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San Onofre nuclear plant: uneconomic, and a political burden?

Could the looming costs become so large that they would make operation of San Onofre financially unworkable?

“The decision for closing a nuclear plant is much above and beyond economics,” “Closing (San Onofre) really has a very heavy political burden.”

San Onofre Costs: Could Economics Doom The Ailing California Nuclear Plant? HUFFINGTON POST, By MICHAEL R. BLOOD 07/04/12 LOS ANGELES — The
future of the troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant could balance on an inescapable question: Is it worth the money to fix it?

Engineers face a daunting task finding a solution for problems that knocked the seaside plant offline last winter. And even if they come up with a plan that fully addresses safety and operational issues, will it all make sense on a balance sheet?..

… Two decades ago, San Onofre’s Unit 1 reactor was shut down and then dismantled when owners faced the prospect of swallowing a $125 million bill for upgrades and repairs. Oregon’s Trojan nuclear plant closed its doors in 1993, rather than replace steam generators that had leaky tubes. Continue reading →

July 5, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Japan’s Fukushima Daini nuclear plant might never restart

Doubts linger over Japan’s nuclear future, FT.com, By Mure Dickie, Tokyo, 4 July 12, When the world’s appalled gaze turned to Japan’s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in March last year, few paid much attention to its sister atomic plant, , Fukushima Daini, , just 10 km south……

for all the seeming normality of the scene, Daini’s future is shrouded in doubt.

Work to fully restore safety systems damaged by the tsunami is expected to be completed by March. But even the new bosses of operator Tokyo Electric Power shy away from the question of whether Daini’s reactors will ever be turned back on. Continue reading →

July 5, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Japan, safety | Leave a comment

Belgium to shut down 2 nuclear power plants

Two Nuclear Plants To Shut in Belgium as Part of Energy Overhaul – Report, Fox News, July 04, 2012 Dow Jones Newswires, Belgium is poised to shut down two of its nuclear power plants and prolong the lifespan of a third reactor as part of a major shake-up of the country’s energy sector.
According to Belgian media, two reactors, Doel 1 and Doel 2, will be shut down in April 2016. A third plant, Tihange, will be overhauled as of 2015 and kept running until 2025 in order to secure the country’s electricity supplies. http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/07/04/two-nuclear-plants-to-shut-in-belgium-as-part-energy-overhaul-report/#ixzz1zjY0NSYN

July 5, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, EUROPE | Leave a comment

Uranium market stays slumped

Gap Grows Between Uranium Buyers and Sellers, 9 News 4 July 12, A slow week last week ended what was a slow month for uranium trading. Spot prices barely budged on the 15 transactions reported in June by industry consultant TradeTech, with sellers unwilling to drop their prices and buyers not willing to pay more.

With traders comprising the vast majority of both buyers and sellers in the bulk of the transactions reported over the past several months, TradeTech notes the spot uranium price remains stuck between the lack of committed buyers and what are fairly unmotivated sellers at current levels.

Last week’s news that Japan had officially green-lighted the restart of two reactors did see a bit of renewed optimism in the market, but what seems to be an increasingly stubborn spot uranium market remained sluggish, with the announcement yet to produce any sort of uplift in prices.

July 5, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs, Uranium | Leave a comment

Japan’s nuclear reprocessing reactor’s astronomic costs

Fast breeder reactor far costlier than regular nuclear power generation http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2012/06/166571.html TOKYO, June 29, Kyodo If the development of the controversial Monju prototype fast breeder reactor is continued, its costs will swell to over 1.4 trillion yen and its power generation costs will be 10,000 yen per kilowatt hour, roughly 1,000 times greater than a regular reactor, according to data compiled by Kyodo News.

Construction of the Monju reactor started in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, in 1985 as part of the government’s policy of establishing a nuclear fuel cycle to make use of spent nuclear fuel at conventional atomic plants that run on uranium. Monju uses a uranium and plutonium mix as fuel.

The facility of the government-affiliated Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp. first reached criticality, a situation where a chain reaction of nuclear fission is sustained, in 1994. http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2012/06/166571.html

June 30, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Japan, reprocessing | Leave a comment

Nuclear company Entergy suddenly cutting out health benefits for Pilgrim nuclear workers

The Louisiana-based Entergy is slashing benefits as part of a hard-line lockout, while inexperienced and lesser trained replacements try to manage the 40-year-old plant’s complex operations.

