Archive for the ‘Nukes’ Category

For Immediate Release:
Sept. 4, 2012

Contact:
Karen Hadden, SEED Coalition, 512-797-8481
Brett Jarmer and Robert V. Eye, Attorneys, 785-234-4040

Download this release in pdf format for printing.

Austin, Texas On Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied an operating license to Unistar Nuclear Energy for its planned third reactor at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland because it is fully owned by France’s Électricité de France (EDF)-a foreign entity. Federal law prohibits a foreign entity from completely owning or controlling a U.S. nuclear plant. The company was given 60 days to find a U.S. partner, which it has been unable to do in the past two years, and if it fails to do so the license application will be fully terminated.

"This decision sets good precedent for us as opponents of two proposed reactors at the South Texas Project," said Karen Hadden, executive director of SEED Coalition, a group which has intervened in the licensing process, along with the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy and Public Citizen. "We hope to see clean, safe energy be developed in Texas instead of dangerous nuclear power. We must prevent Fukushima style disasters from happening here."

"From a regulatory perspective, the Calvert Cliffs decision shows that the prohibition against foreign ownership means what it says. This could be a major setback to the nuclear industry if foreign capital is unavailable for U.S. nuclear projects, said Robert Eye, attorney for the intervenors. "Domestic investors and lenders won’t put their money in nuclear projects without massive government subsidies and loan guarantees. Considering tight budgets, more government money for dangerous and expensive nuclear power doesn’t make sense when cheaper and safer renewable sources are available."

"Federal law is clear that foreign controlled corporations are not eligible to apply for a license to build and operate nuclear power plants. The evidence is that Toshiba is in control of the project and this precludes obtaining an NRC license for South Texas Project 3 & 4," said Brett Jarmer, an attorney also representing the intervenors.

"Foreign investment in U.S nuclear projects is not per se prohibited; but Toshiba is paying all the bills for the STP 3 & 4 project. This makes it difficult to accept that Toshiba doesn’t control the project," said Robert Eye.

Toshiba North America Engineering, or TANE, will assume exclusive, principal funding authority for the project, but they are a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba America, Inc, a Japanese corporation. Opponents contend that this makes them ineligible for licensing.

How did foreign ownership become a problem? New Jersey based NRG announced on April 19, 2011 that it would write down its investment in the development of South Texas Project units 3 & 4. Engineering work and pre-construction activities were halted, and NRG stated that Toshiba North America Engineering – TANE – would be responsible for funding ongoing costs to continue the licensing process. TANE is a subsidiary of Toshiba America, Inc., a Delaware corporation that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation, a Japanese company.

"National security and safety concerns justify NRC’s limits on foreign ownership and control of nuclear reactors," said Karen Hadden, Director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition. "What if a foreign company was careless in running a U.S. reactor? International alliances are known to shift. What if a nation that is friendly toward the U.S. today becomes hostile in the future? Our own reactors could become a weapon to be turned against us to threaten civilians in a war against the U.S."

"Even if the reactors are operated by the South Texas Nuclear Operating Company, they will get their orders from foreign owners. What if their concerns are more about cost-cutting and less about safety?" asked Susan Dancer, President of the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy. "Japanese investors would have us believe that they can come to America and safely build, own and operate nuclear plants, and that we should not concern ourselves with passé laws and regulations, but the recent Fukushima disaster has demonstrated the flawed Japanese model of nuclear safety and the lack of protection afforded the Japanese people. In such an inherently dangerous industry, the American people deserve protection through federal law, including that our nuclear reactors are controlled by the people most concerned about our country: fellow Americans."

Foreign Ownership, Control or Domination policy is spelled out in the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) of 1954. In Section 103d it says that no license may be issued to an alien or any corporation or other entity if the Commission knows or has reason to believe it is owned, controlled, or dominated by an alien, a foreign corporation, or a foreign government.

The NRC interprets this to mean that these entities are not eligible to apply for and obtain a license. According to Commission guidance, an entity is under foreign ownership, control, or domination "whenever a foreign interest has the ‘power,’ direct or indirect, whether or not exercised, to direct or decide matters affecting the management or operations of the applicant." There is no set percentage point cut-off point used to determine foreign ownership. The factors that are considered include:

• The extent of foreign ownership
• Whether the foreign entity operates the reactors
• Whether there are interlocking directors and officers
• Whether there is access to restricted data
• Details of ownership of the foreign parent company

August 28, 2012

Dave Rice
San Diego Reader

Further confirming that a restart of operations is unlikely to occur in the immediate future, plant operator Southern California Edison is preparing to remove tons of nuclear fuel from the Unit 3 reactor at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Unit 3 was the reactor that initially began leaking small amounts of radioactive steam into the atmosphere in late January, causing an emergency shutdown of the reactor as well as at its twin, Unit 2. Unit 1 was decommissioned in the early 1990s.

