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FirstEnergy files for bankruptcy for its uneconomic coal and nuclear subsidiaries

FirstEnergy Seeks Bankruptcy Protection for Ailing Coal and Nuclear Subsidiaries, The move follows FirstEnergy’s request for a federal bailout.  Greentech Media, JEFF ST. JOHN APRIL 02, 2018 

Utility FirstEnergy has taken the long-threatened step of filing for bankruptcy protection for its competitive power generation subsidiaries. It’s the latest development for a coal and nuclear power fleet that has become a focus of the Trump administration’s efforts to shift energy policies to favor fossil-fired electricity.

Saturday’s filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio seeks Chapter 11 protection for FirstEnergy Solutions (FES), as well as for subsidiaries FirstEnergy Generation and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company. The companies, which operate power plants in the Midwest and mid-Atlantic, hold about $3.8 billion in collective debt, as compared to 2017 revenues of $3.1 billion.

FirstEnergy’s fleet has been losing money for years, unable to compete against cheap natural-gas-fired power, as well as a rising share of low-cost renewable energy. The company warned of possible bankruptcy in its nuclear business in early 2017, and in February of this year, CEO Chuck Jones warned that its power plant subsidiary faced insolvency as early as the next month.

………FirstEnergy’s woes have also become the focus of a concerted effort by Trump administration officials to rewrite federal energy regulations in ways that would provide extra payments to its struggling power plants, largely at the cost of increased energy prices and reduced competitiveness for renewables.

That includes Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s Federal notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) which sought out-of-market payments for power plants with 90 days of fuel supply — something only coal and nuclear power plants have — on the grounds that the grid could fail without them.

The NOPR, which was denied by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in January, appears to have been influenced by Perry’s association with coal company CEO and owner Robert Murray, an outspoken financial supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Murray Energy, which counts FirstEnergy as its largest customer, has long argued that the coal industry deserves regulatory relief from market forces, environmental laws and other constraints. Last year, the company sought federal emergency relief for its own operations, claiming that it faced bankruptcy if FirstEnergy’s plants closed. While the request was denied, Perry’s NOPR was seen by some industry-watchers as a backdoor attempt to fulfill the company’s request for financial relief for its biggest customer.

On Friday, FirstEnergy followed Murray Energy in asking DOE to provide financial relief to its power plants under its rarely-used authority under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to intervene in energy markets and respond to power grid reliability emergencies. The petition was widely criticized by energy industry groups, consumer and environmental advocates, and competitors such as NRG Energy, as a last-ditch attempt to save the company from insolvency.

FirstEnergy also warned the FERC last week that it plans to close three nuclear power plants in the next three years. FirstEnergy will retain a handful of competitive generators under its bankruptcy plan, but expects to close or sell most in the next 18 months. …….https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/firstenergy-seeks-bankruptcy-protection-coal-and-nuclear-subsidiaries#gs.NfAEvIw

April 4, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

USA showdowns over nuclear costs and taxpayer bailouts

Minnesota Is the Latest Frontier in a Showdown Over Nuclear Costs, Xcel Energy seeks upfront approval for nuclear repairs and maintenance. Greentech Media,  EMMA FOEHRINGER MERCHANT APRIL 02, 2018 

Bills working through both chambers of the Minnesota legislature would grant the state’s largest utility, Xcel Energy, approval for nuclear facility cost recovery before the money is spent. Currently, the utility commission uses rate cases to analyze returns after the utility shells out.

Last week, the Senate version passed out of committee.

The divisions the bills have created within the state — with the utility commission, some lawmakers, clean energy advocates and the executive branch on one side, and Xcel and other members of the legislature on the other — echo wider debates about large nuclear power plants in the U.S., and who should pay for them.

South Carolina is still negotiating the fallout from the cancellation of two new reactors at its VC Summer Plant. Ratepayers there have already paid billions of dollars for a project that will never be completed. In March, Georgia regulators approved a merger of Scana Corporation and Dominion Energy, which may provide some relief for ratepayers. But the deal still needs federal approval as well as the OK of South Carolina regulators and Scana shareholders. Lawmakers in the state are also still mulling how much more ratepayers should pay for the failed project.

