After 40 years to build – nuclear power plant never worked, now for sale at peppercorn price
US Nuclear Plant up for Sale at Fraction of Cost, abc news, By JAY REEVES, ASSOCIATED PRESS HOLLYWOOD, Ala. — Sep 11, 2016 After spending more than 40 years and $5 billion on an unfinished nuclear power plant in northeastern Alabama, the nation’s largest federal utility is preparing to sell the property at a fraction of its cost.
The Tennessee Valley Authority has set a minimum bid of $36.4 million for its Bellefonte Nuclear Plant and the 1,600 surrounding acres of waterfront property on the Tennessee River. The buyer gets two unfinished nuclear reactors, transmission lines, office and warehouse buildings, eight miles of roads, a 1,000-space parking lot and more………
The sale is bittersweet for site manager Jim Chardos, who went to work at Bellefonte in 1994 expecting it to be finished as a nuclear power plant. All these years later, he commutes 90 minutes each way to work to oversee a plant that has never been stocked with radioactive fuel or used either of its reactors to generate a single watt of electricity.
Work began at Bellefonte in the mid-’70s on the backside of the nuclear energy boom in the United States, Chardos said. The utility initially planned to construct four reactors at the site, but demand for power in the region never met those early expectations and work halted in 1988. A series of starts and stops preceded TVA’s decision earlier this year to sell Bellefonte……….http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-nuclear-plant-sale-fraction-cost-42010576
South Korea trying to get in on the frenzy of nuclear marketing to Britain
Koreans near investment in new Cumbrian nuclear plant http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/573d713e-7833-11e6-a0c6-39e2633162d5.html#axzz4Jz1Iolbo Financial Times, 12 Sept 16, Jim Pickard and Andrew Ward in London A South Korean energy group is closing in on a multibillion investment in a new nuclear power station near Sellafield in the latest sign of Asian interest in Britain’s energy industry.The deal, if it goes ahead, would add momentum to Moorside at a time when the rival Hinkley Point nuclear power project in Somerset has been thrown into doubt by concerns about its high cost and the role of Chinese investors in the scheme.
Theresa May, prime minister, is expected to decide this month whether to go ahead with Hinkley, led by EDF of France with Chinese backing, after ordering a review of the £18bn project.
NuGen sees the uncertainty as a chance to leapfrog Hinkley in the race to build the first new nuclear reactor in the UK for more than two decades. However, it is still years behind EDF in securing financing and regulatory approval for its project.
For Kepco, an investment in Moorside would be a chance to gain a foothold in the UK as it builds its presence in the global nuclear industry.
The Cumbrian plant — designed to provide power for 6m homes — would be supplied with reactors by Westinghouse, the US subsidiary of Toshiba. But Kepco sees the UK as a potential future market for its own technology.
South Korea has set a goal to become the world’s third-largest exporter of nuclear reactors by 2030 and has already won a $20bn contract in Abu Dhabi. Tom Samson, chief executive of NuGen, is former chief operating officer of the Abu Dhabi company, Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation, which struck that deal.
Kepco is not without controversy, having been rocked by a domestic safety scandal three years ago. The country’s atomic watchdog said safety certificates for thousands of components procured by Korean reactors over the previous nine years had been forged. An ally of Kepco said the scandal was behind it and the group was now seen as “a first division player” in nuclear power.
The group, 51 per cent owned by the South Korean government, first entered talks with NuGen three years ago, but no deal was reached. Four people with knowledge of the situation said talks had since resumed and made progress over a potential equity stake in NuGen as well as a possible role in construction.
NuGen declined to comment on Kepco but said it had a “universe of options for financing” and was talking to a variety of potential investors and contractors. Kepco could not be immediately reached for comment.
The UK government has put nuclear power at the heart of its energy policy, with a target for 14GW of generating capacity from new reactors by 2035. However, its refusal to inject public money has left ministers dependent on foreign investors to finance the programme.
As well as Hinkley and Moorside, Hitachi of Japan also has plans for reactors at Wylfa in Anglesey and Oldbury-on-Severn in Gloucestershire. EDF and its Chinese state-backed partner CGN are planning further reactors at Sizewell in Suffolk and Bradwell in Essex.
The latter project has been the focus of close scrutiny from Downing Street since Mrs May became prime minister because Bradwell would involve Chinese rather than French reactor technology.
New nuclear power stations are seen as crucial to UK energy security in the coming decades as dirty coal-fired power stations and old nuclear reactors are phased out. But critics say nuclear is too expensive and believe a mix of renewables and natural gas could keep the lights on at a lower cost while still reducing carbon emissions.
