Obama – Modi discussions resulted in no deal for USA nuclear salesmen
The same stumbling block over parallel safeguards in perpetuity has held up India’s conclusion of nuclear deals with Japan and Australia
India’s bitter experience over the 1984 gas leak from an American-owned Bhopal city plant that killed about as many people as the Fukushima disaster. Indeed, Japan’s dual liability laws, which indemnify suppliers and make plant operators exclusively liable, should serve as a sobering lesson for India: GE built or designed all the three Fukushima reactors that suffered core meltdowns in 2011, yet the U.S. firm went scot-free, despite a fundamental design deficiency in the reactors.
With complex legal, pricing and other issues still pending, the deal’s commercialization is anything but imminent. In fact, the two sides are yet to sign the administrative arrangements, which they announced had been “finalized.”
It is an open question whether the deal will ever yield substantive energy benefits for India, given the exorbitant price of foreign-origin reactors, the concomitant need for India to heavily subsidize the electricity from such plants, and grassroots safety concerns over the Fukushima-type multi-plant nuclear parks earmarked by India for Westinghouse, GE-Hitachi and Areva, each of which is to sell prototype LWR models presently not in operation anywhere in the world.
The U.S.-India nuclear breakthrough that wasn’t, Japan Times 12 Feb 15 BY BRAHMA CHELLANEY During U.S. President Barack Obama’s recent India visit, a stalled, decade-old civil nuclear deal took center-stage, with the two sides announcing a breakthrough on the contentious issues blocking its implementation — a development that promised to potentially open the path for a Japan-India nuclear deal. It now appears that the breakthrough was more hype than reality and that there is little prospect of the U.S.-India deal’s early commercialization……..
it has now become apparent that the U.S. and India are still locked in negotiations to tie up loose ends and that the much-trumpeted breakthrough was little more than an effort to project a substantive advance during a presidential visit rich in pageantry and symbolism. Obama was the chief guest at India’s Jan. 26 Republic Day parade, a year after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had that honor.
While claiming a breakthrough, neither side released any details, including on how another sticking point had been resolved: a U.S. demand that New Delhi accept nuclear-material tracking and accounting arrangements Continue reading
India’s Nuclear Liability Law is a major deterrent to USA Nuclear companies
for the U.S., the “right to recourse” clause remains a major deterrent.The law has stalled the implementation of deals for new reactors that India signed with the U.S., Russia, and France in 2008, when the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) allowed India to import nuclear fuel technology without being a member of the multinational body concerned with reducing nuclear proliferation. India said the breakthrough deal with Russia reached this April after four years of negotiations takes into account the liability law when pricing four more Russian reactors meant for India’s Kundankulam plant in Tamil Nadu (each of which is valued at $2.5 billion) as well as four or six other VVER-1200 units planned for Haripur, West Bengal. The deal essentially calls for India’s public sector General Insurance Co. to evaluate each component of the Russian reactors and prescribe a 20-year insurance premium it will charge to cover Russia’s liability for an accident.
Russia’s state-owned nuclear firm Rosatom reportedly has indemnity from any liability arising from an accident at the VVER-1000s at Kundankulam Unit 1 (Figure 2), which attained criticality in July 2013 and is expected to come online later this year, and Unit 2, expected to be operational in October 2014. Observers note that contracts for those plants were signed in 1998, before India’s domestic liability legislation had even been contemplated.
Before Indian legislation on civil nuclear liability—The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill—finally passed both houses of parliament in August 2010, exempting suppliers from all liability had been India’s typical practice, starting in 1962, when India signed its first nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S. to allow General Electric to supply two 200-MW reactors to India’s Tarapur site. The practice of liability exemption was modeled on America’s own 1957-passed nuclear liability law, the Price Anderson Act, and went on to extend indemnity protection to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. for two reactors in Rajasthan in 1965, and later to Russia. Continue reading
Renewable Energy + Storage a better option for Ontario than Nuclear Power
Is nuclear refurbishment Ontario’s best option?, Corporate Knights, BY TYLER HAMILTON FEBRUARY 11, 2015 A renewables and energy storage combo could do the job and shouldn’t be ignored, a Navius Research analysis argues. ances are slim that shiny new nuclear plants will be built in Ontario. High upfront costs and a history of delays and cost overruns are among the reasons “new builds” will likely never happen in the province.
But there remains widespread debate over plans to refurbish existing reactors at the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Clarington, about an hour east of Toronto.
Ontario Power Generation, the province-owned electricity generator, is determined to rebuild the cores of four reactors at the Darlington site. Together, the four reactors represent about 3,500 megawatts of generating capacity and refurbishing them will extend their lives by about 30 years.
