Total lifetime costs of Vogtle nuclear station estimated at $65 billion and rising
Vogtle: at $65 billion and counting, it’s a case study of nuclear power’s staggeringly awful economics, Green World, Michael Mariotte August 2, 2015 Georgia is one state that you would think would be wary of nuclear power economics. The first two reactors at Georgia Power’s Vogtle site, which came online in the late 1980s, were a record 800% over budget.
That is a number that is almost impossible to grasp. Nothing goes 800% over budget–in the real world, projects get cancelled well before reaching that point……
Sane people do not let projects get 800% over budget. Unless, perhaps, if someone else is putting up the money. And that’s exactly what happened with the first two Vogtle reactors–the overruns were pushed on to ratepayers; Georgia Power had to eat some small portion of them, but basically ratepayers were forced to pick up the tab.
And in a case of history repeating itself as predicted–as farce–that’s exactly what is happening with the two Vogtle reactors under construction now.
When the project was announced, and when the utilities building the project first applied for taxpayer loans to help finance the project, Southern Company (Georgia Power’s parent) said the two reactors would cost about $14 billion and would be online in 2016 and 2017.
That was back around 2008. Vogtle got its taxpayer loan promise in February 2010 and its construction permit in February 2012. Three and a half years later, Vogtle is more than three years behind schedule–39 months behind, in fact.
And the cost of building Vogtle has, not surprisingly, gone up. Way up. Right now, it’s somewhere around $16 billion and rising fast–the over-budget portion caused by the delays alone is $2 million per day. And as you can see from the photo at the top of the page, taken last Thursday, construction still has quite a long way to go.
Georgia Power already has run through half of its federal loan money, paid for by all U.S. taxpayers, not just Georgia ratepayers. Some of the rest of the taxpayer loan (the loans totaled more than $8 billion) was received later by the other partners, so perhaps they haven’t run through their share yet.
In any case, the supposed point of getting the loan, and of charging ratepayers for construction costs as they are incurred (a concept called Construction Work in Progress, barred in most states), and of building the reactors in the first place, was to save ratepayers money. That’s what Southern Company says anyway.
And they run off numbers and argue that building Vogtle, even with the overruns and delays, will save ratepayers $3 billion compared to building a gas-powered plant, which probably would already be operational, by the way, except that neither it nor Vogtle actually are needed.
But those numbers, despite the utility’s protestations, no longer add up……..
If one–or both–of the reactors gets cancelled before operation, then the negative benefits grow even more. Unless the cancellation occurs before too much more money is spent–then cancellation would turn into a net benefit for the ratepayers by avoiding the costs that have not yet been incurred. Sure, Georgia Power might take a hit and a lot of money that already has been spent would be wasted. But at least ratepayers could breathe easier……..
The economics of nuclear construction are just too staggeringly awful. But it gets worse. Because, as former PSC Commissioner Baker said, the total lifetime cost of Vogtle, including construction, is now estimated at $65 billion–a number too high for “staggering” to apply anymore……
the $65 billion number doesn’t include decommissioning and radioactive waste disposal costs, both of which will be added to ratepayers’ bills–and probably the rest of us taxpayers as well when the amount collected proves to be too small, as is the case with every other reactor in the country.
Meanwhile, utilities across the country, including Georgia Power, are buying solar power for 5 cents kilowatt/hour and less. And, unlike Vogtle, where the costs keep rising, solar’s price keeps falling…..http://safeenergy.org/2015/08/03/vogtle-at-65-billion-and-counting/
Greg Boertje-Obed , Megan Rice & Michael Walli continue their fight for nuclear disarmament
Let us never repeat the sin of nuclear destruction Seventy years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we continue to call on all people to eliminate the evil of atomic weapons, Aljazeera America, August 9, by Greg Boertje-Obed , Megan Rice & Michael Walli
On July 28, 2012, we entered the Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and shut it down in an act of non-violent resistance. We hung protest banners, poured human blood and spray-painted graffiti with messages of peace on the uranium facility’s walls. Calling ourselves the Transform Now Plowshares, we tried to stop the continuation of our country’s nuclear weapons production, because it is illegal, immoral and irrational. The reckless quest for enduring nuclear superiority has led our country and our world into a harrowing danger zone in which the threat of planetary annihilation hangs over all of creation.
