Archive for the ‘Nukes’ Category

March 27, 2011

By Katheleen Conti, Staff
Boston Globe

Low levels of radioactive iodine likely resulting from the nuclear accident in Japan have been detected in a sample of rainwater in Massachusetts, state health officials said today.

The amounts of radioiodine are very low concentrations and should have no impact on state drinking water supplies, John Auerbach, commissioner of the Department of Public Health, told reporters.

The rain sample was taken during the past week in Boston as part of regular monitoring of radioactivity on the environment by the US Environmental Protection Agency. No detectable increases in radiation have been discovered in the air, Auerbach said, and there are no expected public health concerns.

"The drinking water supply in Massachusetts is unaffected by this short-term, slight elevation in radiation," he said. "However, we will carefully monitor the drinking water as we exercise an abundance of caution."

Radioiodine is a by-product of nuclear energy production and has a half-life of eight days, Auerbach said at a press conference this afternoon at the William A. Hinton State Laboratory Institute in Jamaica Plain. Half-life means that only half of the level of radiation will be present in eight days, and so on until it completely dissipates.

"That means it should be undetectable in a matter of weeks, assuming that there is no new source of radiation exposure," he said.

Drinking water samples taken last week from the Quabbin and Wachusett reservoirs showed no detectable levels of radioiodine. Precautionary samplings from 12 other water supply sources across the state were taken today. Results are expected over the next several days.

Similar levels of radiation in rainwater samples have been found in other states, including California, Washington, and Pennsylvania, Auerbach said.

The 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck northern Japan on March 11 seriously damaged the six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, which continues to spew radiation into the atmosphere and the sea.

Harmless traces of radiation from the stricken nuclear complex in Japan have been detected wafting over the East Coast of the United States, the New York Times reported last week. The paper cited European officials who have tracked the radioactive plume as it has drifted eastward on prevailing winds from Japan – first to the West Coast and now over the East Coast and the Atlantic, moving toward Europe. The plume’s radiation had been diluted enormously in its journey of thousands of miles and that – at least for now, with concentrations so low – its presence will have no health consequences in the United States, the paper reported.

Tue Mar 22, 2011

Reuters News Service

While supportive of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s move to learn from the Fukushima emergency, Crane said the agency’s review must be timely. "We can’t afford a review that takes two years," Crane said.

New Jersey-based NRG said it remains committed to its choice of the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) design even though it expects some regulatory requirements to change.

Even a seemingly simple design change — such as requiring reactors on a single site to be built farther from each other — could be "fatal" to a project as far along as the South Texas Project expansion, Crane said.

"We’d have to start over with bedrock and soil studies," he said.

The plan to build new units at South Texas by 2016 was one of the most advanced amid a so-called renaissance in the U.S. atomic energy sphere, but had already run into trouble.

Last fall, NRG reduced its nuclear development spending to $1.5 million a month due to the delay in obtaining federal loan support Crane has said is critical to moving forward.

Overall spending by the partners, which had been $20 million to $30 million a month, will be cut to $8 million to $10 million, Crane said.

Tepco, which owns the damaged Fukushima plant, had agreed to invest $125 million in the Texas nuclear expansion project if it obtained federal loan support, but Crane said the status of Tepco’s involvement is now unknown as the company struggles to rebuild its Japanese plants.

Japan’s nuclear problem only makes it more difficult for U.S. developers to move forward.

"The economics were not good at all for the U.S. to build new nuclear plants given the low gas prices and the outlook for huge reserves of gas," said Jone-Lin Wang, managing director for global power for IHS CERA.

"Before this accident, the economics were a tough sell for nuclear, but you have to consider the diversity of fuel" and the expected 60-year lifespan of new reactors, she said.

While Crane said NRG will wait until late summer to decide whether to continue investing in the STP expansion, analysts have said a move by NRG to abandon the project could be positive in the long run.

NRG shares, which have risen since the March 11 earthquake, gained 14 cents on Monday, to close at $20.86 per share on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Editing by David Gregorio, Gary Hill)

March 21, 2011

By Cassandra Sweet
Dow Jones Newswire
Wall Street Jurnal

NRG Energy Inc. (NRG) and Toshiba Corp. (TOSYY, 6502.TO) said Monday they would suspend most work on their proposed Texas nuclear power plant, pending possible new safety rules.

The companies said they would continue work to obtain an operating license and a federal loan guarantee for the plant, but would suspend other work pending a review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the nuclear power plant accident in Japan to see what lessons could be learned for U.S. facilities.

The NRC on Monday pursued a review of events at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant to identify potential new safety rules for the U.S. nuclear industry.

"As we unreservedly support our government’s proposed nuclear safety review, the prudent thing for us to do is to await the outcome of that review before committing more of our own or our partners’ capital," NRG Chief Executive David Crane said in a statement.

J.P. Morgan analyst Andrew Smith suggested the move might be welcome news for some investors who are concerned that NRG might be spending heavily on a project that may or may not get off the ground.

"We believe investors remained concerned about the ultimate capital outlay for new nuclear as well as the financial risk entailed in building new nuclear for NRG," Smith said.

Shares of NRG closed 14 cents higher, at $20.86, and were inactive post-market.

-By Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-439-6468; cassandra.sweet(at)dowjones.com

March 21, 2011

Former partner in STP expansion slows work after Japan disaster.

By Tracy Idell Hamilton
San Antonio Express-News

Nuclear Innovation North America is slowing development of two additional nuclear reactors at the South Texas Project to give federal regulators and others time to assess the state of the industry in the wake of Japan’s nuclear disaster.

