zero Emissions Credit plan is now being challenged by the Electric Power Supply Association, which argues the credits intrude on federal jurisdiction of wholesale markets.
  • Dive Insight:
  • New York’s plan to save the state’s nuclear fleet is tied up at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The agency has only two members, preventing any decisions on major cases until a third commissioner is seated for a quorum.

    While the deal moves ahead, federal regulators will still need to make broader decisions about how to credit the carbon-zero output from nuclear plants, which struggle against natural gas plants and renewables with lower fixed costs. While generators opposing the plan say the ZECs intrude into wholesale power markets, Exelon has argued they are within the state’s purview…..http://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrc-approves-transfer-of-entergys-fitzpatrick-nuclear-plant-to-exelon/437539/

March 8, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Only the taxpayer can save this Ohio nuclear power station

BEAVER VALLEY NUCLEAR PLANT FUTURE HINGES ON SUBSIDIES, Beloit Daily News March 07, 2017  By ANYA LITVAK, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette   PITTSBURGH (AP) — One way or another, come next year, FirstEnergy Corp. is getting rid of the Beaver Valley nuclear power station.

Either the Ohio-based company will shut down the 1,800-megawatt plant, two decades ahead of schedule, or it will sell it to another operator. The latter option is a nonstarter unless something — aka someone, aka legislators in Pennsylvania and Ohio — intervenes to give nuclear energy a boost.

The Beaver County nuclear plant and two others in Ohio share the same chopping block as about a dozen fossil fuel plants in FirstEnergy’s portfolio across several states where electricity generation is not directly supported by ratepayers.

But getting legislation that would recognize — monetarily — nuclear energy’s lack of carbon emissions is FirstEnergy’s top priority, according to the firm’s CEO Chuck Jones, even though FirstEnergy won’t stick around to operate the plants either way.

“I don’t think there’s any guarantee, absent some other support for these units, that they’re going to keep running far into the future,” he told analysts during a call last month. Without something to “make them attractive to a buyer, there’s only one way for us to exit this business,” he said.

That something isn’t ambiguous.

In Ohio, it will be legislation seeking to create a program where customers would pay a surcharge to fund zero-emission credits given to nuclear plants. A similar mechanism supports the purchase of renewable energy in Pennsylvania and in Ohio, although the Buckeye State’s program had been frozen for the past two years and some in the state Legislature are attempting to neuter its mandates by making them penalty-free goals instead.

Jones expects an Ohio bill in support of nuclear energy to be introduced soon and said he’s optimistic, “given the discussions we’ve had so far,” that it will pass.

In Pennsylvania, Exelon is taking the lead. The Chicago-based operator of three of the state’s five nuclear power stations has been emboldened by recent victories in Illinois and New York, where it credited the 11th-hour approval of zero-emission credits with saving several plants from early retirement.

This year, Exelon added a significant number of Harrisburg lobbyists to its roster……..

If New York is any indication, Beaver Valley might serve as a sweetener for Pennsylvania lawmakers to act quickly.

When New York was mulling a nuclear credit program, Exelon said it would buy the FitzPatrick nuclear plant from Entergy Corp. — which planned to shut it down — if emission credits were approved………..

In October, five Pennsylvania legislators — most of whose districts include nuclear power plants — formed the nuclear energy caucus. They announced it with a Tweet, posed in front of a banner that read, “Pennsylvania’s nuclear plants support more than 15,600 jobs.”

The caucus, which includes Jim Marshall, R-Beaver County, and Robert Matzie, D-Beaver/Allegheny, plans to make a formal announcement of its existence later this month to be followed by a discussion of a new report on how states can save nuclear power plants, commissioned by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Matzie and Marshall did not return calls for comment.http://www.beloitdailynews.com/article/20170307/AP/303

March 8, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

All the global nuclear salesmen are targeting Kenya

Suitors line up to walk Kenya down controversial path to nuclear energy Standard media UK By Paul Wafula , March 7th 2017 
Kenya is on a delicate journey that will see it switch on its first nuclear power plant by 2027. The country plans to put up four nuclear plants in the long term, each generating 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Initial estimates show it will cost between Sh400 billion and Sh500 billion to put up one nuclear reactor. This means one plant will cost slightly more than building the 609-kilometre Mombasa to Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR). By the time the plan is complete, the country will have spent about Sh2 trillion – just under the national Budget for a year – to reap the benefits of an additional 4,000MW of energy plugged into the national grid.