Because of our action, Y12, a charter facility of the Manhattan Project from which the uranium that obliterated Hiroshima 70 years ago was issued, stopped its deadly work for more than two weeks. We were subsequently charged for property damage and sabotage, tried and sentenced to three to five years in federal prison. After two years imprisonment, an appellate court threw out our sabotage conviction this past May and ordered our resentencing. Our next court date is Sept. 15.
But the challenge to resist nuclear weapons is not ours alone. It is a shared responsibility, and a shared opportunity to secure a future for our human family and for Mother Earth.
Nuclear weapons remain poised to destroy all life on the planet, something no rational person would want. These weapons have been involved in many accidents, and we know they can be set off unintentionally. Despite these dangers, our government has continually updated plans to fight and supposedly win a war using nuclear weapons. Our soldiers repeatedly prepare and train to launch them. As a matter of longstanding international law, nuclear weapons, which are designed to unleash massive indiscriminate destruction on civilians, are weapons to commit war crimes. In fact, preparing to use such weapons is itself a war crime.
Simply mining for the uranium and assembling the weapons already kills many people. Workers in nuclear bomb factories regularly die from many types of cancer. The late scientist Rosalie Bertell estimated many years ago that 10 million people have died from the building and testing of nuclear weapons.
We need to be particularly concerned about nuclear weapons today because many nations are beginning the process of spending massive amounts of economic resources to upgrade and expand the death-dealing power of nuclear weaponry. The U.S. alone is preparing to spend a trillion dollars on this effort. This is unconscionable.
The great religious traditions teach that we ought to act on behalf of life and to intervene for the downtrodden and poor, the orphans and widows. The vast resources dedicated to killing and preparing to kill are a waste and a theft from those who are destitute and in need, and thus contradict that divine directive to cherish and serve life itself. In conscience, we must struggle against the massive forces of death if we are to fulfill our commitment to practice compassion and love for people, life and the planet.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu used to say to his opponents in the latter days of South Africa’s Apartheid: “Come over to the winning side.” We believe that the forces for life and love are stronger than the forces of death and destruction. We invite everyone to join the struggle in order to be on the side of hope and life, even though it often looks as if we are not on the winning side……….
Greg Boertje-Obed, a former U.S. Army officer, is a member of Veterans for Peace and co-founder of Transform Now Plowshares, a non-profit interfaith activist group that favors non-violent resistance to nuclear weapons.
Sister Megan Rice, a member of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus since 1950, is a co-founder of Transform Now Plowshares, an interfaith pacifist group that favors non-violent resistance to nuclear weapons. She served as a teacher in the U.S. until 1962 and until 2003 in West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana).
Michael Walli, a member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House in Washington, D.C., is a co-founder of Transform Now Plowshares, a non-profit interfaith activist group that favors non-violent resistance to nuclear weapons. http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/8/let-us-never-repeat-the-sin-of-nuclear-destruction.html
29 top USA scientists back Obama’s ‘stringent’ deal with Iran
President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal gets the backing of 29 of the nation’s top scientists who call it ‘stringent’
- The president’s Iran nuclear deal was praised by the scientists who include former White house advisers, Nobel laureates, and makers of nuclear arms
- Their support will come as a welcome respite for the President who has faced stiff opposition from within his own party
- Obama has been forced to try and reach undecided members of congress in a bid to push through the deal which has already divided opinion
- But in the letter, all 29 scientists hailed the deal as ‘innovative’ and ‘stringent
By BELINDA ROBINSON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM, 10 Aug 15 ……….. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3191369/Obama-s-Iran-nuclear-gains-support-29-U-S-scientists.html#ixzz3iM9PyKj9
Transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) provisions undermine democracy
TTIP: what does the transatlantic trade deal mean for renewable energy?, Guardian, Tim Smedley, 5 Aug 15
Trade partnership between the EU and US could remove barriers facing the green energy sector, but experts warn of potential dangers. In July the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP) came a step closer to reality. Formal talks have been ongoing for two years, but trying to create the world’s biggest free trade zone is no mean feat. Essentially, if passed, the EU and US will be able to trade without each other’s pesky tariffs or regulations getting in the way.