Bulgaria has to quickly pay up for cancelled Belene nuclear project
Russia demands swift payment for canceled Bulgarian nuclear plant , Reuters, 10 Sept 16 Russian nuclear company Rosatom has asked Bulgaria to swiftly pay 620 million euros ($696 million) in compensation over the canceled Belene nuclear project, it said on Saturday.
An arbitration court ruled in June that Sofia must pay for the equipment produced by Rosatom for the project, which Bulgaria abandoned in 2012 due to financial constraints and concerns in Brussels and Washington over its energy dependence on Russia…….Bulgaria’s prime minister has said that the compensation, estimated by Sofia at about 560 million euros, will be paid in full and quickly, to avoid paying interest of 167,000 euros a day.
Bulgaria is considering selling the 2,000 megawatt nuclear project to private investors, keeping a small state stake in it, after its attempt to sell the equipment to Iran did not succeed.
(Reporting by Tsvetelia Tsolova; Editing by Alexander Smith) http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-bulgaria-idUSKCN11G0D7
As nuclear costs rise, top economist urges nuclear operators on early decommissioning of reactors
US operators urged to decommission immediately to prevent cost
hikes, Nuclear Energy Insider, Sep 7, 2016 Nuclear plant operators should start decommissioning activities of shutdown reactors as early as possible as the deferral of decontamination and dismantling (D&D) exposes operators to delay-related costs, investment risks and loss of crucial expertise as workers leave the industry, Geoffrey Rothwell, Principal Economist at the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency, told Nuclear Energy Insider.
There are currently 17 U.S. nuclear power plants being decommissioned and this will soon increase following a recent spate of plant closure announcements due to sustained low power prices.
Operators have announced the early closures of California’s Diabolo Canyon, Nebraska’s Fort Calhoun and Illinois’ Clinton and Quad Cities plants in recent months as low gas prices, rising renewable energy capacity and energy efficiency measures pressure electricity prices.
The majority of current U.S. decommissioning projects are being carried out under the deferred “SAFSTOR” method of deferred decontamination, but this process incurs the risk of cost hikes, Rothwell said.
U.S. operators build up nuclear decommissioning trust funds (DTFs) based on estimated costs but data from completed projects shows the actual cost of decommissioning has varied substantially, as operators have faced fresh site-specific challenges and regulation which can differ between states.
The variance in costs of three completed ‘immediate’ D&D projects was highlighted earlier this year in a report by the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), co-authored by Rothwell, which cited figures from a Pacific Northwest National Laboratories [PNNL] study.
The chart below shows actual costs for the Haddam Neck, Main Yankee and Trojan plants, laid out alongside estimated costs for 14 other reactors, showed large differences in spending on Project Management, Decontamination and Dismantling (D&D) and Waste Management.
Internal expertise
Project management costs tend to be a function of the duration of D&D activities, rather than plant size and this is highlighted by the data from completed projects, Rothwell noted.
Portland General Electric (PGE), licensee of the 1.2 GW Trojan plant, decided to perform the decommissioning of the plant itself and conducted the project efficiently and without major changes or setbacks.
In comparison, the licensees for the 582 MW Haddam Neck plant in Connecticut and the 900 MW Maine Yankee plant chose to contract the D&D work to a decommissioning operations contractor (DOC) and then later in the process they chose to resume execution of decommissioning activities themselves.
In both cases, the management changes led to complications and delays and escalated costs, NEA said in its report.
A major advantage of carrying out D&D activities immediately is that current operations staff have in-depth knowledge of plant specifics, including previous incidents and undocumented facility detail, which avoids unnecessary work-arounds, Rothwell said.
“The maintenance crew have all sorts of implicit, tacit knowledge…If you wait for 60 years they are all gone,” he said.
Dismantling challenge
Actual D&D costs have varied substantially as a lack of identical reference projects has meant operators have had to perform “first of a kind” operations such as the time-consuming task of dismantling main reactor components, Rothwell said.
“It’s cutting up the reactor and the steam generator, these are big pieces of equipment and we are just learning how to do this,” Rothwell said.
PG&E was able to limit the D&D costs for its Trojan plant through its access to the U.S. Ecology low-level waste facility at Hanford, Washington. PG&E was permitted to ship reactor internals to the Hanford facility as one package and avoid some of the on-site cutting-up of components.
At Haddam Neck, the segmentation of the internals proved challenging and took approximately 29 months, according to NEA’s report. Regulations also required the operator to store the internals on-site at the ISFSI.
The duration of D&D activities at Haddam Neck exceeded original estimates, as did the total radiation exposure accrued during the operations, NEA said.
“Decontamination of exposed faces of buildings and foundations were also extensive tasks,” it said.
