Nuclear station- never completed – now to be sold at big loss

Never-Completed TVA Nuclear Plant That Cost $4B for Sale http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/completed-tva-nuclear-plant-cost-4b-sale-38910893 By TRAVIS LOLLER, ASSOCIATED PRESS NASHVILLE, Tenn. — May 5, 2016 The nation’s largest public utility is selling a never-completed nuclear plant that has cost more than $4 billion dollars over the past four decades.
The Tennessee Valley Authority board voted Thursday to declare the Bellefonte nuclear plant near Hollywood, Alabama, surplus. The site includes two partially finished nuclear reactors, office buildings, warehouses, parking areas, railroad spurs and a helicopter pad.
TVA President and CEO Bill Johnson said after the meeting that the 1,600 acre site has been appraised at $36 million. It will be sold at auction to the highest bidder, but the utility will consider job creation and economic impact when looking at potential buyers. “There will have to be a positive impact for the community for us to qualify you as a bidder,” he said
The decision to sell is the latest blow to the nuclear power industry, which seemed poised for resurgence a decade ago but has been stymied by cheap natural gas, high construction costs and relatively flat demand for power.
TVA recently completed construction of its long mothballed Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor in Spring City, which was first started in 1979 and then restarted in 2008. The reboot ran about $2 billion over budget and took about three years longer than anticipated.
Board member Eric Satz cited that experience in concluding that completing Bellefonte is not economically viable. He said a lot has changed in the energy market in the past 40 years, including huge improvements in energy efficiency and renewable energy technology.
And he said TVA should allow the Bellefonte site to be developed so the people of Hollywood “don’t live in limbo for the next 40 years.”
A recent TVA study concluded that the utility will not need any new large-scale facilities that can generate electricity 24 hours a day for at least 20 years.
The board met Thursday at Paris Landing State Park in Buchanan.
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in jeopardy , leaked documents reveal problems for Europe
TTIP leaked documents could spell the end of controversial trade deal, say campaigners, Independent Documents shed unprecedented light on controversial agreement, which includes provisions to allow US companies to help change European law and weaken consumer protections, Independent, Andrew Griffin @_andrew_griffin 2 May 2016 Hundreds of leaked pages from the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) show that the deal could be about to collapse, according to campaigners.
The huge leak – which gives the first full insight into the negotiations – shows that the relationship between Europe and the US are weaker than had been thought and that major divisions remain on some of the agreement’s most central provisions.
The talks have been held almost entirely in secret, and most information that is known in public has come out from unofficial leaks. But the new pages, leaked by Greenpeace, represent the first major look at how the highly confidential talks are progressing.
The leaks could be enough to destabilise the deal completely, according to campaigners who have claimed that the agreement couldn’t survive the leaks.
- “Now that we can see the actual texts, the EU negotiators have nowhere left to hide,” John Hilary, the executive director of War on Want, told The Independent. “The gloves are off, and they know they are in for a proper fight.”
They indicate that the US is looking strongly to change regulation in Europe to lessen the protections on the environment, consumer rights and other positions that the EU affords to its citizens. Representatives for each side appear to have found that they have run into “irreconcilable” differences that could undermine the signing of the landmark and highly controversial trade deal, campaigners say.
For instance, the papers show that the US is looking to weaken the EU’s “precautionary principle” that governs how potentially harmful products are sold, Greenpeace says. The US has much weaker regulation that aims to minimise rather than avoid risks, and that same less strict regime could come to the UK and Europe under the deal.
- If the EU made further changes to similar regulations, it would have to inform the US and corporations based there, according to the documents. American companies would then be able to have the same input into EU regulation as European ones do.
- There are also notable missing parts of the agreement. None of the texts includes any reference to the global effort to cut CO2 emissions agreed in Paris last year, according to Greenpeace, despite a commitment from the European Commission that it would make environmental sustainability a key part of any deal………http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ttip-leak-could-spell-the-end-of-controversial-trade-deal-say-campaigners-a7009896.html
Exelon nuclear corporation demands tax-payer bailout for its uneconomic power plants
Exelon to Close Two Nuclear Plants if Needs Aren’t Met, WSJ By AUSTEN HUFFORD May 6, 2016 Exelon Corp. said Friday that it would close two nuclear power plants in Illinois if state officials don’t pass legislation that provides funding and support for nuclear and solar power.
The company said it would close its Clinton, Ill., nuclear power plantand its Quad Cities nuclear power plant, which is based nearCordova, Ill., if Illinois doesn’t pass “adequate legislation” by the end of the month.
Electricity producers in several states are asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support to keep costly nuclear power plants in business. If successful, the legislation is likely to increase customers’ power bills……..