David Cameron is a big advocate, arguing it could add £10bn to the UK economy. Many others, meanwhile, criticise the undemocratic nature of the closed-door talks and sinister influence of powerful lobbyists.
But what would TTIP mean for renewable energy?………
TTIP could even undermine the democratic authority of local government. The UK’s Local Government Association representative in Brussels, Dominic Rowles, imagines a situation “whereby a public authority, whether local or national, takes a democratic decision on energy generation … that TTIP then makes easier for corporations to challenge.”
More opportunities to sue
The bone of contention here is the investor state dispute settlement (ISDS), which allows private companies to sue governments for loss of profits connected to regulation. It is seen as a key US demand for the trade partnership. Precedents include a US tobacco firm suing the Australian government over packaging restrictions and a US fracking company suing the Québec government following a moratorium on drilling under the St Lawrence River.
“Where the US wants to engage it does so pretty forcefully”, says David Baldock, executive director of the Institute for European Environmental Policy. He questions why an ISDS provision is needed at all, given the robust nature of the courts in both jurisdictions and the “huge levels of trade already between the EU and the US”. Yet an ISDS independent tribunal which would bypass national courts (and “doesn’t sit at all comfortably with the European decision-making process”, says Baldock) appears to be strongly favoured by US negotiators.
Race to the bottom on regulation Baldock also argues, “If you add TTIP to the language coming out of the commission about being less regulatory, lighter governance, letting states off binding targets around renewables and energy efficiency, then it is another layer that feeds … angst and lack of confidence for investors.”
Chair of the UK environmental audit committee, Joan Walley, believes there is a danger of TTIP coming at “the expense of throwing away hard-won environmental and public-health protections” and that combining US and EU regulatory systems becomes a “race to the bottom” – agreeing to harmonise the lowest regulations on either side, not the highest.
Baldock believes there could also be “a chill effect”, meaning that any new, stricter regulation is less likely to pass in future. “If we’re going to have a low carbon world we’ve got to [set] more targets, more product standards, more eco design directives,” he says. “The question is how far those are going to be inhibited by TTIP and giving the Americans a seat at the table.”……..http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2015/aug/05/ttip-free-trade-deal-renewable-energy-transatlantic-partnership-eu-us
USA top authorities worried about radioactive iodine-131 from Fukushima Dai-ichi
Fukushima plume model shows 1 Million Bq/m2 over West Coast after reactor explosions — TV: Private emails reveal highest levels of gov’t worried about health impact in US — Nuclear industry tried to bury truth, while UC Berkeley experts told public “there is no plume” (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/fukushima-plume-model-shows-1-million-bqm2-west-coast-after-explosions-tv-emails-reveal-highest-levels-govt-worried-about-health-impact-radiation-exposure-uc-berkeley-experts-claimed-publicly-pl
The Big Picture, Jun 24, 2015 — Kevin Kamps, Beyond Nuclear (emphasis added): “A recent revelation of Nuclear Regulatory Commission internal emails… reveal that there was concern at the highest levels of the U.S. government, and rightly so, about the radioactive iodine-131escaping from Fukushima Dai-ichi… and reaching the United States… Rainwater at 242 times safe drinking water act permissible levels — so you better believe we got radioactive iodine-131 in the United States. Likely people ingested it — either breathed it in, or drank it in milk, or various other ingestion pathways. It attacks the thyroid gland… it does a tremendous amount of damage. And these emails… show that US government officials were worriedabout that, were calling for studies to be done to try to track the health damage. And what do you know, those studies did not happen… The monitoring and testing and the epidemiology were woefully inadequate to non-existent… The nuclear industry will try to bury the truth, and that sure happened after Fukushima… I think there’s been a huge dereliction of duty at the federal and the state levels.”