Work on the proposed reactors will be limited to licensing and securing the U.S. loan guarantee upon which the project depends, according to a Monday news release from NINA, the nuclear development company owned by NRG Energy and Toshiba Corp.

In conjunction with that announcement, CPS Energy CEO Doyle Beneby said the utility would indefinitely suspend talks to buy power from the proposed reactors.

"NRG and its partners stand squarely behind new nuclear power as the most important component in our transition to a low-carbon economy," said David Crane, chairman of the board of NINA and chief executive of NRG. "However, our best course of action in this immediate period of uncertainty is to minimize project (spending), continue with those activities we can control and wait until there is more information upon which we can base our long-term decisions."

The move added a degree of finality to CPS’ announcement March 14 that the parties had agreed to mutually cease talks as the nuclear crisis in Japan unfolded.

The Obama administration last week called for a comprehensive safety review of the U.S. nuclear fleet. Any design or regulatory changes stemming from that review could affect the proposed units near Bay City.

Crane said that since STP and the stricken plants in Fukushima are different, it wasn’t immediately clear whether modifications would be necessary to the existing or planned units.

"However, as we unreservedly support our government’s proposed nuclear safety review, the prudent thing for us to do is to await the outcome of that review before committing more of our own or our partners’ capital."

NRG also remains committed to a promise to shareholders that it would make a final decision about whether to continue investing in the project by this year’s third quarter, Crane said.

Before the Japanese crisis, Crane said, the company was hoping to have clarity in four areas to decide: the status of a federal loan guarantee from the Energy Department, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing process, an agreed-upon price to build the reactors and enough customers committed to buying the power.

Not only will uncertainty remain likely for some time in those areas, he acknowledged, "now we need to have a good idea of who the owners will be."

Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns the crippled Fukushima plants in Japan, had been expected to invest in the expansion. Given the company’s capital needs in the wake of the disaster, that’s now in question, Crane said.

But the Japanese government might still have an interest in loan guarantees since it would support Toshiba, Crane said, though he stressed that NRG has not spoken directly to the Japanese government since the earthquake. "Presumably, (the Japanese government) would be just as motivated to support Toshiba and its exports, which creates jobs," he said.

Most U.S. analysts were bearish on the economics of new nuclear development before the Japanese crisis; since then, projections have become even grimmer.

A report from Standard & Poor’s last week projects greater costs, increased oversight and "deteriorating economics" for new plant construction.

CPS has roughly $400 million invested in the expansion and owns a 7.6 percent stake in it; that would be protected if NRG decides to stop investing, said Christine Patmon, a spokeswoman with the utility. "If other partners come in, our investment remains," she said.

After many months of relative silence between the former partners, NRG approached CPS this year about buying more of the output from the proposed reactors under a fixed-price contract.

CPS was willing to listen in large part because it needs more power to replace the 851 megawatts it will lose when its Deely coal-fired plants are retired, likely by 2018.

Beneby said Monday that CPS would continue to pursue other options, including "clean coal, natural gas and big solar."

The utility is seeking proposals to build a 50-megawatt solar installation in the area, and Beneby told environmentalists this month that he has begun discussions with companies about investing in "big, big solar, maybe a couple hundred megawatts."

Suspending discussions with NRG allows CPS to devote more resources to those options, he said.

He also said the utility would not alter either its 40 percent ownership in the existing two reactors at STP or its 7.6 percent stake in the proposed expansion.

CPS is not ruling out future discussions with NRG, Beneby said, but those would start from scratch rather than continue from before the crisis.

March 21, 2011

Japan puts nuclear industry in uncertain state

By Tracy Idell Hamilton
San Antonio Express-News

Nuclear Innovation North America is slowing down development of two additional nuclear reactors at the South Texas Project to give federal regulators and others time to assess the state of the industry in the wake of Japan’s nuclear disaster.

Work on the proposed plants will be limited to licensing and securing the U.S. federal loan guarantee upon which the project depends, according to a Monday release from NINA, the nuclear development company owned by NRG Energy and Toshiba Corp.

"NRG and its partners stand squarely behind new nuclear power as the most important component in our transition to a low-carbon economy," said David Crane, chairman of the board of NINA and CEO of NRG.

"However, our best course of action in this immediate period of uncertainty is to minimize project spend, continue with those activities we can control and wait until there is more information upon which we can base our long-term decisions."

The Obama administration last week called for a safety review of U.S. nuclear plants. Any design or regulatory changes stemming from that review could affect the proposed units near Bay City.

Crane said that since the South Texas Project and the stricken plants in Fukushima are different, it isn’t clear whether modifications would be necessary to the existing or planned units.

NRG also remains committed to an earlier promise it made to shareholders that it would make a final decision about whether to continue with the project by the third quarter of this year, Crane said.

He said the Japanese crisis has added to uncertainty about loan guarantees; the licensing process; the cost to build the plant; customers committed to buying the power; and the project’s eventual ownership.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, which owns the crippled Fukushima plants, had been expected to invest in the expansion. Given the company’s capital needs in the wake of the disaster, that’s now in question, Crane said.

But the Japanese government may still have an interest in putting up loan guarantees, Crane said – though he stressed that NRG has not spoken directly to the Japanese government or Tepco since the earth-quake – since they would support Toshiba.

Most U.S. analysts were bearish on the economics of new nuclear development even before the Japanese crisis; since then, projections have become even grimmer. A report from Standard & Poor’s last week projects "deteriorating economics" for new plant construction.

thamilton(at)express-news.net