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Rolls-Royce to sell stake in mini-nukes arm.

Engineering giant seeks fresh funds as backers’ £280m and government’s £210m due to run out.

Rolls-Royce is poised to sell a stake in its mini-nuclear power stations
venture as it races to become the first company to deploy the technology in
Britain. Tufan Erginbilgic, the chief executive of the FTSE 100 engineering
giant, said it was talking to potential investors about its small modular
reactor (SMR) business as it looks to raise fresh funding.

Around £280m has
been put into the venture by the current backers including Rolls, BNF
Resources, Constellation and the Qatar Investment Authority. On top of
this, the company has received £210m in grant funding from the Government.


But funds are due to run out by early next year, meaning Rolls and its
fellow backers must either put in more money, sell equity to outside
investors or potentially do a combination of both. One source familiar with
the discussions said Rolls-Royce SMR would look to raise hundreds of
millions of pounds, probably based on a valuation of at least $2bn (£1.6bn)
– the current market value of US rival NuScale.

Interest in the business
has grown since Rolls emerged as the unofficial frontrunner in the
Government’s SMR design competition, which is being run by Great British
Nuclear (GBN) and is expected to conclude in late autumn. The GBN
competition is expected to select two viable designs before awarding them
contracts next year to build the first demonstrator SMRs at as-yet-unnamed
sites. They would be expected to come online in the early 2030s. Along with
Rolls, the other contenders are GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Westinghouse,
Holtec Britain and NuScale. However, Rolls has also advanced further
towards regulatory approval than any other SMR developer so far.

Telegraph 3rd Aug 2024

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/03/rolls-royce-sell-stake-mini-nukes-arm/

August 5, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Rolls Royce – the “burning platform”?

 There aren’t many obvious similarities between Rachel Reeves and Tufan
Erginbilgic, but the use of the “burning platform” metaphor is
something that binds them. For Erginbilgic’s actual use of the phrase to
describe Rolls-Royce soon after he became chief executive 19 months ago,
read the chancellor of the exchequer’s discovery this week of a “£22
billion black hole” in the public finances.

 Times 1st Aug 2024

https://www.thetimes.com/article/rolls-royce-growth-needed-by-rachel-reeves-98sw9l952

August 3, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Government partnership is needed if Dutch pension fund PME is to make “risky” nuclear investment.

Dutch pension fund PME keen for nuclear power investments

European Pensions , By Natalie Tuck, 30/07/24

The Dutch pension fund PME is keen to invest in nuclear investment but this must be in partnership with the Dutch government, due to it being such a “risky investment”.

The pension fund, for those working in the tech and metal industry, has published a position paper on investing in nuclear energy in the wake of the publication of the Dutch National Energy System Plan, which looks to scale up the use of nuclear energy in the Netherlands………………………….

Making the case for nuclear energy, PME said the “manageable disadvantage” of radioactive waste and the high level of safety of nuclear power plants weigh into PME’s positive view of nuclear energy as a stable addition to the energy mix……………

When it comes to financing, PME said the “high cost of construction and the long duration of construction make nuclear power plants a very risky investment”.

The paper continued: “Financing nuclear power plants requires a leading role of the state, which will have to assume a significant part of the risk in all phases of the nuclear power plant’s life. Security of return is a basic requirement for PME so that funding also contributes to participants’ pension accrual and pensioners.

“The construction of nuclear power plants takes a very long time and is very costly. It is precisely for these reasons that risk-return requirements are paramount in any financing of nuclear power.”

It therefore advocates for the use of a Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model to finance the construction of nuclear power plants. In this model, private parties bear the investment, and receive a fixed ‘fair return’ (the RAB fee) from the start of construction.In the RAB model, at each stage, the primary risk is shared between the state and the financing market party or parties.

……………………….“In addition to the quantitative participant survey, PME holds focus groups with participants, retirees and employers. PME also organises retiree meetings where the topic of nuclear energy was discussed recently. The basic attitude toward nuclear energy is almost always positive among the majority of constituents. However, there are concerns about the yield, the risks, the safety of nuclear power plants and the problem of radioactive waste,” PME stated.  https://www.europeanpensions.net/ep/Dutch-pension-fund-PME-keen-for-nuclear-power-investments.php

August 1, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Point Lepreau nuclear station – a heavy financial burden that keeps getting heavier.

Point Lepreau has become a heavy financial burden

the station will remain at risk of unplanned outages because of aging equipment.

NB Power’s latest financial plan forecasts its debt will continue to grow. In the utility’s base case model, debt will keep rising for the rest of this decade, reaching nearly $6.3-billion by 2029. It keeps rising even in more optimistic scenarios.