Kamps appears to be referencing an ENENews report from earlier this month, Censored US gov’t emails reveal proposed plan to test West Coast residents for Fukushima fallout — “Many cases of cancer may end up being attributed to exposures” — Doses could exceed emergency levels
The report quoted internal emails from March 2011 by the head of UC Berkeley’s nuclear engineering department, who wrote: “UCB faculty[is in] general agreement that prompt action should be taken… Many cases of thyroid cancer, and other health problems, may end up being attributed to exposures from the Fukushima accident… on the U.S. west coast… It is possible that we will find that some people have received doses of I-131 and other radionuclidesthat could exceed the levels [which]Protective Action Guidelines are designed to prevent. It could identify individuals who have had significant exposure… alert them and their medical care professionals to monitor for potential health effects.”
On the Friday before UC Berkeley’s nuclear chair sent this proposal to a small group of government officials and experts, ABC’s San Francisco affiliate reported on public comments made by UC Berkeley’s nuclear department:
ABC (San Francisco KGO-TV), Mar 18, 2011: Nuclear engineers here at UC Berkeley say… don’t be alarmed. The tiny particles are just so small, they pose no threat at all… not harmful at all. One scientist here says you can get more radiation exposure on a flight… One model forecasts that the radiation plume… will reach California today… experts say this map is very misleading. First of all, there is no ‘plume’. Second of all, you cannot predict how the weather is going to carry radiation particles over here to the West Coast, if any at all.
The map above is a model developed by Japanese and European experts showing the strength and location of the Fukushima plume while over the West Coast on Mar. 18, 2011 — the same day as the broadcast of UC Berkeley’s claim that “there is no plume”. According to the map’s scale, dark red areas along the West Coast indicate the Fukushima fission product xenon-133 had a concentration in the air column of 1,000,000 becquerels per square meter.
Daniel Ellsberg and Takashi Tanemori join Hiroshima Day protest at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
Daniel Ellsberg speaks during a demonstration to protest nuclear weapons outside the fence of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015. Thursday marked the 70th anniversary of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)
Bay area activists protest nuclear weapons on 70th anniversary of atomic bomb, Contra Costa Times, 7 Aug 15 By Dan Lawton dlawton@bayareanewsgroup.com LIVERMORE — About 300 activists from a wide range of Bay Area organizations converged early Thursday on Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to protest nuclear weapons on the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
Similar events were held across the world.
“U.S. plans to modernize the arsenal are also underway at Livermore Lab,” said Marylia Kelley, a lead organizer and executive director of Tri-Valley Cares, which was one of about 40 organizations taking part in the protest.
Kelley said a large part of the lab’s funding in the 2016 fiscal year — about 85 percent, or $1 billion — is earmarked for weapons. Those statistics are backed up by documents from the Department of Energy. She said that money is being spent on tasks such as designing new long-range warheads and other improvements to the nuclear arsenal.
The United States is prohibited from manufacturing new nuclear weapons by a nonproliferation treaty signed in 1968……
Takashi Tanemori, who was an 8-year-old boy living in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped, told the crowd that he has made peace with losing his family in the bombing, as well as his eyesight.
“The greatest way to avenge your enemy is by learning how to forgive,” he said.
But Tanemori, dressed in flowing black robes and wearing sunglasses, also cautioned the crowd that the threat of nuclear weapons will be extremely hard to eradicate……
Also speaking at the event was Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower and former military contractor who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The documents were a top-secret study of U.S. strategy in Vietnam. Ellsberg was sentenced to 109 years in prison for his actions, but his conviction was eventually overturned.