Abe Scarr, Director of Illinois PIRG, a public interest advocacy organization that fights against “powerful interests,” said the bill amounted to a nuclear bailout.
“Ratepayers have paid multiple times for these plants over the decades,” Mr. Scarr said. “We should be investing in the energy generation for the future. We should not be doubling down on an energy source of the past that is not competitive.”
According to Exelon, Clinton and Quad Cities have lost more than $800 million over the past six years.
In a release Thursday, Exelon said some nuclear plants are at risk of closing because wholesale energy prices are at a 15-year low……http://www.wsj.com/articles/exelon-to-close-two-nuclear-plants-if-needs-arent-met-1462544157
Former Electricite de France SA Chief Financial Officer says he quit because of financial risks of Hinkley nuclear project

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Ex-EDF CFO Quit Over Financial Risks From U.K. Nuclear Project, Bloomberg, Francois De Beaupuy FrancoisDeBeaup
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Piquemal says French utility needs to strengthen balance sheet
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EDF can’t afford significant downgrade in rating: Piquemal
Former Electricite de France SA Chief Financial Officer Thomas Piquemal said he quit two months ago to highlight the risks of proceeding with the 18 billion-pound ($26 billion) Hinkley Point nuclear power project without additional financing.
The timetable pushed by EDF Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jean-Bernard Levy for an investment decision on the U.K. project meant there wouldn’t have been time to strengthen the utility’s balance sheet, Piquemal told a hearing at the National Assembly in Paris. That would have left the company reliant on its 85 percent shareholder, the French state, providing funding and threatened EDF with the same fate as troubled nuclear-reactor builder Areva SA, he said.
“A new nuclear project is an extra risk for a company,” Piquemal said in his first public statement since quitting. “I didn’t want to approve a decision that could leave EDF in Areva’s situation one day.”……
Financial Strain
Speculation has mounted over the future of Hinkley Point since Piquemal resigned amid concerns the project would put EDF under too much financial strain, while labor unions have called for a three-year delay until similar nuclear plants built by the company start operating in France and China…….
EDF has held off on making a final investment decision even after forming a partnership with China General Nuclear Power Corp. and securing guaranteed power prices from the U.K. government at almost three times the current market rate for 35 years.Rating companies will probably downgrade EDF because large nuclear projects such as Hinkley Point will increase its risk profile, the ex-CFO said. While EDF had no financing problems at the end of 2015, it can’t afford a “significant” downgrade that would push its hybrid debt into the “junk” category because it would complicate a potential refinancing from 2020, Piquemal said. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-04/ex-edf-cfo-quit-over-financial-risks-from-u-k-nuclear-project
UK nuclear parts made at French plant in fakery probe
Telegraph Emily Gosden, energy editor 4 MAY 2016 Parts of the Sizewell B nuclear power station in Suffolk were made at a French plant being investigated over possible fake manufacturing records, EDF Energy has confirmed.
Mr Piquemal said he had sought a three-year delay to Hinkley as he was not prepared to “bet 60 to 70pc of [EDF’S] equity on a technology that has not yet proven that it can work and which takes 10 years to build”.
He said the proposed reactor technology involved “major construction risk”.
EDF has already postponed a decision on the £18bn Hinkley project until September as it consults with unions on a plan to shore up its balance sheet, but the problems at the Le Creusot plant have raised further doubts about the project and as well as nuclear safety at existing plants………http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/04/uk-nuclear-parts-made-at-french-plant-in-fakery-probe/
Cameco cuts back on mining uranium, as market stays slumped
Cameco scales back uranium production, WNN, 22 Apr 16, Cameco is suspending production at the Rabbit Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan, curtailing production at its US uranium operations, and reducing production at McArthur River/Key Lake in response to market conditions, the company announced yesterday.
Work to transition the underground Rabbit Lake mine to care and maintenance will begin immediately and is expected to be completed by the end of August. Production at the US in situ leach operations cannot cease immediately because of the nature of the technology, and will instead decrease over time as head grades decline. The development of new wellfields will be deferred.
“Unfortunately, continued depressed market conditions do not support the operating and capital costs needed to sustain production at Rabbit Lake and the US operations,” CEO Tim Gitzel said. “These measures will allow us to continue delivering value to Cameco’s many stakeholders and support the long-term health of our company. We will provide assistance to those affected by these decisions,” he said……
The company will also reduce 2016 production at the McArthur River/Key Lake operation in Saskatchewan to 19 million pounds U3O8 (7308 tU), down from 20 million pounds (7693 tU), in response to a currently oversupplied uranium market…….http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/UF-Cameco-scales-back-uranium-production-2204167.html
Leaked TTIP documents cast doubt on EU-US trade deal
Greenpeace says internal documents show US attempts to lower or circumvent EU protection for environment and public health, Guardian, Arthur Neslen , 2 May 16, Talks for a free trade deal between Europe and the US face a serious impasse with “irreconcilable” differences in some areas, according to leaked negotiating texts.
