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Five reasons that Russia’s nuclear exports will continue, despite sanctions and the Ukraine invasion. But for how long?

By many measures, Russia’s state-controlled nuclear energy company,
Rosatom, has primacy in the global nuclear energy market. At any given
moment, the firm provides technical expertise, enriched fuel, and equipment
to nuclear reactors around the world.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine and,
more acutely, the Russian military’s dangerous actions at the
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and in the Chernobyl exclusion zone have
many countries rethinking their dependence on Russian nuclear products and
searching for alternatives.

Additionally, the ensuing global effort to
cripple Russian access to international markets calls into question the
viability of current contracts, government licensing, and financial
instruments involved in Russia’s nuclear exports.

Concurrently, the invasion has highlighted the lack of energy source diversification across
Europe. Headlines have focused on how several European countries decided to
phase out or delay plans to build new nuclear power plants in the wake of
the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi disaster and, instead, increase imports of
Russian oil and natural gas to feed their electric grids’ baseload needs.


Now, in response to the sudden European effort to minimize dependence on
Russian imports, the United States has sent tankers of liquefied natural
gas (LNG) to European ports. Additionally, the United States and partners
are releasing a round of oil from their strategic stockpiles to stabilize
market prices. For oil and natural gas supplies to Europe, there are some
immediate alternatives available.

However, for nuclear power plants,
swapping in alternative supplies is causing serious dilemmas and could lead
to stranded assets.

 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 17th May 2022

Five reasons that Russia’s nuclear exports will continue, despite sanctions and the Ukraine invasion. But for how long?

May 19, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, Russia | Leave a comment

Don’t hold your breath waiting for NuScam’s small nuclear reactors to be profitable

As for valuation, the company is being valued on significant growth occurring in the potentially far distant future, so prospective investors would essentially be betting on the company’s ability to sell operating units at scale and profitably…and to do so in the coming near-to-medium term rather than the 2030s or beyond.

Spring Valley Completes NuScale Merger, But Growth Timing Is Unknown,  Donovan JonesMarketplace, Author of IPO Edge.  May 18, 2022 A Quick Take On NuScale.

Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. (NYSE:SMR) has announced the closing of its initial business combination with NuScale Power for an estimated enterprise value of approximately $1.9 billion.

NuScale has developed proprietary nuclear small modular reactors for utilities and industrial customers.

It is likely that NuScale will require significant time to generate material revenue growth and even longer for profits

…………….  Business Combination Terms

The Spring Valley Acquisition SPAC originally raised $230 million in gross proceeds in its IPO in late 2020, selling a total of 23 million units including underwriter allotments.

The previously announced transaction included a PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity) which rose to $235 million from Samsung C&T, DS Private Equity, Segra Capital Management and Spring Valley’s sponsor Pearl Energy.

The deal will provide NuScale with gross proceeds of up to $413 million to pursue its commercialization initiatives and growth plans.

Major NuScale investor Fluor Corporation will retain approximately 60% ownership of NuScale, with other legacy shareholders retaining approximately 20.4%, the Spring Valley SPAC public shareholders having 6.5%, the Spring Valley Acquisition Sponsor retaining 2.4% and PIPE investors purchasing 10.7% of the outstanding NuScale stock.

……………….  As for valuation, the company is being valued on significant growth occurring in the potentially far distant future, so prospective investors would essentially be betting on the company’s ability to sell operating units at scale and profitably…and to do so in the coming near-to-medium term rather than the 2030s or beyond.

……………..  In any event, it is likely that NuScale will require significant time to generate material revenue growth and even longer for profits, so I’m on Hold over the near term for SMR.  https://seekingalpha.com/article/4512948-spring-valley-completes-nuscale-merger-but-growth-timing-is-unknown

May 19, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, USA | Leave a comment

Back to square one for $28B nuclear management contract.

