Platts - Wednesday, December 07, 2005 http://www.platts.com ------------ Cameco, Areva sell stakes in Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. Washington (Platts)--6Dec2005 Cameco and Areva have sold their stakes in Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. (ERA), the companies said today. Cameco said the sale of its 12.8-million ERA shares (a 6.7% stake) will result in gross proceeds of (Aus)$121-million (U.S.$91-million). Areva said its sale of 14.8-million shares (a 7.76% stake) will result in gross proceeds of (Aus)$140.6-million (U.S.$106-million). The decisions of Cameco and Areva to sell their ERA stakes followed the announcement in October that ERA's majority owner, Rio Tinto, was consolidating its uranium marketing and sales contracting in a London-based Rio Tinto Uranium unit. ------------ Calvert Cliffs using air in cask drying New York (Platts)--6Dec2005 In spite of a recently issued draft interim staff guidance discouraging the use of air to assist in drying loaded spent fuel storage casks, Constellation Energy officials convinced NRC that using air during "blow down" at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant (CCNPP) would not be a problem because they can prove the fuel has no cracks or pinhole leaks. Those discussions occurred during a Sept. 14 teleconference, according to the official record of the conversation, which was dated Nov. 8 and released on NRC's Adams database late last month. NRC staff called plant officials to discuss operating procedures for the upcoming loading campaign and to alert Calvert Cliffs to its concerns about oxidation that could occur during an air blow down?a process allowed under Calvert Cliffs' procedures for loading the Nuhoms spent fuel storage system. Constellation uses the system under a site-specific license. The teleconference occurred while NRC was preparing a draft guidance, issued Nov. 15, that says an oxidizing atmosphere could cause fuel pellets to swell if there were a cladding breach such as a pinhole. NRC said in the draft that oxidization of the fuel could occur rapidly and could result in "gross fuel cladding breaches." After NRC identified the issue this summer, the agency required Transnuclear Inc. to change its technical specifications in Nuhoms amendment 8. Those tech specs now require use of an inert gas, rather than air. But Constellation officials told NRC staff during the phone call that plant records could show there was no fuel leakage during the operating cycle and that the fuel is tested via vacuum sipping prior to being loaded into casks. "The staff stated that if CCNPP could demonstrate that the fuel was in pristine condition, then the use of air to blow down the casks should not be a problem," according to the NRC record. In the draft ISG, NRC offers three possible approaches: maintaining the fuel in an environment to prevent oxidation, assuring there are no cladding breaches in the fuel pin sections that would be exposed to air, or determining that the "time-at-temperature" profiles of the rods while they are exposed to air and calculating the expected oxidation to determine whether a gross breach would occur. NRC is taking comments on the draft guidance through Dec. 30. For more information, take a trial to Platts Nuclear Fuel at http://nuclearfuel.platts.com. ------------ Palisades to be offered for sale Washington (Platts)--5Dec2005 CMS Energy announced plans to sell Palisades, citing the trend toward consolidation in the nuclear industry and the shrinkage of Nuclear Management Co. (NMC), which currently operates the plant. In a press release today, CMS President/CEO David Joos said, "Though we've seen great improvements at Palisades since turning over operations to the Nuclear Management Company in 2000, NMC has shrunk as other member utilities have sold their plants, and we believe the best course of action is to sell Palisades." The 845-MW plant is the only nuclear asset owned by CMS, through its subsidiary Consumers Energy. At its peak, NMC operated six plants; the sale of Kewaunee was completed earlier this year, and the sale of Duane Arnold is in process. CMS said it expected the Palisades sale to be completed in 2007. ------------ US Supreme Court won't review ruling on Utah nuke waste laws Washington (Platts)--5Dec2005 The US Supreme Court Monday denied Utah's request to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling on a series of state statutes aimed at blocking the transportation and storage of spent nuclear fuel at a planned private storage facility about 50 miles outside of Salt Lake City. The US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the state laws in August 2004, saying the statutes were preempted by the Atomic Energy Act. Utah enacted the statutes between 1998 and 2001 in response to the proposal to build a spent fuel storage facility by a consortium of utilities, Private Fuel Storage LLC (PFS). Jay Silberg, a Washington attorney representing PFS, called the Supreme Court's rejection of Utah's petition for a writ of certiorari "big news" and said PFS was "obviously very pleased." For more information, take a trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://nucweek.platts.com. ------------