newsobserver.com | Nuclear power: the negatives
Nuclear power: the negatives
Oct 14, 2008CARY – Proponents of nuclear power speak of a “nuclear renaissance.” The facts show that rather than a renaissance, we face a nuclear apocalypse, heralded by, instead of the traditional four horsemen, five horsemen: cost, proliferation, risk, waste, and water consumption. Consider them individually: Consider them individually:
COST. In spite of early claims that nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter,” nuclear power started out expensive, requiring large subsidies and loan guarantees from the government, and it has stayed that way. A preliminary estimate for two new 1,000 megawatt nuclear plants proposed by Progress Energy in Florida is $17 billion, and that cost is likely to grow as required revisions to Westinghouse’s AP-1000 advanced reactor design add years to the time before those reactors will be ready for use.
An industry estimate puts the cost of new nuclear power at 14c per kilowatt-hour, and rising — higher than all other sources of energy except solar, whose cost is falling.
Potential financiers of nuclear power remain leery — cost and potential safety problems make the risks of new nuclear power too high.
newsobserver.com | Nuclear power: the negatives
Tags: nuclear
Procedural problems may force cancellation of nuclear tender
Procedural problems may force cancellation of nuclear tender
TODAY’S ZAMAN 14 Oct 08 A tender for the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Turkey, held on Sept. 25, may be cancelled due to its failure to meet technical criteria.
The fact that there was only one bidder in the tender, analysts say, may lead to its cancellation because it fell short of creating a competitive environment.The only bidder for the tender was the Park Teknik consortium, set up by the Russian AtomStroyExport and Inter RAO UES and the Turkish Ciner Group.
At a time when the construction of a nuclear power plant has been strongly protested by some groups, only receiving one bid for the tender has complicated things for the government……………..If the Russian company is awarded the contract, Russian interests in the generation of Turkey’s electricity will rise from 35 percent to 55 percent. Turkey fulfills 60 percent of its natural gas needs from Russia, and it does not want to get into a similar situation with power generation………………………….Russia already controls about 25 percent of the world market for nuclear energy,
Procedural problems may force cancellation of nuclear tender
Tags: nuclear
North Korea to resume disabling atom sites – International Herald Tribune
North Korea to resume disabling atom sites
:International Herald Tribune October 12, 2008 North Korea welcomed its removal Sunday from Washington’s terrorism blacklist and said it would resume disabling its nuclear weapons facilities, allowing U.S. and United Nations monitors back into its main nuclear complex.
The United States announced Saturday that it had removed North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism. In return, North Korea said Sunday that it would resume disabling a plutonium plant and other key facilities at its nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, and allow some inspections to verify the process.
North Korea to resume disabling atom sites – International Herald Tribune
Environmental Capital – WSJ.com : Financial Fallout: Market Tumbles Shake Nuclear Clean-Up Funds
October 10, 2008, Financial Fallout: Market Tumbles Shake Nuclear Clean-Up Funds
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL by Keith Johnson 10 Oct 08 The Wall Street meltdown is making it tougher to build new nuclear power plants, but it’s doing more than that. It could also make it tougher to tear down the existing ones.
