German utility company thriving following exit from nuclear power
E.ON triples net profit as nuclear past fades Aug 13, 2012
* H1 net 3.13 billion euros vs 948 million year ago
* Trading and Optimisation unit seen posting full-year profit
* Could close some power plants
* Shares up 1.2 pct (Recasts, adds trading unit, analyst)
By Christoph Steitz and Vera Eckert FRANKFURT, Aug 13 (Reuters) – E.ON AG, Germany’s largest utility, said net profit more than tripled in the first half of the year, benefiting from a gas price deal with Russia’s Gazprom and absence of charges related to Germany’s exit from nuclear power.
German utilities have posted strong first-half results so far, thanks to renegotiated gas purchase contracts and higher selling prices, in a recovery from the downturn caused by the government’s decision last year to shut nuclear power stations.
Last month, EnBW, Germany’s third-largest utility, said first-half sales at its gas unit rose a third because of an expansion in gas trading activity….
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/13/eon-results-idINL6E8JD1220120813
Up to 113,845 jobs in clean energy for Michigan
“It’s a job creating machine, with the added benefit of cleaner air, improved public health and healthier communities.”
All told, the initiative would create between 74,495 and 113,845 jobs in Michigan..
Renewable energy ballot measure called ‘job creating machine‘ By Karen Bouffard Detroit News Lansing Bureau, August 10, 2012 Lansing— At least 74,000 jobs would be created if voters approve a proposed ballot measure that requires 25 percent of energy to come
from renewable sources by 2025, according to a Michigan State University study released Friday.
Results of the study were announced by supporters of the Michigan Energy Michigan Jobs renewable energy ballot proposal, which is opposed by utility companies and business groups. The higher renewable electricity standard would create more than $10
billion in investments, according to the study. Continue reading
$39 billion loss for Australian uranium miner Paladin
Uranium mine lost K39 billion in 2011 , The Maravi Post, 10 Aug 12 BLANTYRE–The Kayekelera uranium mine in Karonga, which is operated by Paladin Energy Limited of Australia, lost K39 billion in nine months of operation ending March 2012 due to fluctuating prices of the commodity on the international market, the company’s top official has said.
Greg Walker, general manager for international affairs, told the Daily Times Business that the loss was a result of the historic earthquake in Japan that produced a Tsunami in March last year. Spot price for uranium oxide dropped from $75 (some K21, 000) to $47.50 (K13, 000) after the closure of Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.
Walker said now the price is at $49.50 -K14,000 – saying this was below the direct cost of production at Kayelekera, the country’s biggest investment. Walket told the daily that Paladin have bankrolled $145 million–K41 billion- to keep the mine afloat… http://www.maravipost.com/malawi-news/society/1486-uranium-mine-lost-k39-billion-in-2011.html#.UCbaJ6FlT4Y
U.S. Freezes All Nuclear Power Plant Licensing Decisions
most of the 19 reactor projects are already “essentially sidetracked by the huge problems facing the nuclear industry, including an inability to control runaway costs, and 
the availability of far less expensive energy alternatives.”
ongoing descent into fiasco of the bubble once known as ‘the nuclear renaissance,’”
WASHINGTON, DC, August 7, 2012 (ENS) – Federal nuclear regulators today froze at least 19 final reactor licensing decisions in response to a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit that spent nuclear fuel stored on-site at nuclear power plants “poses a dangerous, long-term health and environmental risk.”
In its ruling, the appeals court invalidated the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 2010 updates to the Waste Confidence Rule and also the Temporary Storage Rule and directed the commission to fully comply with federal law.
In response, the NRC today put a hold on nine construction and operating licenses, eight license renewals, one operating license, and one early site permit.
The court noted that, after decades of failure to site a permanent geologic repository, including 20 years of working on the now-abandoned Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada, the NRC “has no long-term plan other than hoping for a geologic repository.”
Therefore, it is possible that spent fuel will be stored at reactor sites “on a permanent basis,” the court said.
In its order today, the five-member NRC said, “Waste confidence undergirds certain agency licensing decisions, in particular new reactor licensing and reactor license renewal.”
