Platts - Friday, February 13, 2004 http://www.platts.com ------------ Bush sends Jaczko's NRC nomination to Senate Washington (Platts)--12Feb2004 President Bush sent Gregory Jaczko's NRC nomination to the Senate, for the seat last held by Greta Dicus. That term ends June 30, 2008. Jaczko is appropriations director for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and has been opposed by the nuclear industry for his role in Reid's fight against the planned high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. When the White House last summer wanted to nominate retiring admiral John Grossenbacher as NRC chairman, however, Reid threatened to put a hold on that nomination, as he had on a number of others, unless Jaczko were also nominated. The White House agreed, and Reid immediately lifted his hold--the process by which a single senator can stop a nomination vote--on several dozen nominations. In December, Grossenbacher withdrew his name from consideration, but the vetting process for Jaczko has continued. There had been speculation the White House would not proceed with Jaczko's nomination in the wake of Grossenbacher's decision, but the announcement Feb. 12 signals Bush, like Reid, is keeping his side of the bargain. ------------ Fenoc made Davis-Besse improvements, NRC finds Washington (Platts)--12Feb2004 Fenoc has improved Davis-Besse operations and safety culture significantly since December, two NRC inspection teams reported Feb. 12. At a meeting in Port Clinton, Ohio, John Grobe, the head of the special NRC panel overseeing FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co.'s (Fenoc's) effort to restart the plant, said the issues those two teams were investigating are now considered closed, but that the panel must evaluate information from the teams and elsewhere before making a decision to recommend reactor restart. The PWR has been out of service since Feb. 16, 2002. The decision will come at an internal meeting of the panel, and therefore today's sessions might be the last public meetings of the panel before the plant comes back into service. ------------ 2003 nuclear generation no record, still hefty New York (Platts)--12Feb2004 Long regulatory outages in Japan cut nuclear generation some 86-mil MWh gross in 2003 from the 2002 output, reduced average capacity factor from 77% to 59%, and was the major factor in a worldwide decline in nuclear output of about 70-mil MWh, to some 2.60-bil MWh, according to an analysis by Platts Nucleonics Week. World average capacity factor dropped more than two points, to 76.4%. Regulatory outages, mainly for top and bottom vessel head inspections and repairs, were also the major contributor to the decline of US nuclear generation by about 14-mil MWH, with average gross capacity factor dropping from nearly 90% to just over 87%. Nevertheless, in 2001, both the world and the US performances would have set records, so the 2003 showing still meant a large number of operators were running their plants very well. South Korea's units generated some 13-mil more MWh and Russia's, 10-mil more than in 2002. The Czech Republic produced some 9-mil more MWh with Temelin's becoming fully functional, while Bulgaria lost about 3-mil MWh in part from the permanent shutdown of Kozloduy-1 and -2. And some nuclear units did very well indeed. Germany's 1,475-MW Isar-2 broke its own 2002 record by generating more than 12.3-mil MWh. For the first time, the second largest generator was French: Electricite de France's (EDF) Cattenom-3, produced 11.7-mil MWh. Every one of the top 10 generators worldwide--six German, two French and two US units--put out more than 11-mil MWh in the year. Being among the top 50 generators globally by capacity factor still required exceeding 95% capacity factor in the year, as it did in 2001 and 2002. The top 50 were led by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power's Kori-3, Ulchin-3 and Yonggwang-4, Southern California Edison's San Onofre-2, Kansai Electric Power's Mihama-1, Exelon's Limerick-1 and Byron-2, and Kansai Electric Power's Ohi-1. This story was first published in Platts Nucleonics Week (http://www.platts.com/Nuclear/Newsletters & Reports/Nucleonics Week/). ------------ Indian Point-2 white finding closed Washington (Platts)--11Feb2004 NRC closed out a white finding at Indian Point-2, citing progress with Entergy's ability to detect and correct issues associated with design control. In a Feb. 4 inspection report on an evaluation of the unit's problem identification and resolution activities, NRC noted the white finding had been kept open beyond the usual four quarters specified in the reactor oversight process. The report was publicly released Feb. 11. Wayne Lanning, director of the division of reactor safety in Region I, said the inspection team found the company had made improvements since August 2003 but that the agency would continue to monitor Entergy on design control issues. He also said the inspection team determined Indian Point-2 was generally finding and correcting programs in other areas, although it did identify two "green" findings of very low safety significance involving Entergy's failure to respond quickly to the underlying cause of two testing failures. ------------ Signing set for nuclear liability pact Paris (Platts)--11Feb2004 Contracting parties to the Paris convention will sign the protocol Feb. 12 amending that treaty, which governs third-party nuclear liability for national and transboundary nuclear damage in the OECD area. The protocol has been under negotiation since 1998. European Union (EU) members needed a decision by the EU Council to let them sign it, which was given late last year. Ambassadors to the OECD from the 15 countries party to the treaty will sign the protocol at a ceremony in Paris, headquarters of the OECD. The revised convention quadruples the compensation available for damages from a nuclear installation accident in a contracting states, multiplies by even greater factors amounts available for transportation accidents and accidents at low-risk installations, and introduces other key changes to the 1960 convention, including broader definitions of nuclear damages and broader scope of application. ------------