business and costs « nuclear-news

Reasons why nuclear power no longer makes economic sense

GE (NYSE:GE) Slams Economics of Nuclear Is GE Turning Cold on Nuclear? Green Chip Stocks, By Abhishek Shah , August 20th, 2012 As the whole world is fixated on the debate about on using and not using nuclear power for energy generation, the anti-nuclear protesters have got a new powerful argument about nuclear energy being not economically feasible.

General Electric which is among the world’s top 3 suppliers of nuclear energy equipment along with Toshiba and Areva, has said that it no longer makes economic sense to build nuclear reactors. Continue reading →

August 24, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs | 1 Comment

Michigan’s initiative for renewable energy jobs and economy

Counterpoint: More renewable energy will create jobs, rein in energy costs M Live Micigan, By Todd Fettig , August 23, 2012, Opponents of increasing Michigan’s renewable energy standard should rethink their obstruction to more Michigan-made energy, more jobs, more clean air and water, and more opportunities for Michigan manufacturers and businesses to compete in the clean energy economy.

They should also rethink using paid and unpaid mouthpieces like former state Sen. Ken Sikkema and Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Rick Baker to spread misinformation and distortions about what the bipartisan Michigan Energy, Michigan Jobs proposal will actually do.

Mark Fisk Just as flat-screen TVs that cost $6,000 in 2002 cost less than $450
today, renewable energy is also getting cheaper with innovation and new technology. Michiganders should know one fact up front: The Michigan Public Service Commission clearly states that renewable energy now costs $58 per megawatt/hour LESS than the cost of building a new coal plant. Continue reading →

August 24, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | employment, renewable, USA | 1 Comment

In Africa – uranium mining down: solar energy up

Areva suspends Trekkopje uranium mine project, Paul Langley’s Nuclear history Blog, 24 Aug 12 Areva has decided to suspend the Trekkopje uranium mine project. …. Rumours already started in October Areva planned to abandon the Trekkopje uranium mine project as part of a massive restructuring program that is to be set up in reaction to a drop in demand caused by the German nuclear phase-out and the Fukushima disaster….

Solar Project Aims to Becomes Largest in West Africa By Steve Leone, Associate Editor, RenewableEnergyWorld.com October 25, 2011 DALLAS, Texas — An American-based investment group has secured a power purchase agreement with the Namibian government to build a 500-megawatt photovoltaic power plant near the capital of Windhoek.

If built, the plant would represent the largest solar installation in West Africa, and could eventually include wind generation and grow up to 1 gigawatt. The group, led by Washington-based project developer SSI Energy Solutions (SSIES), is the parent company of Africa Energy Corp., which was set up for the Namibia project. Partners in the project include former SunEdison CEO Jigar Shah, Tom Amis and Nik Patesh of clean-energy law firm Cooley LLP, Eric Henderson of the Beacon Group and Adam Stern and Gary Kleiman of The Gemstone Group……. The project is far bigger than any solar project currently online in the southern hemisphere. South Africa, which borders Namibia, has garned the most interest in the region for large-scale developments…. http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/areva-suspends-trekkopje-uranium-mine-project/

August 24, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AFRICA, business and costs, Uranium | Leave a comment

Just exactly who should pay for San Onofre’s repairs and restart?

If San Onofre nuclear plant is restarted, who pays? The San Onofre nuclear plant must first be deemed safe to restart. But with costs already mounting, it’s unclear who would foot the bill. By Abby Sewell, Los Angeles Times August 22, 2012
Nearly seven months after the San Onofre nuclear power plant was closed because of a leak, officials are grappling with whether it makes financial sense to bring the plant fully back online, and if so, who should pay for the necessary repairs. Continue reading →

August 24, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Vogtle costs approved despite warnings of overruns and delays

Vogtle costs approved despite warnings of overruns and delays By Kristi E. Swartz The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 23 Aug 12, Reports of cost overruns and scheduling delays loom over Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle expansion project…… An independent utility watchdog has warned of scheduling delays at Vogtle, however. The delays have made the project’s capital and financing costs go up, he said.

In addition, Georgia Power is disputing its responsibility for a $425
million cost overrun stemming from delays in getting key license
approvals from federal regulators. The project’s main vendors,
Westinghouse and The Shaw Group, say Georgia Power is responsible for
that amount. Separately the vendors have sued the utility and the
project’s co-owners for additional expenses that came from backfilling
two excavation sites at Vogtle.

The continuing dispute over who will pay for those escalating costs
may force the reactors to start producing power later than their
scheduled 2016 and 2017 dates, the utility’s parent, Southern Co.,
said in a recent document.