 By Nick Wakeman,  WashingtonTechnology, Editor-in-chief    MAY 17, 2022

The National Nuclear Security Administration is taking current global events into account as it develops new solicitations. It’s back to the drawing board for the National Nuclear Security Administration and its $28 billion contract to manage two facilities that process nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

That huge contract attracted mega-teams including such notable market players as Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, Amentum and Fluor.

Fluor and Amentum are the main partners in joint venture Nuclear Production One LLC. That team also known as NPOne unseated the incumbent Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC, another joint venture.

Consolidated Nuclear Security’s key members include Bechtel National, Leidos, Northrop Grumman and SOC LLC. Booz Allen is involved also as a subcontractor.

After losing the contract in late November, CNS went to the Government Accountability Office with a protest that claimed the winner had an organizational conflict-of-interest and NNSA improperly evaluated the bids.

In December, the National Nuclear Security Administration said it would review the award decision. NNSA is part of the Energy Department.

With that review done, NNSA decided this week to scrap the whole thing and split the contract into two separate acquisitions. One will be for the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas; and the second for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Each facility will now have its own presumably multibillion-dollar contract for management and operations services.

NNSA said it was splitting the contract because each facility has increased workloads. A “challenging geopolitical environment” was another reason cited………..

NNSA has now begun the process of developing two new solicitations. The NPOne and CNS teams will presumably continue to pursue the contracts.

But they are likely now armed with much more information on each other’s bids and approaches to the work, given what they’ve learned through debriefings and the protests.

NNSA’s restart also opens the opportunity to bring on new teammates as they push to differentiate themselves.

In the meantime, the current contract with Consolidated Nuclear Security will be extended.

GovTribe data shows that contract has netted $32 billion in spending since it was awarded in 2013.  https://washingtontechnology.com/contracts/2022/05/back-square-one-28b-nuclear-management-contract/367044/

May 19, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

$40 Billion More for the Ukraine War

We love the Ukraine war !!!

$40 Billion More the Ukraine War: A Wakeup Call for Those Who Still Believe in Lesser-Evilism, Anti-War.com, by Ryan Costello , , The US House of Representatives just approved another massive military “aid” package for the Ukraine War. The Biden administration had initially requested $33 billion in new money for the war, but leaders of both parties in Congress, eager to support the war, quickly said this was not enough, and raised the total for this package to $40 billion, a truly staggering total.

The administration had already spent $14 billion before this latest weapons package. The latest spending spree (at a time when many Americans are struggling with crushing debt loads, lack of baby formula and other key supplies, and skyrocketing inflation) brings the total spent in Ukraine in 3 months to $54 billion on the books (not counting all the dark money for the spy agencies). The official annual budget for the War in Afghanistan averaged $46 billion…The sum the US has already spent on this war in a few months is quickly approaching the annual military budget of the entire Russian military.

This money goes to companies like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, etc. These merchants of death make up the military industrial complex; they promote the permanent war economy, and have a vested interest in ensuring the US continues to engage in and support devastating wars abroad that destroy whole countries and societies, lead to millions of deaths and untold horrors like what we have seen in Yemen over the past few years.

These same corporate and state ghouls are salivating over the profits to be made in a new cold war with China. In this conflict for global dominance they see a shining opportunity to bleed the taxpayers of this country dry, looking to get blood from a stone in our country where the rich pay and big corporations no real taxes, but the middle class and poor are bled dry, being pushed deeper and deeper into debt-peonage and wage slavery by rising tax rates, shrinking paychecks, and red hot inflation (itself a result of the Federal Reserve’s reckless money printing to bailout the banks numerous times since 2008).

And yet not one of the so-called progressive Democrats could find a spine to stand against this weapons package. Not AOC, not Ilhan Omar, not any of them. This is not so surprising when one considers their spinelessness on Yemen (introducing a War Powers Resolution under Trump, knowing he would veto it, bur refusing to do so now that Biden is president), their posturing around Palestine (where they consistently rotate turns supporting more military funding for Israel), and countless other betrayals and hypocrisies.