Point Lepreau station is among North America’s worst-performing nuclear power plants. Can New Brunswick Power turn it around?

Globe and Mail, MATTHEW MCCLEARN , July 29, 2024

In the early hours of Dec. 14, 2022, New Brunswick’s Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station lost power after an electrical fault. Just hours later, at 4:40 a.m., an alarm sounded: The plant had suffered a small coolant leak and NB Power, the facility’s owner, detected radioactivity. The station was locked down to prevent that radioactivity from escaping, and an emergency response team was readied.

Somehow, two unrelated pieces of equipment had failed simultaneously, touching off a costly and time-consuming recovery. Workers needed to bring the reactor to a guaranteed shutdown state. They had to regain entry to the reactor building and decontaminate it. And they needed to find the leak and stop it. The station would remain out of service for 42 days.

This outage was just one of several in recent years that, in combination, point to severe reliability problems at Atlantic Canada’s only nuclear power plant. The latest, which was planned to end after 100 days on July 12 and cost more than $100-million, included installing a new 9,000-horsepower primary heat transport pump and motor, which moves heat generated by the reactor to the station’s steam generators.

But NB Power spokesperson Dominique Couture said workers discovered a problem with the station’s main generator, which provides electricity to the province’s grid. At a rate hearing before the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board, company officials said the plant is expected to remain offline until at least September. And the station will remain at risk of unplanned outages because of aging equipment.

It will be many years before we have put those risks behind us,” said Jason Nouwens, the station’s director of regulatory and external affairs.

Point Lepreau is one of North America’s worst-performing nuclear stations. Intending to keep it running until at least 2039, NB Power has struggled unsuccessfully for the past several years to rehabilitate the station and expects to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on it in the next few years.

The utility is not too proud to ask for help: It wants Ontario Power Generation to effectively incorporate the plant into OPG’s large fleet of Candu reactors. Key senior leadership positions at the station are now held by OPG employees.

But there’s no guarantee OPG will agree to take over the stricken station on favourable terms, or at all. And it’s not clear NB Power can afford the steep repair bill.

New Brunswick’s dilemma points to challenges that other provinces, such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, should consider as they look to build new reactors………………………………………………………………………….

According to NB Power, Point Lepreau has roughly 115,000 components. The December, 2022, outage illustrated how the failure of just one of them, however inconsequential it may seem, can knock it out. The culprit for the water leak turned out to be a crack in a small instrument line near the reactor core, about the diameter of a finger. This line had been deemed necessary for the plant’s commissioning more than 40 years earlier, but was useless thereafter.

NB Power concluded that when the station lost power, other systems fired up that increased vibration throughout the plant. “This was essentially the final straw that propagated the crack to a failure point,” Mr. Nouwens explained to the federal safety regulator during a hearing after the incident. “It had been coming for some time.”

Outages are expensive. Point Lepreau’s 900 workers must be paid regardless of how much electricity the plant generates. Each day it’s out of service, NB Power also incurs hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime costs.

NB Power must purchase energy to cover the shortfall as well, at an average cost of $900,000 a day.

Repeated outages have forced NB Power to divert capital to the station. This thwarted efforts to repay debts, most of which were incurred at Point Lepreau. This year’s extended outage also forced the utility to delay work at other power plants…………………………………………………………………..

NB Power’s latest financial plan forecasts its debt will continue to grow. In the utility’s base case model, debt will keep rising for the rest of this decade, reaching nearly $6.3-billion by 2029. It keeps rising even in more optimistic scenarios.

Heeding nuclear’s siren song

When Point Lepreau was still being planned, some experts doubted how suitable nuclear power was for a small province. Andrew Secord, an economics professor at St. Thomas University, found a March, 1972, memo by Myles Foster, an official at the federal Finance Department, that said that NB Power’s decision to go nuclear was “the equivalent of a Volkswagen family acquiring a Cadillac as a second car.”

Since then, Point Lepreau has become a heavy financial burden. At various times, the province has considered shuttering it or selling it. Ultimately, though, NB Power’s board of directors decided in 2005 to double down and extend the station’s life.

Refurbishments compel utilities to make crucial decisions about which equipment to replace, and what to keep. Pressure tubes, the Candu’s main life-limiting components, are a given, but many other components must be carefully assessed. Misjudgments can be costly.

Point Lepreau’s refurbishment began in March, 2008, and was scheduled to wrap up by October, 2009, at an expected cost of $845-million. According to a 2002 NB Power document, even if all two dozen of the worst disasters the utility could envision came to pass – everything from delays to strikes to unexpected additional work – it would add up to a combined maximum overrun of $623-million.