Besides the financing headache, the second test for the 10-year dream being championed by the Kenya Nuclear Energy Board (KNEB) is coming up with a location to for the reactors. The board estimates site selection will cost the country Sh1.5 billion in a three-year process. Though the potential sites have remained a closely guarded secret, the power plant will be built next to any of the four biggest water bodies in the country – that is, the Indian Ocean, Lake Victoria, River Tana and Lake Turkana.

…………..These plans have excited sellers of nuclear reactors who are now courting the country, with some dangling ‘free training’. The potential suppliers include South Korea, whose companies are constructing nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates. Kenya has also been window shopping in China, and with Rosatom in Russia and Westinghouse in the United States. The country’s plans appear modelled on the UAE’s, which awarded a South Korean consortium to build four plants at a cost of Sh2 trillion.
…………Kenya has already signed a memorandum of understanding with China, South Korea, Russia and Ghana. KNEB said the deal with China would help Kenya “obtain expertise through training and skills development, technical support in areas such as site selection for Kenya’s nuclear power plants, and feasibility studies”. China has been offering ‘free’ training and feasibility studies for big infrastructure projects in Africa as a strategy to get into the boardrooms where key decisions are made. This is the same approach it used to land the SGR deal.
………..The country has also signed nuclear power co-operation agreements with Slovakia and South Korea.
…………He added that the Sh500 billion cost per plant for UAE may be cheaper because South Koreans were trying to get into the market. France is also lining up for a piece of the action, with the country offering Kenya technical, engineering and financial support to develop reactors.
…………MAKING THE CASE Juma has defended the cost of the project on the grounds that in the long run, nuclear energy is a cheaper and more stable source of power, with sustainable base loads. The board is looking at having flexible financing options, including public-private partnership where a private developer will finance the plant, construct and operate it for some time to recoup investments and make a profit, before handing it over to the State.
……The agency is looking at plants that will have a lifespan of up to 80 years.
………….it will have a difficult task of convincing local communities that the country is ready to deal with the radiological effects of nuclear.
……The other headache that must be tackled is the development of national strategies for radioactive waste management, emergency preparedness and the nuclear fuel cycle.
……energy experts from Italy and Germany last year, advised Kenya to drop plans to build nuclear reactors and instead harness its vast renewable energy resources, including geothermal, solar and wind, for power generation. They cited massive costs for a nuclear plant, long construction periods of about 10 years and expensive decommissioning at the end of plants’ lifespan, especially disposing of hazardous radioactive waste.
…….https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001231716/suitors-line-up-to-walk-kenya-down-controversial-path-to-nuclear-energy

March 8, 2017 Posted by | Kenya, marketing | Leave a comment

Russia’s Rosatom strongly promoting nuclear power at Malaysian conference

The seventh Nuclear Power Asia conference being held in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday and Wednesday is bringing together the leaders of the Asian nuclear-power industry. 

Session participants have concurred that nuclear power, being an economically and environmentally viable source of electricity, has the capacity to contribute greatly to Asia’s sustainable future.

“Sustainable future is impossible without sustainable energy,” said Egor Simonov, director of Rosatom Asia. “Nuclear power [emits] 25-30 times less [greenhouse gas] than coal- or oil-fired power plants. Therefore, nuclear power may be a viable solution for Asean nations willing to fulfil their climate-change commitments.”