The stock market’s tumble is cracking the piggy bank designed to safely mothball Vermont’s Yankee nuclear power plant when the plant is evenutally shut down, notes the Boston Globe. Since the spring, the so-called “decommissioning fund” for the Entergy plant, which will pay to dismantle and safely entomb nuclear reactors when they are shut down, has lost about $40 million, or 10% of its value……………………..ll nuclear plants are required to have a fund set aside to pay for their eventual clean-up. Since nuclear plants have such a long operating life, and clean-up takes even longer, most rely on long-term investments to meet funding requirements. How much does decomissioning cost? No one really knows. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission figures it should cost between $280 million and $612 million per reactor—or a maximum pricetag of about $63 billion for America’s 104 nuclear reactors. Then again, Britain estimates the total clean-up bill for its 19 nuclear reactors at $165 billion,………………ll nuclear plants are required to have a fund set aside to pay for their eventual clean-up. Since nuclear plants have such a long operating life, and clean-up takes even longer, most rely on long-term investments to meet funding requirements. How much does decomissioning cost? No one really knows. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission figures it should cost between $280 million and $612 million per reactor—or a maximum pricetag of about $63 billion for America’s 104 nuclear reactors. Then again, Britain estimates the total clean-up bill for its 19 nuclear reactors at $165 billion,
Environmental Capital – WSJ.com : Financial Fallout: Market Tumbles Shake Nuclear Clean-Up Funds
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
The Standard | Online Edition :: More studies needed on nuclear power
More studies needed on nuclear power
THE STANDARD By John Njiraini 10 Oct 08
Kenya must undertake a comprehensive assessment of her long-terma energy needs and exploit local resources before contemplating the construction of a nuclear plant, a nuclear expert has said.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) senior energy economist Dr Ferenc Toth, said the country might encounter enormous problems in financing a nuclear plant due to stringent conditions from international financers.
This is because unless Kenya puts in place a clear legal framework on nuclear energy that includes security and safety measures and an independent regulatory body, financers would keep their distance.
“Nuclear energy is not the panacea to solve Kenya’s energy problems………………….Toth advised that instead of contemplating a nuclear plant, which will take at least 15 years to put up, the country should invest in renewable resources that are cheaper and faster to implement.
The Standard | Online Edition :: More studies needed on nuclear power
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Department of Energy faces huge cost increases – Mid-Columbia News | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news
Department of Energy faces huge cost increases
TriCity Herald By Annette Cary, Herald staff writerOct. 07, 2008
Cost increases and project delays continue to mount at the Department of Energy’s 10 largest projects at nuclear weapons sites, five of them at Hanford, according to a Government Accountability Office report to Congress………………………Estimated costs for DOE’s 10 largest cleanup projects have increased by a combined $25 billion over the past few years, with the largest increase in the cost to clean up and close Hanford’s tank farms, where 53 million gallons of radioactive waste are held in underground tanks………………………………
The estimated completion date has moved from 2032 to sometime between 2042 and 2050.
Schedule delays for the 10 projects GAO studied were as long as 15 years, with the longest delays projected at Hanford.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Bloomberg.com: Australia & New Zealand
JPMorgan Cuts Uranium Price Forecasts, Citing Financial Crisis
By Angela Macdonald-Smith Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) — JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut its forecast for uranium prices through 2010 because of increased spot-market sales of the radioactive metal in September and the potential for the credit freeze to slow nuclear power project development…………………………….Uranium-oxide spot prices, which reached a record $138 a pound in June last year, dropped $4 to $49 in the week ended Oct. 6, The Ux Consulting Co. LLC said on its Web site.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,High up-front capital costs for nuclear power projects may slow the so-called nuclear renaissance, the securities firm said. Nuclear power stations can cost between $1,400 and $3,500 per kilowatt-hour of installed capacity, it said.
Bloomberg.com: Australia & New Zealand
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
It’s about time to kill off nuclear energy
A short-lived tyranny It’s about time to kill off nuclear energy
OCOLLY.COM By Brandon McVeyOpinion Columnist : October 06, 2008 Pop Quiz: what source of energy has received the most government subsidies since World War II, has a by-product that has remained dangerous for thousands of years, and is a major component of McCain’s energy proposal?What I’m talking about is nuclear energy — 1950’s energy of the future. Back then, it was thought that nuclear energy would be the radioactive wave that would carry the world into the atomic age, supplying nearly all of the world’s electricity and a significant portion of its commercial energy. Obviously, nuclear energy has failed to live up to this expectation.
In the United States, no nuclear power plants have been built since the late 1970s. For private investors, the costs of building, maintaining and decommissioning a nuclear power plant overrun each other. Simply put, nuclear energy is a value destroyer that has only been proliferated by billing the American taxpayer. The modern initiatives for nuclear power still fail to recognize many of the flaws of the energy source.