But things went worse – far worse – than NB Power imagined possible. It called in OPG to assist. The reactor finally returned to service in November, 2012, three years late and massively over budget.

Even this might have been salvageable had the plant operated reliably thereafter. NB Power was counting on Point Lepreau reaching a capacity factor of 89 per cent. Instead, NB Power found itself playing a game of Whac-A-Mole with recurring maintenance issues…………………………

NB Power has acknowledged that while the 2008-12 refurbishment focused on the reactor itself, equipment in the rest of the plant – sometimes referred to as the “conventional” side – typically was not replaced. Some of that equipment, such as the problematic generator that recently delayed the station’s return to service, is now breaking down. The utility made bad calls and is now paying a terrible price.

Recovery plan

NB Power is now drawing up a recovery plan for its ailing station, which features greatly increased maintenance spending: more than $87-million in 2025, tapering off thereafter.

But according to ScottMadden, this likely won’t suffice. Spending less than $80-million a year is “slightly more likely than not to result in performance declines,” whereas spending $100-million to $120-million is expected to deliver “the highest marginal returns in expected improvements.” Under current plans, ScottMadden warned, Point Lepreau’s performance will likely decline again beginning in 2030.

OPG sent a delegation to the stricken station last year to assess its condition, examine maintenance plans and interview NB Power employees. Last September, the utilities signed a three-year agreement under which OPG has seconded staff to the Point Lepreau station. NB Power says it has received support from OPG’s chief nuclear officer, a vice-president who’d supervised refurbishments and outages, and a chief nuclear projects officer.

OPG and NB Power are now in talks that might lead to Point Lepreau becoming part of OPG’s reactor fleet. At a hearing before the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board in June, Ms. Clark said OPG would likely assume majority ownership and would bring “some capital to the table to help with some of the investments that are required in the station over the longer term.”

She added, however, that given the difficulty of reaching “even general agreement on things,” a deal likely wouldn’t be reached before late 2025.

Even as NB Power officials struggle to fix Point Lepreau, they continue to offer their services to provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan, which possess little prior experience with nuclear technology. At an industry conference in Calgary in April, officials offered to help such provinces evaluate new reactor technologies and work with regulators…………..

They did not share any sense of the pitfalls of nuclear power – a topic for which NB Power has unfortunately gained formidable expertise.  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-point-lepreau-station-is-among-north-americas-worst-performing-nuclear/

July 30, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Canada | Leave a comment

A $36.8 billion lesson from Georgia- “The most expensive electricity in the world”

In May, the plaintiffs along with four other prominent Georgia consumer groups released a report, Plant Vogtle: The True Cost of Nuclear Power in the United States. The analysis detailed how the U.S. Department of Energy, Georgia Power, and the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), conspired to force Georgians into purchasing the most expensive electricity in the world, costing ratepayers $10,784 per kilowatt, compared to $900 to $1,500 per kilowatt (KW) for wind or solar.  Recent Georgia Power electricity bills have shown the bill increase to be in the 30-40% range.  

Again and again, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) was warned about the astronomical cost of the Vogtle reactors and the financial toll it will bear on Georgians for decades to come.

   by beyondnuclearinternational

Ratepayers beware. New nuclear power plants will gouge customers

From Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund and Georgia WAND

Georgia consumer groups have filed a major lawsuit against the State of Georgia [AF1] in federal court, alleging Georgia lawmakers violated the state’s constitution by unilaterally postponing Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) elections. According to the lawsuit, the PSC election’s unlawful postponement allowed the sitting commission members to rubberstamp the largest utility rate increases in Georgia history and grant utility companies the authority to charge Georgians for cost-overruns and mishaps. The groups argue that the charges may not have been passed onto consumers if elections were held as regularly scheduled.

House Bill 1312, which Georgia legislators passed in April, delays the election of new PSC members until at least 2025, giving multiple sitting PSC members an extra two years in office. Georgia’s constitution requires that PSC terms shall be six years, and therefore cannot be lengthened without a constitutional amendment. All PSC members have had their office terms extended to eight years, and one nine years as a result. 

…………………………………….Brionté McCorkle, plaintiff and executive director of Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund, said: “Georgians are fighting every month to stay ahead of rising costs for food, housing, and now energy. These aren’t optional costs. They’re things we need to survive. Public Service Commissioners like Tricia Pridemore, Fitz Johnson, and Tim Echols have allowed Georgia Power to take money out of the pockets of hard-working Georgians – and it has to end.”