The results of an environmental survey at the Trojan plant site indicated no radioactivity had spread to the environment, including surface water and groundwater, which also limited costs.
By deferring D&D activities for a substantial time, operators raise the chance of chemical or radiation leaks spreading, which can require further D&D work and incur higher costs, Rothwell said.
Waste rules
According to the NEA’s report, waste management costs do not necessarily depend on the capacity of the plant.
“Waste costs appear to be more sensitive to the management strategies and solutions selected or assumed, for the specific plant, and the related unit costs individually applied. The accessibility of waste management routes can even determine the way the decommissioning of the reactor is undertaken,” NEA said.
PG&E’s ability to ship the reactor vessel for the Trojan plant as a single package reduced the volume of waste and the number of radioactive shipments, and also reduced personnel exposure. However, NEA noted that without regulatory changes, the single package approach will not be available to other commercial nuclear plant decommissioning projects in the US.
In contrast, waste management costs for Haddam Neck were driven up by high volumes of waste produced, “mostly attributable to the release criteria and clean-up levels adopted by the State of Connecticut,” the report said.
Regulatory risk is another reason to commence D&D immediately as regulation is more likely to increase if there is a long time period before SAFSTOR facilities are decommissioned, Rothwell said.
Operators choosing to defer D&D also face investment risks for DTFs, in addition to escalating cost estimates, Rothwell noted.
Rates of return for DTFs have been lower than expectations, and operators which have accelerated closure plans should leverage current staff expertise and optimize decommissioning schedules to allocate decommission fund portfolios so the “liquidity matches your plans,” he said…….http://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/us-operators-urged-decommission-immediately-prevent-cost-hikes?utm_campaign=NEI+07SEP16+Newsletter+B&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elqTrackId=ce386029dbb04d9db19579ed2046a746&elq=f4dbaf77167c423b93658800346bc887&elqaid=22066&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=9714
Energy chief says Hinkley Point is a deal out of date and too expensive
Hinkley Point deal out of date and too expensive, says energy chief, Telegraph, UK, Emily Gosden, energy editor 3 SEPTEMBER 2016 The head of energy giant ScottishPower has waded into the row over Hinkley Point, insisting that the controversial subsidy deal for EDF’s proposed nuclear plant should be renegotiated because it is too expensive.
Keith Anderson, the firm’s chief corporate officer, said the deal, provisionally agreed by the Government in 2013 following lengthy negotiations, no longer made sense in the light of lower gas and offshore wind costs.
“It looks like a contract that was written five years ago on a business case that was probably pulled together 10 years ago. It looks out of line with what’s going on in the market now,” he said.
In an interview with Telegraph, Mr Anderson praised Theresa May’s “brave” decision to review the £18bn project and urged her to look at it in its entirety, not just her apparent concerns over Chinese state nuclear firms’ involvement.Becoming the latest high-profile figure to criticise the deal, Mr Anderson said that it now looked “expensive” and that gas and offshore wind offered faster, easier and cheaper ways of keeping the lights on and decarbonising, respectively.
“I can’t understand why anybody feels we need to sign a contract of that size and over that time period, at that price,” he said.
ScottishPower is seeking government support to develop both offshore wind and gas-fired power stations.
Its East Anglia offshore wind farm project last year won a subsidy contract at nearly £120 per MWh for 15 years. However, costs are falling rapidly, with ministers setting a cap of £105 per MWh on future contracts and a target of £85. EDF has insisted the deal is good value……http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/03/hinkley-point-deal-out-of-date-and-too-expensive-says-energy-chi/
Nuclear power procurement costs for South Africa could cost triple the estimate
MPs told nuclear power could cost triple the estimate http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2016/09/08/MPs-told-nuclear-power-could-cost-triple-the-estimate JAN-JAN JOUBERT | 08 September, 2016
Parliament was warned yesterday that the final bill for nuclear power procurement could be three times higher than projected because of unpredictable cost escalations and the expense of decommissioning nuclear power plants.
The parliamentary budget office briefed MPs yesterday morning on the cost and other considerations of the country’s electricity generation options.
The office’s research on the costs incurred by more than 400 projects worldwide found that nuclear power generation costs exceeded the original estimates by an average of 117%, compared with 70% for hydroelectric power, 13% for thermal, including coal, 8% for wind power and 1% for solar power.
The office agreed with DA MP Gordon Mackay when he said that decommissioning added 100% to nuclear power costs. The office said the outlay for nuclear power was 67% higher than for gas and 16% more than for coal.