The utility estimates the project will carry a final price tag of $12.9 billion once completed a little over a decade from now. Is that a deal for Ontario ratepayers, or is there a better, less risky, and just as climate-friendly alternative?
Let’s put aside the standard anti-nuclear talking points about the risk of a Fukushima-style accident or the challenges and unknown costs involved with storing highly toxic nuclear waste far into the future. A new case study done by Vancouver-based Navius Research calls into question the wisdom of Ontario’s refurbishment plan in a world where solar power and energy storage costs are falling dramatically.
The Navius report, using a detailed model of Ontario’s electricity system that accounts for the current mix and performance of energy generation, simulated the grid for a full year under a variety of different conditions to see how it would respond.
It found that renewables in combination with the right amount of energy storage – in this case, compressed air energy storage (CAES) – and a small amount of natural gas generation would result in “equivalent GHGs and quite similar electricity system costs” compared to nuclear refurbishment……..
the findings are compelling enough that it should give Ontario pause before taking the plunge with Darlington, …….http://www.corporateknights.com/channels/utilities-energy/nuclear-refurbishment-ontarios-best-option/
Westinghouse cagey about paying more for delays in new nuclear power
Will Westinghouse pay for another nuclear delay? Power Source, February 10, 2015 A strange argument went down on Dec. 16 among electric utility Georgia Power and its regulator, the Georgia Public Service Commission, and entangled local nuclear firm Westinghouse Electric Co.Cranberry-based Westinghouse and its partners in the construction of the first two AP1000 reactors in the United States had, up to that point, resisted telling Georgia Power when the project would be completed. The company provided a list of activities planned through December 2015, but would not forecast further, Georgia Power told the commission.
The utility tried time and again to obtain an integrated project schedule, it told regulators. Already, the project originally set to be completed by April 2016 was 21 months behind.
The regulators, in turn, wondered who’s running the show — the utility that hired the consortium of nuclear builders for an estimated $14 billion project or its contractors.
When Westinghouse and its main construction partner, Chicago Bridge & Iron, finally submitted the long sought-after document in January, they revealed another 18-month delay, projecting the first plant would be ready for service in mid-2019 and the second in 2020.
Georgia Power has placed the estimated cost of the delay at $720 million, or $40 million a month. That’s on top of more than $1 billion in delay- and design-related costs that the two sides have been suing each other over since 2012.
The utility hasn’t agreed to the new dates, its parent company, Atlanta-based Southern Co. said in a public filing Jan. 29. Nor does it believe that Westinghouse and its partners have done everything possible to mitigate the delay. And, as has been the pattern with cost overruns in the project, Southern Co. told investors it expects the latest expenses to become part of the lawsuit.
The company’s CEO Tom Fanning said on Bloomberg Television last week, “Southern Co. won’t absorb those costs. The contractors will.”
Chicago Bridge & Iron has denied that claim. Westinghouse declined to address the comment………..
The likelihood of delays is so ingrained in nuclear construction that the Public Service Commission requires its analysts to continuously update the cost of potential delays spanning as many as four years.
Deviating from original construction schedules and budgets has been the norm for all past nuclear construction projects in this country, one of the main criticisms of undertaking such efforts.
As a result, a lot is seen as riding on the Vogtle construction. With cheap natural gas flooding U.S. markets, nuclear has to prove there’s an economic advantage to investing in such capital-heavy construction instead of throwing up a couple of natural gas power plants in a few years’ time at a fraction of the cost……..http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/companies-powersource/2015/02/10/Will-Westinghouse-pay-for-another-nuclear-delay/stories/201502100014
Nuclear power agreement between Russia and Egypt
Cairo and Kremlin agree on building a nuclear power plant, DW, 10 Feb 15
Officials from Egypt and Russia have signed agreements to boost economic and industrial ties during Putin’s visit to Cairo. The two countries plan to build a nuclear power station, Egypt’s President El-Sissi says. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, wrapped up his two-day visit with Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in Cairo on Tuesday, after both countries signed a memorandum of understanding to build Egypt’s first nuclear power plant together. The power plant is expected to be made with the latest technology and have four separate blocks providing 1200 megawatts of energy each, according to Sergey Kirienko, the director general of the Russian atomic energy corporation Rosatom.
President Putin stressed that “if definite decisions are made, it would not be simply about building a nuclear power plant, but about creating a whole new nuclear industry in Egypt.”