In May, the plaintiffs along with four other prominent Georgia consumer groups released a report, Plant Vogtle: The True Cost of Nuclear Power in the United States. The analysis detailed how the U.S. Department of Energy, Georgia Power, and the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC), conspired to force Georgians into purchasing the most expensive electricity in the world, costing ratepayers $10,784 per kilowatt, compared to $900 to $1,500 per kilowatt (KW) for wind or solar.  Recent Georgia Power electricity bills have shown the bill increase to be in the 30-40% range.  

Additional Key findings in the May Vogtle report included:

  • Plant Vogtle allowed Georgia Power to expand its rate base, the assets on which they earn a guaranteed rate of return, by over $11 billion. Yet their share of Vogtle is 1,020 megawatts, making it the most expensive electricity in the world at $10,784/KW. Normal (wind, solar, natural gas) generation prices range from $900 to $1500/KW. 
  • Vogtle Units 3 & 4 took 15 years to build and cost $36.8 billion, well over twice the projected timeline and cost. 
  • Vogtle independent construction monitors documented that Georgia Power provided materially false cost estimates for at least ten years, falsehoods used to justify expanding Plant Vogtle. Similar false cost estimates sent South Carolina utility executives to jail for that state’s failed nuclear plant, which started construction at the same time as Plant Vogtle.

Patty Durand, consumer advocate, founder of Cool Planet Solutions and a recent candidate for the Georgia PSC, said: 

“Again and again, the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) was warned about the astronomical cost of the Vogtle reactors and the financial toll it will bear on Georgians for decades to come.  Commissioners repeatedly declined to protect ratepayers from cost overruns and ignored PSC staff recommendations to cancel the project. People went to prison for actions like this in South Carolina, yet we have had no accountability for the same, and worse, behavior here. Instead, the state legislature decided to shield current commissioners from facing voters by delaying PSC elections indefinitely. This is clearly unconstitutional. This is un-American.”  https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/07/28/a-36-8-billion-lesson-from-georgia/

 

July 29, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Legal, USA | Leave a comment

French nuclear giant ORANO slips into the red following Niger-French breakup

French nuclear giant Orano ended the first half of the year with a loss of €133 million, weighed down by difficulties in its mining activities in Niger due to a “highly degraded” political context since a military regime came to power a year ago.

Radio Free Europe: 29/07/2024 –

At the end of June 2024, the group noted “the deteriorated situation affecting mining operations in Niger,” Orano’s chief financial officer, David Claverie, said in a statement.

The coup d’état in Niger on 26 July last year led to a halt in imports of critical materials necessary for uranium exploitation in Orano’s Somaïr mine, such as soda ash, carbonate, nitrates and sulphur.

And although uranium extraction continued in the first quarter of 2024 “after several months of early maintenance,” Somaïr’s sales were unable to resume “due to a lack of logistics solutions approved by the Niger authorities”.

The blockage led the mine into “financial difficulty … weighing on its ability to continue its operations”, the statement read.

In late June, Niger decided to withdraw the licence of Imouraren SA, a company jointly operated by Orano, Niger Mining and Korea Electric Power, and which ran the Somaïr mine.

The situation could eventually lead to “insolvency in the short to medium term, in the coming months”, Claverie said………………………………  https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20240729-french-nuclear-giant-slips-into-the-red-following-niger-french-breakup

July 29, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, France, Niger, Uranium | Leave a comment

EDF looks towards future projects after flagging tough second half

French energy giant EDF aims to meet its schedule for future nuclear
reactor projects, its CEO said on Friday, with final tests ahead of the
start-up of its newest French reactor imminent after years of delays. The
group earlier reported a jump in first-half profit on higher electricity
production, but said regional market prices had fallen and warned core
earnings in the second half would decline year-on-year.

In Britain, EDF is continuing talks with the newly elected Labour government over its Hinkley
Point C and Sizewell C nuclear projects, Remont told reporters, adding it
is “a bit early” to give a date for a final investment decision on
Sizewell.

Reuters 26th July 2024

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/frances-edf-logs-20-surge-first-half-profit-warns-about-price-declines-2024-07-26/

July 29, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, France, UK | Leave a comment

Spain: Nuclear Industry Reels After Tax Increase

Energy Intelligence Group, Fri, Jul 26, 2024, Author, Grace Symes, London, Editor, Phil Chaffee

Spain’s nuclear operators are warning that last month’s move by Madrid to significantly raise a tax on these utilities may undermine the commercial viability of Spain’s seven operating reactors, even as they approach a government-mandated nuclear phaseout by 2035.