Mackay took the budget office to task for a lack of clarity on:
- The actual cost of the projected nuclear building programme, estimated at R600-million to R1.7-billion;
- Infrastructure construction costs not factored into projections for gas as an energy resource;
- No reference being made by the budget office to the energy preferences listed in the National Development Plan, which supposedly guided government policy;
- The budget office had not reached any conclusion on the costs to consumers of the energy options;
- The effect of each option on the country’s economic growth was not adequately estimated;
- The huge decline in South African energy demand was not sufficiently explained; and
- The decommissioning of the coal-fired power stations was not factored in.
Budget office head Mohammed Jahed said that Mackay’s objections fell outside the mandate given to his office by parliament’s appropriations committee but could be dealt with at a follow-up meeting.
Terrestrial Energy faces safety risks and poor market prospects for its new nuclear reactors
Nuclear Firm’s $17 Million Bid on a New Reactor Design “…….Terrestrial Energy is looking to use the money raised up until now to complete the first phase of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s pre-licensing vendor design review, a technology assessment usually carried out in advance of a license application……
“Dirty tools, dirty components, cleansers [and] foreign material in the coolant stream will cause the coolant to activate over time,” he predicted. “I’m curious what the releases and radioactivity accident risks look like with the coolant after 10 years of operation.”……
Even if Terrestrial Energy is able to sail through licensing and brush off safety concerns, though, it will still have to overcome the problem of a diminishing appetite for nuclear power across a number of the industry’s key markets, including the U.S…... Greentech Media 8 Sept 16
South Africa’s parliamentary budget office warns on high cost of nuclear power
Government quibbles over true cost of nuclear – but it’s going to be very expensive http://mg.co.za/article/2016-09-08-government-quibbles-over-true-cost-of-nuclear-but-its-going-to-be-very-expensive Phillip de Wet 08 Sep 2016 Any decision to proceed further with the nuclear build programme will only take place after the request for proposal process has been completed,” Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa told the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) in Parliament during a question session on Wednesday afternoon.
Almost simultaneously, Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson told Parliament’s other house, the National Assembly: “As far as I’m concerned, a request for proposal will be issued on September 30 for the procurement process in which we have Cabinet approval to test the market on the procurement of nuclear.”
Both insisted that there is, as yet, no firm commitment to buy a fleet of nuclear power stations, which it is estimated will cost more than R1-trillion, despite long-standing signals of an obstinate political will to do so.
“Within the range of conventional technologies considered, nuclear energy is the most expensive,” the parliamentary budget office said in a report it delivered to Parliament’s standing committee on appropriations, also on Wednesday.
Its 23-page report, Electricity Generation Technology Choice: Costs and Considerations, the office said “present the key factors that need to be considered by Members of Parliament concerned with public finances in considering technology choice”. The standing committee had requested the report.
Throughout its study, the office steered scrupulously clear of recommending or denigrating any type of electricity generation. Selection of technology is complicated, it explained, and needs to take into account everything from the carbon footprint to local industrialisation.
But nuclear fares very poorly, indeed, in the office’s analysis.
Nuclear is 16% more expensive than the most expensive type of coal electricity production, the office said, drawing on figures more current than any the department of energy has released and 67% more expensive than the most costly way of using natural gas to generate power.
Eskom, which was once excluded from the nuclear preparations, has recently claimed in a series of statements by its CEO, Brian Molefe, that nuclear generation is the cheapest way for South Africa to build additional base-load capacity.
The plans that supposedly underpin the plans to build new nuclear power stations are wildly out of date, the parliamentary budget office said. The official integrated resource plan (IRP) dates from 2010 and its 2013 update does not yet have official status — because, some have speculated, it provided an insufficiently rosy picture to justify a nuclear build.
“Using an out-of-date IRP will result in a sub-optimal mix of generation plants and higher electricity prices,” the office said, with graphs showing how electricity demand declined as prices soared and the economy stalled. Even the most pessimistic integrated resource plan projection had forecast fast-growing demand.
Overbuilding generation capacity based on mistaken assumptions can be costly, the office warned gently. And past experience shows that nuclear and hydropower projects are most prone to high cost overruns and delays — and are almost impossible to adjust once ground is broken.
“It may be prudent in situations of high uncertainty to avoid very large capital investments where the repayments of loans are certain but returns from the project are uncertain and possibly volatile,” it said.
“In pursuance of a suitable energy mix, government is determined that our investment in generation capacity should be evidence-based,” Ramaphosa told the NCOP.
India and Canada hoping to market nuclear technology together?
India, Canada discuss civil-nuclear cooperation The two leaders discussed a wide range of issues of mutual interest, including civil-nuclear cooperation between the two countries, an official release issued said today. Indian Express By: PTI | New Delhi September 8, 2016 India and Canada have discussed a wide range of issues of mutual interest, including the civil-nuclear cooperation between the two countries. The discussion was held during a meeting between Union Minister Jitendra Singh and visiting Canada Minister for Natural Resources, James Gordon Carr, here on Wednesday.