Of all the “squad” only Cori Bush has released a statement justifying her vote for the bill. The others have remained silent and refused to respond to requests for comment on why they voted to fund the war machine after so many promises (clearly hollow) to end “the forever war.” Bush’s statement, like the entire legacy of the Squad, is a pathetic excuse for progressive politics. First, she claims that this $40 billion in military funding is about “strengthen[ing] the Ukrainian people’s fight against oppression and tyranny.” She makes no mention of the fact that key US leaders from Hillary Clinton to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs have made it clear that they want this war to drag out as long as possible to bleed Russia. 

In the course of such a prolonged conflict, we can only imagine the cost the people of Ukraine will pay. In short, this bill is both about padding the pockets of the military industrial complex and also about sacrificing Ukraine to weaken Russia as a rival to the US and NATO. As many have noted, the US elite are more than happy to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.

At the end of her statement, Bush includes a hollow note that “The sheer size of the package given an already inflated Pentagon budget should not go without critique. I remain concerned about the increased risks of direct war and the potential for direct military confrontation.” This is akin to helping someone pour gasoline on a fire, and then saying that one remains concerned about the risk of the fire spreading! This is what we can expect from Bush, the squad, and the entire so-called progressive wing of the democratic party…………………..

The time has come to cast aside illusions about our so-called representatives in Washington, to stop believing in the lie of the Democratic Party as the supposed lesser of two evils, and to redouble our efforts to build up a renewed antiwar movement. Likewise, while a few dozen Republicans voted against the $40 billion, this is no reason for optimism that the Republican Party can be a vehicle for real change. During the Iraq War, once the protests swelled in size, many Democrats made court theater by feigning opposition to the war when Bush was president, only to support continued escalations and drone strikes once Obama was elected. As Howard Zinn notes over and over again in A People’s History of the United States, the two parties are part of one unified system of corporate monopoly rule. They exist to co-opt, mislead, and ultimate destroy movements that seek to change this system of oligarchical control of nearly every aspect of our country.

As long as we remain beholden to the Democrat or Republican Party politics, our movements will be gobbled up, defanged, and spat back out; regurgitated as pliant pawns of the corporate state and the military industrial complex, able to offer only the mildest of criticisms, and utterly impotent and unable to stand against the machinations of the megalomaniacs who run this country and are driving us all towards the brink of WWIII.

Ryan Costello is an organizer in New York City with United Against War and Militarism and a member of the Yemen Peace Vigil  https://original.antiwar.com/ryan_costello/2022/05/15/40-billion-more-the-ukraine-war-a-wakeup-call-for-those-who-still-believe-in-lesser-evilism/

May 17, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Turkish nuclear plant threatened by Russian sanctions

Akkuyu nuclear power plant would be Turkey’s first, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may cause problems. Aljazeera, By Andrew Wilks, 16 May 2022,

Istanbul, Turkey – Unprecedented sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine have led to fresh concerns about Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, which is being built by Moscow’s state-owned nuclear company.

The first reactor of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, located on the Mediterranean coast near Mersin, is due to start production next year, but potential blocks on financing and equipment from third countries have threatened to delay the $20bn project.

Rosatom, the Russian firm behind Akkuyu, has so far escaped sanctions but the option has reportedly been discussed by the United States. Banks such as Sberbank, Russia’s largest financial institution and a major backer of the nuclear plant, have been hit.

………  Possible sanctions against Rosatom could also affect the flow of equipment to Akkuyu, barring suppliers from providing energy industry equipment, technology and services.

In an interview with Turkish broadcaster NTV, aired on February 23, Akkuyu CEO Anastasia Zoteeva highlighted the “large amount of equipment” produced for the plant in countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and South Korea. A key component was manufactured by GE Steam Power, a branch of General Electric, in France while French company Assystem is also involved in construction supervision.