Although electricity produced through nuclear power has been competitive, this price is not representative of all the costs along the nuclear energy value chain. …………………………..we shouldn’t delude ourselves about nuclear.
Maintaining nuclear reactors can be expensive, yet necessary for the reactor to be stable and safe.
Unfortunately, when the companies that manage such nuclear reactors already work with thin profit margins, safety problems can be ignored until the plant has to shut down to address them.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has recorded on its Web site that an outage at a nuclear power plant which lasted more than a year has occurred 51 times at 41 different reactors. While in the 1960s and 1970s the plants were closed primarily for damage recovery, since 1996 all the year-long outages were for safety restoration…………………………There is no agreed-upon method for storing the wastes for 10,000 years, much less 240,000. Currently, many nuclear power plants in the U.S. store these wastes in deep water pools or dry concrete casks. Sabotage, terrorist attacks or earthquakes at one of these sites could release significant amounts of radioactive materials into the troposphere, contaminating large areas for decades……………………………..
America seems to be entering an era of socialistic corporatism. The measures for supporting nuclear energy are much akin to the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector. The government has visibly become an instrument for insuring private profit at public cost.
In reality, nuclear energy in this country is just a zombie kept alive by massive government subsidies.
It’s about time to kill off nuclear energy
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Power cuts feared in UK nuclear plants crisis – Home News, UK – The Independent
Power cuts feared in UK nuclear plants crisis
THE INDEPENDENT 5 Oct 08 Six out of 10 of the nation’s atomic stations are operating below capacity, throwing their future into doubt. By Geoffrey Lean and Jonathan Owen…………………..The majority of the power stations are in dire trouble, and their failure is leading to the most acute concern in years that the country may run short of electricity this winter.Two of the 10 have been idle for almost a year, with both reactors out of action due to corrosion. Another two have had one of their reactors closed down for months. And yet another two are having to run both their reactors at less than three-quarters of their normal power for safety reasons.
And even that is not the end of it. Of the four that are still in good working condition, one is due to shut down permanently in two years’ time, a second is partially closed for routine maintenance, and a third is facing safety questions following the discovery of flaws in similar reactors in Japan………………………..it proves the inherent unreliability of the technology, and point to construction problems, delays and cost overruns in the only two nuclear power stations at present being built in Europe, in Finland and France.
Power cuts feared in UK nuclear plants crisis – Home News, UK – The Independent
Tags: Nuclear, antinuclear, radiation, uranium
Mineweb – ENERGY – Uranium`s crystal ball is price sobering
RCR QUARTERLY REVIEW Uranium’s crystal ball is price sobering
Mineweb Ross Louthean 05 Oct 2008 The industry average long-term uranium price has been downgraded $US15/lb by RCR’s just-released quarterly Equity Research Report from its third quarter report to $US80/lb and saying that in the current quarter it will trade between $US50-65/lb.At the time the report was released the spot uranium price was $US55/lb.
RCR’s principal, John Wilson, said global equity markets remain volatile and investor sentiment cautious and this has seen the junior end of the resource sector “disproportionately negatively impacted.”
“A number of companies are trading below their cash backing and we expect smaller cap public companies to continue to face funding challenges,” he said…………………..
The market valuation of Australian companies with one or more uranium projects is down 11% over the past month and down 44% over the past 12 months.
This compares with a selection of Canadian companies with one or more uranium projects, down 25% over the past month and down 57% over the past 12 months………………………….”Producers, however, could face significant challenges in financing and developing new projects, including spiralling cost pressures and potential delays variously relating to permitting, infrastructure development and commissioning.”
Mineweb – ENERGY – Uranium`s crystal ball is price sobering
Tags: Nuclear, antinuclear, radiation, uranium
Financial meltdown to end “nuclear renaissance”?