The two leaders discussed a wide range of issues of mutual interest, including civil-nuclear cooperation between the two countries, an official release issued said today. As a country with large energy requirements, India looks forward to promoting nuclear energy production at a significant scale and the two nations can jointly work to achieve this, said Singh, Minister of State in Prime Minister’s Office.
He referred to a common technological base of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) in which India and Canada are global leaders and it is an area offering opportunity of potential bilateral cooperation between the two countries……….
Singh referred to the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Canada in April 2015 during which a long term uranium procurement contract was signed by Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India with the Canadian Uranium producer CAMECO…….http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/india-canada-discuss-civil-nuclear-cooperation-3020552/
The Dead Nuclear Plant Society – in nuclear trash burial business
‘Dead Plant Society’ lobby group booms as reactors close Hannah Northey, E&E reporter Greenwire: September 6, 2016 “……..Reactors are closing as nuclear utilities struggle to compete with cheap natural gas, low demand for power and no national energy policy. And when the behemoth nuclear plants close, the Dead Plant Society grows.
As the teacher played by Robin Williams in the movie famously tells his young students, “We are food for worms, lads. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold and die.”
The group of doomed-reactor owners has doubled from its original five members to 10 and now includes Exelon Corp., the nation’s largest nuclear utility.
Operators who climb aboard are eager to weigh in on a high-profile rulemaking at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for decommissioning reactors and to find solutions — on or off Capitol Hill — for growing amounts of radioactive waste piling up across the country, said Smith, the president of Governmental Strategies Inc.
Exelon came to the society five years ago. The nuclear giant is deactivating reactors — or is planning to do so — at three sites in Illinois and one in New Jersey, Smith said. Entergy Corp. signed after it bought the shuttered Big Rock Point nuclear power plant near Charlevoix, Mich. And Pacific Gas & Electric Co. was next when it decided to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors in California.
Following years would see Southern California Edison join with the closure of the San Onofre reactors in California and Duke Energy Corp. as it shuttered the Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida.
All told, the tight-knit club represents more than a dozen reactors that have been closed or are about to be snuffed out in eight states. And nuclear executives have warned that an additional 15 to 20 reactors could close in coming years.
Many of the companies are either suing the federal government or involved in legal settlements after the Department of Energy failed to uphold its 1980s agreements and take possession of spent reactor fuel destined for the stalled repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. So far, DOE has paid out more than $5 billion, and the lawsuits are still mounting.
And like the industry implementing cost-cutting measures to keep reactors afloat, Smith said the Dead Plant Society is on a tight budget, spending under $160,000 a year on lobbying since its inception, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Working with Smith is Michael Callahan, president of CCMSC Corp. and a former NRC congressional affairs officer….
‘Real security and safety issues’
Smith isn’t thrilled about the group’s growth.
The former Hill staffer and Nuclear Energy Institute executive said he’d rather be promoting a growing industry, not burying cooling waste.
“I hope not to grow it; I don’t like being in the nuclear trash burial business,” said Smith, who worked for former Louisiana Sen. John Breaux (D), a former Entergy lobbyist. “I had a lot more fun when I was lobbying to get new plants up and running.”
Then again, most members of the Dead Plant Society would rather not belong to the group, either.
Owners of the three Yankee reactors in New England, for example, recently sued the federal government after DOE failed to pick up spent reactor fuel stored in concrete casks at the site of former reactors in Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts.
Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co. and Yankee Atomic Electric Co. said they existed as corporations only because DOE had failed to pick up the waste, forcing the companies to build, staff and oversee on-site storage. The court awarded the companies $76.8 million in damages.
Tim Smith, a lobbyist and president of Governmental Strategies Inc., has represented the Decommissioning Plant Coalition since 2001, better known in industry as the “Dead Plant Society.” Photo courtesy of Governmental Strategies Inc.
The dispute, like many others, stems from the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which required DOE to remove spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from reactors. The agency signed contracts with the companies to remove the waste by January 1998 and store it in a permanent repository, but the department failed to do so. The Obama administration later pulled support for building a waste repository under Yucca Mountain, forcing utilities across the nation to store spent nuclear fuel in wet pools or dry storage casks on-site……
DOE will see its legal problems grow should more reactors go dark.
The department could face between $29 billion and $50 billion in legal fees if it begins accepting waste by 2025, according to a recent study by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. If the decadeslong debacle slips past that date, costs could continue to grow by $500 million a year, said Christina Simeone, the report’s author. There are currently 19 lawsuits pending in federal court, according to a DOE report.