Neither General Electric, Assystem nor other third-country companies contacted for comment by Al Jazeera responded……………………………   https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/16/turkish-nuclear-plant-threatened-by-russian-sanctions

May 17, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, politics international, Turkey | Leave a comment

Boris Johnson’s UK ”nuclear renaissance” – now desperate for funding, pleads to USA

Kwasi Kwarteng seeks US investment for UK nuclear plants to end reliance
on China. There are plans for expansion of nuclear power in Britain as part
of a new energy security strategy following the invasion of Ukraine. The
Business Secretary is to fly to the US this week to drum up American
investment in new nuclear plants amid concerns that the UK is too reliant
on China for help building reactors in Britain.

Kwasi Kwarteng is expected to hold talks with Jennifer Granholm, the US energy secretary, in
Washington DC, where a Whitehall source said the minister was “keen to
strengthen cooperation with the Americans on energy security”.

Last month Boris Johnson and Mr Kwarteng announced plans for a massive expansion of
nuclear energy in Britain as part of the country’s new energy security
strategy that followed Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Mr Kwarteng
is said to be concerned that Britain has become too reliant on two major
players in the nuclear market – China General Nuclear, a Chinese
state-owned energy giant, and EDF, which is owned by the French state.

Ministers are hoping to raise more than £10 billion in private capital to
fund the new Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk. The Government is
expected to take a 20 per cent equity stake in the project, with a further
20 per cent for EDF and the final 60 per cent coming from private
investors.

A Whitehall source said: “We’ve become too reliant on a
handful of companies to develop new nuclear. Britain split the atom and
built the world’s first full-scale nuclear power station, but we’ve
fallen so far behind after three decades of drift. “We want British and
American companies to pile in the cash to get our nuclear renaissance off
the ground. The Business Secretary is keen to work with safe and reliable
investors from like-minded countries and hug them close.” 

Telegraph 14th May 2022 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/05/14/kwasi-kwarteng-seeks-boost-us-investment-nuclear-end-reliance/

May 16, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Uncertain funding for Britain’s plans for new nuclear reactors

China General Nuclear has provided substantial investment for Britain’s
nuclear power stations alongside France’s EDF. The two companies are
funding Hinkley Point C in Somerset but the project has been beset by cost
overruns and delays.

EDF is expected to announce more delays to Hinkley C
within weeks and will have to raise billions in extra finance for the
project. The company has warned CGN is not likely to increase its funding
for the plant.

Ministers have drawn up a so-called Regulated Asset Base
funding model to replace Chinese investment for nuclear plants in future
and incentivise other private investors to put forward funding. The RAB
model would see consumers start paying indirectly towards the costs of a
new power project during the construction phase. They would fund the
project through a small rise in their energy bills.

The model replaces the current Contracts for Difference scheme used for Hinkley Point C whereby
the developer finances the construction phase and only receives revenue
when the plant generates electricity.

EDF has also warned that separate
plans to build the Bradwell nuclear power plant in Essex are likely to fall
through because of political opposition to Chinese investment. In its
annual report, EDF said: “There is great uncertainty around the
development perspectives of the Bradwell Project, mainly related to the
political opposition to a Chinese company leading a critical UK
infrastructure project and from the lack of local stakeholder support.
““The risks of not being in a position to carry out the Bradwell project
are high and have increased in 2021.”

The government is also exploring
options for squeezing China out of the plans to build the Sizewell C plant
in Suffolk.

 Telegraph 13th May 2022

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/13/energy-bills-rise-pay-nuclear-plants-says-kwarteng/

May 16, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Regulated Asset Base system will transfer nuclear’s financial risks to the UK public, rather than the nuclear companies

Some energy experts, however, are sceptical that the promised tidal wave of investment will ever materialise

Cran-McGreehin says one danger of the RABmodel is that it transfers risk to bill-payers rather than the companies building the station.

City institutions have been taking a keen interest in the Tideway’s
progress. Investors are intrigued by the novel way the £4.2 billion
project was financed. The method has been seized on by the government to
kick-start a £100 billion-plus splurge on new nuclear power stations, a
move that could create a giant new market in infrastructure investment.