\The 30% tax rise is meant partly to cover the costs of seven separate interim nuclear waste storage facilities for spent fuel and high-level waste, a strategy mandated after the government discarded plans for a controversial single centralized facility. Owners argue they had no say in the storage decision, and should not be required to pay the significant added costs it will entail…………… (Subscribers only)  https://www.energyintel.com/00000190-bb7f-db32-ad93-bb7ff87a0000

July 28, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Spain | Leave a comment

‘ Regulated Asset Base’ system mulled in Japan to add nuke plant construction costs to rates

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, by Chinami Tajika and Aki Fukuyama. July 24, 2024,  https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15359689

The Finance Ministry is considering introducing a system that would allow construction costs of new nuclear power plants to be added to electricity rates, which could be passed onto consumers. 

By doing so, the ministry aims to promote the construction of new nuclear plants.

Electric power companies are reluctant to invest in nuclear plants because the cost of safety measures is ballooning due to the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, and they no longer have the means to ensure recouping construction costs.

The central government has said that it will increase decarbonized power sources to prepare for future increases in demand, but that could lead to a major increase in the burden on the public.

According to sources, the “RAB model,” a nuclear plant support measure devised in Britain, will be used as a reference.

When construction of a nuclear plant is approved by the government, the construction and maintenance costs are borne by the retail electricity company once construction has begun. The cost will be recovered through a hike in electricity rates.

Under the model, any increase in construction costs can be included in the fee if the cost is deemed necessary. If the project is suspended, the government will compensate by providing funds.

If the system is introduced directly to Japan, it will be up to retail companies, including new power companies, to decide whether to pass the charge directly to customers.

However, even those who opt for a 100 percent renewable electricity supply may pay for the construction of a nuclear power plant.

In the past, there was a mechanism to ensure that the construction costs of power plants and transmission and distribution networks could be recovered by factoring them into electricity prices.

But with the deregulation of the electric power industry that began in 2000, this system was gradually eliminated, and power plants that were not cost-effective were closed and investment in new power plants was suppressed.

July 26, 2024 Posted by | business and costs | Leave a comment

Elon Musk attends Netanyahu’s congressional address as his guest

A day after activating Starlink internet in Gaza, Tesla CEO appears at Israeli PM’s controversial joint session

Nick Robins-Early, Thu 25 Jul 2024

Elon Musk attended Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday as a guest of the embattled Israeli prime minister.

A day earlier, the tech billionaire announced that his Starlink internet service was now active in a Gaza hospital, with the support of Israel’s government.

Netanyahu’s congressional visit was met with thousands of protesters gathering near Capitol Hill to demonstrate against Israeli abuses during its war in Gaza. Lawmakers were divided over whether he should have been invited to speak.

Musk has a history of courting rightwing leaders in countries that have overlapping business interests with his various enterprises. He previously hosted Javier Millei, Argentina’s president, at his Tesla factory and has been a cheerleader for his policies, while also cozying up to Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, and Jair Bolsonaro, the former Brazilian president.

Musk previously met with Netanyahu during a visit to Israel last year, as the tech leader sought to quell accusations of antisemitism after personally endorsing a post on his social network X, formerly Twitter, that claimed Jews hate white people. Far-right content on the platform has also increased.

Musk’s visit also appears to have helped pave the way for SpaceX to provide its Starlink satellite internet to Gaza, which he announced on Tuesday was now in service at a hospital. The single location, which was supported by Israel and the United Arab Emirates, also reflects the tight controls that Israel has put on communications technology in the area.

In recent weeks, Musk has also thrown his support behind Donald Trump’s election campaign and played a direct role in advising the former president to select JD Vance, Ohio senator, as his running mate.

Musk’s appearance as a guest of Netanyahu further aligns him with the Republican party line, which has thrown its support behind the Israeli leader as many Democrats condemn his actions. A number of progressive Democratic lawmakers declined to attend Netanyahu’s speech, with New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denouncing him as a “war criminal.

July 25, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

A New Brunswick reaction to the exorbitant costs of Point Lepreau nuclear power station.

When the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station was refurbished over three years and re-opened in 2012, NB Power did not complete a number of associated repairs, despite the lengthy time and high cost of the refurbishment.

As a result, the nuclear plant has experienced many problems since the refurbishment and has been performing poorly. Since 2023, the NB nuclear plant has been managed by Ontario Power Generation, three managers costing $2 Million per year, under a three-year contract. I’m unsure if these people actually live in New Brunswick and pay taxes here or if New Brunswick is sending the money directly to Ontario.