Rosatom is Russia’s nuclear regulator, and its Southeast Asian regional branch is in Singapore. …….The Nuclear Power Asia conference is a platform to discuss the latest challenges, trends and achievements in the Asian nuclear industry. The event is annually attended by more than 300 participants from nuclear-energy authorities, energy commissions, nuclear energy programme implementing organisations, international developers and operators, technology suppliers, and academic society.  http://www.nationmultimedia.com/news/breakingnews/30308264

March 8, 2017 Posted by | marketing, Russia | Leave a comment

South Africa’s murky nuclear deal and the country’s financial mess

financial-meltdownflag-S.AfricaSA heads for financial armageddon, Fin 24 2017-02-26 06:02 – Justin Brown State finances face stormy times as the private sector braces itself for a possible switch in finance ministers amid spluttering tax collections, low growth, tax hikes and deep suspicion regarding the nuclear build.

Prince Mashele, a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria, said at a PwC post-budget speech event on Friday – where Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was conspicuously absent – that, depending on which ANC faction dominated, the next two to three weeks would be crucial in determining what would happen in the finance ministry.

Following the swift swearing-in of former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe as an ANC MP this week, Mashele pointed to the possibility of his becoming either finance minister or deputy finance minister…….

Mashele said that once Molefe was installed at Treasury, he was likely to sign off on a nuclear deal with Russia that would mean South Africa would never again enjoy the benefit of cheap power prices.

“Your grandchild and great-grandchild will pay through the nose [for the nuclear deal],” he added.

The plan by the Guptas, who are close allies of President Jacob Zuma, to install their preferred candidate as finance minister was put on hold – but not abandoned – when former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene was replaced by Des van Rooyen, whom the president reluctantly axed after pressure from the business sector, before Gordhan was placed in the position.

“They want Molefe to enter Treasury,” Mashele said, adding that Gordhan was “under siege” from Zuma and the Guptas, who were fighting court battles with him……. http://www.fin24.com/Budget/sa-heads-for-financial-armageddon-20170226-2

March 6, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, politics, South Africa | Leave a comment

South Korea’s Kepco might take the risk of buying Toshiba’s troubled nuclear business

toshiba-and-nukeKepco seen as potential buyer for Toshiba’s ailing nuclear unit, Ft.com 5 Mar 17  South Korean group, in contrast to rivals, is willing to look at Westinghouse deal, by: Kana Inagaki in Tokyo, Song Jung-a in Seoul When Toshiba won a fierce battle in 2006 for control of Westinghouse, a US designer of nuclear power plants, it was a victory against its local rival Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

The two Japanese companies engaged in a bidding war that inflated the acquisition price of Westinghouse from $2bn to $5.4bn — a process that left other would-be buyers of the US company in shock, including South Korea’s Doosan Heavy Industries. A little more than a decade later, another Korean company — state-controlled Korea Electric Power Corporation — has emerged as a possible buyer for Westinghouse, which is reeling from large cost overruns on two US nuclear power plants. Moreover, Kepco may well be the only potential acquirer of Westinghouse that is acceptable to western countries, above all the US.
Toshiba is suffering the worst financial crisis in its history because of Westinghouse’s troubles, and last month said it was willing to sell its controlling shareholding in the US company, as well as reduce its 60 per cent stake in a consortium called NuGen, which is planning to build a new nuclear plant in the UK. South Korea has ambitions to become a leading player in the global nuclear industry, and officials at the country’s energy ministry, and Kepco, are keen to secure work on new power plants following a drought in overseas deals since the company landed a breakthrough $20bn export deal in 2009 to supply the United Arab Emirates with four reactors. Kepco has been in negotiations for months about investing in NuGen, according to people involved in the process, although the scale of the Korean company’s participation has not been finalised. The attraction of the UK, however, is clear: Britain has become an important market for the nuclear industry given that other countries, such as Germany, are phasing out reactors……..
Another Korean government official says there could be an industrial logic to Kepco buying Westinghouse, or establishing some kind of partnership with the US company, because this would provide a means to accelerate the country’s expansion in the global nuclear market. Kepco’s participation in both Westinghouse and NuGen could be essential, say several nuclear experts, because other potential bids from China and Russia risk being blocked by the US and the UK over national security concerns. There are few other obvious bidders for Westinghouse……….
A deal between Kepco and Westinghouse could help propel South Korea towards its goal of becoming an important player in the global nuclear industry. Both companies are on an export drive. On top of the UAE deal, Kepco is aiming to sell six more reactors by 2020. Meanwhile, Westinghouse is trying to drum up sales of the AP1000, its latest reactor design, which is currently only being installed in new power plants in the US and China……..
But bankers say Toshiba may find it hard to sell Westinghouse now — having tried several times already. The four reactors being built in the US using Westinghouse’s AP1000 design are already more than three years behind schedule and, on a combined basis, more than $10bn over their original budgets. These problems were the main factors behind Toshiba’s announcement last month of a $6.3bn writedown on its US nuclear business. Some experts say that, with reduced demand for nuclear power following the 2011 Fukushima disaster, it is questionable whether Kepco would gain anything from buying Westinghouse. “Why should [Kepco] take such big financial risks by taking over a troubled business amid the gloomy industry outlook?” asks Suh Kyun-ryul, professor of atomic engineering at Seoul National University…….https://www.ft.com/content/32f14d76-f8e6-11e6-9516-2d969e0d3b65