The not-so-magic ingredient is asking customers to pay more up front and to
guarantee payments in the future. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary,
said the plan would have a “small effect” on bills but did not say by
how much they would go up. Industry experts think each large new station
— and the plan envisages as many as eight — would add between £6-£10
to the average household bill.

The buffer of cash raised from customers can
be used to hammer out problems with power plant designs, and can be eaten
into if construction proves troublesome. The project company is also
allowed to continue to charge customers once the station is working, with
the amount based on the value of the project. The whole arrangement is
monitored by an independent regulator, hence its name: regulated asset base
(RAB) financing.

As a condition of the licence, investors in the project
company are on the hook for a pre-agreed level of cost overruns. The
Department for Business claims the reduction in interest payments could
save consumers £30 billion over the life of a new power station. “In
essence it is reducing the cost of capital by cutting back the construction
risk to investors,” Richard Goodfellow, head of infrastructure, projects
and energy at the City law firm Addleshaw Goddard, said.

Some energy experts, however, are sceptical that the promised tidal wave of investment
will ever materialise. “There is no cheap or easy way to do new
nuclear,” Simon Cran-McGreehin, head of analysis at the Energy and
Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said. “I fear the government’s big
ambitions will prove a distraction that won’t ultimately lead to much.”

Since Johnson threw his weight behind the RAB route, the government has
quickly put in place some necessary stepping stones. Four days after the
nuclear summit at Downing Street, the Department for Business quietly
published the criteria that projects would have to meet. Ministers are
hoping that big British pension funds will buy the bonds and have helped to
clear the way with reforms to the EU’s Solvency II regime, which at
present limits the type of investments that insurers can hold. Goddard sees
groups with a record of investing in infrastructure projects — Canadian
pension funds, for example — as the biggest players. “I would expect
the bulk of the investment — perhaps two-thirds — to come from the big
global infrastructure funds that are already big investors in UK assets,”
he said. “There are some investors who will be put off — either because
of the size of the projects, the timescales, or just because it is
nuclear.”

After Sizewell, the pipeline of projects is unclear. Ministers
are keen to push ahead with the on-again, off-again scheme for a new
station at Wylfa on Anglesey. Hitachi, the Japanese industrial group, was
to have built two new reactors there, but the project has now been taken up
by the US engineering giant Bechtel. Senior sources at EDF say it is also
casting a covetous eye over Wylfa as the possible site for another Hinkley
Point design. There have also been discussions on a new plant at Moorside,
close to the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria.

RAB financing could also
be adopted for a new type of small reactor. Rolls-Royce, which builds the
power plants for nuclear submarines, has submitted a design to Britain’s
nuclear regulators, while two US providers, Last Energy and TerraPower, are
also weighing options in the UK.

Cran-McGreehin says one danger of the RABmodel is that it transfers risk to bill-payers rather than the companies building the station. His bigger query, however, is whether there is too
much concentration on nuclear. “Governments do from time to time get very excited about nuclear, then cool off,” he said. “I am not convinced allthis will actually come to pass, and in the meantime it risks taking thefocus away from investment in renewable energy.” 

Times 14th May 2022 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-nuclear-push-could-be-sweet-music-for-city-7gj7s5s38

May 16, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Kwasi Kwarteng: Nuclear push may increase energy bills, minister admits.

Kwasi Kwarteng: Nuclear push may increase energy bills, minister admits.
THE TORY Energy Secretary has admitted the Government’s nuclear plans may
increase household energy bills. Kwasi Kwarteng conceded the Tory push for
new nuclear power plants could see energy bills go up despite the
Government’s failure to introduce immediate measures to tackle the cost
of living crisis.

 The National 13th May 2022

https://www.thenational.scot/news/20137389.kwasi-kwarteng-nuclear-push-may-increase-energy-bills-minister-admits/

May 16, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, UK | Leave a comment

Energy saving and renewables to create many more jobs than nuclear could.

Dave Elliott: Renewable energy has the potential to create twice as many
jobs as nuclear, and three times as many jobs per million pounds invested
compared to gas or coal power, while investment in energy efficiency can
create five times as many.