Meanwhile, progress at the controversial Vogtle Nuclear Plant in Georgia continues trudging along.

…….Another nuclear battle is playing out in New York, with competitive power producers such as NRG Energy and Dynegy challenging the state’s use of zero energy credits, footed by ratepayers, for nuclear power plants. The plaintiffs say the credit’s use interrupts competition. Lower courts have ruled in favor of the state in both New York and in a similar case in Illinois.While varied in their policy implications, all of these state cases have spurred debates about whether large-scale nuclear — which has proven itself to be very costly — should receive monetary support or subsidies, and in what form. In the first days of 2018 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission killed a proposal from Energy Secretary Rick Perry to buoy nuclear (and coal) power plants. Another resilience proceeding is now underway at FERC to assess what benefit, if any, these plants should receive.

A bankruptcy declaration from FirstEnergy days after the company requested a bailout for its coal and nuclear plants from the Department of Energy indicates the economics are not getting better for these plants.

While the New York and Illinois cases wend their way through the courts and FERC considers its next move, the debate over nuclear support in Minnesota may end more quickly: at Governor Mark Dayton’s desk. He has said he won’t sign the bill because it undermines the authority of the PUC.

“These end runs to the legislature to try to give special interests what they want violates the whole purpose of the Public Utilities Commission,” the governor said. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/minnesota-emerges-as-latest-frontier-in-showdown-over-nuclear-costs#gs.GR2S2DU

April 4, 2018 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Citizens of the St. Louis suburbs concerned over toxic landfill leak

Toxic Townships: Landfill Leak Raises Concerns, http://unewsonline.com/2018/03/28/toxic-townships-landfill-leak-raises-concerns/ Riley Mack, Staff Writer, 28 Mar 18,  The world’s oldest nuclear weapons’ waste could be in the air, the soil or even within homes. What seemed like a wonderful place to raise children has turned into a nightmare for the citizens of the St. Louis suburbs. These families are living just miles from the West Lake Landfill, which was given the Superfund status in the 90s: A title received only by the most contaminated areas in the country. With little help from the government, residents are dying due to rare cancers that come from exposure to what appears to be toxic elements. Their homes were unknowingly a part of the birth of the atomic age. It all began in 1942, when St. Louis was selected as a center for holding uranium in order to assemble the first atomic bomb.

Following recent media attention toward groups like Just Moms STL, a documentary called “Atomic Homefront” that was released in 2017, publicized the issue and ultimately gained attention for the community by showcasing personal stories. One community member within the documentary named Anna Vasilenok states in a public meeting that she moved from Chernobyl in order to relieve her family of this type of tragedy, then went on to tearfully recall all the family members she lost from cancer due to the nuclear disaster. She asked the government officials within the meeting “Do you want that for your children? Who will pay for all the expenses of cancer?”

 Staring into the sympathizing audience surrounding her, Vasilenok said “the government has to be held responsible,” and that the government officials they had elected only had interests in their own money. The community “can’t be quiet anymore,” she vehemently declared.

Like Vasilenok, the Just Moms STL group speaks volumes for this issue and surpasses their namesake with their important mission. The early days of this society was a Facebook page where worried community members posted their grievances and advice on the situation. When the conditions of the environment escalated, so did the responsibilities of the group. Dawn Chapman, a forthright activist and co-founder of the group states that cleaning up the St. Louis area is their task bebeen a pivotal role in the intervention of media (and therefore, policymakers) to create real change for their community. They even extended their activism to marching in Washington when Gina McCarthy, a former administrator for the EPA, wouldn’t answer their emails.

Unfortunately, the Just Moms STL organization’s suspicions were correct. In August 2015, soil was found to be contaminated with Thorium 230 at St. Cin Park, a popular playground for children and high schoolers in the Hazelwood area. 

The community arranged an emergency meeting with local officials, where they learned that the parks are still open for families and children to visit; enraged, community members stepped forward to challenge these representatives. One man announces that “the original point where [the waste] had come from took [his] father” and now, “this park has taken [his] son” — all of this taking place in the parks where the gates are still wide open.

