Costs cited in possible closure of Pilgrim nuclear plant, Cape Cod Times, Christine Legere @chrislegereCCT 20 Sep 15 Entergy Corp. will announce some time this winter whether it will move forward with costly repairs and upgrades to the beleaguered Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station or simply decide the 43-year-old plant is no longer a moneymaker and close it down.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission downgraded Pilgrim to the bottom of the performance list for the nation’s 99 operating reactors two weeks ago, based on the frequency of forced shutdowns and equipment failures there since 2013.
The so-called Column 4 category is just one step above mandatory shutdown by federal regulators. Only two other reactors in the country are in that performance category, both at Arkansas Nuclear I and both owned by Entergy.
Spokeswoman Lauren Burm said Entergy is now faced with a big decision. “If the corporation finds the cost of making improvements exceeds the value of the plant, it may consider shutting Pilgrim down,” Burm said.
Burm also noted the challenges of the current energy market. “The wholesale market has dropped and natural gas is hard to compete with,” she said.
Entergy must produce a performance improvement plan for federal regulators within six months, but a decision on Entergy’s future should be made long before then.
David Noyes, Pilgrim’s director of regulatory and performance improvement, said the scope of required work — along with cost figures he anticipates will be in the millions — is nearly ready for review by Entergy’s corporate leaders.
“They will work out the business models in terms of profitability,” Noyes said. Whether the plant continues to be financially viable will then be determined.
Costs will include necessary equipment, experts to monitor and analyze plant data, and workers to make required changes and upgrades, since the 600 current employees of the plant are needed for day-to-day operation.
Entergy just recently spent $70 million on Pilgrim, on equipment and additional staff, during its April refueling, yet the plant has been forced to power down twice since then.
Entergy must also pay the NRC for inspections, which have been frequent due to the plant’s performance.
Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC, said last year’s inspections cost the company $1.8 million. Inspectors spent 6,500 hours at the plant, at a rate of $279 per hour.
The frequency of inspections will increase, Sheehan said, now that Pilgrim has been downgraded.
Meanwhile state Sen. Daniel Wolf, a Democrat from Harwich and longtime Pilgrim critic, has filed two bills that would add about $58 million to Entergy’s yearly expenses. The bills are expected to be considered this fall, Wolf said.
The first would impose a $10,000 annual charge for each spent fuel bundle that remains in pools at nuclear plants. Pilgrim has more than 3,000 bundles in its pool, making the charge $33 million. Wolf’s second bill would institute a requirement that $25 million be paid annually by nuclear plants into a decommissioning fund, so enough money would be available to cover closure.
“If those bills were to pass, that would be part of our evaluation of future viability,” Noyes said.
Wolf said he would like to see Pilgrim shut down. “This is a nuclear plant that federal officials have designated as a Category 4, a low to moderate safety risk; that’s just not acceptable,” Wolf said…….
Entergy closed Vermont Yankee, a boiling-water reactor similar to Pilgrim, in 2014, saying it was no longer economically viable. The corporation has secured federal approval to keep the Vermont plant in SafStor, which means fuel is removed from the reactor and stored in the spent fuel pools, but the reactor itself and all its components can remain onsite for 60 years.
Earlier this month, Entergy informed its investors that it will decide before the end of this calendar year whether to close the New York-based FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant, also similar to Pilgrim in size and type. “The decision will be based on the market,” Burm said……http://www.capecodtimes.com/article/20150920/NEWS/150929946
UK’s most aggressive nuclear lobby is pushing for Small Modular Nuclear Reactors and Thorium Reactors. They’ve even got themselves classed as a Charity!!! So, is the veiled co-operation between the old Big nuclear camp, and the new geewhiz Little nuclear camp now wearing thin in Britain?
Pro-nuclear environmentalists in call to scrap Hinkley C plans
Three leading experts urge government to end nuclear project saying delays will create panicked scramble back to fossil fuels, Guardian, Terry Macalister, 19 Sept 15 Three leading environmentalists who broke ranks to give their support to a new generation of nuclear plants have now urged the government to scrap plans for Hinkley Point C.