The two sides are also at odds over US demands that would require the EU to break promises it has made on environmental protection.
President Obama said last week he was confident a deal could be reached. But the leaked negotiating drafts and internal positions, which were obtained byGreenpeace and seen by the Guardian, paint a very different picture………
Jorgo Riss, the director of Greenpeace EU, said: “These leaked documents give us an unparalleled look at the scope of US demands to lower or circumvent EU protections for environment and public health as part of TTIP. The EU position is very bad, and the US position is terrible. The prospect of a TTIP compromising within that range is an awful one. The way is being cleared for a race to the bottom in environmental, consumer protection and public health standards.”
US proposals include an obligation on the EU to inform its industries of any planned regulations in advance, and to allow them the same input into EU regulatory processes as European firms.
American firms could influence the content of EU laws at several points along the regulatory line, including through a plethora of proposed technical working groups and committees.
“Before the EU could even pass a regulation, it would have to go through a gruelling impact assessment process in which the bloc would have to show interested US parties that no voluntary measures, or less exacting regulatory ones, were possible,” Riss said……. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/01/leaked-ttip-documents-cast-doubt-on-eu-us-trade-deal
Vattenhall nuclear corporation in financial trouble, opposes nuclear risk premium, seeks to abolish Swedish tax

Vattenfall CEO says Germany’s proposed nuclear risk premium ‘too high’ Stockholm (Platts)–28 Apr 2016
* Plan ‘disproportionate’ to utilities’ economic strength
* Nuclear, hydro taxes in Sweden should be abolished
The CEO of Swedish utility Vattenfall, which has large stakes in Germany’s Brunsbuttel and Krummel nuclear plants, said the additional amount German nuclear power producers would have to pay for decommissioning and spent fuel storage under a proposed plan is “disproportionate to the economic strength of the utilities.”
The German Commission on the Review of the Financing of the Nuclear Phaseout, or KFK, recommended to the German government that nuclear utilities pay a so-called risk premium of Eur23.3 billion ($26.4 billion) into a fund for decommissioning reactors and final storage of spent fuel, which would be administered by the state.
That payment would be on top of the almost Eur40 billion in provisions that utilities have set aside to finance decommissioning and storage.
……NUCLEAR TAX Turning to its Swedish nuclear operations, Hall again called on the government to abolish the capacity tax on nuclear power. The tax is based on the amount of electricity reactors can generate, not on actual generation.
Hall and other Swedish nuclear utility executives have said that the tax, coupled with low electricity prices, is making nuclear power unprofitable. As a result, Vattenfall plans to shut two reactors ahead of the end of their technical lifetimes………http://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/stockholm/vattenfall-ceo-says-germanys-proposed-nuclear-26430524
Westinghouse keen to fleece UK tax-payers with Small Modular Nuclear Reactors
Westinghouse is engaging its UK stakeholders in its SMR offering to the country’s government, the company announced today. Mark Menzies, member of parliament for the Fylde constituency where the company’s Springfields site is located, said that he had already formally registered his support for Westinghouse’s proposal to produce SMRs for the UK market. He said that feedback from stakeholders would be essential for as the proposal, which could see SMR pressure vessels sourced and manufactured in the UK, to move forward. http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-UK-think-tank-urges-nuclear-innovation-2804167.html
Central bankers, financial facts, bringing an end to the nuclear power era?
Central Bankers Stimulate Nuclear End That Evaded Activists http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-25/central-bankers-stimulate-end-for-nuclear-that-evaded-activists Jonathan Tirone April 26, 2016 —
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Interest rates near record lows cut funds for decommissioning
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Industry faces $1 trillion of liabilities from retiring plants
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Central banks may accomplish what a generation of anti-nuclear activists have failed to do: Force operators to finally decommission almost 150 reactors now sitting in limbo across the globe.
The plants have been shut down, either because they’re too expensive to run or because of concerns about their safety or age. They can’t send electricity to the grid, and they’ll need the special funds saved over decades for formal decommissioning and clean-up of radioactive waste.
In the past, many operators delayed decommissioning to allow growth in the clean-up funds. As the global economy weakened, however, and central banks kept interest rates low, the principal in some of those funds shrank. Last year in the U.S., seven of the 10 biggest funds lost money, falling to $43.7 billion, a drop of 1.1 percent. Now, with projected costs rising, industry advocates say owners are more likely to opt for full decommissioning before the funds decline further.