Now a prominent anti-nuclear weapons activist, Ellsberg, 84, said he still remembered the “ominous feeling” he had when the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
“The killing at Hiroshima was mass murder,” he said…….http://www.contracostatimes.com/breaking-news/ci_28597321/bay-area-activists-protest-nuclear-weapons-70th-anniversary
USA nuclear weapons numbers shrink, but nuclear weapons budget balloons out
Why the US nuclear budget grows while the stockpile of warheads shrinks
Obama’s plan to modernize and replace the nuclear arsenal will soon push nuclear weapons spending to Cold War levels Aljazeera America, August 7, 2015 by Michael Pizzi @michaelwpizzi & Michael Keller @mhkeller “……… American taxpayers will soon be spending more on nuclear weapons in real dollars than they have since the end of the Cold War. In October 2013, just four months after calling for yet another one-third reduction in the stockpile, President Barack Obama announced plans to “modernize” the entire nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years, arguing that updating and replacing the so-called nuclear triad — the submarines, jets and ballistic missiles designed to deliver warheads — will help create a leaner, sleeker nuclear fleet. But leaner doesn’t mean cheaper, at least not in the short term. According to a recent study by two researchers at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Jeffrey Lewis and Jon Wolfsthal, Obama’s modernization program could carry a price tag of over $1 trillion, vaulting nuclear weapons spending relative to the overall defense budget to a level comparable to the 1980s………
The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan body that tracks government spending, has projected Obama’s plans for the nuclear arsenal at $348 billion through 2024. But that time frame stops just before the modernization plan’s costs are projected to spike, in the mid-to-late-2020’s, said Lewis of the Monterey Institute. A recent study by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington D.C.-based think tank that works closely with the Pentagon, found that the actual cost could total $963 billion between 2014 and 2043.
In short, the American public and even their representatives in Congress have very little idea how much these weapons will end up costing them. “If you’re a member of Congress, you can’t make informed decisions about need and affordability if you don’t know the current and projected costs of the things you’re supposed to exercise oversight over,” said Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association. “Whether you think we need more or fewer or zero nuclear weapons, we ought to know from a good-government perspective how much this is going to cost.” http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/8/7/us-nuclear-stockpile-shrinks-but-budget-grows.html
USA government makes rules on ionising radiation in water more lax
EPA raises permissible levels of radiation in drinking water https://thewrongblogg.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/epa-raises-permissible-levels-of-radiation-in-drinking-water/ The White House has given final approval for dramatically raising permissible radioactive levels in drinking water and soil following “radiological incidents,” such as nuclear power-plant accidents and dirty bombs. The final version, slated for Federal Register publication as soon as today, is a win for the nuclear industry which seeks what its proponents call a “new normal” for radiation exposure among the U.S population, according Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
Issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the radiation guides (called Protective Action Guides or PAGs) allow cleanup many times more lax than anything EPA has ever before accepted. These guides govern evacuations, shelter-in-place orders, food restrictions and other actions following a wide range of “radiological emergencies.” The Obama administration blocked a version of these PAGs from going into effect during its first days in office. The version given approval late last Friday is substantially similar to those proposed under Bush but duck some of the most controversial aspects: Continue reading
Obama props up a failing nuclear industry, with nuclear energy a centerpiece of his climate push!
For starters, nuclear energy isn’t clean. Although nuclear fission is itself a low-carbon process, the lifecycle carbon cost of nuclear energy production is anything but, with greenhouse gas emissions stemming from uranium mining, milling, processing, enrichment, and transportation, not to mention the years-long—sometimes decades-long—process of actually constructing nuclear reactors.
Rather than prop-up a struggling industry, the Obama administration, and whichever administration follows, should eliminate nuclear from its all-of-the-above energy arsenal, relegating it to the category of dirty energies that, if we don’t curtail now, will leave future generations cleaning up our environmental mess.
Obama Sells Out Human Health and the Environment By Making Nuclear Energy a Centerpiece of Climate Policy http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-sells-out-human-health-and-the-environment-by-making-nuclear-energy-a-centerpiece-of-climate-policy/5467030By Washington’s Blog Global Research, August 04, 2015
In reality, nuclear is NOT a low-carbon source of energy … and funding nuclear crowds out the development of better sources of alternative energy.