At the start of April, the Lepreau nuclear plant was shut down for a scheduled 100 days to do the associated upgrades/repairs that NB Power hopes will improve the performance. The cost of the repairs was estimated at more than $300 million including the replacement power for this year’s repairs and another scheduled repair session in 2025. The first repairs were scheduled to end last week but instead of starting up again, the engineers noted a major problem with the main generator. Note that most of these engineers and workers doing this scheduled upgrade / repair are from Ontario, so it’s unclear how much of this cash is staying in the province. 

Today we learned that the repair to the generator will cost an extra $70 million and the plant is down at least till September, which they say is a best case scenario. 

So, when all this is over, what can New Brunswickers expect? At the end of the story below is this kicker: “Even by 2030, NB Power still thinks the plant will be mired in the basement, performance wise.”

What a F*** disaster. It’s absolutely nuts that our small province with a population of only 800,000 people has a nuclear reactor. In addition to the nuclear waste and other problems the reactor creates, we can’t afford it and we do not have the capacity in-province to look after it!

July 24, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Canada | Leave a comment

Point Lepreau nuclear station down till at least September, costing utility extra $71M.

All of this has been costly for the utility, which now carries more than $5 billion in debt, and to ratepayers, who are being asked to swallow the biggest increases to their bills in their lifetimes.

New target is a ‘best-case scenario,’ said expert of 27 years, who added it ‘wouldn’t be appropriate’ to give a worst-case scenario.

Telegraph Journal, John Chilibeck, Jul 22, 2024 

The prolonged shutdown at the Point Lepreau nuclear plant is raising alarm, including over how it could affect power bills for residents and businesses.

At a rate hearing in Fredericton on Monday, NB Power officials said the longer-than-expected shutdown would likely last until at least September and cost an extra $71 million. That includes $51 million for buying replacement power and about $20 million for added repair and equipment costs.

Craig Church, a chief modeler for the public utility, said it would cost on average an extra $900,000 for each day Lepreau is shuttered given it is one of the cheapest in NB Power’s fleet of generators to run.

It normally provides one-third of the province’s electricity.

“The loss will have to be made up by future ratepayers?” asked public intervenor Allain Chiasson at the hearing.

After a pregnant pause, Church replied yes.

NB Power is already seeking the biggest hike in electrical bills in a lifetime. If the New Brunswick Energy and Utilities Board, an independent regulator, grants its request, households will have to pay 9.8 per cent more this year and 9.8 per cent more next year.

According to NB Power’s evidence, the average electrically heated residential customer is billed about $3,087 annually. Adding 9.8 per cent to that bill would be another $303, or a total of $3,390.

Big industry is facing a similar percentage hike, whereas small and medium-sized businesses would face slightly smaller increases.

But the evidence before the board does not take into account the prolonged shutdown of Lepreau, meaning those extra costs will only come into play in future years.

NB Power undertook a 100-day outage of Lepreau, west of Saint John along the Fundy coast, from mid-April to mid-July to overhaul parts of the non-nuclear side of the plant at a cost of $124 million.

It was part of a planned shutdown to renew the plant and make sure it was robust enough for the winter, when it supplies baseload power for the province. According to the plan, the upgrades were supposed to be completed last week.

But on Monday, an expert on the NB Power panel, Jason Nouwens, the director of regulatory and external affairs at Lepreau, said on June 29, the team discovered a problem with the main generator on the non-nuclear side of the plant.

Specifically, one of 144 stator bars in a giant rotor had failed, but NB Power isn’t sure why. To get to the failed equipment, workers must painstakingly take apart the generator piece by piece, a job that will take at least two weeks.

Then, Nouwens said, the troubleshooting team that includes outside experts from the Canadian nuclear industry will try to figure out why the stator bar broke and possible remedies to prevent such a failure from happening again.

The expert, who has been working at Lepreau 27 years, said the plant coming back online in September was a best-case scenario. When asked by one of the interveners, Nouwens said it “wouldn’t be appropriate” to give a worst-case scenario.

Besides the extra costs caused by the delayed re-start, questions have been raised about possible spillover.

On Friday at the same hearings at the Fredericton Convention Centre, a lawyer working on behalf of J.D. Irving, Limited asked NB Power officials repeatedly how the longer-than-expected outage at the nuclear generator would affect other important power plants in the electrical system.

The lawyer Glenn Zacher had before him Phil Landry, NB Power’s executive director of project management offices, who answered questions about other power plants in the system.

The other plants are also supposed to undergo regular outages for maintenance and repairs to ensure they are safe and reliable.

But some of the maintenance work has already been delayed because those plants need to be running when Lepreau is down, otherwise people’s lights and air conditioners wouldn’t work.

“When is it too late to do undertake maintenance elsewhere?” asked Zacher. “It seems to be an important question to be answered.”