While hundreds of tubes in the recently replaced Unit 2 generator were found to have excessive wear, none had burst at the time of shutdown. It’s widely considered that, due to the lower incidence of problems, an earlier restart will be attempted there.

Union of Concerned Scientists director Dave Lochbaum, however, questioned the motives of the removal of fuel from Unit 3 in a Associated Press story. He says moving the fuel to storage allows for less safety equipment to be maintained in operable condition, and for fewer safety tests to be performed.

Last week Edison announced it would lay off up to a third of the San Onofre workforce as the shutdown continues.

August 09, 2012

By Alan Scher Zagier
AP News via Bloomberg Bloomberg Businessweek

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is putting a hold on requests for new reactor construction and license renewals —including Missouri’s only nuclear power plant — after a recent federal court ruling questioned the agency’s plans for storing radioactive waste.

The NRC’s Tuesday ruling will delay at least 19 requests by utilities for new construction and operating licenses or license renewals. Those projects include Ameren Corp.’s request for a 20-year license renewal at its Callaway County plant in central Missouri; a renewal request by the Calvert Cliffs power plant in southern Maryland; and a request by Florida Power & Light to build two new reactors at its Turkey Point nuclear plant south of Miami.

A coalition of two dozen environmental groups sought the delay after a federal appeals court in Washington ruled in June that the NRC’s plans for long-term storage of radioactive waste at individual reactors were insufficient.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit by New York’s attorney general and his counterparts in New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont over a relicensing application for the Indian Point nuclear plant along the Hudson River.

The appeals court found that spent nuclear fuel rods stored on site at power plants "pose a dangerous, long-term health and environmental risk." The NRC fought for decades to build a national waste storage site at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert, but that plan was scrapped two years ago by the Obama administration.

Ed Smith, safe energy director for the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, called the agency’s decision "essentially the first time the NRC cannot generically say that spent nuclear fuel pools, which are located at every nuclear reactor, are safe." The Missouri coalition was among the groups challenging the NRC’s plans.

While Ameren’s Callaway plant license doesn’t expire until 2024, the time frame for its license renewal likely will be pushed back from 2013 by another four or five years, Smith suggested.

"It’s a win for public safety that the U.S. Court of Appeals has vacated the NRC regulations on nuclear waste," Smith added. "Now the public will have an opportunity to comment on provisions for safely storing radioactive waste, which may or may not actually be viable."

On Wednesday afternoon, Ameren issued a statement noting that the agency’s "licensing reviews and proceedings will move forward," with the ruling more narrowly applied to the final issuance of permits.

In New York, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said the Tuesday ruling shows that "the NRC has finally changed course" and "has committed to addressing the risks posed by long-term nuclear waste storage."

___

Alan Scher Zagier can be reached at http://twitter.com/azagier

08/07/2012

Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday voted to halt final decisions on new and renewed licenses for reactors nationwide following a June court ruling that said the agency first must assess the environmental risks of storing radioactive waste.

The move could mean a potentially years-long delay of final decisions on as many as 19 pending nuclear power plant licenses, including a proposal to renew those for the South Texas Project nuclear plant near Bay City.

Spokesman David McIntyre stressed that the commission will continue reviewing applications until the point at which a final decision would be made.

"This isn’t saying that we’re not going to issue licenses for years; it’s saying, hold on, we need to take a breath and determine a path forward," McIntyre said. "The commission could come out with a path forward that says you can continue to do these things, but you have to address waste confidence in some way."

At issue is how the U.S. stores spent fuel rods while decades-old nuclear reactors continue to churn out power, without a clear plan on where to stash them permanently. The Obama administration ordered the Energy Department to rescind an application for building a long-term storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

In June, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s "waste confidence" rule, which said spent fuel could be stored safely for 60 years or more at the site of existing plants. The court ruled that the agency was obligated to study the environmental risks of allowing that radioactive material to remain at reactors for decades.

The court also criticized the commission for failing to consider the environmental effects of not finding permanent off-site storage for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain or anywhere else.

Full response weighed

The commission now is studying its full response, including possibly launching an environmental impact study that would span years before a new waste confidence rule could be made final.

In an order issued Tuesday, the commission said it would give the public an opportunity to comment on its decisions, including the breadth of any future environmental reviews.

Overdue, activists say

Nuclear foes and environmental activists who challenged the waste storage rule cheered the move, saying an environmental assessment of spent fuel storage and disposal is overdue.