Georgia Power and a group of municipal and cooperative electricity
utilities are adding two reactors at Vogtle. The reactors are the
first in the United States to win permits in 30 years. ..
http://www.ajc.com/business/vogtle-costs-approved-despite-1503361.html

August 24, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

India’s nuclear power projects grinding to a halt

NTPC puts nuclear power projects on hold, Hindu Business Line, RAHULWADKEMUMBAI,Mumbai, AUG. 22: NTPC has put its plans to set up nuclear power projects, jointly with Nuclear Power Corporation of India, on the backburner. The company has also begun to relocate employees assigned for the projects due to uncertainty in the nuclear power arena.

Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) is facing severe delays in setting up plants and NTPC is actually considering exiting the joint venture, said a senior NTPC official, requesting anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the issue.

Another NTPC official, who also did not wish to be named, said around 40 engineers from NPCIL’s Mumbai office, who were being trained to build nuclear plants, have been pulled out and relocated to NTPC’s other thermal power plants. In all, 74 engineers were stationed across the country.

The official said the rest would be withdrawn in phases. Engineers, who were relocated out of Mumbai, were being trained in plant designing, while those stationed at other plant sites were involved in the commissioning of the under-construction plants. Nuclear projects country-wide have been facing massive opposition. While considerations revolve around the safety of the people living near the plant, NPCIL has also been facing a delay in acquisition of land, all of which have
adversely impacted the project.

In the last two years, the engineers had voiced their concerns about their career and lack of professional growth in the joint venture with the senior-most personnel of NTPC. Prolonged disruption of work at the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu, following protests from anti-nuclear campaigners, had also affected the morale of the engineers. Taking all these factors into consideration they are being withdrawn, the official added….. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/article3808172.ece?homepage=true&ref=wl_home

August 23, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, India, politics | Leave a comment

BHP ditches its monster uranium mine plan

At its peak, the mine was expected to consume more electricity than the city of Adelaide, and 100 Olympic swimming pools worth of fresh water every day.

Olympic Dam was too expensive.

South Australia will be fine. Mining accounts for a relatively small share of South Australia’s overall economy, and only 1 per cent of its employment.

the carbon emissions from Olympic Dam would have dwarfed all the gains in emissions reductions that South Australia has made in renewable energy in recent years

The Olympic Dam Delay Has A Silver Lining New Matilda, By Ben Eltham 23 Aug 12, Why did BHP Billiton halt the Olympic Dam mine? The project was just too expensive. The decision is good news for the South Australian environment, writes Ben Eltham

Picture a hole in the ground four kilometres long and one kilometre deep. Picture a manmade mountain of dirt next to it nearly as high — a mountain of dirt dug from the ground and heaped next to that hole, a new landmark on the South Australian horizon.

Picture a mega-project so large and so thirsty that it would have required a new baseload electricity generator to meet its power needs, and a new desalination plant hundreds of kilometres away on the coast to make the water it required.

Picture a mine so vast, it would have increased the world supply of Uranium by a third.

This was the vast edifice that was to be Olympic Dam — when finished, the largest mine in the world. Continue reading →

August 23, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, business and costs | Leave a comment

Plan for world’s biggest uranium mine scrapped

The mine would have become the world’s biggest open cut copper and uranium mine at six kilometres long and one kilometre deep.

BHP cancels $30 billion Olympic Dam expansion near Roxby Downs in South Australian Outback Business Writer Meredith Booth AdelaideNow August 22, 2012 BHP Billiton has shelved its $30 billion Olympic Dam expansion and will go back to the drawing board to find a cheaper alternative…. Continue reading →

August 22, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, business and costs | 1 Comment

Is Edison planning to keep San Onofre nuclear plant permanently closed?

San Onofre layoffs raise questions about nuclear plant’s future LA Times, August 21, 2012 | More than six months after a leaking steam generator tube prompted a complete shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear power plant, Southern California Edison officials announced plans to lay off nearly one-third of its workforce, leading many to wonder if the troubled plant would ever fully reopen. Continue reading →

August 22, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | 1 Comment

Direct Investments in Renewable Energy Increasingly Attractive to Pension Funds, Insurers Triple Pundit, By Andrew Burger | August 17th, 2012 Institutional investors, such as pension funds and insurance companies, are increasingly investing directly in wind, solar and other renewable energy projects, providing much needed capital to companies in the fast-growing clean energy sector even as banks, still suffering from accumulated bad loans and high debt levels, have tightened lending standards and struggle to raise capital to shore up their finances.