March 6, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, South Korea | 2 Comments

New York’s public institutions will pay up big for Gov. Cuomo’s upstate nuclear plant bailout

taxpayer-bailout-exelonGov. Cuomo’s upstate nuclear plant bailout will cost MTA, NYCHA big on utility bills, Daily News,   by Glenn Blain, 5 Mar 17 ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo’s plan to bail out three upstate nuclear plants will cost public institutions, including the MTA, millions of dollars in added utility costs, a new study says.

The study by the New York Public Interest Research Group found that public institutions will see their electric bills rise by as much as $112 million a year for the first two years of the deal and then even more over the next dozen years.

“Since the Cuomo Administration has kept this process largely in the dark, it’s up to us to educate the public on the tremendous hit all ratepayers are going to take,” said NYPIRG Executive Director Blair Horner. “We hope this analysis will spur lawmakers to block the plan.”

According to NYPIRG’s analysis, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is on track to see its annual utility bill rise by $11.6 million thanks to the bailout.

The New York City Housing Authority will see an estimated $522,160 in additional costs. The Port Authority will pay an additional $435,098 a year while the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp. will see an estimated increase of $2.44 million a year, according to NYPIRG.

Cuomo’s plan, dubbed The Clean Energy Standard, requires utilities across the state to purchase power from the nuclear power plants at inflated rates……

Last fall, NYPIRG and other critics of the deal estimated it would cause Con Edison’s residential customers to shell out an extra $705 million over the next 12 years. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/cuomo-upstate-nuclear-plant-bailout-cost-mta-nycha-big-article-1.2988203

March 6, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Britain’s Failing New Nuclear Programme should be Scrapped

 financial-meltdownflag-UKNo2NuclearPower, No.93 March 2017  Toshiba’s announcement that it will not be involved in the construction of new nuclear reactors at the Sellafield ‘Moorside’ site in Cumbria has thrown into sharp relief the sorry state of the UK’s new nuclear policy which is clearly failing to deliver. It is obvious now that it can only be delivered with huge public subsidies the country can ill afford at a time when public services are under intense strain.

Toshiba announced on 14th February that it expects to book a €5.9bn write-down on Westinghouse ‒ more than it paid to buy a majority stake in the Company from the British government’s BNFL in 2006 ‒ and it expects to report a net loss of €3.2bn in the fiscal year to March 2017.Audited figures are now due on March 14.

The mess has been caused mainly by the delayed and over-budget AP1000 reactors being built in the US. The cost to complete four AP1000 reactors ‒ two each in South Carolina and Georgia ‒ will “far surpass the original estimates”. Combined, the cost overruns exceed US$10 billion. And since there is still a long way to go before construction of the four reactors is complete, there is plenty of scope for further cost overruns. (1) There is now even talk of the possibility of bankruptcy for Toshiba. Former Westinghouse boss Shigenori Shiga, appointed as chair of Toshiba following a US$1.3 billion accounting scandal in 2015, stood down from his position on February 14.