The call comes as George Osborne and Amber Rudd, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, head off to China, where they will discuss Beijing’s proposed investment in the new nuclear plant in Somerset.
George Monbiot, Mark Lynas and Chris Goodall say the soaring cost and delays to the Hinkley project leave ministers with no option but to pour the estimated £24.5bn worth of investment into other low-carbon technologies
“Hinkley C bears all the distinguishing features of a white elephant: overpriced, overcomplicated and overdue. The delay that was announced recently should be the final straw. The government should kill the project,” they write in a comment piece for the Guardian.
“The new delay should not surprise anyone who’s aware of the technological issues,” said Tony Roulstone, who runs the masters programme in nuclear engineering at Cambridge University. He argues that the plan for Hinkley C is like “building a cathedral within a cathedral”. It is, he concludes, “unconstructable”………
EDF, the French energy group, promoting Hinkley, has already won a generous financial aid package from the government through its “contract for difference” mechanism but has yet to sign the definitive deal it needs with Beijing investors.
This is expected to happen when the Chinese premier visits the UK next month, leaving EDF in a position to finally give the green light to the first nuclear plant to be built in the UK for 20 years.
But the energy company and its French engineering partner, Areva, have been beset by problems, leaving a growing number of former supporters from the world of energy and the City to question the viability of the whole project…….http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/18/nuclear-environmentalists-scrap-hinkley-c-plans
US and Australian taxpayers pay billions a year to fund coal – report, http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/16/us-australian-taxpayers-pay-billions-fund-coal
Ending US subsidies would lead to cuts in coal use equivalent to shutting up to 32 coal-fired power stations, according to the report. Damian Carrington, 16 Sept 15
Ending subsidies, that amount to almost a quarter of the sale price in some cases, would hugely reduce carbon emissions, new research reveals
Coal subsidies are costing US and Australian taxpayers billions of dollars a year, according to a new report.
The research examined the subsidies given to coal production in the US’s largest coal field, the Powder River Basin, and found they totalled $2.9bn (£1.9bn) a year. This equates to $8 per tonne, almost 25% of the sale price.
Ending the subsidies would lead to cuts in coal use equivalent to shutting up to 32 coal-fired power stations, the researchers found, leading to a large reduction in carbon emissions.
The report also analysed Australia’s exporting of coal for power stations in Asia and found these came to $1.3bn a year, or $4 a tonne. Ending these subsidies would cut demand by up to 7%, a smaller impact than in the US because coal users could buy supplies from other countries.
“The fossil fuel industry has gamed energy market consumers, with numerous subsidies evident over the long term,” said Tim Buckley, at the Institute forEnergy Economics and Financial Analysis, who worked on the report. “Any discussion of cost competitiveness of renewable energy and energy efficiency needs to take into account the decades of extensive subsidies evident for the coal industry and that, in many cases, remain in place today.”
Luke Sussams, senior researcher at Carbon Tracker Initiative, also part of the research team, said: “Policy makers concerned about climate change and a level playing field in energy markets should look to take coordinated action to remove the distortions to production these subsidies create.”
The subsidies given to coal companies included tax breaks, cheap leases, government-funded infrastructure including railways and ports and allowing inadequate funding of clean-up operation after mining ends.
The G20 nations pledged to end fossil fuel subsidies in 2009, but little action has been taken. However, falling oil and coal prices in the last year have seen some countries starting to reduce subsidies.
A recent study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) took into account not just direct subsidies but also the cost to nations of the damage caused by air pollution and global warming. It estimated coal, oil and gas were being subsidised by $5.3trn a year, more than the total health spending of all the world’s governments. Much of the cost is due to the illness and death caused by air pollution.
“Eliminating coal subsidies in the Powder River Basin and throughout the world, is an obvious, no-regrets climate strategy,” said Doug Koplow, of Earth Track and another member of the research team.