He also stressed that Moscow had only signed a memorandum of understanding on the construction, meaning that the deal had not yet been finalized…….http://www.dw.de/cairo-and-kremlin-agree-on-building-a-nuclear-power-plant/a-18248404
Uranium company Cameco continues to get miserable results
Uranium Producer Cameco Looks Depleted Full-Year Results Lowest Since 2006, WSJ, By SPENCER JAKAB Feb. 8, 2015 Customers shutting down in droves? Environmentalists creating headaches? Low cost competitors flooding the market? Nuke ‘em. ……he nearly two-thirds decline in Cameco’s U.S.-listed share price since February 2011 is about more than a delayed earnings bonanza. Furthermore, fluctuations in uranium’s thinly traded spot market should be viewed cautiously.
Not only do utilities in Japan and elsewhere have substantial inventory on hand but other sources of uranium supply hang over the market. These include low-cost mines in Kazakhstan that now supply around 40% of the market as well as nuclear fuel derived from nonmine sources such as the waste “tailings” of previously processed uranium.
Assuming analysts’ 2018 scenario plays out in terms of output and prices, Cameco now fetches just under 10 times that year’s consensus forecast earnings according to FactSet—hardly a bargain in today’s depressed mining landscape. The cloud hanging over Cameco may not dissipate soon.http://www.wsj.com/articles/uranium-producer-cameco-looks-depleted-ahead-of-the-tape-1423421905
Nuclear supplier nations not happy with India’s Liability Law
The nuclear ‘breakthrough’ is mostly hype: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/the-nuclear-breakthrough-is-mostly-hype-swaminathan-sa-aiyar/articleshow/46162264.cms Swaminathan SA Aiyar 8 Feb, 2015 ndian officials say the Obama visit broke a seven-year logjam in nuclear cooperation, opening the way for US firms to set up nuclear power plants in India.
The Modi-Obama meeting whipped up a lot of fizz and optimism. Problem: the key issue is not political at all but commercial. The entities that must be convinced are not US presidents but heads of nuclear corporations like GE and Toshiba-Westinghouse. And no corporation so far is convinced that India’s nuclear liability law has ceased to be a hurdle.
An Indo-US agreement was indeed reached on a completely separate issue — tracking the movement of US nuclear materials to ensure India did not divert these to military use. This was an additional roadblock in case of the US. But overcoming this does not settle the much bigger roadblock — unlimited liability — that all four supplier nations are complaining about.
For investors – the ‘nuclear renaissance’ is all but dead
Nuclear Energy Renaissance Takes Another Blow and May Never Recover, The Motley Fool By Travis Hoium February 7, 2015 The nuclear renaissance some people hoped for took another big step backward this week when the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant said it would be delayed another 18 months and cost at least $720 more than the $14.5 billion previously expected.
Nearly every nuclear plant that’s been proposed in the U.S. in the last decade has run into major cost overruns and delays, and without government support, the nuclear renaissance may already be dead. But the latest delay casts a shadow over an energy source that’s becoming increasing uncompetitive in today’s energy landscape.
What happened at Vogtle
The latest news from Southern Co.‘s (NYSE: SO ) subsidiary Georgia Power is that the Vogtle Plant will now be delayed until mid-2019 for the first reactor, and mid-2020 for the second. Costs could pile up to $720 million and could be as much as $1 billion.
Contractors Westinghouse Electric Co. and Chicago Bridge & Iron Co. alerted Southern Co. of the delays, adding to a long list of delays for Westinghouse plants that were supposed to help revitalize nuclear power in the U.S. Worse yet, it’s ratepayers, not Southern Co.’s shareholders, who will be footing most of the bill for this project, even if it’s never completed.
The kick in the gut to ratepayers
If you live in Georgia, the delay and additional cost will affect you more than you think. Under a plan called construction work in progress, or CWIP, Georgia Power gets to charge customers for the Vogtle plant before it’s even finished. Yes, today customers are paying an average of $6.60 per month for a plant that isn’t likely to produce any power until at least 2019. It’s a sweet deal for utilities, but one that’s becoming increasingly problematic for consumers.
What CWIP does is transfer the risk from the company building the nuclear plant to ratepayers. If the project is delayed or costs more than expected, Georgia Power still makes its money unless regulators intervene. In fact, without CWIP, we may not even be talking about nuclear plants being built in the U.S. If utilities had to take on the risk of nuclear themselves, they wouldn’t do it, something we’re already seeing across the country.
Nuclear energy’s problem in the U.S.
This isn’t the only nuclear plant running into these kind of issues. NRG Energy (NYSE: NRG ) abandoned a potential expansion of South Texas Nuclear Generating Station because of rising costs for nuclear plants and low cost natural gas. The project is still moving forward with regulatory approval, which partner Toshiba is funding, but it’s doubtful the plant will ever be built.
Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK ) canceled the Levy Nuclear Plant because of rising costs, but under CWIP, it still gets to keep a profit of about $150 million. Even Entergy closed the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant late last year because it wasn’t cost effective. Whether it’s new plants or upgrades to old plants, it’s costs that are sinking nuclear in the U.S. today.
In an analysis of the unsubsidized levelized cost of energy for various energy sources, investment bank Lazard found that nuclear energy would cost between 9.2 cents and 13.2 cents per kW-hr. Compare that to 6.1-8.7 cents/kW-hr for natural gas, 7.2-8.6 cents/kW-hr for utility scale solar, and 3.7-8.1 cents/kW-hr for wind energy.
Nuclear energy is also losing based on recent trends. The cost of solar and wind energy are falling rapidly, which is why over half of all energy generation installed in each of the last two years was solar or wind energy.
The nuclear renaissance is all but dead
Setbacks like the Vogtle Nuclear Plant faced this week have become all too predictable in the nuclear industry, and they’re the reason a nuclear renaissance is unlikely in the U.S. Costs have simply gotten too high, and low costs from competing energy sources like natural gas, solar, and wind will keep the industry from ever taking off.
For investors, the lesson comes down to where the energy industry and its costs are trending. Nuclear energy may seem like a great idea on the surface, but if costs are continually rising, it’s an energy source that’s doomed in this country. Solar energy, on the other hand, is cutting costs by double-digit percentage points per year and is now less costly than nuclear on a per kW-hr basis. Maybe it’s time to look at alternative energy more seriously, something utilities are already doing……….http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/02/07/nuclear-energy-renaissance-takes-another-blow-and.aspx
France wants to beat USA in selling nuclear reactors to India
US nuclear ‘breakthrough’ cloud on France deal, Telegraph New Delhi, Feb. 5:France has indicated it may want to use elements of the nuclear liability “breakthrough” India and the US have claimed, in setting up its own reactors in this country, signalling potential for competitive bargaining over the terms New Delhi offers to different nations.
India last year offered France and Russia – the two nations other than the US that have committed to selling nuclear reactors – an insurance pool created by Indian public sector firms to fund any compensation following an accident from their reactors.
The US had so far appeared unconvinced by the insurance pool plan. Its apparent turnaround during President Barack Obama’s India visit last week has sparked speculation in the capital’s diplomatic enclave that New Delhi may have offered Washington a particularly sweet deal……….
France is pandering to Modi’s pet initiative of “Make in India” by promising to build “large parts of the Areva reactors” in India. And unlike the US, France had also never sought any change in the nuclear liability law despite its concerns that the law was draconian and out of line with global standards, the senior French official said…….
The Indian foreign office also pointed to France’s acceptance of India’s liability law.”Every country has a different approach to this matter,” Akbaruddin said, citing the example of uranium India already sources from France. “With France, the template of our engagement is already set.” http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150206/jsp/nation/story_1764.jsp#.VNUrReaUcnk
Nuclear industry fears shift to decentralized electricity system – fights renewables, not gas
“One thing to understand about the nuclear industry is that nuclear is also the coal and natural gas industry”
These days natural gas-fired power is cheap, but wind is even cheaper.
Even if renewables make up only a small amount of generation, they represent a shift to a more decentralized energy system, less reliant on big baseload coal or nuclear power plants
Why the nuclear industry targets renewables instead of gas, Midwest Energy news, on 02/06/2015 by Kari Lydersen
Why attack renewables?……..“The fact of the matter is natural gas and wind power both compete with Exelon’s nuclear generation,” said Environmental Law & Policy Center director Howard Learner. “Exelon can’t do anything about the market price for natural gas, so Exelon is training its fire on trying to stop and hold off wind power and solar energy development.”
Some companies that own nuclear generation are also heavily invested in natural gas. Continue reading
China organising itself to market nuclear reactors to other countries
China nuclear power firms to merge in bid to boost global clout By Pete Sweeney and Charlie Zhu Feb 4 (Reuters) – China Power Investment Corp is merging with the State Nuclear Power Technology
Corp, as Beijing drives consolidation in its rapidly expanding nuclear power sector with the aim of eventually exporting reactors.
The Chinese power producer currently controls about a tenth of China’s nuclear power market, while the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp was formed in 2007 to handle nuclear technology transferred from U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Co.
A merger between the two would create a firm with total assets of more than 600 billionyuan ($96 billion), industry experts estimate.
“The merger will help them expand in China, and the overseas market in the long run,” said Francois Morin, Beijing-based China director of World Nuclear Association……..