Hazelwood Parks City Manager Matthew Zimmerman disconcertedly stated back to the distraught families, “If we didn’t have parks there, then where would the children go?” As of January 2018, it has been declared that all companies liable for the dumping owe an expected cost of $236 million, which is a large increase from the project fund of $24.5 million in previous years. Although not enough to form a buy-out option for those who need the funds to move out of their contaminated homes, it is physical and monetary action that is heavily needed for these residents. It will partially excavate tons of radioactive waste from the Republic Landfill in St. Louis over the next five years.

Ironically, a large sign posted in front of Republic Landfill’s site brightly states that “Customer satisfaction is the key to our success!” Whether this is the satisfaction of the community members, or of their own greedy agenda is up to the lawmakers to decide.

April 4, 2018 Posted by | environment, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear lobby no longer touts Peaceful Nuclear Power – now it’s Essential for Nuclear Weapons

Should Nuclear Energy Be a U.S. National Security Concern? Inside Sources  March 29, 2018 by Erin Mundahl    Sixty years ago, nuclear power was the energy of the future, promising a nearly limitless supply of clean, cheaper power. That future has yet to arrive. In fact, today, utilities are increasingly transitioning out of nuclear generation, shuttering aging reactors and shelving plans to reinvest in new technology. This is more than just a shift from one fuel to another, says David Gattie, an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Georgia. The decline in interest in nuclear energy has significant impacts on America’s national security.

“Nuclear energy is a unique resource because of its unmatched energy density and dual-purpose utility for electric power generation and nuclear weaponry,” Gattie writes in a recently published paper………. Although American scientists began the atomic age, more recently, research and development in nuclear technology, including civilian nuclear, has decreased to a level that threatens American primacy and, by extension, national security….

The U.S. is running the risk of falling behind the rest of the world in terms of nuclear technology, rather than maintaining its position of global leader.

To combat this trend, Gattie advocates specific legislative action to provide fixed support for nuclear research and development. For the purposes of longevity, this would optimally be a legislative, rather than executive action. This space to resurrect research in technologies like molten salt and breeder reactors would signal that the U.S. is committed to the future of nuclear energy. http://www.insidesources.com/nuclear-energy-should-be-a-us-national-security-concern/

April 2, 2018 Posted by | spinbuster, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Isle de Jean Charles – America’s first climate refugees to evacuate

America’s first climate change refugees are preparing to leave an island that will disappear under the sea in the next few years, Business Insider David Usborne, The Independent, 1 April 18 

  • In March, Louisiana state officials announced that everyone living on Isle de Jean Charles will have to leave.
  • Where there were 22,000 acres in 1955 there are only 320 acres today.
  • They are one hurricane away from obliteration.
  • The evacuation is a test-run for countless coastal communities in Louisiana, who must all move as the seas take over the land.
  • ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES, Louisiana — America comes to an end here. Connected to the marshes and moss-laced bayous of southern Louisiana by two miles of narrow causeway, waters lapping high on each side, Isle de Jean Charles takes you as far into the Gulf of Mexico as you can go without falling in. But the dolour in the salt air is not just about loneliness and separation. It’s about impending demise.

    Don’t call it a death sentence – the intention is the opposite – but state officials in late March made the announcement that had been a long time coming. Some on the island, nearly all members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indian tribe, met it with relief; others with hostility.

    Marking the kick-off of what will be the first climate resettlement of its kind in the entire United States, land had been chosen an hour’s drive to the north for a whole new town to be thrown up. No one will force them exactly, but the intention is clear: to evacuate those still living on the island to the new site, where at present nothing but sugar cane stands, before it is too late.

    When that will be depends on whom you ask. But no one disputes that the island is sinking, thanks to a combination of subsidence and rising sea levels.

    …… The vanishing of Isle de Jean Charles into the waves of the gulf might take another decade or even five. On the other hand, one more big storm could finally end its viability for human occupation for good, flooding homes beyond repair or cutting through the connecting road.