Toshiba says it would like to sell Westinghouse if that was an option ‒ but there is no prospect of a buyer. The nuclear unit is, as Bloomberg noted, “too much of a mess” to sell. And since that isn’t an option, Toshiba must sell profitable businesses instead to stave off bankruptcy. The company plans to sell most ‒ perhaps all ‒ of its profitable microchip business to prop up the nuclear carcass and avoid bankruptcy. The company might get €12.3‒16.1bn by selling its entire stake in its microchip business, said Joel Hruska from ExtremeTech. “That would pay off the company’s immediate debts,” Hruska said, “but would leave it holding the bag on an incredibly expensive, underwhelming nuclear business with no prospects for near-term improvement.” (2)

The ripple-effects of Toshiba’s latest problems will be many and varied. Japan’s ambitions to develop a large nuclear export business are in tatters. As recently as last year, Toshiba said it hoped to win 50 contracts to build new nuclear plants in India and China over the next decade. As well as Moorside reactor construction projects being planned in Turkey and elsewhere are up in the air.

But it is not just Toshiba that is in crisis. Over the past decade, international energy utilities Eon, RWE Npower, Iberdrola, SSE and Centrica have all confidently announced their commitment to building new nuclear power stations, whether at Hinkley Point, Wylfa or Moorside, but then had to pull out as they realise they cannot afford the huge levels of investment that such projects require. (3) In Europe, energy giants EDF, Engie (France), E.ON, RWE (Germany) and Vattenfall (Sweden), as well as utilities TVO (Finland) and CEZ (Czech Republic), have all been downgraded by credit rating agencies over the past year. All of the utilities registered severe losses on the stock market   http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo93.pdf

March 4, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

“Small Nuclear” lobby not very happy – says taxpayer funding is essential

uk-subsidy-2017NIA’s SMR conference: great discussion, now we need action, The Alvin text-SMRsWeinberg Foundation. March 3rd, 2017  by Suzanna Hinson

On Monday, the Nuclear Industry Association held its Small Modular Reactor conference. Weinberg Next Nuclear were delighted to attend and our director Stephen Tindale was one of the many speakers.

The conference was opened by Tom Wintle, deputy director of SMRs, decommissioning and waste at the department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Though he spoke very eloquently about the importance of nuclear, and SMRs to the government, particularly in regards to the Industrial Strategy’s aims of home grown industries, developing skills, regional rejuvenation and a stronger economy for the growth areas of tomorrow, he would not be drawn on the real issues the audience clearly wanted to hear about: the much delayed SMR competition and the question of public funding at Moorside.

Instead, he highlighted changing priorities of the government, with a renewed focus on energy security, consumer bills and the potential for driving exports and capturing a global SMR market in a post Brexit UK. He would also not be drawn on the future relationship with Euratom, saying it was too early to speculate but repeating it was a non-negotiable aspect of exiting the EU, a decision many we spoke to think is premature and will lead to huge hurdles for British nuclear in the future………

When asked about government plans he said the Government have spent enough time building a vision; now, we need action. The action we need to see, Stephen recommended, was the Government telling the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to release sites for advanced nuclear and instructing the Office for Nuclear Regulation to undertake Generic Design Assessments for advanced reactors, expanding their capacity to do so if necessary. …….

This panel, comprising Fiona Reilly from Atlantic Superconnection LLP, Anurag Gupta from KPMG LLP and Gareth Price from Allan & Overy LLP, also argued that BEIS were putting too much hope into an export market as with bigger contributors emerging like China and the US, it is unlikely that the UK will be able to compete…….

they made a strong statement for state-led nuclear power incorporating the private sector at a later stage of development if possible…..

the clear mood is that talking and discussion are not being paralleled with policy progress. The sector desperately needs to see some action from government, to progress with the SMR review, provide certainty for Moorisde and clarify the terms of Euratom membership. http://www.the-weinberg-foundation.org/

March 4, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Moorside nuclear power project now at serious risk

Moorside Failing New Nuclear Programme should be Scrapped No2NuclearPower, No.93 March 2017