The new report, called Assessing Thermal Coal Production Subsidies, was produced by the Carbon Tracker Initiative, Energy Transition Advisors, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and Earth Track.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) connects state lawmakers with corporateHow Charles Koch Prevents Clean Energy Businesses From Succeeding, TruthOut 02 September 2015 By Matthew Kasper, Republic Report | News Analysis Last week, President Obama correctly singled out the Koch brothers – Charles and David – and the Koch-funded network for standing in the way of America’s clean energy Continue reading
Entergy’s FitzPatrick Reactor May Be Next Nuclear Casualty, Power, 09/14/2015 | Sonal Patel Entergy’s 850-MW James A. FitzPatrick nuclear plant located near Oswego, N.Y., may be the next reactor doomed to close on profitability woes. Entergy’s CEO Leo Denault told attendees at the Barclays CEO EnergyPower Conference on Sept. 10 that the company will need to decide by the end of this year whether to go forward with plans to refuel the FitzPatrick plant in Fall 2016.
The single-unit 1975-built reactor is one of six merchant nuclear plants that Entergy operates in the Northeast. Competition from low-cost gas and subsidized wind power has undercut power prices, making it difficult for FitzPatrick to make money (see POWER‘s latest story on how Exelon is dealing with similar issues)………Entergy in December 2014 shuttered its Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant because it was unprofitable. The Louisiana-based company acknowledged that the FitzPatrick plant, which gained the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s green light to run until 2034, has been flailing financially for two years now. However, the company is determined to continue operating its two Indian Point units in New York despite strong opposition by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and environmental advocacy groups, Denault said, because its a “primary source of value earnings and … cash flow.” http://www.powermag.com/entergys-fitzpatrick-reactor-may-be-next-nuclear-casualty/
FIVE REASONS NOT TO BUILD HINKLEY [Excellent graphs] Bloomberg Finance http://about.bnef.com/landing-pages/five-reasons-build-hinkley/ The endgame for the UK’s new reactor project at Hinkley Point is nearing. A Chinese state visit to the UK in October may be the make-or-break point for the project to get the go-ahead. As that moment approaches, we give five reasons not to build the plant. This is an excerpt from our EU Power Weekly, which is available to our BNEF EMEA and BNEF All clients.
Last week, French energy giant EDF announced delays to two key new reactor projects. Firstly, Flamanville 3 in France will only come online in 2018, six years behind the initial plan and three times over budget. Also, Hinkley Point C in the UK will not be completed by 2023 due to delays in reaching a final investment decision. This adds to the uncertainty around the 3.2GW reactor project. Here are five reasons not to build Hinkley.
EXELON DELAYS CLOSURE DECISION ON 2 ILLINOIS NUCLEAR PLANTS http://abc7chicago.com/business/exelon-delays-closure-decision-on-2-illinois-nuclear-plants/977661/ September 10, 2015 Exelon Corp. says it is delaying for one year its decision about whether to close nuclear plants in the Quad Cities and Byron.
Chicago-based Exelon owns Illinois’ 11 nuclear reactors. It has previously said its generating stations in the Quad Cities, Byron and Clinton were in danger of closing.
Exelon said Thursday that it plans to continue operating its Quad Cities nuclear power plant through at least May 2018 and the Byron plant will operate through May 2019. The company said the Clinton station remains “economically challenged” and could be closed if conditions don’t improve.
Exelon president and CEO Chris Crane called the decision a “short-term-reprieve.” He said policy reforms are needed to level the clean energy playing field and position Illinois to meet EPA carbon reduction rules.
E.ON Faces Massive Loss After Scrapping German Nuclear Spinoff
Utility said it would post a hefty net loss this year after booking billions of euros in impairments, WSJ, MONICA HOUSTON-WAESCH and FRIEDRICH GEIGER Sept. 10, 2015 BERLIN—E.ON SE will post a massive loss this year after ditching plans to unload its German nuclear operations into a new company, in a nod to government proposals to saddle utilities with liabilities related to nuclear energy.
E.ON expects to book impairment costs this quarter of as much as €9 billion ($10 billion), triggering a multibillion-euro loss. Its shares plunged to an all-time low on Thursday, dropping 6% to €9.09.
The German utility had planned to move its nuclear operations into Uniper, a company being established to operate conventional power, trading, exploration and production. The spinoff will proceed but without German nuclear activities, said E.ON, which also has Swedish nuclear operations……..
E.ON’s decision was prompted by government proposals for legal changes that would make utilities permanently liable for the costs of nuclear waste and plant decommissioning……..