  • …….“It’s really a test run,” Mr Forbes,  executive director of the Louisiana Office of Community Development,concedes in an interview from his Baton Rouge office. While Americans may have been displaced by environmental change before, notably in Alaska, no single community has been relocated lock, stock and barrel like this. “We are trying to keep the community intact and ensure that it’s economically and socially vibrant and viable. To our knowledge, it’s unique. There are places around the world who are looking at a similar type of thing but nobody in the US has done this.”Which makes residents on Isle de Jean Charles canaries in the mineshaft……..http://www.businessinsider.com/isle-de-jean-charles-climate-change-refugees-2018-4/?r=AU&IR=T

April 2, 2018 Posted by | climate change, USA | Leave a comment

USA still has an awful lot of nuclear weapons – Enough Firepower to Kill Billions

The U.S. Military Has 3,822 Nuclear Weapons. (Enough Firepower to Kill Billions), http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-military-has-3822-nuclear-weapons-enough-firepower-25142  Michael Peck, 31 Mar 18, 

In a more peaceful universe, the fact that the United States possesses almost 4,000 weapons that can destroy entire cities would be horrifying.

But in our universe, it is actually an encouraging sign of how much America’s nuclear arsenal has declined since the Cold War.

 As of 2017, the U.S. had 3,822 nuclear weapons, according to data just declassified by the Department of Energy. That’s down from 4,018 in 2016. That number does not include weapons that have been retired but have yet to be dismantled by the Department of Energy.

The figures show just how deep America’s nuclear arsenal has been cut since the height of the Cold War. In 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States had 25,540 nuclear weapons. That number grew to a peak of 31,255 nuclear weapons in 1967.

From 1967 on, that number gradually declines. In the 1970s, the stockpile ranged from 24,000 to 28,000 weapons. In the 1980s, it hovered around 23,000.

It wasn’t until the fall of the Soviet Union that the nuclear arsenal noticeably shrank. From 19,008 weapons in 1991, the number dropped to 13,708 in 1992 and 10,685 by 1999.

The Federation of American Scientists put the total number of U.S. nuclear weapons as of January 2017 at about 6,800, of which about 4,000 are active. The active stockpile included 1,367 deployed strategic warheads, 2,471 nondeployed warheads and around 200 deployed tactical warheads.

The Department of Energy also reported dismantling 10,972 nuclear weapons from 1994 to 2017, with the largest numbers occurring in the 1990s. From 648 weapons dismantled in 2008, the number plummeted to 109 in 2015, before rising to 354 in 2017.

As a footnote, there are an estimated 14,200 nuclear weapons in the world, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Russia has the largest number at 6,600 active and retired warheads, just slightly larger than the American total. The rest of the world (France, China, Britain, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea) have a little over a thousand.

As Winston Churchill said, “If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

Michael Peck is a contributing writer for the National Interest. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

April 2, 2018 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

USA Commerce Department sanctioned seven Pakistani companies – alleges links to nuclear trade

Axios 29th March 2018,  The Commerce Department this week sanctioned seven Pakistani companies for
alleged links to nuclear trade. Their place on an “Entity List”
requires them to obtain special licenses to do business with the U.S. This
move follows other U.S. penalties against Pakistan, including a successful
push to put Pakistan on a “gray list” of countries not doing enough to
stem terrorist financing and a freeze on all U.S. security assistance to
Pakistan.

But Commerce’s action should not be seen as part of the
existing campaign to pressure Pakistan to crack down harder on terrorists.
Why it matters: Commerce’s move does underscore Washington’s concerns
about Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation record — even as nuclear
watchdog groups cite improvements in Pakistan’s nuclear security.
https://www.axios.com/nuclear-security-worries-drive-latest-us-penalties-on-pakistan-1522259525-d5bea2f2-a2aa-47e6-a5e8-b376e8e3853a.html

April 2, 2018 Posted by | Pakistan, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Vogtle nuclear reactors, years overdue, $billions overbudget – who pays?

Savannah Now 30th March 2018, The first of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro was
supposed to open two years ago today, with the second following last year.
Instead, what’s now the nation’s only new nuclear project grinds on,
five years behind schedule and billions of dollars overbudget.