- “One can’t rely as much on fund growth as in the past,” said Patrick Joseph O’Sullivan, a decommissioning specialist with the International Atomic Energy Agency. “It’s actually pushing utilities to think about bringing forward all this work because they’re not able to rely anymore on assuming high returns on investments.”
- The change in emphasis comes 30 years after the April 26, 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl reactor spread radioactive fallout across Europe. That event, followed 25 years later by meltdown at the Fukushima plant in Japan, undercut nuclear as a power generator as low-cost options like natural gas and renewable energies became increasingly available.A 2005 report by the IAEA forecast costs to shut a 1,000 megawatt reactor would range from 150 million euros ($169 million) to 750 million euros. In the U.S., the country with the most decommissioning experience, actual costs have ranged from $307 million to $819 million, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency.
Twenty-four U.S. decommissioning projects with site-specific estimates will require average clean-up funds of about $750 million per reactor, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported. Those costs jive with an estimate by Exelon Corp., which operates reactors at 15 U.S. nuclear power plants.
- Exelon estimates it will take $1 billion to decommission its 2-unit plant in Zion, Illinois. It told shareholders in February that “sustained low market prices or depressed demand” could accelerate “asset retirement obligation expense related to future decommissioning activities.” Exelon’s clean-up fund fell 2 percent to $10.3 billion last year.Utilities operating in Germany including EON SE, RWE AG and Vattenfall SE have set aside funds deemed “acceptable” by regulators to cover 47.5 billion euros of estimated costs to decommission the country’s 17 reactors. Shares of those utilities jumped in February after reports that the German government would kick in an additional 17.7 billion euros to help store the radioactive waste.
“Understanding of these costs is fundamental for the development of estimates based on realistic decommissioning plans,” the Paris-based Nuclear Energy Agency said last month in a 260-page report prepared for regulators and utilities. “More and more questions are raised over the adequacy of the necessary infrastructure and human resources, as well as the ability and mechanisms to finance the costs.”
There are 438 nuclear reactors in operation worldwide and less than 4 percent of the power reactors built have been fully decommissioned. Fewer still have figured out how to store waste for the thousands of years it will remain dangerous.
- “For us, the trend toward early dismantling has important advantages,” said the IAEA’s O’Sullivan. “It will contribute to better burden sharing between current and future generations.”About $200 billion will be spent worldwide in the next 20 years on decommissioning the world’s aging fleet of reactors, Thomas LaGuardia, an American nuclear engineer who is helping the IAEA to establish decommissioning guidelines, said in an interview. Nuclear operators that haven’t saved sufficient decommissioning funds may opt to put plants in safe storage until their accounts bulk up, he said.
- Project management and environmental remediation companies in the U.S. and Europe could see their markets grow as utilities draw down decommissioning funds to shut aging reactors, Swedish radiation safety analyst Simon Carroll said in an interview.“One person’s cost is another man’s income,” he said.
Sweden’s decommissioning fund fell 0.5 percent last year, Carroll said in an e-mail. The country reported on Tuesday that returns on it’s 59.3 billion krona ($7.3 billion) Nuclear Waste Fund also dropped 0.5 percent in 2015.
The economic meltdown of nuclear power should be a wake-up call for investors and governments
Once a reactor has reached the end of its lifetime, the cost for decommissioning and storing nuclear waste for hundreds to thousands of years have to be borne. Utilities have a mandate to make provisions for this, but whether the funds will actually suffice remains to be seen.
While the level of feed-in tariffs has been reduced for wind and solar in countries like Germany and Switzerland to reflect technology learning curves, the [UK’s] price guarantee for nuclear locks in the opposite trend.
The positive business case for non-renewable energies seems to come to an end. Thirty years after Chernobyl and five years after Fukushima, the economic meltdown of nuclear power should be a wake-up call for investors and governments
Nuclear power’s economic meltdown 30 years after Chernobyl http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/energy-rethink_nuclear-power-s-economic-meltdown-30-years-after-chernobyl/42109822 By Rolf Wüstenhagen 25 Apr 16 Thirty years later, the nuclear industry is facing a meltdown of a different kind: an economic meltdown.
They went on to conclude that each of the middle three of these risks alone would be enough to “bring even the largest utility company to its knees financially”.
Two years after the report was published, Citi’s claim was empirically validated. The meltdown in three reactors of the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant in Japan led to widespread contamination.
The event marked a human and environmental tragedy, but the magnitude of the financial loss – estimates of which range from $250 billion (CHF242 billion) to $500 billion – also forced the operating company, Tepco, into the largest government bail-out in Japanese economic history.
