Platts - Tuesday, December 23, 2003 http://www.platts.com ------------ London (Nuclear News Flashes)--22Dec2003 BE shareholders approve sale of AmerGen interest British Energy (BE) shareholders Dec. 22 approved selling the company's 50% interest in AmerGen, paving the way for a quick transaction so that financially- strapped BE can use the cash to aid its liquidity crisis. All the hurdles holding up the sale to Exelon Generation, BE's joint venture partner in AmerGen, have now been cleared. BE is expected to receive approximately U.S.$277-million at the close of the transaction, which BE said it anticipates will take place "within the next few days." Once the deal is final, Exelon will become sole owner of the AmerGen plants: Clinton, Oyster Creek, and Three Mile Island-1. The exact sum to be received by BE will depend on any post-closing adjustments relating to working capital levels, unspent nuclear fuel, capital expenditures, and low-level waste disposal costs. ------------ Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--22Dec2003 Diablo Canyon operations not affected by quake Both Diablo Canyon reactors, 35 miles from the epicenter of an earthquake that shook southern California Dec. 22, continued to operate at full power, NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said. The quake, which measured 6.5 on the Richter scale, was felt at the coastal nuclear power plant operated by Pacific Gas & Electric (PGE). A plant walkdown that was under way the afternoon of Dec. 22 had not found any evidence of plant problems resulting from the quake, Dricks said. The quake occurred at 11:16 a.m. local time. Six minutes later, PGE declared an unusual event, the lowest of NRC's four levels of emergency preparedness. ------------ Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--19Dec2003 Perma-Fix subsidiary gets LLW contract A Perma-Fix Environmental Services subsidiary was awarded a low-level radwaste (LLW) contract valued at between $5- and $10-million over two years, depending on the amount of material handled, Perma-Fix said. East Tennessee Materials & Energy Corp. was awarded the contract by Bechtel Jacobs Co. LLC for LLW processing and shipment services at DOE's Oak Ridge facilities in Tennessee. The LLW will consist primarily of solid dry waste, scrap metal and construction demolition debris, Perma-Fix said. ------------ Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--19Dec2003 Pickering event rated at INES Level 2 An incident at Pickering has received a final International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) rating of level 2 from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). Level 2 is the second-lowest rating on the seven-level scale. The event occurred Aug. 14, when all eight of Ontario Power Generation's Pickering units experienced a total loss of on-site electric power due to the blackout that affected Ontario and parts of the U.S., according to a notice from the CNSC that was posted on the IAEA Web site (http://www-news.iaea.org/news/). Due to the blackout, the emergency core injection system was impaired. For about 5.5 hours after the blackout, cooling of the units was achieved only by natural circulation, the notice said. However, it said that at all times, on all units, reactor power was controlled, fuel was adequately cooled, and containment was available. At the time of the event, the long-idled units 1, 2 and 3 remained shut down; unit 4 was at 12% power but had not synchronized to the grid; units 5, 6 and 8 were at full power; and unit 7 was heating up from a planned outage. All operating units were safely shut down, the CNSC said. ------------