Mark Jacobson – the head of Stanford University’s Atmosphere and Energy Program, who has written numerous books and hundreds of scientific papers on climate and energy, and testified before Congress numerous times on those issues – notes that nuclear puts out much more pollution (including much more CO2) than windpower, and 1.5% of all the nuclear plants built have melted down. Jacobson alsopoints out that it takes at least 11 years to permit and build a nuclear plant, whereas it takes less than half that time to fire up a wind or solar farm. Between the application for a nuclear plant and flipping the switch, power is provided by conventional energy sources … currently 55-65% coal.
No wonder a former Commissioner for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that building nuclear plants to fight global warming is like trying to fight global hunger by serving everyone caviar. More information here, here and here.
Zoe Loftus-Farren explained in the New Republic in January
The EPA’s proposed power-plant regulation provides a carbon credit to states for maintaining nuclear energy production at current levels: in other words, a carbon subsidy for maintaining the nuclear status quo. Following the release of the draft rules, EPA administrator Gina McCarthy made clear that the credit is meant, in part, to help the struggling nuclear industry. “There are a handful of nuclear facilities that, because they are having trouble remaining competitive, they haven’t yet looked at re-licensing,” she said at a roundtable discussion with business leaders in Chicago. If nuclear energy plants begin closing, she warned, “It’s a lot of carbon reduction that needs to be made up for a long period of time.”
Maintaining nuclear power production at current levels isn’t the EPA’s only goal. “Nuclear power is part of an all-of-the-above, diverse energy mix and provides reliable baseload power without contributing to carbon pollution,” the EPA said in a emailed statement. “Nuclear power from current and future plants can help the U.S. meet its goals.”
***
Why is this worrying? In the fight against climate change, anything is better than dirty coal, right?
For starters, nuclear energy isn’t clean. Although nuclear fission is itself a low-carbon process, the lifecycle carbon cost of nuclear energy production is anything but, with greenhouse gas emissions stemming from uranium mining, milling, processing, enrichment, and transportation, not to mention the years-long—sometimes decades-long—process of actually constructing nuclear reactors. “From our perspective, the longstanding problems with nuclear waste, nuclear nonproliferation [and] safety really set nuclear apart from other low carbon energy sources,” says Matthew McKinzie, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Nuclear Program.
***
Rather than prop-up a struggling industry, the Obama administration, and whichever administration follows, should eliminate nuclear from its all-of-the-above energy arsenal, relegating it to the category of dirty energies that, if we don’t curtail now, will leave future generations cleaning up our environmental mess.
The odds of a melt-down at a U.S. nuclear power plant are higher than you might assume.
And even a little radiation can be very harmful to your health. And see this.
Postscript: The Onion parodies Obama’s climate plan by pretending that it:
Creates $500 tax credit for homeowners who install rooftop nuclear reactors
Nuclear bombing of Japanese cities the”opening salvo of the Cold War”
Hiroshima survivor Keiko Ogura wants people to come and see for themselves.
historians like Dr Kinston said the bombs were also about sending a message to the Soviets.
“We have this incredible new weapon, we have a monopoly on it and we are going to emerge as the strongest superpower. In a sense, this was the opening salvo of the Cold War,” he said.
Hiroshima atomic bombing did not lead to Japanese surrender, historians argue nearing 70th anniversary http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-05/hiroshima-bombing-did-not-lead-japanese-surrender-anniversary/6672616 By North Asia correspondent Matthew Carney The world changed forever when a US bomber dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima 70 years ago.
The Americans said they took the drastic step to put an early end to World War II and save the lives of hundreds of thousands of US soldiers, but this official narrative is now being overturned.
On August 6, 1945 the world’s first atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, wiping out the city centre and killing about 140,000 people by the years’ end.
Keiko Ogura was eight-years-old at the time and only 2.4 kilometres from the hypocentre.
She remembers being engulfed in flames.
“A flash of light and the blast slammed me to the ground and I lost consciousness,” she said.
“I woke up, it was dark and everyone was crying.”