E.ON now plans to bundle its German nuclear operations into an independent unit within E.ON. Its Swedish nuclear operations will be spun off into Uniper as planned……http://www.wsj.com/articles/e-on-drops-plan-to-spin-off-german-nuclear-plants-1441865094
French EPR reactor years behind schedule, billions over budget http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/business/french-epr-reactor-years-behind-schedule-billions-over-budget/articleshow/48785708.cms By Reuters | 3 Sep, 2015, PARIS: French state-controlled utility EDF on Thursday announced new delays and cost overruns for the Areva-designed 1650 megawatt European pressurised reactor (EPR) reactor it is building in Flamanville, Normandy.
The EPR is set to be the first of a new series of safer “next-generation” reactors to replace France’s ageing fleet of 58 nuclear reactors. The Flamanville reactor had been scheduled to start in 2012 and was scheduled to cost 3 billion euros.
A similar EPR reactor built by ArevaBSE 1.16 % in Finland, on which construction started in 2005 and was scheduled to start up in 2009, has suffered even longer delays. Two more EPRs are under construction in China and EDF plans to build two in Hinkley Point, Britain.
Below is a timeline of the Flamanville delays and cost overruns:
July 2005: EDF says it plans to build an EPR reactor at Flamanville, which is due to start operating in 2012. The cost is estimated at 3 billion euros.
In its 2005 annual report, EDF estimates the cost at 3.3 billion euros.
May 2006: EDF says construction should begin in 2007 and be completed in 2012.
December 2007: Work starts on the Flamanville ..
December 2008: EDF says EPR is due to cost 4 billion euros.
July 2010: EDF says start of Flamanville EPR is delayed until 2014. Construction costs now seen at 5 billion euros.
July 2011: EDF delays the completion of its Flamanville reactor by another two years to 2016. It expects costs to rise to 6 billion euros.
December 2012December 2012: EDF says stricter regulation in the wake of the Fukushima disaster will bring the total cost of the EPR to 8.5 billion euros. The start-up date is still expected for 2016.
July 2013: EDF installs the dome of Flamanville reactor.
November 2014: EDF said the Flamanville reactor will start up in 2017. It says the delay is due to Areva’s difficulties with ensuring a timely delivery of certain pieces of equipment.
April 2015: EDF says weak spots have been found in the steel of the Flamanville EPR. EDF starts a series of new tests on the EPR as construction work continues. Nuclear regulator says carbon concentrations have weakened the mechanical resilience of the steel and its ability to resist the spreading of cracks.September 3 2015: EDF said the Flamanville reactor will now start in 2018 and cost 10.5 billion euros.
Japan nuclear power outlook bleak despite first reactor restart, Yahoo News, 1 Sept 15, By Kentaro Hamada and Aaron Sheldrick TOKYO (Reuters) – The number of Japanese nuclear reactors likely to restart in the next few years has halved, hit by legal challenges and worries about meeting tougher safety standards imposed in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, a Reuters analysis shows…….
analysis shows that of the other 42 operable reactors remaining in the country, just seven are likely to be turned on in the next few years, down from the 14 predicted in a similar survey last year.
The findings are based on reactor inspection data from industry watchdog the Nuclear Regulation Authority, court rulings and interviews with local authorities, utilities and energy experts. They also show that nine reactors are unlikely to ever restart and that the fate of the remaining 26 looks uncertain.
“Four-and-a-half years after the events started unfolding at Fukushima Daiichi, the Japanese government, the nuclear utilities and the NRA have not succeeded in overcoming complete planning insecurity for investors. The outlook for restarts is as cloudy as ever,” said Mycle Schneider, an independent energy consultant in Paris…….
LEGAL WOES
Legal challenges from local residents have hit all atomic plants, with the country’s most nuclear-reliant utility Kansai Electric Power issued with court rulings preventing the restart of four reactors despite two of them already receiving NRA approval to switch on.
Kansai has appealed the judgments but the court cases may take years to resolve if the rulings are not overturned on the first appeal.
Tougher safety standards and stricter implementation of rules since Fukushima have also been hitting restarts. Japan Atomic Power has been battling a regulatory ruling that one of its reactors sits above an active fault, meaning it must be decommissioned.