But the real losers are the ratepayers and taxpayers who have paid for a repository and may not realize that radioactive waste may live in their communities for ages, long after a reactor is snuffed out, she said.
What’s more, federal funds to move the process forward are off-limits unless the law is changed, she added. The $34 billion Nuclear Waste Fund — a cache nuclear customers have fed over years — is untouchable under statute for repository-related activities, and DOE legal fees are taken out of a federal fund made up of taxpayers’ contributions, she said.
“I don’t think these communities realize that when these plants close, the waste is going to stay there,” Simeone said. “The plant may be remediated, but there’s a portion of the land that’s going to remain under license at the NRC and is going to store waste indefinitely. There are real security and safety issues.”……..
The commission’s work — slated to be complete by 2020 — has spurred passionate debate between the industry and host communities, public advocates and environmental groups over funding for multibillion-dollar cleanups. Central to those discussions is what happens to pools and casks full of radioactive waste, the sizes of security forces and evacuation zones, and what role the host communities play.
As it stands, there are no such federal rules for dead nuclear plants.
Instead, companies must seek “exemptions” from regulations for operating plants as they power down the units.
Smith said the Dead Plant Society is supporting the NRC’s work to streamline the process and make it transparent, adding that operators set aside money to ensure they can remove or reduce radiation from the former plant sites so the land can be released or repurposed — a process that can cost as much as $400 million……..
The Vermont Yankee decommissioning panel has said host communities — people living near the nuclear plant within the 10-mile evacuation zone — need a voice on par with industry. The group has called on the NRC to take a closer look at the effect on communities hit by the multimillion-dollar loss in tax revenues after reactors close.
In their comments to the NRC, neighbors of nuclear reactors are asking the agency to ensure that decommissioning funds aren’t used for lobbying or operating expenses, and not to reduce evacuation zones. ……http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060042350
European financiers very worried about Ukraine’s dire nuclear industry problems
HomeNews MediaBlogUkraine’s nuclear energy fixation puts its European financiers to a test http://bankwatch.org/news-media/blog/ukraines-nuclear-energy-fixation-puts-its-european-financiers-test
Ukraine’s nuclear energy fixation puts its European financiers to a test In a meeting today, the Espoo Convention’s Implementation Committee will again discuss Ukraine’s compliance with the Convention’s rules. A look back at the last months does not suggest a positive outcome.
Earlier this year Bankwatch approached the Commission’s Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs, and made a request for documents related to the EUR 300 million Euratom loan for the project. Specifically, we asked for the evidence used by the Commission in making the first EUR 100 million disbursement from the loan.
A decision in this case can take some time, but old nuclear power plants could soon see their lifetimes extended, not only in Ukraine but across the EU. Yet, as we argued in a recent letter to the Espoo Convention’s Implementation Committee, any decision on prolonging the operations of nuclear power units beyond their design lifespan should be subject to a transboundary environmental impact assessment (EIA) and transboundary public consultations.
The Committee is the only body with the power to rule on violations of the Espoo Convention. It is currently preparing a report for the June 2017 Meeting of the Parties on Ukraine’s adherence to the convention and will meet today, Monday, September 5, in Geneva to discuss the Ukrainian government’s progress (or lack thereof) with implementing the Committee’s requests.
And there is reason to worry. In April 2013 the Committee ruled that Ukraine’s decision to extend the lifetime of its two oldest nuclear units in the Rivne power plant was in breach of the convention and, as argued in our letter, this decision should be considered a precedent applicable to similar cases for the sake of legal certainty and equal treatment.
Unmet loan conditions
International treaties on their own are not the only reason Ukraine is expected to carry out transboundary EIAs before rewriting the expiry dates of its Soviet-era nuclear reactors. Each of the two EUR 300 million loans Ukraine’s nuclear safety upgrade program has received, from Euratom and from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, is explicitly conditioned on full compliance with international environmental law, include the Espoo Convention that obliges the engagement with neighbouring countries in decisions on matters related to nuclear energy, such as nuclear units’ lifetime extensions. The European Commission has reiterated this obligation on several occasions.
Nevertheless, so far neither the Espoo Convention ruling in the Rivne case, nor the conditions to the European loans, have stopped Kiev from going ahead with lifetime extensions for two more nuclear units in the South Ukraine station without applying international requirements.
One other nuclear unit, in the Zaporizhia power plant, could see its lifetime extended as early as next week, and the state nuclear regulator contends these decisions fall outside the jurisdiction of the Espoo Convention.
In fact, Ukraine does not even have proper legislation on EIAs at national level. This has allowed Energoatom to release an “EIA report” for the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant which ruled out any significant transboundary impacts from the plant’s operations.