So says a new UK Energy Research Centre study of
Green Job Creation, based on a new review of the literature. It’s an
update to their earlier 2014 low carbon energy & employment study. That was
a bit more cautious about making final pronouncements, since, it said, it
was difficult to assess net economy-wide impacts over time. For example,
though some sectors might benefit more than others, if there was full
employment, new investment was unlikely to create extra jobs net of any
losses. A bit sniffily it said ‘the proper domain for the debate about
the long-term role of renewable energy and energy efficiency is the wider
framework of energy and environmental policy, not a narrow analysis of
green job impacts.’

In reality, we can’t just chase for the optimal
number of green jobs. The choice of technology will be made mostly on the
basis of a range of other issues- although, as UKERC says, job quality is
also important if we want to move to a socially and environmentally
sustainable future, a point I have developed in a recent study. We need
good, sustainable jobs as part of a global ‘just transition’.

 Renew Extra 14th May 2022

https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2022/05/renewables-energy-saving-create-most.html

May 16, 2022 Posted by | employment, renewable | Leave a comment

The dangerous business of dismantling America’s aging nuclear plants

The NRC has given Holtec permission to pare back safety and security requirements at its plants, including security personnel, cybersecurity, emergency planning, terrorist attack drills and accident insurance, according to documents on the agency’s website.

“The NRC has not figured out a permanent solution” to nuclear waste………. “They are using Holtec as a Band-Aid.”

  Accidents at New Jersey’s Oyster Creek power plant have spurred calls for stricter oversight of the burgeoning nuclear decommissioning industry  Washington Post, By Douglas MacMillan  PORKED RIVER, N.J. — The new owner took over the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in 2019, promising to dismantle one of the nation’s oldest nuclear plants at minimal cost and in record time. Then came a series of worrisome accidents.

The new owner took over the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in 2019, promising to dismantle one of the nation’s oldest nuclear plants at minimal cost and in record time. Then came a series of worrisome accidents.

One worker was struck by a 100-ton metal reactor dome. Another was splashed with radioactive water, according to internal incident reports and regulatory inspection reports reviewed by The Washington Post. Another worker drove an excavator into an electrical wire on his first day on the job, knocking out power to 31,000 homes and businesses on the New Jersey coast, according to a police report and the local power company.

All three incidents occurred on the watch of Holtec International, a nuclear equipment manufacturer based in Jupiter, Fla. Though the company until recently had little experience shutting down nuclear plants, Holtec has emerged as a leader in nuclear cleanup, a burgeoning field riding an expected wave of closures as licenses expire for the nation’s aging nuclear fleet.

Over the past three years, Holtec has purchased three plants in three states and expects to finalize a fourth this summer.  The company is seeking to profitably dismantle them by replacing hundreds of veteran plant workers with smaller, less-costly crews of contractors and eliminating emergency planning measures, documents and interviews show. While no one has been seriously injured at Oyster Creek, the missteps are spurring calls for stronger government oversight of the entire cleanup industry.

In the nearly three years Holtec has owned Oyster Creek, regulators have documented at least nine violations of federal rules, including the contaminated water mishap, falsified weapons inspection reports and other unspecified security lapses. That’s at least as many as were found over the preceding 10 years at the plant, when it was owned by Exelon, one of the nation’s largest utility companies, according to The Post’s review of regulatory records.,…………………

Holtec is pioneering an experimental new business model. During the lifetime of America’s 133 nuclear reactors, ratepayers paid small fees on their monthly energy bills to fill decommissioning trust funds, intended to cover the eventual cost of deconstructing the plants. Trust funds for the country’s 94 operating and 14 nonoperating nuclear reactors now total about $86 billion, according to Callan, a San Francisco-based investment consulting firm.

After a reactor is dismantled and its site cleared, some of these trust funds must return any money left over to ratepayers. But others permit cleanup companies to keep any surplus as profit — creating incentives to cut costs at sites that house some of the most dangerous materials on the planet.