And highlighting the pitfalls of rebooting the industry, Kyushu Electric was forced to slow the ramp up of power from its Sendai No. 1 reactor after it restarted around mid-August due to problems with pumping equipment. Engineers warn that firing up reactors that have been offline for prolonged periods could be fraught with such troubles……..http://news.yahoo.com/japan-nuclear-power-outlook-bleak-despite-first-reactor-013149457–finance.html
SCE&G Customers Paying for Over-Budget Nuclear Project Savannah Levins, WLTX September 2, 2015 COLUMBIA, SC (WLTX)– South Carolina Electric and Gas was approved to build two nuclear reactors back in 2009. The mission of the new devices: provide cleaner energy
The legislature, under the Baseload Review Act, agreed the company can increase customer bills every year to help pay for it. But now that the company is about a billion dollars over budget and years behind schedule, customers like environmental activist Tom Clements are getting frustrated.
“The rate payer, the customer, is saddled with 100% of the costs and all the risk of the project, and at the end of the day we don’t own anything,” he said. “We’ve paid for everything, we’ve taken all the risk, and we don’t own anything. But that;s courtesy of the legislature that passed what i think is an unjust law.”
On Wednesday, the Public Service Commission approved SCE&G’s request for an additional one billion in today’s dollars, and a four year extension to complete the project.
SCE&G Spokesperson Eric Boomhower says another customer rate increase of 2.8% is set to take effect in the end of October, and will continue to increase each year until the project is complete……..
Company representatives predict customers will continue to see annual increases averaging 2.2% until the project is completed.
That completion date, originally set at 2016, was pushed back on Wednesday to 2020. http://www.wltx.com/story/news/local/2015/09/02/sceg-customers-paying-over-budget-nuclear-project/71608720/
New Hinkley Point nuclear power station may be further delayed, Guardian, Terry Macalister, 4 Sept 15
France’s EDF gives no definite schedule for construction of £24.5bn plant, which still awaits firm’s final investment decision The planned new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in Somerset has been hit by another setback, with its developer EDF admitting the project may be further delayed.
The news came as the French energy group said a more advanced sister project at Flamanville in Normandy would now not start operating until 2018, at a cost of €10bn (£7.3bn). It was originally slated to open in 2005 and cost €3bn.
No definite schedule has been given for power to be switched on at Hinkley, but it means the £24.5bn facility, which still awaits EDF’s formal go-ahead, may not be ready by 2023 – a date that has already been put back several times…….
The latest problem follows continued speculation that China General Nuclear Power Corp and China National Nuclear Corp were pushing the UK government for concessions before committing to a cash investment at Hinkley.
Critics have repeatedly told the government that it was foolish to rely on a new generation of nuclear power stations to meet Britain’s energy crunch, because such huge projects have a record of coming in late and over budget. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/03/new-hinkley-point-nuclear-power-station-may-be-further-delayed
Hitachi has made no secret of its motive for trying to export reactor technology saying it needed a fresh outlet for reactors after Tokyo shut down Japan’s nuclear plants
failure to agree a final deal between EDF Energy and the Government on Hinkley “threatens not only the first new nuclear power station for a generation, but potentially all those that will come in its wake,”
ABWRs – one of the least reliable reactors in the world nuClear news No.77, September 2015
Introduction – Anglesey: a victim of Abenomics? Exporting nuclear technology is a key element of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic strategy – “Abenomics”. Nuclear exports are seen as a way to rev up Japan’s long struggling economy, and tackle the persistent trade deficit made worse by the
need to import energy – especially Liquid Natural Gas – to replace reactors shutdown after Fukushima.
Japan’s top three nuclear engineering companies — Hitachi, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Toshiba — which had a combined profit in their energy and infrastructure businesses of about 242 billion yen ($3.14 billion) in the fiscal year 2010/11, were keener than ever to look overseas for business after Fukushima put the domestic nuclear industry on hold. Continue reading
Three Mile Island nuclear plant being considered for closure? Lancaster online, AD CRABLE | Staff Writer, 26 Aug 15, Could the Three Mile Island nuclear plant be headed for premature closure? Last week, no one bought a year’s worth of TMI’s electricity at a key energy-buying auction held by PJM, the regional transmission organization that coordinates the movement of power in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia.