China, which now primarily provides financing and construction services to nuclear power projects overseas, is expected by some experts to start exporting reactors after 2020 and become a major exporter by 2030 when it has fully digested foreign technology and developed its domestic industry.
The global nuclear market is currently dominated by firms such as France’s Areva, Russia’s Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corp and Japan’s Toshiba Corp, which controls Westinghouse………Westinghouse Electric Co has already handed over most of the intellectual property for its AP1000 reactor design to the State Nuclear Power Technology Corp……..http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/04/china-nuclear-ma-idUSL4N0VE05Q20150204
Nuclear power , highly subsidised, but still not cost-effective or compatible with a clean energy future.
Let’s not forget, either, that nuclear power has some of the largest per kilowatt-hour subsidies of any electricity source.
Big, Expensive Power Plants Undermine a Clean Energy Future http://cleantechnica.com/2015/02/04/big-expensive-power-plants-undermine-clean-energy-future/ February 4th, 2015 by John Farrell – (excellent charts and diagrams) Originally published on ilsr.org.
With the rich history of cost overruns in the nuclear industry, Xcel Energy and Minnesota regulators shouldn’t have been surprised when the retrofit cost for the Monticello nuclear power plant ballooned to more than twice the original estimate. Regulators asked tough questions last year about whether the cost overruns were the responsibility of poor management and the definitive answer came back this week: yes.
This example only reinforces why nuclear power (and other large-scale power generation) isn’t cost-effective or compatible with a clean energy future. Continue reading
Exelon Nuclear wants tax-payer to bail out its unprofitable Clinton Power Station, among others
Illinois nuclear shutdown threatened Herald Review CLINTON 1 Feb 15, – Stopping a threatened economic meltdown of the Illinois nuclear power industry is now in the hands of state lawmakers.
Chicago-based Exelon Nuclear has said it will be forced to close its Clinton Power Station, along with shuttering similar plants in Ogle County and Rock Island, if the state doesn’t come up with policy changes to make the stations more profitable……..
Bill Stoermer, a senior site communications manager based at Exelon’s Quad Cities Generating Station, said the nuclear clock is ticking……
Sums add up for solar power in India, but NOT for nuclear power
I’m afraid the sums simply don’t add up for nuclear power, purely from an economic point of view. The fully loaded cost (including decommissioning and waste management) of a unit of power would be probably 100 times that of a unit of conventional power today.
On the other hand, it appears as though the time has come for solar power. Plummeting costs of photovoltaic panels, improvements in storage and transmission, and other technological factors now mean that solar lifecycle cost is approaching conventional costs in the West. Given India’s inherent availability of sunlight, I am of the opinion that we would be better off spending the billions needed for nuclear power on a crash program of research into solar power, and maybe even on subsidizing it heavily to kick-start it.
Indo-US nuclear deal: Why is Modi pursuing what looks like a total loss in N-energy? First Post by Rajeev Srinivasan Jan 26, 2015 On 25 January, the airwaves were filled with self-congratulatory and self-satisfied messages about how “we” had “won” the “nuke deal”. Nobody was clear about what exactly we had won, and how, and why the Americans (superb negotiators) had apparently caved in to Indian demands. As I write this on Republic Day, there is still no concrete data. ……. Continue reading
USA States consider helping nuclear industry, but it seems to be nuclear’s last dance
Analysis: Last tango for nuclear? Environmental health News, 30 Jan 15, “……..Those new nukes are falling behind schedule and soaring over budget, making an already-jittery Wall Street even more skeptical. On Thursday, the builders of two new reactors at Georgia’s Plant Vogtle disclosed additional delays and overruns, potentially making the project over a billion dollars in the hole and three years late. The demise of Yucca Mountain means there’s nowhere for the industry to permanently store its waste. And just when you thought it was safe to atomically boil the water, Fukushima provided the first nuclear mega- disaster since Chernobyl a quarter-century earlier, fairly or unfairly reviving public unease about nuclear energy’s safety in the U.S.
And it didn’t help when the longtime CEO of America’s biggest nuclear player stuck the financial fork in shortly after his retirement.
John Rowe, a longtime nuclear booster and former CEO of Exelon, the Chicago-based offspring of mergers between Commonwealth Edison of Illinois, Philadelphia’s PG&E, and Baltimore-based Constellation, oversaw 23 reactors. “I’m the nuclear guy,” Rowe told a gathering at the University of Chicago two weeks after his 2012 retirement. “And you won’t get better results with nuclear. It just isn’t economic, and it’s not economic within a foreseeable time frame.”
Rowe was commenting on plans for newly built reactors. But old ones, including up to six of Exelon’s fleet, may be on the block………. Continue reading
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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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