Keiko said the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and another at Nagasaki three days later, which killed 70,000 more, were war crimes.
Many historians say the bombings did not lead to the Japanese surrender, and the Soviet declaration of war on Japan two days later was a bigger shock.
It put an end to any hope the Soviets would negotiate a favourable surrender for Japan. Continue reading
New nuclear reactor technologies benefit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan
New Nuclear Power Seen as Winner in Obama’s Clean Power Plan, Bloomberg by Jonathan CrawfordMark Chediak , 4 Aug 15, The Obama administration gave the struggling U.S. nuclear industry a glimmer of hope this week by allowing new reactors to count more toward meeting federal emissions limits.
States can take more credit for carbon-free electricity to be generated by nuclear power plants under construction as they work to comply with emission-reduction targets set in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan released Monday. Cuts from existing reactors won’t count, casting the fate of units at risk of premature retirement in doubt………
“We tend to view new rules as potentially the first bit of good news for the struggling nuclear industry,” Julien Dumoulin-Smith, an analyst for UBS, wrote on Monday in a research note…….
Existing Reactors
The Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based trade group, said it was “pleased” that the EPA recognized that nuclear plants under construction “should count toward compliance when they are operating.”
Marvin Fertel, president of the group, said by e-mail that the industry was disappointed that existing reactors won’t get credit for their carbon-reduction value, given that some are at risk of early retirement. States would have been allowed to count 6 percent of nuclear generation toward clean energy targets under the EPA’s draft rule released last year.
“The final rule does not incorporate the carbon-abatement value of existing nuclear power plants…..
New Reactors
New reactor projects, the first in decades, have been plagued by delays and cost increases.
Beneficiaries of the rule changes would include Southern Co. and Scana Corp., which are building new reactors in Georgia and South Carolina, respectively. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which is building a reactor at its Watts Bar facility near Spring City, Tennessee, would also get a boost.
“Nuclear facilities will be credited because it’s new, zero-carbon generation that will be credited as part of a compliance strategy,” said U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “That’s entirely consistent and appropriate.”……… http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-03/new-nuclear-power-seen-as-big-winner-in-obama-s-power-plan
President Obama’s Clean Power Plan does not support existing nuclear reactors
Final Clean Power Plan Drops Support For Existing Nuclear Plants, Forbes, Jeff McMahon, 3 Aug 15 vThe final version of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan does not include aid to existing nuclear power plants at risk of closing because they can’t compete with cheaper natural gas and renewables—a list that includes some of the nation’s most controversial reactors, including Indian Point and Three Mile Island.
In the draft version, EPA had proposed allowing states to count 6 percent of existing nuclear generation toward their clean energy goals, a provision designed to rescue the 6 percent of nuclear capacity considered at risk.
“On further consideration, we believe it is inappropriate to base the BSER (Best System of Emission Reduction) on elements that will not reduce CO2 emissions from affected electric generating units below current levels,” EPA states in the final rule.
“Existing nuclear generation helps make existing CO2 emissions lower than they would otherwise be, but will not further lower CO2 emissions below current levels. Accordingly… the EPA is not finalizing preservation of generation from existing nuclear capacity as a component of the BSER.”
Accordingly, states will not be able to meet their clean energy goals by extending the licenses of existing nuclear plants…………
In 2013, Morningstar identified six nuclear plants that could be next to shut down because of economic conditions:
2. Ginna, NY, Exelon
3. Fitzpatrick, NY, Entergy
4. Three Mile Island, PA, Exelon
5. Davis Beese, OH, FirstEnergy
6. Pilgrim, MA, Entergy
Exelon has also identified its Byron, Quad Cities, and Clinton plants in Illinois as at risk and has campaigned against tax credits for wind energy.