The PJM Capacity Auction is not the only place TMI owner Exelon can sell the plant’s electricity, but it’s a key and profitable one. The results have led to speculation that Exelon may be considering closing TMI as it is considering doing at three of its nuclear plants in Illinois.
Asked if the plant was in a troubled financial situation, Ralph DeSantis, Exelon’s spokesman at TMI, issued this statement: “The fact that TMI did not clear the 2018-2019 auction makes it clear the plant’s economics are challenged……..
In Illinois, Exelon has threatened to close as many as three of its money-losing nuclear plants because of competition from natural gas and subsidized wind energy. Two of those three plants are in the PJM, as is TMI, and neither of the Illinois plants were competititive enough to sell electricity in the last auction in May 2014.
Exelon has sought support from Illinois legislators and one bill being considered would require the state’s utilities to buy 70 percent of their power from “low carbon” sources such as that generated by nuclear plants. The utilities could offset that cost by charging ratepayers with a surcharge of up to 2 percent.
Eric Epstein of the clean-energy group Three Mile Island Alert had this to say about TMI’s shutout at the capacity auction: “Single reactor sites like TMI are more vulnerable to closure since they are unprofitable and require government and ratepayer subsidies.
“Several developments this summer have weakened the nuclear industry and wrought havoc on Exelon’s corporate fortunes: EPA devalued nuclear’s role in combating carbon emissions, three Exleon plants, including TMI, did not clear PJM capacity auctions, and the DC Public Service Commission nixed the Exelon-Pepco merger.
“TMI’s shuttering creates long-term problems for the local community, and will intensify the shortfall in cleanup funding, and postpone the storage of high-level radioactive waste from spent fuel pools to dry casks.
owners of nuclear plants are hoping that the President Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan to cut back on sources of carbon dioxide, such as coal plants, will raise the value of nuclear plants.
Says DeSantis, “Exelon is continuing its ongoing work to educate policymakers and others about the fact that markets are failing to properly value nuclear power’s environmental and reliability benefits and the need to find solutions that will correct that.”In 2009, Exelon received a license extension from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to continue operating TMI until 2034.
Exelon is the nation’s largest owner and operator of nuclear plants, with 22 reactors in 13 locations, including TMI and the Peach Bottom nuclear plant in York County…. http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/three-mile-island-nuclear-plant-being-considered-for-closure/article_b421e660-4c23-11e5-9906-57636793d31b.html
Mass layoff possible in Portsmouth uranium cleanup, Columbus Dispatch, By Kantele Franko ASSOCIATED PRESS • Friday August 28, 2015 Workers decontaminating and decommissioning a Cold War-era uranium plant in southern Ohio are again being notified about hundreds of potential layoffs because of an anticipated funding gap, a reprise of warnings they heard a year ago for the same reason…….
Those layoffs could occur around Oct. 22, but the project’s director and other leaders remain hopeful they’ll get funding needed to continue their current pace, which costs roughly $387 million annually, Wagner said.
Hundreds of layoffs were averted last year because Congress approved extra funding. This time, the situation is a bit different.
About 70 percent of the project’s funding comes from a program in which the government sells uranium, but the amount that can be bartered has been reduced for 2016, so project officials must hope the balance is made up through appropriations, Wagner said……..
U.S. Sen. Rob Portman said lawmakers will once again have to scramble to find funding. As he has repeatedly, the Ohio Republican called for adequate annual funding in the federal budget for the cleanup.
“It’s actually less expensive to the taxpayer over time to start moving to actual cleanup rather than almost maintaining the site, which is about all you can do with the low levels of funding,” Portman said Thursday in Columbus. “It may seem like it’s more money up front, but it’s actually billions of dollars less money over time — billions because they’re now pushing the cleanup really out to the 2050s.” http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/08/28/mass-layoff-possible-in-uranium-cleanup.html
of the week– Nuclear Reactor Information Task Force
14 May – online event From Bombs to Data Centres: the Face of Nuclear Colonialism
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