Construction continues at a pace of $91 million a month, with ratepayers largely on the
hook for those costs. But the issue of who pays for Vogtle isn’t yet a
done deal, with legal challenges pending, including one challenge brought
to court by a former Georgia governor. And ethics watchdogs are examining
the regulators, finding what they say are cozy relationships with the
utility and slack record keeping.
http://www.savannahnow.com/news/20180330/as-plant-vogtle-build-continues-so-do-appeals-to-stop-it

April 2, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

USA”s Environment Protection Agency shows its employees how to downgrade climate change

Leaked Memo: EPA Shows Workers How To Downplay Climate Change

Point 5: Suggest that humans are only responsible “in some manner.”, HuffPost, By Alexander C. Kaufman , 30 Mar 18The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday evening sent employees a list of eight approved talking points on climate change from its Office of Public Affairs ― guidelines that promote a message of uncertainty about climate science and gloss over proposed cuts to key adaptation programs.

 An internal email obtained by HuffPost ― forwarded to employees by Joel Scheraga, a career staffer who served under President Barack Obama ― directs communications directors and regional office public affairs directors to note that the EPA “promotes science that helps inform states, municipalities and tribes on how to plan for and respond to extreme events and environmental emergencies” and “works with state, local, and tribal government to improve infrastructure to protect against the consequences of climate change and natural disasters.”
 But beyond those benign statements acknowledging the threats climate change poses are talking points boiled down from the sort of climate misinformation EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has long trumpeted.
 “Human activity impacts our changing climate in some manner,” one point reads. “The ability to measure with precision the degree and extent of that impact, and what to do about it, are subject to continuing debate and dialogue.”
 The other states: “While there has been extensive research and a host of published reports on climate change, clear gaps remain including our understanding of the role of human activity and what we can do about it.”

The email was sent under the subject line: “Consistent Messages on Climate Adaptation.” ………

The delivery of the talking points comes a week after Pruitt announced plans to restrict the agency’s use of science in writing environmental rules, barring the use of research unless the raw data can be made public for other scientists and industry to scrutinize. That directive would disqualify huge amounts of public health research conducted on the condition that subjects’ personal information will remain private. Two former top EPA officials called the move an “attack on science” in a New York Times op-ed published Monday.

Last year, the EPA reassigned the four staffers in the policy office who worked on climate adaptation, shuttered its program on climate adaptation and proposed eliminating funding for programs that deal with rising seas and warming temperatures.

Pruitt personally oversaw efforts to scrub climate change from EPA websites, and staunchly defended President Donald Trump’s decision last June to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord. In October, Pruitt proposed repealing the Clean Power Plan, one of the only major federal policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The agency had also suggested zeroing out funding for most of its major climate and regional science grant programs, only to see Congress reject most of the cuts in the budget bill passed last week.

The assertions made in the new EPA talking points are not rooted in science. Ninety-seven percent of peer-reviewed research agrees with the conclusion that emissions from burning fossil fuels, deforestation and industrial farming are enshrouding the planet in heat-trapping gases, and are the primary causes of rising planetary temperatures. A research review published in November 2016 found significant flaws in the methodologies, assumptions or analyses used by the 3 percent of scientists who concluded otherwise.

But for the past three decades, a Big Tobacco-style misinformation campaign funded primarily by oil, gas and coal interests has fueled political debate over the integrity of the scientific consensus……..https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/epa-climate-adaptation_us_5abbb5e3e4b04a59a31387d7

March 31, 2018 Posted by | climate change, environment, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Another nuclear power station to bite the dust- Davis-Besse

Davis-Besse nuclear power plant to shut down permanently in 2020, The Blade, ByTom Henry | BLADE STAFF WRITER 

FirstEnergy Solutions, a subsidiary the corporation founded to manage anticipated bankruptcy filings for its economically failing nuclear and coal divisions, has confirmed in a news release distributed Wednesday that Davis-Besse will be shut down permanently in 2020 and that FirstEnergy’s other nuclear stations will be shut down permanently in 2021 if there are no buyers or remedies found by their respective dates.

The timetable for each permanent closure is determined by refueling schedules.

Commercial-scale nuclear reactors must be refueled every 18 months to two years, depending on the isotope of uranium in their fuel. Davis-Besse emerged this week from what a senior FirstEnergy executive previously described as its last refueling outage.