Landry, however, didn’t have any firm answers and struggled to give any specific timelines, given the uncertainty at Lepreau

Landry explained to the board that NB Power has been running the Belledune Generating Station – which belches out emissions from high-polluting coal – and Coleson Cove, which burns similarly polluting heavy oil, to replace the energy lost at Lepreau.

Belledune was supposed to undergo maintenance and repairs right now, at a cost of $17.1 million, but its 46-day outage has been indefinitely delayed………………………………….

Pushing out the maintenance to later in the year, closer to the winter months, is not an ideal scenario, Landry said, because they need to be running smoothly when people heat their homes and electrical demand is greatest.

NB Power refurbished the nuclear side of the plant in 2012, at a cost of $2.5 billion, a project that was over-budget by $1 billion and took 37 months longer to complete than expected. But NB Power didn’t do similar work to other important parts of the plant, leading to frequent breakdowns.

All of this has been costly for the utility, which now carries more than $5 billion in debt, and to ratepayers, who are being asked to swallow the biggest increases to their bills in their lifetimes.

NB Power CEO Lori Clark has promised Lepreau will no longer be neglected in the hopes of improving its performance. The utility has partnered with Ontario Power Generation, which has more expertise with nuclear plants, to ensure the next phase of the overhaul is done right.

A benchmarking study showed Lepreau is one of the worst performers out of 38 similar nuclear power plants in the world, consistently in the bottom quarter.

On Monday, Nouwens said NB Power was committed to improving the plant’s performance but cautioned it would take years of extra spending and repair work to get to the average performance of most nuclear plants. He pointed out that Lepreau has 115,000 different components, many of which have to be replaced or repaired with age.

Even by 2030, NB Power still thinks the plant will be mired in the basement, performance wise.

“In the past, the work hasn’t been comprehensive and intrusive enough to reach the performance we need,” the executive said. “We’ve under-invested, causing unreliability.”  https://tj.news/new-brunswick/long-shutdown-of-nuclear-plant-would-have-knock-on-effect-warns-lawyer

July 24, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Canada | Leave a comment

NATO/US Complicity in Israel’s Relentless Genocide of Gaza

Only 4 of 32 NATO Members do NOT Sell Weapons to Israel or Buy Weapons from Israel

Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding in 1948, having received about $310 BILLION dollars in economic and military assistance. Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. has passed legislation that has provided at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which included $3.8 billion from legislation in March 2024 and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriation in April 2024.

Biden says U.S. should not have “Killing Fields,” while he is complicit in the Israeli “Killing Fields” in Gaza.

ANN WRIGHT, JUL 17, 2024, LA Progressive

As Israel continued its relentless genocide on steroids of Palestinians in Gaza with over 140 killed in the past weekend, imprisonment without charges of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and destruction of the hospitals, universities, schools (8 UNRWA schools bombed in the past 10 days), cultural centers and indiscriminate bombing of markets, soccer fields and “safe area” residents of Gaza have been forced into, an assassination attempt was made on former President Trump and NATO finished its gala 75th Anniversary celebrations in Washington, DC.

Biden Says “U.S. Politics Should Never Be A Killing Field,” While He is complicit in the Israeli “Killing Fields” in Gaza

As the genocide continued and a few days after the end of the NATO celebrations, an assassination attempt on former President Trump caused President Biden to address the nation and orate that “political violence has no place in America and U.S. politics should never be a killing field.”

The statement of no political violence and no killing fields in America rings totally hollow as the Biden administration and NATO countries fuel the Israeli killing fields in Gaza with over 90 Palestinians killed and 300 wounded by multiple Israeli rocket attacks in Khan Yunis on Saturday, July 12, and 80 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours of July 13 in several refugee camps.

NATO members fuel the Genocide of Gaza by Selling/Sending Weapons to Israel

Heads of 32 NATO member states and 10 NATO “global partners”, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Colombia, Mongolia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, met in Washington, DC at the 75th Anniversary events of NATO.

Some of the NATO members and partners are the same countries that are aiding and abetting the Israeli genocide of Gaza.

An Office for the State of Israel Located in the NATO Headquarters

NATO has a long, close and relatively unknown relationship with Israel that, eight years ago, resulted in establishment of an Israeli office in NATO headquarters in Brussels in 2016. Underscoring the importance to Israeli association with NATO, Prime Minister Netanyahu said upon the opening of the office, “This is an important step that helps Israel’s security. It is further proof to the status of Israel and the willingness of many organizations to cooperate with us in the field of security.”

The invitation from NATO for Israel to have an office in NATO headquarters was a result of pressure by other NATO members on Turkey to drop its veto of the invitation. The invitation arose through a new NATO partnership policy beginning in 2014 but Turkey vetoed the invitation until 2016.