This is particularly true in Europe, where banks find themselves caught in a web of bad debts accumulated from prior their own housing and property lending and investments and subsequent government efforts to bail them out with sovereign debt, which has led them to purchase large amounts of euro zone treasury securities. Multinational insurer Munich Re’s bought three UK wind farms with a combined 102-MW capacity, boosting the total amount it’s invested in renewable energy projects to more than €600 million ($737 million), Bloomberg News reported on Aug. 12 . Looking to reduce its reliance on bank loans, Swedish renewable energy project developer Arise Windpower AB is turning to pension funds and other institutional investors to help finance its new projects …. http://www.triplepundit.com/2012/08/renewable-energy-pension-funds/

August 18, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, renewable | Leave a comment

Japan showing how it manages well WITHOUT nuclear power

With summer soon ending, fears that Japan couldn’t function without nuclear power during summer periods of heaviest electricity demand are being proven unfounded.

Dire predictions of what would happen to the Japanese economy without restarting reactors haven’t held up.

As More About Fukushima Contamination and Casualties Is Known, Japan Proceeding Without Nuclear Reactors, Samuel S. Epstein Cancer prevention expert, Prof. emeritus at U. of IL School of Public Health, Chicago HUFFINGTON POST, 16 Aug 12, “….the impact of Fukushima continues…..
………..Aside from the changes in health, Fukushima has also had a major impact on public policy. . Within days of the meltdowns, Germany shut some reactors, four of them permanently; the Merkel government then announced a plan to phase out all remaining reactors by 2022. Belgium and Switzerland soon followed with similar phase-out plans.
Italy, which has no operating reactors, placed a moratorium on plans to build new ones. Newly-elected French president Hollande campaigned on a pledge to drop the percent of French electricity from nuclear power from 75% to 50% by 2030.

But the biggest development has taken place in Japan,….. Continue reading →

August 17, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Japan | 3 Comments

Fort Calhoun nuclear plant to be run by private company

Private firm to run nuclear plant Omaha.com By Erin Golden, 16 Aug 12, BLAIR, Neb. — The Omaha Public Power District is planning to turn over control of Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station to a private company — a move the district’s board says is essential if the plant is to reopen.

In a meeting Thursday night at Blair City Hall, the board voted unanimously to allow OPPD officials to negotiate a 20-year contract with Exelon Corp. for day-to-day operations of the troubled plant, which is about 20 miles north of Omaha.

The plant’s reactor has been shut down since April 2011 because of concerns over Missouri River flooding and a series of safety violations. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is overseeing the facility, has not set a restart date for Fort Calhoun.

One board member, John Green, said it has become clear that the NRC
was interested in outside management of the facility. “I’ve been convinced over the last few months … that we weren’t going to be able to open the plant without doing this,” Green said.

Gary Gates, the utility’s CEO, said the district has been considering looking to an outside company for some time and has been negotiating with Exelon for a month….. An NRC spokesman declined to comment….. http://www.omaha.com/article/20120817/NEWS/708179925/1685

August 17, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

“No way that banks would provide financing” for nuclear power , says bank chairman

Bank chairman stands defiant with blunt anti-nuclear message, The Mainichi, 15 Aug 12, I was hardly getting anywhere trying to write about “hope” and the general election that’s supposed to come sooner or later when Tsuyoshi Yoshiwara, chairman of Johnan Shinkin Bank, appeared on television.

“Can the member corporations of the Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation) buy out nuclear reactors themselves and operate them?” he asked, point blank.

“There’s no way banks would provide financing,” he continued. “Corporations propose something (the continuation of nuclear reactors) that they can’t even do on their own, knowing full well that the burden will ultimately fall on the public. And yet they say that what they propose is ‘realistic.’ That makes no sense, and is most irresponsible.” Continue reading →

August 16, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Japan | Leave a comment

EDF Delays Start Of Three Nuclear Plants: Current Halts Bloomberg, By Rachel Morison – Aug 14, 2012 Electricite de France SA, delayed the start of its Chooz B-2, Cruas-1 and Paluel-3 nuclear power plants, according to data on the website of
grid operator Reseau de Transport d’Electricite.
EDF gave start dates for its Chinon B-1, Fessenheim-2 and
Gravelines-1, RTE data show. The start date for Cruas-4 was removed
from RTE’s website.
The world’s biggest nuclear power plant operator has 37 reactors
online, representing 64 percent of available nuclear capacity, RTE
data show. That’s the lowest since June 20. EDF’s 58 atomic plants
generate about 78 percent of France’s
power….http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-14/edf-delays-start-of-three-nuclear-plants-current-halts-table-.html

August 15, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

Nuclear power industry lost $46 billion – and that’s its good news

Utilities lose $46 billion as nuclear era nears end, Japan Times, 14 Aug 12, Shareholders at risk amid efforts to break up power monopolies Bloomberg The nuclear power industry has lost a record $46 billion since the earthquake and tsunami disasters led to three meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant last year, wiping out seven years of profit.

Then came the bad news. Continue reading →

August 14, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Japan | Leave a comment

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