Platts - Thursday, October 28, 2004 http://www.platts.com ------------ NPPD STUDY SAYS RENEWING COOPER COULD SAVE OVER $1- BILLION Washington (Platts)--27Oct2004 Nebraska Public Power District (NPPD) study says renewing Cooper's license could save over $1-billion in costs associated with building a new coal-fired plant to replace the reactor, according to a NPPD study presented last night in Brownville, Neb. NPPD management is expected to recommend to the board next month that the utility in first quarter 2005 begin the process of seeking a 20-year renewal of the plant's NRC operating license. The 801-MW BWR's license now expires in 2014. Managers also will recommend beginning work on a power uprate feasibility study after Cooper's refueling and maintenance outage, scheduled to start in January. A separate study, which will look at how to further increase the plant's output, will investigate what benefit if any could be gained by switching from the plant's current 18-month operating cycle to a 24-month cycle. Cooper is the largest single generator of electricity in Nebraska. ------------ EC wants more transparent funding for nuke liabilities Brussels (Platts)--27Oct2004 The European Commission is to recommend next year that European Union member states operate their funds for managing their nuclear decommissioning and waste "with complete transparency," the EC said Wednesday. The European Parliament is concerned that some nuclear operators may be using these funds in a way that distorts competition in the single market, for example, by buying up competitors. In the EC's first report on such funds, published Wednesday, a survey of 14 EU member states revealed both differing approaches to decommissioning and managing the money to fund it. In 10 member states--the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden--the funds are not managed by the nuclear operator. This is the method preferred by the EC, which believes it offers the greatest transparency and the best guarantee that the funds are used for their intended purposes. In France and Germany, the nuclear operator alone manages the fund. The EC said this gave the operator great flexibility, but that it was not transparent and could give rise to anti-competitive practices. In France, state-owned monopoly Electricite de France has used some of its provisions for decommissioning to reduce debt and invest in new assets--which some have argued give it an unfair advantage over its competitors. In Belgium, the state has a veto to ensure the operator manages funds properly, while the situation in the UK is complicated by British Energy's proposed restructuring. There are two main approaches to the actual decommissioning--six members have opted to do it as soon as the plant shuts down, while four have taken the cheaper option of deferring it to allow radioactivity levels to fall first. Four members--Belgium, France, Sweden and the UK--do not yet have a definitive strategy, said the EC. Friends of the Earth called for the full cost of nuclear power to be reflected in its price. ------------ Rad waste removed from Ineel ahead of schedule Washington (Platts)--26Oct2004 Over 2,200 containers of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste have been removed from DOE's Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory (Ineel) two years ahead of schedule. "[A]ll of the waste that could be treated and disposed of has been shipped off- site," the Idaho Completion Project (ICP) at Ineel announced today in a press release. ICP said 105 waste containers remain in storage "awaiting treatment and disposal options." Five of six Ineel waste storage facilities "have been emptied of all waste and have been closed or are undergoing closure," ICP said. The majority of the waste was sent to Envirocare in Utah for treatment and disposal, with some waste treated at Argonne National Laboratory-West, Oak Ridge, and the commercial PermaFix facility in Tennessee, ICP said. ------------