“Because of the recent court ruling striking down our current waste confidence provisions, we are now considering all available options for resolving the waste confidence issue, which could include generic or site-specific NRC actions, or some combination of both,” the agency said. “We have not yet determined a course of action.”
“In recognition of our duties under the law, we will not issue licenses dependent upon the Waste Confidence Decision or the Temporary Storage Rule until the court’s remand is appropriately addressed,” the NRC said.
The NRC’s order extends only to final license issuance. “All licensing reviews and proceedings should continue to move forward,” the agency said.
The case was originally brought to the appeals court by four states led by New York State, as well as a native Indian community and several environmental groups.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman brought legal action against the NRC because of his concerns about Entergy’s relicensing application for two reactors at Indian Point power plant on the Hudson River at Buchanan, New York, just 24 miles north of New York City. Entergy’s license to operate Indian Point expires on September 28, 2013.
Schneiderman said today, “The storage of nuclear waste at nuclear power facilities poses long-term health and environmental risks, including the risk of leaks from spent fuel pools and fires. Despite this, the NRC has refused my repeated requests to address the serious risks of long-term, on-site storage of nuclear waste in Indian Point’s relicensing proceeding.” Continue reading
Nuclear power workers co-operate in deception, in order to keep their jobs
Nuclear power plants: A hidden world of untruths, unethical behavior August 06, 2012 THE ASAHI SHIMBUN The long and the short of it is this: Nuclear power plants probably would not operate properly in Japan if workers were not willing to sacrifice their health, and possibly their lives.
It emerges that workers at nuclear plants routinely resorted to ingenious ways to conceal the true levels of radiation to which they were exposed–simply to go on earning a living. Continue reading
Budget of Nuclear Regulatory Commission – Incredible in the true sense of the word
Nuclear Agency Can’t Ensure Their Own Budget is Credible http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/08/nuclear-agency-cant-ensure-their-own-budget-is-credible.html By MIA STEINLE
The agency responsible for the nation’s nuclear weapons cannot ensure its own budget is credible, which may result in overspending, according to a federal investigative office.
The National Nuclear Security Administration “does not thoroughly review” the budget estimates it compiles from U.S. nuclear weapon sites before it draws up its annual budget request to Congress, request to Congress, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The eight nuclear weapons sites are managed and operated by private contractors for the government.
Senior agency officials told the GAO that there is an “inherent trust” between the agency and the nuclear sites. Additionally, they said that a lack of “financial and personnel resources” mean a formal review of the budget is unrealistic.
The National Nuclear Security Administration is a semiautonomous agency within the Department of Energy. It is “responsible for the nation’s nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, and naval reactors programs,” according to the GAO. Its proposed budget for fiscal year 2011 is more than $11.5 billion, which is almost half of the entire Department of Energy budget.
Agency officials also told the GAO that they don’t follow a Department of Energy policy that requires a formal review of the budget because it expired in 2003. However, department officials told the GAO the policy still stands.
“By not adhering to these provisions,” the GAO said the agency “is reducing the creditability of its budget proposals.”
The GAO report comes at a time when rising costs of nuclear weapons projects are turning into “a serious liability for the [agency] as it tries to fend off criticism from Congress,” John Fleck reported for the Albuquerque Journal . He cited the proposed nuclear facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico as a point of contention. The GAO noted that the cost of this project has increased sixfold since its inception.
The GAO also cited the rising cost of the Uranium Processing Facility in Tennessee as a concern. Given the agency’s “record of weak management of major projects,” the GAO said improved oversight of the agency is necessary to ensure responsible spending.
Uranium price not getting any better
Uranium Spot Prices Slip Below $50 Uranium Investing News, August 8, 2012, By Melissa Pistilli – The uranium spot price slipped further last week, dropping below the $50 mark for the first time in nearly a year as sellers gave in to lower bids.