Behind the scenes negotiations between Turkey and Israel in 2015 warmed the chilly relationship that had been essentially severed between the countries in 2010 over Israeli commandos killing 10 Turkish activists and wounding over 50 participants on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship bound for Gaza as a part of the 7-ship Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

According to NATO documents, NATO and Israel have worked together for almost 30 years, cooperating in science and technology, counter terrorism, civil preparedness, countering weapons of mass destruction and women, peace and security. To strengthen NATO naval interoperability NATO brought on Israel as a partner for NATO’s Operation Sea Guardian. Israel’s military medical academy now serves as a “unique asset” for NATO’s Partnership Training and Education Centers community.

Israel is not officially integrated in NATO but is part of the Mediterranean Dialogue, a program sponsored by NATO in cooperation with seven countries of the Mediterranean.

Only 4 of 32 NATO Members do NOT Sell Weapons to Israel or Buy Weapons from Israel

NATO’s long-standing working relationship with Israel has translated into NATO countries selling weapons to Israel and other countries buying weapons from Israel’s big weapons industry.

With the exception of Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and Belgium, the remainder of the 32 NATO members continue to sell/send weapons to Israel as Israel conducts genocide operations on Palestinians in Gaza. Due to a court case, Denmark may suspend export of F-35 fighter jet parts to the U.S., because the U.S. sells the jets to Israel.

Even Latvia sold weapons to Israel, while Lithuania bought weapons from Israel. Greece, Albania, Slovakia, and many other NATO countries have purchased military equipment from Israel.

The Action on Armed Violence has a comprehensive worldwide listing of weapons sales and transfers to Israel.

The US is the mammoth supplier to Israel, providing an estimated 68% of Israel’s foreign-sourced weapons.

Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding in 1948, having received about $310 BILLION dollars in economic and military assistance. Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. has passed legislation that has provided at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which included $3.8 billion from legislation in March 2024 and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriation in April 2024.

Since October 7, only two of the more than one hundred military aid transfers to Israel have reportedly met the congressional review threshold of $250 million to be made public, and since the records for the other weapons transfers have not been made public, we can’t be sure . Additionally, the Israeli military received expedited deliveries of weapons from a strategic stockpile of weapons that is normally used to replenishment weapons for U.S. units in the Middle East. The U.S. has maintained massive warehouses for the stockpile of huge variety and amount of weapons since the 1980s………………….  https://www.laprogressive.com/foreign-policy/relentless-genocide—

July 20, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

France’s EDF faces fresh setback after losing Czech nuclear bid

French state power giant EDF lost a bid to build at least two new nuclear
reactors in the Czech Republic on Wednesday, a major blow to Europe’s only
nuclear power plant builder at a critical time for the company. The
project, won instead by Korea’s KHNP, would have been the first contract
for EDF since Hinkley Point in Great Britain in 2016, and a vote of
confidence after being dogged by delays and soaring costs on projects at
home and abroad.

 Reuters 17th July 2024

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/frances-edf-faces-fresh-setback-after-losing-czech-nuclear-bid-2024-07-17/

July 20, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

EDF pulls out of competition to build mini-nuclear reactors in Britain

Sat, 13th July 2024,  https://www.lse.co.uk/news/edf-pulls-out-of-competition-to-build-mini-nuclear-reactors-in-britain-yipcxoiuz1s67eu.html

Alliance News) – Paris-based energy firm EDF has withdrawn from a competition to construct mini-nuclear reactors in Britain, the company said on Tuesday.

EDF was one of six firms shortlisted in October last year for government support to deliver a new wave of nuclear reactors to provide cheaper and cleaner energy.

Two designs for small modular reactors (SMRs) from those submitted by GE-Hitachi, Holtec Britain, NuScale Power Corp, Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC and Westinghouse Electric Corp will be chosen by the end of the year. 

The Conservative government which lost last week’s general election set up the competition as part of its aim to derive up to a quarter of all UK electricity from nuclear power by mid-century…………..

Labour, which won the election, has promised to extend the lifetime of existing nuclear plants, including the much-delayed and over-budget Hinkley Point C in southwest England.

EDF said in January that project could be delayed by four years, and cost as much as GBP8 billion more than planned.

It had been due to become operational in June 2027 but that has now been pushed back to between 2029 and 2031, it added.

Labour also made developing SMRs part of its election pitch to the country, saying nuclear would help Britain achieve energy security and its aims of decarbonising the power grid by 2030.

source: AFP

July 15, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, France, UK | Leave a comment

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