Platts - Wednesday, March 03, 2004 http://www.platts.com ------------ SCE plans for steam generator replacements Washington (Platts)--3Mar2004 The steam generators at San Onofre-2 and -3 would be replaced during refueling outages in 2009-2010 under a plan that Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) has developed. SCE estimated the total cost of the replacement at about $680-million. In a filing March 2 with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, SCE said it asked the California Public Utility Commission Feb. 27 to find it reasonable for SCE to pay its share of the costs of replacing the steam generators. SCE owns 75% of both units. SCE said that to obtain delivery of the steam generators it will have to enter into certain commitments this year. ------------ APS: Palo Verde-2, -3 to return to service by next week Washington (Platts)--3Mar2004 Arizona's Public Service's (APS) Palo Verde-2 is expected to return to service this week, while unit 3 likely will resume operations early next week, APS spokeswoman Sherie Foote said today. Unit 2 has been down since a small leak was found in one of its new steam generators Feb. 19. Palo Verde-3 tripped off line Feb 28 after electrical issues developed with the reactor's turbine generator. That outage was extended when APS crews the following day found a small indication of boron on an alloy 600 pressurizer heater sleeve. "It's important to understand these events are unrelated," APS Executive Vice President of Generation Jim Levine said in a statement the company issued yesterday. ------------ RWE says nuclear security is federal government responsibility London (Platts)--3Mar2004 Anti-terrorist protection of nuclear power plants is a matter for federal government and not the operators, said a spokesman for Germany's RWE Wednesday. "The government is responsible for the protection of nuclear plants against terror," said the spokesman. "There are packages from the federal government into which the nuclear power plant operators are bound into, but I cannot reveal any details as that is safety- relevant," he said. The spokesman said responsibility for security was being passed between federal and state governments and the operators. "You can turn whichever way you like, it's a political building site," he said. Greenpeace on Tuesday called on the world's nuclear safety authorities to review reactor safety and to close the most vulnerable facilities. The call came after Wolfram Konig, head of the German Radiation Protection Agency (BfS), was reported to have said that five out of Germany's 18 operational reactors should be closed early on security grounds. ------------ DOE asks court to defer costs of spent fuel delivery delay Washington (Platts)--1Mar2004 The federal government asked a court to disregard future spent fuel costs to the nuclear industry resulting from DOE's failure to meet a contractual obligation to begin removing nuclear waste from reactor sites by 1998. The request was filed with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims Feb. 27; a hearing began today on the first of more than 50 lawsuits involving the costs of on-site storage. Harold Lester, a U.S. Department of Justice attorney representing the government, argued, "All of these speculative costs shouldn't be things the court has to resolve here." Rather, he said, utilities should file claims for long-term damages after a nuclear repository is opened and the cost of DOE's contractual breach becomes known. Lester called untrue suggestions that DOE attempted to reduce the cost of utilities' legal claims by setting a 2010 target date for opening Yucca Mountain and disputed claims that the real opening date would be closer to 2016. Judge Robert Hodges said the court would proceed with the two-week hearing and address later the issue of future damages. ------------ Hungarian site eyed for repository Paris (Platts)--1Mar2004 A site at Uveghuta has been accepted for a low- and medium-level waste repository, according to the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority. The authority announced Feb. 27 that the South Transdanubian office of the Hungarian Geological Survey had accepted the final report of geological investigations conducted from boreholes during 2002-2003 at the Bataapati site in the region of Uveghuta. The plan is to build a repository at a depth of 200-250 meters in the site's granite formation. ------------