Archive for the ‘South Texas Project’ Category

March 23, 2011

By Charles Riley, staff reporter
CNNMoney

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Utility company NRG has put the brakes on a plan to build two new nuclear reactors at its South Texas plant, CEO David Crane said Wednesday.

High levels of uncertainty in the aftermath of Japan’s nuclear disasters have led the company to limit work on the project to the licensing and securing of federal loan guarantees, Crane said.

No new nuclear plant has won final approval in the United States since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, although site work is being done at a couple of locations around the country.

Eighty miles southeast of Houston, NRG (NRG, Fortune 500) wants to expand its nuclear facility from two reactors to four — in part with financing from Tokyo Electric Power Company, the owner of the Fukushima Daiichi plant that was heavily damaged in Japan’s earthquake and tsunami.

Tepco holds a 10% stake in the NRG expansion project, with the option to purchase an additional 10% share. A spokesman for NRG confirmed the company has been in touch with Tepco following Japan’s twin natural disasters — but only to offer assistance.

Complicating matters is the industry-wide regulatory review instituted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

"The timing of this from where our project stands could not be more unfortunate," Crane said. "And time can be the biggest enemy for a project like this."

It’s unclear how long the review will take.

"We actually agree that we need the review," Crane said. "But the question is what are we looking at? A three month review or longer?"

Crane said he hopes his plant will be among the first to be given the green light by regulators. He stressed that the proposed reactors will sit 10 miles from the Gulf Coast, in a non-seismic area.

But even seemingly small changes in regulations could kill the project. For instance, NRG’s plan calls for the new reactors to be spaced much further apart than those at Fukushima Daiichi plant. But if regulators demand additional space, it could derail the project, Crane said.

In another blow to the planned expansion, San Antonio power company CPS Energy — which already holds a 7.62% stake in the planned reactors — announced it was indefinitely suspending all discussions about purchasing more power from the plant. However, CPS did not rule out future discussions.

Crane said finding power purchasers will be crucial.

"That was going to be the critical task ahead of us in the second and third quarters," he said, but added that the more immediate concern is getting approval from regulators to build.

For South Texas, there are jobs at stake. (Read what Bay City residents want.)

Less than 20 miles from the NRG plant lies the town of Bay City, where many people work at the power plant and hope an expansion would bring more jobs. The plant itself already employs 1,200 people.

— CNNMoney senior writer Steve Hargreaves contributed to this report.

The No BS Info on Japan’s Disastrous Nuclear Operators

Monday 14 March 2011

by: Greg Palast
TruthOut.org

I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.

I don’t know the law in Japan, so I can’t tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.

But what will Obama plead? The administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas – by TEPCO and local partners. As if the Gulf hasn’t suffered enough. Here are the facts about TEPCO and the industry you haven’t heard on CNN:

The failure of emergency systems at Japan’s nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field.

Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called "SQ" or "Seismic Qualification." That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from al-Qaeda.

The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from "failed" to "passed."

The company that put in the false safety report? Stone & Webster, now the nuclear unit of Shaw Construction, which will work with TEPCO to build the Texas plant. Lord help us.

There’s more.

Last night, I heard CNN reporters repeat the official line that the tsunami disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors, implying that water unexpectedly got into the diesel generators that run the pumps.

These safety backup systems are the "EDGs" in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn’t work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn’t save a building because "it was on fire."

What dim bulbs designed this system? One of the reactors dancing with death at Fukushima Station 1 was built by Toshiba. Toshiba was also an architect of the emergency diesel system.

Now be afraid. Obama’s $4 billion bailout in the making is called the South Texas Project. It’s been sold as a red-white-and-blue way to make power domestically with a reactor from Westinghouse, a great American brand. However, the reactor will be made substantially in Japan by the company that bought the US brand name, Westinghouse – Toshiba.

I once had a Toshiba computer. I only had to send it in once for warranty work. However, it’s kind of hard to mail back a reactor with the warranty slip inside the box if the fuel rods are melted and sinking halfway to the earth’s core.

TEPCO and Toshiba don’t know what my son learned in eighth grade science class: tsunamis follow Pacific Rim earthquakes. So, these companies are real stupid, eh? Maybe. More likely is that the diesels and related systems wouldn’t have worked on a fine, dry afternoon.

Back in the day, when we checked the emergency backup diesels in America, a mind-blowing number flunked. At the New York nuclear plant, for example, the builders swore under oath that their three diesel engines were ready for an emergency. They’d been tested. The tests were faked; the diesels run for just a short time at low speed. When the diesels were put through a real test under emergency-like conditions, the crankshaft on the first one snapped in about an hour, then the second and third. We nicknamed the diesels, "Snap, Crackle and Pop."

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(Note: Moments after I wrote that sentence, word came that two of three diesels failed at the Tokai Station as well.)

In the US, we supposedly fixed our diesels after much complaining by the industry. But in Japan, no one tells TEPCO to do anything the Emperor of Electricity doesn’t want to do.

I get lots of confidential notes from nuclear industry insiders. One engineer, a big name in the field, is especially concerned that Obama waved the come-hither check to Toshiba and TEPCO to lure them to America. The US has a long history of whistleblowers willing to put themselves on the line to save the public. In our racketeering case in New York, the government only found out about the seismic test fraud because two courageous engineers, Gordon Dick and John Daly, gave our team the documentary evidence.

In Japan, it’s simply not done. The culture does not allow the salary men, who work all their lives for one company, to drop the dime.

Not that US law is a wondrous shield: both engineers in the New York case were fired and blacklisted by the industry. Nevertheless, the government (local, state, federal) brought civil racketeering charges against the builders. The jury didn’t buy the corporation’s excuses and, in the end, the plant was, thankfully, dismantled.

Am I on some kind of xenophobic anti-Nippon crusade? No. In fact, I’m far more frightened by the American operators in the South Texas nuclear project, especially Shaw. Stone & Webster, now the Shaw nuclear division, was also the firm that conspired to fake the EDG tests in New York . (The company’s other exploits have been exposed by their former consultant, John Perkins, in his book, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.") If the planet wants to shiver, consider this: Toshiba and Shaw have recently signed a deal to become worldwide partners in the construction of nuclear stations.

The other characters involved at the South Texas Plant that Obama is backing should also give you the willies. But as I’m in the middle of investigating the American partners, I’ll save that for another day.

So, if we turned to America’s own nuclear contractors, would we be safe? Well, two of the melting Japanese reactors, including the one whose building blew sky high, were built by General Electric of the Good Old US of A.

After Texas, you’re next. The Obama administration is planning a total of $56 billion in loans for nuclear reactors all over America.

And now, the homicides:

CNN is only interested in body counts, how many workers burnt by radiation, swept away or lost in the explosion. These plants are now releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Be skeptical about the statements that the "levels are not dangerous." These are the same people who said these meltdowns could never happen. Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation.

In my New York investigation, I had the unhappy job of totaling up post-meltdown "morbidity" rates for the county government. It would be irresponsible for me to estimate the number of cancer deaths that will occur from these releases without further information; but it is just plain criminal for the TEPCO shoguns to say that these releases are not dangerous.

Indeed, the fact that residents near the Japanese nuclear plants were not issued iodine pills to keep at the ready shows TEPCO doesn’t care who lives and who dies, whether in Japan or the USA. The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.

Heaven help us. Because Obama won’t.

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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.