"That study should have been done years ago, but NRC just kept kicking the can down the road," said attorney Diane Curran, who represented some of the groups that brought the case.

Existing licenses for the two units at the South Texas nuclear plant are set to expire in 2027 and 2028. In October 2010, the South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Co., asked the NRC to renew the licenses.

That kicked off a long multiyear review process slated to end with a final decision in mid-2013.

The two units at the plant are pressurized-water nuclear reactors.

San Antonio’s city-owned utility, CPS Energy, owns the South Texas Project along with Austin Energy and NRG Energy.

jennifer.dlouhy(at)chron.com

Jul 26, 2012

Christine Harvey

Bloomberg News

Nuclear-power production in the U.S. is at the lowest seasonal levels in nine years as drought and heat force reactors from Ohio to Vermont to slow output.

Generation for the 104 plants in the U.S. fell 0.4 percent from yesterday to 94,171 megawatts, or 93 percent of capacity, the lowest level for this time of year since 2003, according to reports from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and data compiled by Bloomberg. The total is down 2.6 percent from the five-year average for today of 96,725 megawatts.

"We’ve had a fast decay of summer output this month and that corresponds to the high heat and droughts," Pax Saunders, an analyst at Gelber & Associates in Houston, said. "Plants are not able to operate at the levels they can."

FirstEnergy Corp. (FE)’s Perry 1 reactor in Ohio lowered production to 95 percent of capacity today because of above- average temperatures, while Entergy Corp. (ETR)’s Vermont Yankee has limited output four times this month. Nuclear plants require sufficient water to cool during operation, and rivers or lakes may get overheated or fall in times of high temperatures and drought, according to the NRC.

Dry conditions have worsened in the past week, with at least 63.9 percent of the contiguous 48 U.S. states now affected by moderate to severe drought, the U.S. Drought Monitor said today. That compares with 63.5 in the previous week.

High Temperatures

Temperatures will rise about 3 degrees above normal in the U.S. Northeast from Aug. 4 to Aug. 8 and computer modeling shows another heat wave may arrive the week of Aug. 6, according to Commodity Weather Group President Matt Rogers.

"Heat is the main issue, because if the river is getting warmer the water going into the plant is warmer and makes it harder to cool," David McIntyre, an NRC spokesman, said.

Production at FirstEnergy’s 1,261-megawatt Perry 1 reactor dropped by 63 megawatts early today in preparation for high temperatures and humidity, according to Todd Schneider, a company spokesman in Akron, Ohio.

The region is under a weather advisory from noon to 7 p.m. today, with heat index values as high as 102 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius), according to a report from AccuWeather Inc. Perry 1, 35 miles northeast of Cleveland, has slowed production four times since July 1.

Fluctuating Output

"Output has fluctuated throughout July because of the weather conditions including outside temperature and humidity," Schneider said by phone today. "The higher temperatures make it more difficult to run at 100 percent."

Vermont Yankee, the 620-megawatt plant operated by Entergy Corp., reduced power to 83 percent of capacity on July 17 because of low river flow and heat, according to Rob Williams, a company spokesman based in Brattleboro, Vermont.

The reactor has lowered generation at least once every week since July 1, according to commission data.

"We’ve been having to do it with the warmer weather conditions," Williams said. "The weather dictates how much electricity we can produce and it’s the nature of doing business on a river with variable flow and variable temperatures."

Exelon’s Byron 1 and Byron 2 plants in Illinois have been operating below full capacity since June 28, according to filings with the NRC and data compiled by Bloomberg. The plants are preparing for a yearlong maintenance project that will upgrade equipment inside the cooling towers.

Byron Output

Generation at the 1,164-megawatt Byron 1 reactor slowed to 80 percent of capacity today, while Byron 2 operated at 84 percent. Production has fluctuated because adjustments to cooling tower operations vary with weather conditions, Paul Dempsey, communications manager at the plant, said by phone from Byron, Illinois.
As long as the heat persists, Saunders of Gelber & Associates expects nuclear supply to stay low while demand continues to climb.

Hotter-than-normal weather in the large cities along the East Coast usually raises demand for electricity as people turn to air conditioners to cool off. Generation in the region was 24,043 megawatts today, 3.8 percent lower than a year ago.

Production in the Southeast was 4.9 percent lower than a year earlier, compared with 6.6 percent for the Midwest and 4.1 percent for the West, according to commission data.

"We expect the trend of things getting tighter and tighter to persist," Saunders said in a phone interview. "The impact of the last few weeks have been the largest of the summer."

To contact the reporter on this story: Christine Harvey in New York at charvey32(at)bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bill Banker at bbanker(at)bloomberg.net