Platts - Thursday, May 08, 2003 
http://www.platts.com

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Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--7May2003

Default risk on government nuclear plant loans high, CBO
says

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) considers the risk
of default on a government nuclear plant loan guarantee
"to be very high--well above 50%." In a report issued
May 7 on a provision in the Senate energy bill (S. 14),
the CBO said that its estimate of high risk of default
by private companies comes from the expectation that a
new nuclear plant "would be uneconomic to operate
because of high construction costs, relative to other
electricity generation sources." The Senate bill
authorizes DOE to provide loan guarantees for up to 50%
of the construction costs of units that have a combined
capacity of up to 8,400 megawatts. However, the CBO
said, once a plant was constructed, creditors (like the
federal government) could expect to recover a
significant portion of any defaults over the plant's
operating life.

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Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--7May2003

Licenses for Peach Bottom-2 and -3 renewed

NRC renewed the operating licenses for Peach Bottom-2
and -3 for an additional 20 years, the agency said May
7. The licenses will now expire on Aug. 8, 2033 for unit
2 and July 2, 2034 for unit 3. Exelon had submitted the
license renewal application on July 2, 2001.

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