Doubts Plans for three new AP1000 reactors to be built at Moorside in Cumbria next to Sellafield are now at risk from the financial crisis engulfing Toshiba. Toshiba owns 60% of Nugen, the consortium working on the plans. Nugen has said it wants to take a final investment decision by the end of 2018 in order to generate the first power in about 2025. However, it already faces an uphill battle to secure financing in time. Toshiba and France’s Engie, which owns the remaining 40% of NuGen, are believed to have been in talks for months with South Korea’s Kepco and are also understood to be talking to the UK and Japanese governments about potential financial support. (11)

But Kepco told the FT that it was not in talks with Toshiba about participation in NuGen, although several people involved in the process said South Korean investment was the best chance of keeping the project alive. “It’s hard to see how Moorside can go ahead without Kepco,” said one senior nuclear industry figure. It is thought that if Kepco were to get involved it would prefer to use its own reactor design, the APR-1400, rather than Westinghouse’s AP1000. This would set the project back at least four years because the Korean technology would need approval from UK regulators, while Westinghouse’s has nearly completed the clearance process. (12)

Cumbrians may be glad to see the back of corruption-plagued Toshiba ‒ but corruption-plagued South Korean utility KEPCO wouldn’t be much of an improvement. Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE) commented:“KEPCO is itself still emerging from a major scandal that surfaced in 2012 involving bribery, corruption and faked safety tests for critical nuclear plant equipment which resulted in a prolonged shut-down of a number of nuclear power stations and the jailing of power engineers and parts suppliers.” (13)

Engie has also sounded increasingly lukewarm about Nugen, with Isabelle Kocher, chief executive, saying last year that there was “a place for nuclear new-build in the world, but less than before”. In December it was reported that Engie would like to abandon its 40% share of Nugen. (14)

US nuclear firms can only deal with overseas companies if the countries have a nuclear cooperation agreement. The US holds such an agreement with Euratom but not with the UK, raising the possibility that Westinghouse could be unable to continue working on the project once Britain leaves Euratom until a new bilateral deal is signed.

After much speculation that Toshiba would withdraw from the NuGen consortium, it now says it will “consider” a continued role in the development, so long as it can avoid any involvement in construction. Having completed a review of overseas nuclear operations, the company said it will seek to “exclude risk inherent on construction work and focus on equipment supply and engineering” in future. (15)

If NuGen is to make a final investment decision in 2018 and get the reactors up and running by 2025 there are huge challenges still to be overcome – a timescale many in the industry already think is highly unrealistic. The fact that Toshiba will no longer take on any of the financial risk of construction means Moorside is only likely to go ahead if new investors can be found to build the plant. (16) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo93.pdf

March 4, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

The nuclear problems of EDF  

Poster EDF menteurNo2NuclearPower, No.93 March 2017

The French government is selling assets so it can prop up its heavily indebted nuclear utilities. EDF announced in 2015 that it would divest €10bn of assets by 2020 to ease its debt load ‒ which now stands at €37.4bn. EDF, which is supposed to be building a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point, issued three profit warnings last year following a string of unplanned nuclear plant shutdowns.

EDF is contending with a government-directed restructuring of the French nuclear industry, and is being pushed by the French state, its controlling shareholder, to rescue reactor builder Areva by taking over the part of its struggling business that is behind EPR technology. The EPR reactor that EDF is building at Flamanville in France is already six years late and €7.2bn over budget. A large drop in French nuclear output over the winter due to safety inspections on 18 of its French reactors, at the request of the country’s nuclear regulator ASN, was partly to blame for a sharp drop in profits. Furthermore, the company is saddled with debt and needs to spend €55bn upgrading its existing reactors in France. (4) A recent report for Greenpeace France suggests that if EDF has to close 17 of its 58 reactors to meet the government’s requirement that nuclear power should provide 50% of the nation’s electricity in 2025, then EDF will have to increase its provisions by more than €20 billion. The cost of handling nuclear waste will add at least €33.5 billion to that figure. (5)