This week, TradeTech is reporting a spot price of $49.50 per pound, down 25 cents from the previous week. …. The consulting firm said transaction activity in the spot market remains “exceptionally weak,” with transaction volume at less than 500,000 pounds of U308 over the past two months. Even with ConverDyn’s Metropolis Works conversion facility looking at a possible 15-month shutdown for safety upgrades, “the market is at a standstill.”…
Fukushima – deception in the workplace
Asahi: Disturbing picture emerging as nuclear employees come out of the woodwork — Fukushima workers report groups clocking in with no dosimeters http://enenews.com/asahi-disturbing-picture-emerging-nuclear-employees-woodwork-fukushima-workers-report-groups-clocking-dosimeters August 6th, 2012
By ENENews (Subscription Only) Title: Nuclear power plants: A hidden world of untruths, unethical behavior
Source: Asahi AJW
Author: Compiled from reports by Miki Aoki, Toshio Tada and Tamiyuki Kihara
The long and the short of it is this: Nuclear power plants probably would not operate properly in Japan if workers were not willing to sacrifice their health, and possibly their lives.
It emerges that workers at nuclear plants routinely resorted to ingenious ways to conceal the true levels of radiation to which they were exposed–simply to go on earning a living. Continue reading
Investment expert agrees on poor economic outlook for nuclear power
“Fundamentally, [Mr] Immelt is right. In the end it’s going to be a combination of gas, wind and solar,” says Samer Salty, chief executive of Zouk Capital, a London private equity investor in clean energy projects..
Because of the vast investment needed and the construction risks involved, it is unlikely that the private sector will be willing to fund new nuclear plants without subsidies and incentives from cash-strapped governments.
Mr Atherton says: “There are few companies in the world that can take a loss of that size [the €2bn Olkiluoto cost overruns] and remain solvent.”
Wind taken out of nuclear power’s sails Ft.com By Pilita Clark, Rebecca Bream and Guy Chazan, 2 Aug 12, It is one thing for a green pressure group to claim nuclear power is too expensive, but quite another when the charge comes from the head of an atomic industry pioneer such as General Electric.
GE built some of the world’s first commercial atomic reactors in the 1950s and has remained an industry leader since its nuclear joint venture with Japan’s Hitachi in 2007.
Some investors say that Jeff Immelt, GE chief executive, was merely stating an inconvenient industry truth when he told the Financial Times at the weekend that nuclear power was “really hard” to defend financially, and most countries were moving to a mix of gas and renewable energy. Continue reading
Future of Crystal River nuclear plant in doubt, as costs rise
Repair costs rise at Crystal River nuclear plant Tampa Bay Times, By Ivan Penn, Times Staff Writer Aug 02, 2012 The cost to fix the broken Crystal River nuclear plant appears to be on the rise.
The previous top estimate of $1.3 billion is likely too low, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers confirmed in an interview Thursday.
The utility has not decided whether to repair or permanently shutdown the plant. An independent technical evaluation commissioned on the facility by Duke’s board is expected to be complete in about a month, Rogers said…… http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/repair-costs-rising-at-progress-energys-troubled-crystal-river-nuclear/1243770
Nuclear company’s financial burden, trying to sell to UK
EDF open to partners on UK nuclear scheme, Ft.com, July 31, 2012 By James Boxell in Paris EDF of France is seeking partners to share the financial burden of its project to build four atomic reactors in the UK, sparking fresh concerns about whether nuclear energy is becoming too expensive.
The cost of atomic power was called into question this week by Jeff Immelt, chief executive of General Electric , who said it had become “really hard” to justify compared with cheap shale gas.
The UK wants to replace ageing nuclear reactors but it is locked in negotiations with EDF – the world’s largest supplier of atomic energy by kilowatt hours – over setting a price for electricity that would justify the heavy investment.
EDF said on Tuesday it would decide this year whether to push on with the first UK facility in Somerset. But Thomas Piquemal, finance director, said it was looking at cutting its 80 per cent share of the project to spread the risk. The UK’s Centrica owns the other 20 per cent of the four-reactor consortium.
“We are thinking about the best ways of financing this and attracting new partners,” Mr Piquemal said.
EDF is 84 per cent-owned by the French state, but private shareholders are worried about spiralling costs in the UK unless favourable terms are offered. The company is planning to build next-generation EPR reactors, which have suffered big cost overruns in France and Finland.