“Our members have literally risked their lives time and again to keep this community safe and to help Entergy make $1 million a day in profits,”

Entergy’s Countdown to Cruelty: 48 hours until Pilgrim Nuclear workers and families lose healthcare Just days after Supreme Court Upholds Healthcare for all, Louisiana-based Entergy Corp. set to end medical coverage for workers and families facing surgery, cancer treatment, childbirth and other healthcare issues

The Sacramento Bee, By Utility Workers Union of America Local 369 , Jun. 28, 2012 PLYMOUTH, Mass., June 29, 2012 — Locked-out Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant
workers and their families are bracing for a devastating blow as Entergy Corp. prepares to end their healthcare coverage at midnight on Saturday, June 30. Continue reading →

June 30, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | employment, USA | Leave a comment

Southern California’s electrical grid might not need nuclear power – ever!

San Onofre: Do we really need it? UT San Diego, 28 June 12, This summer may be just a test run for operating Southern California’s electrical grid without a nuclear plant.

The latest report on the outage at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station shows the replacement of four massive steam generators was accompanied by serious design flaws, with no clear solution in sight.

Both stakeholders in San Onofre and critics of nuclear power say the start of a summer without the twin-reactor plant has forced a new accounting for its costs and benefits.

The utility industry and the state’s main grid operator are “considering a range of existing and new alternatives for mitigating the impacts of a long-term or permanent shutdown at San Onofre,” said Stephanie McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the California Independent System Operator….. the grid operator foresees only the remote chance of rolling outages during hot weather in the next three months — when San Onofre is needed the most.

That assessment alone has changed perceptions of the plant as indispensable, said Dan Sullivan, president of San Diego-based Sullivan Solar Power, which employs 65 workers designing and installing solar arrays.

The plant shutdown — along with California’s aggressive renewable-energy policies and a newly completed transmission line into San Diego — have shifted the conversation about nuclear power. The day is coming, Sullivan said, when “we can just say, ‘We’re done.
We don’t need it anymore.’ ”….

June 29, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, renewable, USA | Leave a comment

French company GDF Suez moving away from nuclear industry

Ambitions to own and operate new nuclear plants by 2020 and play a role in countries like Brazil and the United States have so far come to nothing. Challenges on GDF Suez’s two home fronts, France and Belgium, are making it even harder.

GDF Suez’s nuclear business seen moving backstage by Caroline Jacobs and Benjamin Mallet PARIS, June 26 (Reuters) – GDF Suez is expected to significantly trim its 47-year old nuclear business now that its only showroom, Belgium, is gradually wrapping up its reliance on the energy form and with nuclear prospects in the French utility’s home market dimming. Continue reading →

June 29, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

Thorium nuclear reactors not possible for decades to come

India needs to wait for few decades to use thorium in reactor DNA, , Jun 27, 2012, Bhubaneswar PTI Describing India as self-reliant in nuclear technology, Atomic Energy Commission on Wednesday said the country has to wait for a few more decades to use thorium as the base for nuclear reactors.

“Using thorium as the base for reactors will take time. We have to wait a few decades to make it possible,” Atomic Energy Commission Chairman R K Sinha said….. Replying a question on the possible use of thorium as the base for the nuclear reactors, he said the country needs to wait…..

June 28, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, India, Uranium | Leave a comment

Poland delays nuclear power project – stuck on lack of finance

American-Japanese group GE Hitachi , France’s Areva and Westinghouse, a U.S unit of Japan’s Toshiba , have all signalled interest in supplying technology for the project that has already faced a number of bureacratic delays.

Poland’s PGE delays nuclear tender PGE will not launch tender as planned in Q2 Still working on financing model for project. Investment estimated to be worth $8.79-14.65 bln WARSAW, June 27 (Reuters) – PGE has delayed launching the technology supplier tender for Poland’s first nuclear power plant as it works out how it will finance the multi-billion dollar project, PGE’s chief executive said on Wednesday.

PGE chief Krzysztof Kilian did not say when the tender, previously scheduled for the second quarter of 2012, would move forward. The cost to build the first reactors is estimated at 30 billion to 50 billion zlotys ($8.79-14.65 billion). We will not launch the tender in June (as previously planned),……. Continue reading →

June 28, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, marketing, politics | Leave a comment

Japan’s utilities meetings: shareholders demand end to nuclear power

Utility shareholders meet / Nuclear power decried; TEPCO’s de facto nationalization OK’d The Yomiuri Shimbun, 28 June 12 De facto nationalization of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which will receive a capital injection of 1 trillion yen in public funds, was approved at its regular general shareholders meeting Wednesday in Tokyo.