A French parliamentary committee said that EDF would need a public bailout to meet the cost of closing ageing power stations. The warning was issued after unions expressed fury about an announcement that EDF plans to cut 3,900 jobs in France over the next three years. Jean-Marc Sylvestre, an economics commentator, said that the group was on the “edge of a precipice” and faced a choice between privatisation and bankruptcy. He described EDF’s situation as a “catastrophe foretold”. EDF’ s critics say that the company, which has debts of more than €37 billion lacks the financial resources to meet its commitments in France, let alone embark upon the Hinkley Point scheme. Their concerns were fuelled with the publication of a report by the committee for sustainable development, which accused EDF of failing to plan for the dismantling of its plants. (6) EDF has only set aside has €36 billion to pay to clean up reactors at the end of their working lives, whereas it needs €75 billion. EDF disputes the figures. (7) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo93.pdf

March 4, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, France | 1 Comment

The nuclear problems of Hitachi

Hitachi NO2NuclearPower, March 2  017Meanwhile the Japanese company Hitachi which is planning to build the proposed plant at Wylfa on Anglesey, is set to lose tens of billions of yen this financial year after withdrawing from a uranium enrichment joint venture in the US. Hitachi is expected to report a 70 billion yen ($620 million) non-operating loss by the time books are closed at the end of March. The deficit is largely attributed to the joint venture GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Inc. withdrawing from the uranium enrichment project. Hitachi no longer expects any profits from the North Carolinabased company, of which it owns 40% and the rest by General Electric. Hitachi and GE were expecting more nuclear power plants to be built when they launched the joint fuel enrichment business, but orders have been sluggish across the globe, forcing the project to be shelved. Nevertheless, Hitachi says it will be sticking with its nuclear power business. The company said No2NuclearPower nuClear news No.93, March 2017 4 that it plans to proceed with its project to build a plant in Britain by ensuring costs are thoroughly managed. (8)

In its favour is the fact that four ABWR reactors – the type of reactor it wants to build at Wylfa – have actually been built, in Japan. But their reliability has been poor. (9) The 2011 accident at Fukushima closed down all Japanese reactors, but according to IAEA the load factor – the proportion of time the reactors were generating power – for those ABWRs in the period between 2007-11 had been below 50%. (10  http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo93.pdf

March 4, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, UK | Leave a comment

NRC Approves License Transfer of FitzPatrick Nuclear Plant

https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2017/17-008.pdf  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the transfer of the operating license of the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in upstate New York from Entergy Nuclear Operations to Exelon Generation Co. The transfer will become effective March 31 once the NRC amends the license to reflect the plant’s new ownership.

Entergy had announced plans to cease operations at FitzPatrick in January, citing unfavorable economic conditions. Exelon agreed to purchase the plant and keep it operating after the New York Public Service Commission approved zero-emission credits for nuclear power plants. The two companies jointly applied for the license transfer on Aug. 18. FitzPatrick is a boiling-water reactor located near the shore of Lake Ontario in Scriba, N.Y., about six miles northeast of Oswego. It is licensed to operate through Oct. 17, 2034. The license transfer includes the generally licensed independent spent fuel storage installation located on the plant grounds.

The NRC staff’s review of the license transfer application concluded that Exelon is financially and technically qualified to conduct the activities under the license, has satisfied the NRC’s decommissioning funding assurance requirements for the facility, and is not owned, controlled, or dominated by a foreign entity.

March 4, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

The financial cost to electricity consumers of subsidies for Upstate NY nuclear plants

text-my-money-2How will subsidies for Upstate NY nuclear plants affect your electric bill?, Syracus.com By Tim Knauss | tknauss@syracuse.com   “…….State regulators ordered utilities to begin collecting the money next month to cover $462 million in annual subsidies the state will pay. The money goes to the  Nine Mile Point, FitzPatrick and Ginna nuclear plants in return for producing low-carbon power. The Public Service Commission said sustaining the nukes will save jobs and prevent greenhouse gas emissions from increasing.Thanks to the extra revenue, the once money-losing nuclear plants are now expected to add millions to the profits of parent company Exelon Corp. Exelon owns Nine Mile Point and Ginna, and expects to complete the purchase of FitzPatrick from Entergy Corp. this spring.