The nuclear industry had campaigned for stronger support for nuclear power in the Clean Power Plan…..http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2015/08/03/final-clean-power-plan-drops-support-for-existing-nuclear-plants/
Postponed indefinitely – the opening of U.S. government’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
The opening of an underground nuclear waste dump in New Mexico just got delayed indefinitely http://www.businessinsider.com.au/r-officials-delay-reopening-of-new-mexico-nuclear-waste-site-2015-8 JOSEPH J. KOLB ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (Reuters) – The planned March 2016 reopening of an underground nuclear waste dump in New Mexico has been pushed back indefinitely because of unanticipated challenges, U.S. officials said.
A radiation leak at the U.S. government’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant that originated in a disposal chamber half a mile (1 km) below ground at the center near Carlsbad, New Mexico, exposed more than 20 workers to small amounts of radiation in February 2014, officials have said.
The accident led to the suspension of key operations at the site, the Energy Department’s only permanent underground repository for certain types of radiological waste tied to U.S. nuclear labs and weapons sites.
Dana Bryson, acting manager for the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office, said in a statement on Friday: “We are disappointed that we will not meet the original target date for beginning waste emplacement.”
He did not provide a date for reopening the facility.
“While the WIPP recovery program continues to make significant progress, the original target date of March 2016 for resuming waste emplacement operations is no longer viable due to a variety of unanticipated issues,” said a news release from the U.S. Department of Energy that contained Bryson’s statement.
Key challenges that remain include the need to implement heightened safety standards from the Department of Energy and to resolve problems with the ventilation system, officials said.
“The department is committed to resuming operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant as soon as it is safe to do so,” Bryson said.
(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis)
Special NRC inspection of leak from A southern Illinois uranium-conversion plant
NRC inspecting Illinois uranium-conversion plant after leak, WT By – Associated Press – Tuesday, August 4, 2015 METROPOLIS, Ill. (AP) – A southern Illinois uranium-conversion plant is undergoing a special inspection after a weekend leak of uranium hexafluoride, a gas used to produce enriched uranium for nuclear power plants, Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said.
A valve installed during maintenance at the Honeywell plant in Metropolis began to leak just before 6 p.m. Saturday, triggering an emergency alert and activation of large water sprays, the NRC said in a news release. The leak was stopped almost two hours later; the company said nobody was injured and the leak did not leave the site.
Honeywell’s Metropolis plant, about 5 miles northwest of Paducah, Kentucky, is the only place in the U.S. that converts uranium ore to uranium hexafluoride, which can be toxic when exposed to moisture in the air………
The company has experienced other uranium hexafluoride leaks, including last October, the (Carbondale) Southern Illinoisan reported (http://bit.ly/1MKIM2G ). In December 2013, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan fined Honeywell $90,000 for three prior releases, in December 2008, December 2010 and October 2011. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/4/nrc-inspecting-illinois-uranium-conversion-plant-a/
Indian Point nuclear station not safe – should be closed down
Aging Nuclear Power Plant Must Close Before It Closes Us http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/22/indian-point-aging-nuclear-plant/ Paul Gallay | June 22, 2015 We must face facts regarding the Indian Point nuclear plant. It’s infrastructure is aging, its safety is dubious and most everyone knows it. What many people don’t know is that it can be replaced at little cost to ratepayers—and energy technologies taking its place would create new economic opportunities for New York.
Indian Point—just 38 miles north of New York City—is vulnerable to terrorism, has 2,000 tons of radioactive waste packed into leaking pools and relies on an unworkable evacuation plan. While some argue that transformer accidents—such as the one that occurred last month—can happen at any power facility, they happen with astonishing frequency at Indian Point. Its age is problematic: You wouldn’t rely on a 40-year-old appliance, why extend this trust to a nuclear plant? Moreover, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) says Indian Point 3 has the highest risk of earthquake damage of all the nation’s reactors. About 20 million people live within 50 miles of Indian Point. If a catastrophic accident occurred, the consequences would be unimaginable.
The NRC permits Indian Point to evade its own safety standards requiring that electrical cables controlling emergency reactor shutdowns have insulation that lasts 60 minutes in a fire. When the NRC found that the plant’s insulation lasted just 27 minutes, it gave Indian Point an exemption. Your own home likely has more insulation on its electrical cables than does the plant. Continue reading
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