FirstEnergy Solutions has a Monday deadline looming for a $100 million debt-principal payment.With combined debt estimated at $3.5 billion and losses mounting daily on the competitive side of its business because of the budget drains from its nuclear and coal-fired plants, the utility has turned to a combination of hedge funds managed by four high-powered private investor groups to help move it forward with a regulated growth strategy……..http://www.toledoblade.com/Energy/2018/03/29/Davis-Besse-nuclear-power-plant-to-shut-down-permanently-in-2020.html

March 31, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, USA | Leave a comment

Plan to revive Texas Consolidated Nuclear Waste Storage Facility

Texas Consolidated Nuclear Waste Storage Facility to Be Revived http://www.powermag.com/texas-consolidated-nuclear-waste-storage-facility-to-be-revived/03/29/2018 | Sonal Patel 

Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and Orano USA intend to revive licensing of a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in Andrews County, Texas, where spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from reactors across the country can be stored until a permanent repository is developed.

The companies said on March 13, 2018, they intend to form a joint venture that will ask the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to resume its review of the CISF license application, which WCS originally submitted in April 2016. In that application, WCS requested NRC authorization to store up to 5,000 metric tons of uranium for a period of 40 years at its Texas Compact Waste facility.

In April 2017, however, the company requested that the NRC temporarily suspend all safety and environmental review activities as well as public participation activities associated with the license application. The company cited “a magnitude of financial burdens” that made pursuit of licensing unsupportable.

One issue was that the NRC’s estimate of the cost of the application review—$7.5 million—was “significantly higher” than WCS originally estimated. Costs associated with a public participation process and a potential adjudicatory hearing were also estimated to be “considerable.” WCS also said a cost-sharing agreement it had in place with one of its partners was “depleted” and it could not be “extended.” At the same time, WCS has faced significant operating losses in each of its operating years, and the cost of actively pursuing the project only serves to increase those losses, it said.

WCS said on its website in March that a joint venture with Orano USA—formerly AREVA Nuclear Materials—would leverage the French company’s decades of expertise in used fuel packaging, storage, and transportation. Scott State, CEO of WCS, noted that WCS’s proposed solution was an “industry-driven near-term solution” that will use “proven storage technology and procedures to expand the capabilities and operations at the WCS site to include consolidated interim storage of commercial used nuclear fuel.” Sam Shakir, CEO of Orano USA, in a statement said the WCS-Orano USA joint venture “will provide safety, flexibility and value for used nuclear fuel titleholders and reduce U.S. taxpayer liabilities for ongoing storage, while plans for a permanent federal repository continue.”

WCS’s Texas Compact Waste Facility in western Andrews County has been operational since early 2012. Owned and licensed by the State of Texas, it is the only commercial facility in the U.S. licensed in the past 40 years to dispose of Class A, B, and C low-level radioactive waste. It primarily serves Texas and Vermont, which are member states of the Texas Compact Commission, but it is also available to 34 other U.S. states that have no access to a compact disposal facility. However, irradiated SNF discharged from commercial nuclear reactors is classified as high-level radioactive waste.

A Boost for Consolidated Interim Storage

As POWER reported, the nation lacks a long-term nuclear waste strategy, and nearly a third of the nation’s SNF is in dry storage in about 2,080 cask or canister systems at 75 reactor sites scattered across 33 states. U.S. SNF pools have reached capacity limits, forcing nuclear generators to load about 160 new dry storage canisters each year.

Nuclear generators currently recover costs for SNF storage and management by suing the Department of Energy (DOE), which, under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA), was contractually obligated to dispose of SNF by January 1998. The DOE, however, cannot fulfill its obligation because no permanent repository exists—or is even in sight. (For an in-depth look at the current state of nuclear waste management, see “A Break in the Nuclear Waste Impasse?” in POWER’s March 2018 issue.)

Beyond Yucca Mountain—the long-stonewalled Nevada repository identified by amendments to the NWPA in 1987—the law allows for only two other nuclear waste options: to build one or more interim storage facilities to temporarily consolidate SNF across the nation until a permanent repository is completed; or use federally monitored retrievable storage (MRS) facilities, in which the DOE could store nuclear waste from commercial nuclear plants pending permanent disposal or reprocessing.

While no MRS facilities have been proposed to date, only two private companies have filed NRC applications for an interim spent facility: WCS and Holtec, a Camden, New Jersey–based supplier of SNF management equipment.