Yet, Energoatom’s claims look even more invalid with the latest Espoo Implementation Committee’s ruling on the planned nuclear power plant Hinkley Point C in the UK, stating that a worst-case scenario should be taken into account when considering transboundary impacts.
Moreover, a recent incident in the 29 years old Khmelnitski nuclear power plant is but the latest reminder for the risks in Ukraine. Following a leak of radioactive water, the power station’s unit 1 was shut down for two months. This unit will reach the end of its projected lifetime next year.
According to the state nuclear regulator, the reason for the leak might have been a micro-crack in a tube in the heat exchanger. An expert report released in March 2015 by Bankwatch’s Ukrainian member group NECU has warned of the possible appearance of micro-cracks in the reactor vessel of unit 1 of the South Ukraine nuclear power plant which has been granted a lifetime extension earlier.
The dire financial troubles facing Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom raise additional questions about the government’s blind reliance on this source of energy, and should be another warning sign for Ukraine’s European allies in Brussels and across its borders.
Saudi Arabia, vulnerable to terrorist attacks, is buying 16 nuclear power plants from Russia
Saudis Buy 16 Nuclear Plants From The Russians, Terrorists Rejoice : http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/06/saudis-buy-16-nuclear-plants-from-the-russians-terrorists-rejoice/#ixzz4JViTS5aX ANDREW FOLLETT Energy and Environmental Reporter Saudi Arabia will buy 16 nuclear power plants from Russia for $100 billion despite terrorism concerns, according to a Monday announcement from a government-controlled nuclear power company.
Saudi Arabia has a long history of terrorist attacks within its borders, and the country itself has been accused of directly funding Islamic terrorism. The planned reactors would be incredibly vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
Saudi Arabia’s new reactors would not produce the weapons-grade plutonium necessary to make a nuclear weapon, but materials from them could be used to create dirty bombs. A dirty bomb combines radioactive material with conventional explosives that could contaminate the local area with high radiation levels for long periods of time and cause mass panic, though it would be millions of times weaker than an actual nuclear device. The Islamic State wants to steal this kind of radioactive material for a dirty bomb.
“There are prospects for cooperation in the field of nuclear energy,” Yury Ushakov, aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told journalists. “Our company, which has the most advanced technologies, is ready to join the project on construction of 16 nuclear power reactors in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The project is provided until 2030, its cost is $100 billion,”
Russia and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement last year to work together on “peaceful” nuclear energy projects. The stated purpose of these reactors is to generate electricity, power desalination plants and reduce domestic oil consumption so Saudi Arabia can sell the oil abroad. The reactors will be built by the Russian government controlled Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Cooperation.
Russia has supported the development of nuclear power in other countries with terrorism problems, such as Algeria, Iran and Egypt.
Coal lobby is urged to copy tactics of the tobacco lobby!
Here we go again: Fossil fuel industry takes a play from Big Tobacco’s playbook. http://www.dailyclimate.org/t/1692193038704125011 August 31, 2016 by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.)
Last year, coal mining executives attending the annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Coal Mining Institute were treated to a presentation on the future of American mining titled:“Survival Is Victory: Lessons From the Tobacco Wars.” As the title implies, the presentation laid out a path for the fossil fuel industry to weather a barrage of lawsuits and new safety and health regulations, modeled on the efforts of the tobacco industry in the 90s and early 2000s. (See John Schwartz’s story in The New York Times.)
Richard Reavey, the Cloud Peak Energy vice president who delivered the presentation, described the similarities between what Big Tobacco went through and the challenges facing coal today as “remarkable and eerie.” (We should take his word for it. Before working for Cloud Peak, a mining company, Reavey was an executive at tobacco giant Philip Morris for 17 years, according to his LinkedIn profile.) His advice to the coal execs: do what tobacco did and “cut a deal while we are still relevant.” After all, “a much more heavily regulated tobacco industry is still viable and profitable.”
Ironically, Reavey’s presentation on these similarities between tobacco and fossil fuel strategies has a much deeper parallel.
For decades, cigarette makers hid from the public and from policymakers the scientific evidence they had of their product’s dangers. The Justice Department brought, and ultimately won, a civil racketeering lawsuit against the major tobacco companies for carrying out that fraud. Today, researchers often compare this tobacco fraud on the public to the fossil fuel industry’s suppression of its research on the dangers of carbon pollution.
