Platts - Monday, March 15, 2004 http://www.platts.com ------------ NPPD given go-ahead to fund Cooper improvements Washington (Platts)--12Mar2004 The Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) has received the go-ahead to issue $50- to $55-million in taxable bonds to fund various capital improvements at Cooper through 2014. During its monthly meeting March 11-12, NPPD's board of directors authorized NPPD to use Morgan Stanley as the investment banker for the bond sale and the Bank of New York as the auction agent. The bond sale is planned for late April. The board also approved nearly $6-million in contracts with Framatome ANP for outage work at the 801-MW BWR. Under an estimated $5- million contract, Framatome would be responsible for a refueling in-service inspection, and errosion/corrosion and in-vessel visual inspections. Under a separate $968,000 contract, the company is to provide ultrasonic testing of the plant's reactor vessel core shroud and shroud support plate. ------------ CNSC renews licenses for Bruce stations Washington (Platts)--12Mar2004 The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) renewed the operating licenses for the Bruce A and B stations for five years, until March 31, 2009. The CNSC also requested that the staff present status reports on the stations' performance at the mid-point of the license terms. Over the past few months, Bruce Power has restarted Bruce A units 3 and 4, which had been shut down for several years. The company also will conduct a feasibility study to look at restarting Bruce A units 1 and 2, which have been shut since 1997 and 1995, respectively. The four Bruce B reactors (units 5-8) have continued to operate. ------------ NRC to keep close watch on Davis-Besse Washington DC (Platts)--10Mar2004 NRC will keep heightened scrutiny on Davis-Besse for some time to come, possibly for the next three to five years, NRC Chairman Nils Diaz said today. The agency gave restart approval March 8 to the FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. plant, which has been shut for more than two years. But Diaz told reporters that it would "not (be) any time soon" that the unit would receive the same regulatory treatment as other plants. "Our expectation is they will work hard to remove constraints," he said. Earlier, in a keynote speech delivered at NRC's annual Regulatory Information Conference in Washington, D.C., Diaz pointed to the Davis-Besse reactor vessel head degradation as an occurrence that should not have happened. But he said he was "confident" that complacency--which the chairman said is one of the industry's greatest challenges--has been "driven out" from Davis-Besse.