Holtec Gains Recognition

Earlier this month, the NRC affirmed acceptance review of Holtec’s March 2017-submitted license application for its proposed CISF in Lea County, New Mexico, which it calls “HI-STORE CIS.” The NRC said it could issue a 40-year license by July 2020 or earlier for the CISF that could store up to 10,000 canisters in the below-ground storage system.

On March 26, Holtec International reported that its HI-STAR 100MB cask, which could serve to transport hundreds of multipurpose canisters in storage across the U.S. to its proposed HI-STORE CIS facility in New Mexico, won an international competition for deployment in China.

Holtec’s vice president of Business Development, Joy Russell, said in a statement on March 12 that Holtec’s HI-STAR transportation systems have been used for 12 years now. In 2006, the 1976-closed Humboldt Bay Power Plant south of Eureka, California, became the first plant to feature subterranean storage. Ameren’s Callaway plant deployed the first canister based on Holtec’s HI-STORM UMAX storage system, which it plans to use at the New Mexico CISF. In January 2018, a seismically hardened version of the HI-STORM UMAX canister was lowered into a fortified cavity at the San Onofre nuclear plant.

“The successful deployment of under-ground-storage technology and Holtec’s actions licensing the HI-STORE CIS facility are true demonstrations that consolidated interim storage is achievable,” Russell said.

—Sonal Patel is a POWER associate editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine)

March 28, 2018 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Subsidy for nuclear power stations as a national “emergency”?

FirstEnergy seeks emergency lifeline for U.S. nuclear, coal plants, Scott DiSavino, Valerie Volcovici, MARCH 30, 2018 ,   NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. power company FirstEnergy Corp (FE.N) urged the federal government on Thursday to evoke little-used emergency powers to help it keep several struggling nuclear and coal-fired power plants open, a move critics blasted as an attempt at a corporate bailout.

FirstEnergy’s FirstEnergy Solutions unit called on U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry to use the emergency powers to order PJM Interconnection, the regional power grid operator, to negotiate a contract that would compensate owners of coal and nuclear plants for the benefits such as reliability and jobs those units provide.

On Wednesday, the company said it would shut several nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania in the next three years without some kind of relief.

PJM, in response, rejected the need for an emergency order to help FirstEnergy. “Nothing we have seen suggests there is any kind of emergency from these units retiring,” said Vincent Duane, senior vice president at PJM, calling the problem “fundamentally a corporate issue.”……… https://www.reuters.com/article/us-firstenergy-nuclear-coal/firstenergy-seeks-emergency-lifeline-for-u-s-nuclear-coal-plants-idUSKBN1H52ET

March 28, 2018 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Will Trump’s new national security adviser John Bolton steer Trump in the direction of attacking North Korea?

John Bolton’s Radical Views on North Korea, The president’s new national-security adviser doesn’t seem to think the current strategy is likely to work.The Atlantic, Joshua Roberts / Reuters URI FRIEDMAN,  MAR 23, 2018,  The Trump administration’s plan for dealing with North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program currently consists of two main components: an international campaign of economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure against the Kim regime, plus direct nuclear talks this spring between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. The president’s new national-security adviser, John Bolton, doesn’t seem to believe that either of these approaches is likely to work.

Bolton is instead one of the most prominent proponents of a radical idea, which some hardline U.S. officials in Congress and the White House have refused to rule out but have not recommended with Bolton-like conviction: striking North Korea now, and risking the most destructive war in living memory, to prevent it from threatening the United States with nuclear weapons later.
……….. Once ensconced in his West Wing office, Bolton could surprise everyone and become a convert to a North Korea policy of pressure and engagement. But Bolton’s firm belief in the purifying power of regime change, his confidence in the efficacy of war and distrust of measures short of war, suggest he’s more likely to steer the Trump administration in an even more hardline direction. And that doesn’t just apply to North Korea. Bolton has asserted that Iran “is nearly as imminent” a threat because the Obama administration’s 2015 nuclear deal has given the Iranians access to money to purchase nuclear hardware from North Korea. What’s at stake in North Korea and Iran, he claims, is nothing less than whether nuclear weapons become “commonplace” throughout the world. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/john-bolton-north-korea/556370/

March 27, 2018 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

How America could come to terms with a nuclear-armed North Korea

The Strategic Wisdom of Accommodating North Korea’s Nuclear Status

What if Washington came to terms with a nuclear North Korea but remained on the peninsula? The Diplomat , By Graham W. Jenkins, March 28, 2018  

As the North Korean “crisis” continues to unfold, any negotiations, including the possible (albeit unlikely) Trump-Kim summit, represent a significant strategic opportunity for coming decades — even if today’s official policy goals are never achieved.