Dr. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University has written about the pattern followed by both industries: hiring their own scientists to churn out favorable research; creating (and bankrolling) front groups to sow doubt in the public debate about scientific consensus, while obscuring the hand of the industry; and even attacking and harassing individual scientists whose work may discredit the industry propaganda. Professor Mann himself has been the target of vexatious “investigations” and efforts to intimidate and harass him, including death threats—just for producing peer-reviewed academic research shedding light on the effects of increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Dr. Robert Brulle of Drexel University has documented an intricate propaganda web of climate denial, with over one hundred organizations, from industry trade associations to conservative think tanks to plain old phony front groups. The purpose of this sophisticated denial apparatus, he says, is “a deliberate and organized effort to misdirect the public discussion and distort the public’s understanding of climate.” These are tactics that were developed, tested, and proven effective by the tobacco industry—and in some cases the very same front groups were involved.
Public lawyers demanded that the “tobacco files”” behind this fraud be made a public record. A recentanalysis by the Center for International Environmental Law of millions of documents from these tobacco industry archives reveals close collaboration over the better part of a century between cigarette manufacturers and oil producers on research, lobbying, and public relations. The new bookPoison Tea, by Climate Nexus Executive Director Jeff Nesbit, chronicles this same relationship.
In the book and film Merchants of Doubt, Drs. Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway identify spin doctors, spokespeople and even scientists-for-hire who were involved in the tobacco and now fossil fuel campaigns. Not only has the energy industry recycled tobacco’s strategies and front groups, it’s redeploying some of the same personnel, like Mr. Reavey, the coal convention presenter.
Sharon Eubanks, lead counsel on behalf of the United States in United States v. Phillip Morris, the federal tobacco litigation, has said she believes the government could make a case against fossil fuel producers very similar to the one she led against tobacco under federal civil racketeering laws. That’s not just because coal companies are openly taking cues from tobacco’s legal and regulatory fight. It’s because mounting evidence indicates that, like tobacco, the fossil fuel industry may have engaged in a deliberate, protracted fraud to mislead the public, to protect their profits, to the peril of us all.
Taxpayers left with costs of mines cleanup as coal companies go bankrupt
As coal companies sink into bankruptcy, who will pay to clean up their old mines? Peabody is the latest to make big promises to a bankruptcy judge. VOX David Roberts on September 2, 2016, In the context of US capitalism, corporate bankruptcy has become less an admission of failure or a final chapter than a kind of R&R, a chance to shed some flab and come back stronger. As anyone who has followed Donald Trump’s career knows, a big company declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy is like Lindsay Lohan checking into rehab. They’ll be back.
So it is with Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private coal company, which entered bankruptcy back in April. It is currently undergoing its bankruptcy spa treatment — shedding workers and retirees, their health and pension benefits — and preparing to get back to work (or so it hopes).
Put more simply: Who’s going to pay to clean up all those old mines?
Coal companies promise to pay for mine cleanup, really and for true
The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 says that coal companies have to clean up old mines and reverse their environmental damage, costs which can run to the hundreds of millions. Before they receive a permit for a new mine, coal companies have to prove that they can afford to clean it up. They do so by posting a bond.
These days, however, coal companies rarely have to meet this requirement. Instead, they are allowed to “self-bond,” which amounts to promising the states they operate in that they can pay for mine cleanups.
This cozy arrangement between coal companies and state regulators is longstanding, but it has come under increased scrutiny lately, as coal companies have tried to use bankruptcy to squirm out of those obligations. Wyoming just struck a deal with (bankrupt) Arch Coal to “accept up to $75 million in place of the company’s $486 million in bonding obligations.” That means if Arch Coal liquidates, Wyoming is first in line to collect at least $75 million in assets.
And it’s not an isolated case; there’s a lot of dough at stake. In addition to the $9 billion in mine cleanup costs already outstanding under the Abandoned Mine Land Program(covering mines abandoned before 1977), “officials estimate that roughly $3.6 billion in self-bond liabilities could fall to taxpayers.”
That would amount to a $3.6 billion subsidy to big coal, the latest (maybe the last?) in a century-long tradition of subsidies.
Worries about self-bonding led WildEarth Guardians and other environmental groups tofile a petition to the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) in March, asking the agency to ensure that “companies with a history of financial insolvency are not allowed to self-bond coal mining operations.”……..http://www.vox.com/2016/9/2/12757074/coal-bankruptcy-mine-cleanup
Russia continues its frantic nuclear marketing – to Jordan this time
Russia expects feasibility study for Jordan in early 2017, WNN 02 September 2016 
A
feasibility study on the construction of nuclear power plants in Jordan is to be prepared in the first half of next year, Sergey Kirienko,
director general of the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom said today. Kirienko spoke to reporters at the second Eastern Economic Forum that opened today in the Russian city Vladivostock…….http://tinyurl.com/hh5mgty
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