Even after reactors are shut down, long metal rods containing radioactive pellets — known as spent fuel — are stored steps away, in cooling pools and steel-and-concrete casks. Nuclear safety experts say that an industrial accident or a terrorist attack at any of these sites could result in a radiological release with severe impacts to workers and nearby residents, as well as to the environment.

(Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the independent federal agency tasked with overseeing safety at nuclear sites, conducts regular inspections during the decommissioning process. But state and local officials say the NRC has failed to safeguard the public from risks at shut-down plants, deferring too readily to companies like Holtec.

“The NRC is not doing their job,” said Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who has pushed the agency to adopt stricter regulations around plant decommissioning. “We need a guaranteed system that prioritizes communities and safety, and we don’t have that right now.”

The NRC’s leadership is divided over the role regulators should play. The agency was created in 1974, as the first generation of commercial reactors was going online, and its rules were mainly designed to safeguard the operation of active plants and nuclear-material sites. As reactors shut down, the NRC began reducing inspections and exempting plants from safety and security rules.

Last November, the NRC approved a new rule that would automatically qualify shut-down plants for looser safety and security restrictions.

Continue reading →

May 14, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, decommission reactor, USA | Leave a comment

COST OVERRUNS AT GEORGIA NUCLEAR REACTORS OFFER CAUTIONARY TALE 

STATEMENT: COST OVERRUNS AT GEORGIA NUCLEAR REACTORS OFFER CAUTIONARY TALE   https://uspirg.org/news/usf/statement-cost-overruns-georgia-nuclear-reactors-offer-cautionary-tale

Ratepayer funds would be better spent advancing efficiency, renewable energy

For immediate release

WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2022  ATLANTA – THE ONLY NUCLEAR REACTORS UNDER CONSTRUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES ARE NOW PROJECTED TO COST MORE THAN $30 BILLION — AND THE PRICE TAG FOR PLANT VOGTLE NEAR AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, DOESN’T EVEN INCLUDE $3.68 BILLION THAT THE PROJECT’S ORIGINAL CONTRACTOR PAID TO THE OWNERS AFTER GOING BANKRUPT.

The $34 billion total is $20 billion more than the original cost estimate of $14 billion. The two reactors under construction are now more than five years behind schedule. Contractor delays, rework projects, the inability to complete tasks on time and the bankruptcy of reactor designer Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC have more than doubled the project’s costs.

Customers of Georgia Power, which owns 46% of the project, are already paying a fee that not only covers a portion of Vogtle’s financing costs, but also feeds the utility company’s profits on the project. The average residential Georgia Power customer will have paid more than $850 in such fees before the project ever delivers power to customers.

In response to the Plant Vogtle debacle, experts from Environment Georgia Research & Policy Center, U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Environment America Research & Policy Center released the following statements:

Environment Georgia Research & Policy Center’s State Director Jennette Gayer said:

“This exercise in futility is playing out and costing our neighbors big bucks while Georgia doesn’t even need nuclear power. Georgia has been the seventh-fastest growing state for solar power  since 2011. Imagine where we would be now if we’d spent the $30 billion we’ve poured into Plant Vogtle into saving energy and getting more of it from truly clean sources. Even a decade ago, it was clear that nuclear power was too slow and too expensive to be our best response to the climate crisis, and that’s even more true today. “

U.S.PIRG Education Fund’s Consumer Watchdog Teresa Murray said:

“The cost overruns and delays at Plant Vogtle should be a cautionary tale to the rest of the country when it comes to building new nuclear reactors. If a project at my house cost more than double the budget and was a half-decade behind schedule, I’d never want to go through that again. Georgia ratepayers have already dished out hundreds of dollars for this misguided project, and electrons aren’t even flowing. Evidence shows that there are cheaper, cleaner and safer ways to keep the lights on than building new nuclear plants.”  