RWE and EON of Germany abandoned plans to build reactors in the UK because of increasing industry costs, which have jumped since the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in Japan last year http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/49b4ef00-daea-11e1-8074-00144feab49a.html#axzz22Kejy7Ba
$73 billion for fixing and restarting San Onofre nuclear plant
Ailing California Nuclear Plant Has $48 Million Repair Bill
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2012/07/31/ailing-california-nuclear-plant-has-48-million-repair-bill/ July 31, 2012 LOS ANGELES (AP) — The operator of the ailing San Onofre nuclear power plant in California says the company has been saddled with $48 million in inspection and repair costs related to damage to tubes that carry radioactive water.
Financial records released Tuesday by Edison International — the parent company of Southern California Edison — also estimate that it will cost $25 million to begin to restart the Unit 2 reactor at reduced power.
The company has not submitted a request to federal regulators to restart either of the twin reactors that have been shut down since January. The figures were included in a report on Edison’s operations betweenApril and June.
The plant is located between Los Angeles and San Diego.
Nuclear power has had its day – General Electric’s chief
Nuclear ‘hard to justify’, says GE chief FT.com By Pilita Clark, 31 July 12, Nuclear power is so expensive compared with other forms of energy that it has become “really hard” to justify, according to the chief executive of General Electric, one of the world’s largest suppliers of atomic equipment.
“It’s really a gas and wind world today,” said Jeff Immelt, referring to two sources of electricity he said most countries are shifting towards as natural gas becomes “permanently cheap”…. It’s just hard to justify
nuclear, really hard. Gas is so cheap and at some point, really, economics rule,” Mr Immelt told the Financial Times in an interview in London at the weekend. “So I think some combination of gas, and either wind or solar … that’s where we see most countries around the world going.”
Mr Immelt’s comments underline the impact on the global energy landscape of the US shale gas revolution, Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown and falling prices for some types of renewable power…..
a 75 per cent fall in solar panel market prices in the past three years has made solar power competitive with daytime retail electricity prices in some countries, according to a recent report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, while offshore wind turbine prices have steadily declined.
Such factors pose dilemmas for countries such as the UK, which is trying to build new nuclear plants without public subsidy……
Analysts estimate GE’s nuclear revenues, from a joint venture with Japan’s Hitachi, at an estimated $1bn, or less than 1 per cent of annual global sales. …. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/60189878-d982-11e1-8529-00144feab49a.html#axzz22EdFcsHr
Australia finding that 3 big uranium mining projects are not economically viable
Uranium prices halt Sandy Desert project, BY: BARRY 
FITZGERALD The Australian July 29, THE most likely of Australia’s next big uranium mine developments – the Kintyre project in Western Australia’s Great Sandy desert – has fallen victim to sluggish demand and prices for the nuclear fuel, and WA’s “hot” construction market for resource projects.
Project operator and 70 per cent owner, Canada’s Cameco, has revealed that the economics of the project are “challenging” in that a development would not be profitable at current uranium prices. Prices are 34 per cent below where they need to be for a viable project.
The sluggish demand backdrop has implications for BHP Billiton which must find a home for the additional uranium it will produce with the planned $30 billion expansion of its Olympic Dam copper/uranium/gold mine in South Australia’s outback.
The expansion would see uranium output at Olympic Dam grow massively from 9.6 million pounds a year to 40.6 million pounds a year – 17 per cent of forecast global mine output in 2020.
But the Weekend Australian revealed that BHP plans to defer a decision on the project for two years.
Sluggish uranium demand has already reported to have led to BHP becoming disinterested in moving towards developing its Yeelirrie uranium deposit in WA.
Cameco chief executive Tim Gitzel told analysts that Cameco was “not going to develop Kintyre at any cost Continue reading
Cameco uranium company – profit loss with low sales and prices
Cameco profit hit by lower sales, prices Mining Peter Koven Jul 27, 2012 Second quarter profit dropped sharply at Cameco Corp. as the uranium giant’s sales volumes declined and it faced lower realized prices and higher costs.
Adjusted net income came in at $34-million, or 9 cents a share, down from 18 cents a year ago. The numbers fell short of analyst expectations.
Uranium sales volumes in the quarter were 5.3 million pounds, well down from 5.8 million pounds in the second quarter of 2011. Saskatoon-based Cameco’s realized price also dropped 8% year-over-year to US$42.08 a pound because of lower U.S.-dollar prices under
fixed-price contracts. Uranium production dropped 7%….
1 This Month
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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