Sharp rethink Continue reading
Toshiba to lose 260 billion yen due to losses over Westinghouse nuclear power subsidiary
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Toshiba expects loss over Westinghouse to reach 260 bil. yen , Kyodo News, 26 April 2016 Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday it plans to book an asset impairment loss of around 260 billion yen ($2.3 billion) in its results for the year to March 31 by writing down the value of its U.S. nuclear power subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co. acquired in 2006……
Toshiba said its operating loss for the year is now pegged at 690 billion yen, compared with its earlier forecast of 430 billion yen, on sales of 5.5 trillion yen against the earlier projection of 6.2 trillion yen.
“We don’t think our financial conditions have stabilized…so reinforcing our (financial) standing is the biggest challenge in the current business year,” President Masashi Muromachi told a press conference.
In computing the write down on Westinghouse, Toshiba reviewed the $2.93 billion in goodwill, or 350 billion yen based on the exchange rate at that time, it booked when acquiring the U.S. nuclear plant builder.
The goodwill, calculated by deducting from the purchase price the value of the assets and liabilities acquired, was reported on the balance sheet as a fixed asset…….http://kyodonews.net/news/2016/04/26/58694
Toshina writes down the value of its nuclear business
Toshiba to Take $2.3 Billion Write-Down on Nuclear Business, WSJ, Toshiba also revised earnings guidance for the fiscal year, forecasting a larger operating loss By TAKASHI MOCHIZUKI April 26, 2016
TOKYO—Toshiba Corp. said it would write down the goodwill value of its nuclear-power-plant business, including its U.S. subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co., after years of criticism that the company’s outlook on the business was too optimistic.
The electronics giant said Tuesday that it would book the one-time loss of ¥260 billion ($2.3 billion) to reflect the change in the business’s earnings prospects and Toshiba’s financial standing.Toshiba’s recent financial scandal led to downgrades of its debt,which will make borrowing more expensive and so hurt profits.
The impairment charge will be recorded in results for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, due to be reported May 12…….http://www.wsj.com/articles/toshiba-to-take-2-3-billion-write-down-on-nuclear-business-1461654771
French and Russian nuclear utilities to work together, on decommissiong, and more
French and Russian nuclear utilities extend collaboration, World Nuclear News, 26 April 2016
French utility EDF has signed an agreement to extend its cooperation with Rosenergoatom, the operator of Russia’s civil nuclear power plants. The companies will cooperate in reactor operations, decommissioning and waste management…..
Through the agreement, EDF and Rosenergoatom intend to develop cooperation in areas such as the maintenance, modernization and operating period extension of nuclear power plants, as well as decommissioning and radioactive waste management http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-French-and-Russian-nuclear-utilities-extend-collaboration-2604164.html
Nuclear power workers protest in Ukraine
Ukrainian nuclear power workers to protest on 30th Chernobyl disaster anniversary Rt.com 25 Apr, 2016 Ukraine’s state nuclear energy giant says all employees of the country’s nuclear plants will stage a massive protest over its frozen assets in Kiev on Tuesday, as the world will be marking the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
Energoatom, the operator of Ukraine’s four functioning nuclear plants, saidon its website on Monday that its workers resorted to such “extreme measure” because of the “inaction” of the state in addressing the issue of “unjustified seizure” of the company’s assets.
The assets freeze led to Energoatom stopping payments for nuclear fuel, nuclear materials and removal of used nuclear fuel, it stressed.
“The payment arrears may result in the delay in the supply of nuclear fuel to Ukrainian nuclear power plants and therefore stoppage nuclear power units,” the company warned.
The wages of the employees are also under threat, the statement by state-owned Energoatom added.
The protests action was scheduled after attempts to resolve the issue “peacefully” by the nuclear worker’s union turned out unsuccessful, it said.
The Energoatom assets were arrested in March after the court ordered to collect 127.3 million hryvnia (around $5 million) of debt from the company.
The debt to Ukrelektrovat company “is not confirmed by any primary accounting documents, while the liability of 2.5 million hryvnia that had been present on Energoatom’s balance account was written off in 2004 due to the expiration of the statute of limitations,” it explained.
The amount of the debt was artificially increased after legal enquiry by an individual expert, whose conclusions were put in doubt by the Justice Ministry and led to the launch of a criminal case, Energoatom said.
In April, the company has sent an open letter to Justice Minister, Pavel Petrenko, urging him to interfere into the situation, but the plea was ignored by the official……..https://www.rt.com/news/340902-ukraine-chernobyl-nuclear-protest/
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