— The new surcharge

New York utilities will file tariffs this month detailing the rates they will charge to collect the nuclear subsidy payments. There will be minor variations among utilities, but the rates should all be close to $0.0033 per kilowatt-hour (KWH), regulators say. That’s one-third of one cent per KWH.

For a residential customer using 600 kilowatt-hours per month, the surcharge will add about $2. Use 900 KWH per month, and the charge grows to $3.

Large commercial and industrial customers will pay much more. A typical large hospital uses more than 1 million KWH per month. Onondaga County, with facilities ranging from a jail to a sewage treatment plant, used more than 10 million KWH per month in 2012, according to the county’s climate action plan.

Each utility will turn over what it collects to the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, which then pays the plant owners. NYSERDA signed contracts with each of the three nuke plants to buy their “zero emission credits,” or ZECs, as compensation for producing electricity without carbon emissions.

For the first two years, the ZECs will be priced at roughly 1.75 cents per kilowatt-hour of power produced. The prices will be recalculated every two years after that. The amount of the subsidies will decrease if wholesale power prices increase.

Nuclear profits rise

Exelon told investors last month that its cash flow and profit outlook have improved thanks to the New York nuclear subsidies and a similar program adopted in Illinois.

In December, four months after New York regulators created ZECs to subsidize struggling Upstate nuclear plants, Illinois passed a law creating ZECs to bail out two nuclear plants that Exelon had threatened to close in that state. Beginning in June, Exelon will receive $235 million in annual ZEC payments for the Clinton and Quad Cities plants.

In a conference call with investors, Exelon executives said the ZEC programs in New York and Illinois are expected to boost the company’s gross margin (revenues minus fuel and purchased power costs) by $400 million this year and by $600 million in 2019.

The legal challenges

The New York nuclear subsidies face a legal challenge in federal court in Manhattan, where a group of non-nuclear generating companies has sued the Public Service Commission, claiming the subsidies interfere with wholesale markets. The lawsuit is attracting national attention from industry watchers.

An expert who is under contract to monitor wholesale markets for the grid operator in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland filed a brief in the case warning that the nuclear subsidies could distort markets even beyond New York state. But two environmental groups, National Resources Defense Council and Environmental Protection Fund, filed briefs defending the subsidies as a legitimate effort to control carbon emissions.

Last week, a Harvard University energy expert asked the judge to provide an audio feed to courtroom hearings so that anyone could dial in and listen. U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni has not yet responded to the request.

If the case goes to trial, it probably will not be resolved before summer, after the subsidies take effect, according to the transcript of a conference between the judge and lawyers.

A second lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Albany also aims to overturn the nuclear subsidy program. The state lawsuit was filed by environmental group Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and organic farm Goshen Green Farms. They claim the PSC failed to follow correct procedures by approving the subsidies too hastily and by adopting regulations that were “arbitrary and capricious.”

That lawsuit is pending.

Contact reporter Tim Knauss anytime | email | Twitter | 315-470-3023 http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2017/03/how_will_subsidies_for_upstate_ny_nuclear_plants_affect_your_electric_bill.html

March 4, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Georgia Power Suspends Study for Nuclear Plant Near Columbus

    https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/georgia/articles/2017-03-03/georgia-power-suspends-study-for-nuclear-plant-near-columbus Georgia Power is suspending its study of a site near Columbus for a new nuclear power plant. March 3, 2017, LUMPKIN, Ga. (AP) 

In a letter Wednesday to the Georgia Public Service Commission, the utility told officials that the proposed nuclear plant in Stewart County would not be needed as soon as previously expected.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (http://on-ajc.com/2mNUb9F) reports that the preliminary study was expected to cost $99 million. Georgia Power says halting the study “is unlikely to delay the ability to deploy new nuclear when needed by customers.”

While the Atlanta-based utility cited demand forecasts, the decision also comes as Georgia Power’s parent Southern Co. face more financial uncertainty around an ongoing nuclear expansion project at the Vogtle (VOH’gohl) nuclear plant near Augusta, where two new reactors are under construction.

March 4, 2017 Posted by | business and costs, USA | 1 Comment

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