U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, speaking to reporters during an international energy conference in Paris this week, said that long-term energy projects like building new nuclear plants could be at significant risk and “the most difficult to finance” because of the growing global financial crisis. With the global financial domino effect continuing to fall out of the subprime mortgage collapse, Bodman said a “nuclear renaissance” has the most to lose. In an Associated Press report, Bodman forecasted that a failure of the U.S. to resolve the ongoing financial crisis would have “a significant impact” on energy demand and said “that’s what leads to the need to come up with a solution.”
Our View: What that “solution” might be is an open question and raises the concern that the Bush financial “rescue effort” could hide federal backing for the high stakes rollers of new atomic power plant projects. A lot of pork can be stampeded through Congress in this $700 billion financial bailout of bad loans of historic proportions. This would be particularly true for a notoriously risky nuclear power industry that cannot attract financing other than unlimited federal taxpayer dollars.
www.miningmx.com | energy Downward pressures remain on uranium prices
Downward pressures remain on uranium prices
2 Oct 2008 – “………………uranium companies face difficulties raising finance, raising the possibility of consolidation, Australia’s Resource Capital Research said.The spot price, according to Trade Tech, is $55/lb, down from last year’s all-time high of $138 reached in July.“Forward indicators (fund implied price – FIP) currently indicate an expectation for the uranium price to trade in the range $50-65/lb, potentially with downside trending pressure,” RCR said in a statement……………………………….Uranium companies, particularly the smaller players, have been hit hard by the down turn in the markets and global economic turmoil……………………….“Producers, however, could face significant challenges in financing and developing new projects, including spiralling cost pressures and potential delays variously relating to permitting, infrastructure development and commissioning,” it added.
Tags: uranium
Labour, land woes may dog Indian nuclear power | Top News | Reuters
Labour, land woes may dog Indian nuclear power
By Himangshu Watts
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A U.S. civilian nuclear deal with India opens the taps to the country’s fuel-starved reactors, paving the way for them to double output, but building new capacity looks tricky.
Obstacles such as land acquisition — already putting the brakes on projects like Tata Motors’ low-cost Nano car — and a shortage of engineers mean the industry could struggle to attract what the Confederation of Indian Industry hopes will be $27 billion in 18-20 nuclear plants over the next 15 years………………………
For a nuclear plant, additional concerns about the environmental and health impact could also anger activists and local residents.
Last year, tribesmen in Meghalaya staged a five-day campaign to protest against government plans to mine uranium, saying this could affect the health of villagers in the area, home to the largest deposits in the country.
Labour, land woes may dog Indian nuclear power | Top News | Reuters
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive
How Washington Cripples The Energy Industry – Forbes.com
Energy Outlook 2009
Forbes.com Joshua Zumbrun 10.01.08, – “……………………….Creating energy is a particularly cash-intensive business. And for no sector more so than nuclear power. The costs of building a single nuclear reactor could run over $5 billion. Building such a plant (even assuming that loan markets are normal) requires a great deal of faith in a stable energy policy. Proponents of nuclear power say construction of new plants would likely require the extension of a federal loan guarantee program, also created by the 2005 energy act, that’s set to expire in 2009………………………………”.
Let’s look at the issues: Energy
Let’s look at the issues: Energy
Independent Political Report September 29th, 2008
“……………………….Nuclear is the largest source of electricity that is not a fossil fuel. It does not generate any greenhouse gases, but the mining of uranium, which is used by nuclear plants, does considerable environmental damage. However, many environmentalists and policymakers still champion it as a solution to climate change, which it has the potential to be. Nuclear waste is also a problem with nuclear power, in that spent nuclear fuel has no safe place to be stored right now. Perhaps the greatest problem with nuclear power is the price to taxpayers. Each new nuclear plant built in the United States will cost at least one billion dollars in federal subsidies……………”
Let’s look at the issues: Energy
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, uranium, radioactive
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PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
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