Environment America Research & Policy Center’s Senior Director of the Campaign for 100% Renewable Energy Johanna Neumann said:

“Harnessing America’s renewable energy sources is more efficient and affordable than ever. Investing in energy efficiency remains the cheapest and fastest way to meet our energy needs, and America has vast untapped solar and wind potential. It’s time to stop throwing good money after bad. Regulators and policy makers should put in place goals and drive action toward powering our future with 100% renewable energy.” 

May 12, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Talen Energy subsidiary files for bankruptcy, company still plans nuclear data center, Company says

Cumulus nuclear data center project unaffected by ‘restructuring’ May 11, 2022 By Dan Swinhoe

Talen Energy, which is developing a data center campus at one of its nuclear power stations, has seen one of its subsidiaries file for bankruptcy.

This week Talen Energy Supply (TES), a unit of Talen Energy Corp (TEC) that holds several of its power plants, filed for Chapter 11 protection………………..

The company is aiming to reduce its $4.5 billion debt pile and bring in $1.65 billion in new equity from bondholders. TES has secured $1.76 billion of debtor-in-possession financing (the “DIP Facilities”) led by Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and RBC Capital Markets. The DIP Facilities are comprised of a $1 billion term loan, a $300 million revolving credit facility, and a $458 million letter of credit facility. The $1 billion term loan is being provided by an investor group of leading financial institutions.

The company said the process would “advance carbon-free data center growth initiatives, and maximize value to stakeholders.”  https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/talen-energy-subsidiary-files-for-bankruptcy-company-still-plans-nuclear-data-center/

May 12, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, ENERGY, USA | Leave a comment

Westinghouse Electric’s parent company wants to put the nuclear company on the market

ANYA LITVAK, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1 May 22,

Brookfield Business Partners is looking to sell all of its interest in Cranberry-based nuclear icon Westinghouse Electric Company, four years after buying it out of bankruptcy.

The reason? Westinghouse has been so profitable, Brookfield has accomplished everything it wanted to, company executives told analysts last week. It’s time to move on, they said.

Brookfield Business Partners, an arm of the Canadian firm Brookfield Asset Management, owns a 44% interest in Westinghouse. The remaining 56% is owned by private equity funds that are managed by Brookfield.

If Westinghouse is such a profit machine, why not keep it and grow it in-house? That’s what one analyst wondered.

……………………..   Brookfield now wants to sell its entire interest in Westinghouse.

…………… “Today, Westinghouse is the only alternative to the Russian companies to supply fuel to Russian reactors outside of Russia,”  Westinghouse’s CEO Patrick Fragman   said. “And we are already in intense discussions to provide fuel to several operators of those Russian reactors in Eastern Europe, including in the EU.”

……………….  Mr. Fragman also talked up the company’s eVinci microreactor, which he dubbed a “nuclear battery.”

……………………………….  https://www.post-gazette.com/business/powersource/2022/05/10/westinghouse-for-sale-brookfield-energy-nuclear-sale-russia-ukraine-europe-evinci-microreactor-temelin-climate/stories/202205100052

May 12, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

French nuclear output down 20.2% in April

French nuclear output down 20.2% in April, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/french-nuclear-output-down-202-april-2022-05-11/PARIS, May 11 (Reuters)  Reporting by Gus Trompiz, editing by Sybille de La Hamaide and Jane Merriman  – Nuclear power generation at EDF’s (EDF.PA) French reactors in April fell by 20.2% year on year to 21.7 terawatt hours (TWh), the energy company said on Wednesday.

Total nuclear generation in France since the start of the year was 113.4 TWh, down 10.3% compared with 126.4 TWh for January-April 2021, EDF said on its website, citing reduced availability of the nuclear fleet that was mainly due to the discovery of stress corrosion at some sites

In Britain, EDF said its nuclear production last month rose 11.8% compared with April 2021 to 3.8 TWh, while cumulative output since the start of 2022 was up 9.4% versus the same period last year at 15.2 TWh.

May 12, 2022 Posted by | business and costs, France | Leave a comment

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