Pyongyang and Washington must come to terms with two realities: North Korea will not surrender its nuclear arsenal; the United States will not withdraw its support for South Korea. But once the U.S. policymaking apparatus accepts this, the aperture of the possible widens. By tacitly acquiescing to North Korea’s nuclear status — and in the process, securing concessions on advance warning and notifications, among other subjects — the United States could partially supplant China as a patron (in a limited sense), simultaneously shoring up peninsular stability and presenting China with a new security challenge on its own border, requiring the diversion of forces and materiel……..

There are significant drawbacks to outright recognition of North Korea as a nuclear state. Even though by withdrawing from the NPT, North Korea did not violate international law per se, openly admitting that any country can a) exercise Article X and withdraw from the NPT and then b) develop and test a nuclear arsenal, without suffering consequences for it, sets a troubling precedent, to put it mildly. But it is still possible to pursue a policy of splitting the needle: quietly accepting (not officially, but through nonofficial or track II diplomatic efforts) North Korea’s nuclear status while refusing to officially condone it. Such a tacit form of acceptance would also allow the United States to potentially extract concessions from Pyongyang and allow it to maintain its nuclear arsenal, all of which would serve to reduce its reliance on China as a client state, and instead allow it to chart a more independent path, but one in which the United States, China, and South Korea would still be able to deter any major crises.

……… It’s important, too, to condition any U.S. acknowledgement on North Korea making concessions. There is a broad range of requests that would represent positive policy outcomes, depending on the executive branch’s preferences. Advance notice of missile and nuclear testing (or even adherence to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty), establishing a “hotline” linking Pyongyang, Seoul, Washington, and Tokyo for crisis management, visible human rights changes like work camp prisoner releases or allowing humanitarian workers into the country, withdrawing artillery from the Kaesong Heights – some combination of these or others should be sufficient to justify changing U.S. policy toward North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

It’s rare that a nation is presented with a win-win-win scenario, but if bold enough to accept this manageable additional risk, the United States can emerge from this missile crisis in a stronger strategic position than before, with an adversary forced to reinforce an additional front and with our own hand strengthened. While the Trump-Kim summit – and indeed, any diplomatic efforts whatsoever – might now be a flight of fancy, with the ascension of John Bolton to national security advisor, negotiations remain the single best means of resolving the current Korean crisis. The United States stands to gain much: not least of all, avoiding a needless war.

Graham W. Jenkins is an all-source intelligence analyst with a federal contractor, conducting structured analysis and assessments in support of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/the-strategic-wisdom-of-accommodating-north-koreas-nuclear-status/

March 27, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Over 100 U.S. nuclear security experts urge Trump not to scrap Iran nuclear deal

National security veterans urge Trump not to scrap Iran nuclear deal, By Zachary Cohen, CNN March 27, 2018  Washington (CNN)A bipartisan group of more than 100 US national security experts — including nearly 50 retired military officers and more than 30 former ambassadors — is urging President Donald Trump to remain in the Iran nuclear deal as sources say it is becoming increasingly likely he will withdraw.

The statement titled “Keep the Iran deal — 10 Good Reasons Why” calls on Trump to “maintain the US commitment to the Iran nuclear deal” as doing so will “strengthen America’s hand in dealing with North Korea, as well as Iran, and help maintain the reliability of America’s word and influence as a world leader.”
“Ditching it would serve no national security purpose,” the statement said.
Penned by a group that calls itself the National Coalition to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon, the coordinated message comes as US officials are taking a two-track approach to the deal — negotiating with allies to make changes demanded by Trump even as they prepare to walk away from the international agreement.
Trump set a May 12 deadline — the next date by which he has to waive sanctions against Iran or leave the deal — for the US and its European allies to agree on changes to address what he sees as its flaws………https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/27/politics/experts-trump-iran-nuclear-letter/index.html

March 27, 2018 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

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