TEPCO and eight other power utilities that own nuclear power plants held their annual shareholders meetings across the nation on the day, with shareholders demanding the companies ensure management transparency and give up nuclear power. Continue reading →

June 28, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Japan | Leave a comment

Japan’s TEPCO nationalised, will restart another nuclear power plant

Tepco’s New Chief Sees No Plan B To Revive Profitability Bloomberg, By Tsuyoshi Inajima and Yuji Okada – Jun 27, 2012 Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), owner of the crippled Fukushima reactors, is committed to restarting another nuclear plant next year that is the world’s largest and itself was damaged in a 2007 earthquake.

Bringing the Kashiwazaki Kariwa power station online, even though it sets up the state-controlled utility for further conflicts with a nuclear-weary public, is part of “Plan A,” President Naomi Hirose, 59, said in an interview. The plan refers to a 10-year business
reconstruction that handed control of the power company known as Tepco to Japan’s government. Continue reading →

June 28, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Japan, politics | Leave a comment

Same old price doldrums for the uranium industry

Spot uranium price unchanged at $50.75/lb U3O8 in weak market, Washington (Platts)–26 Jun2012 The spot price for uranium was unchanged over the last week at about $50.75/lb U3O8, prompting one analyst to describe the market as”stuck” with few buyers or sellers anxious to make a deal.

TradeTech on Friday kept its weekly price at $50.75/lb, saying that spot uranium demand “continues to be dominated by highly price sensitive and discretionary demand, and while spot supplies are currently sufficient to meet demand [and] sellers are not actively seeking to push material to the market.”… http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews/RSSFeed/ElectricPower/8439315

June 27, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, business and costs, Uranium | Leave a comment

Goodnight and goodbye for San Onofre nuclear plant?

Instead of spending the next five years figuring out how to keep the plant going indefinitely, Edison should be using that time to develop other ways to generate the needed power, especially from reliable, sustainable sources such as solar and wind.

Now is the perfect time for Edison, and the state as a whole, to begin the planning for a non-nuclear future.

San Onofre’s cloudy future Can the damaged nuclear power plant be repaired and restarted? And if so, what then? LA Times, June 24, 2012 These are dark days at the San Onofre nuclear plant just south of Orange County. Both of its reactors have been shut down for more than four months, when abnormal “thinning” was discovered in the tubes of recently installed steam generators. Neither reactor will come back on line this summer, and after that, it’s still unclear whether one or both will be switched on again and if so, at full power or partial — or whether they’ll stay shut for the foreseeable future.

On Monday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission provided a troubling assessment of the situation at San Onofre. A flaw in the design of the new generators — which cost ratepayers $671 million to build — appears to be responsible for making their tightly bundled tubes vibrate too much and rub together. The result is an alarming level of wear in equipment that is still in its relative infancy, especially in Unit 3, where, according to NRC officials, the damage reaches a level far beyond what’s been seen before in this nation’s nuclear industry. The rupture of one or more tubes could release radiation……. Continue reading →

June 25, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Restart of nuclear reactors in Oi, Japan, killing the tourism industry

the distinction of being selected as the first town with reactors designated for restart has put a damper on the town’s ambitions to diversify its economy by becoming more of a tourism resort.

A survey released May 31 by national broadcaster NHK found 81% of people in the towns bordering Oi think the nuclear plant there may suffer a Fukushima-type disaster.

Japan’s Nuclear Restarts Worry Tourism Industry WSJ, By CHESTER, DAWSON, 22 June 12 OI, Japan—The Sodegahama public beach draws thousands of swimmers and sunbathers who flock each summer to the sheltered cove at the tip of a rural peninsula in Fukui prefecture. At one end of the arc of sand is a popular campground with a pair of historic bronze cannons dating from 1854. At the other lies a tree-covered hill shielding the view of four nuclear reactor domes 1,000 feet (several hundred meters) away.
As the Japanese government has moved to restart nuclear reactors for the first time since last year’s disaster in Fukushima, this seaside town, which depends on the plant for jobs and subsidies, is wary about of the impact on another major source of revenue: tourism….. Continue reading →

June 23, 2012 Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Japan | Leave a comment

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