Platts - Monday, February 27, 2006 http://www.platts.com ------------ Government, lawmakers hurt French EPR debate, group chairman says London (Platts)--27Feb2006 France's national debate on construction of an EPR unit at Flamanville was "disturbed day after day" by prior policy positions taken by the national government and parliament calling for an EPR demonstration unit, the chairman of the special committee (CPDP) conducting the debate said last week. It was also "polluted," he said, by the issue of public access to confidential information that several stakeholders considered germane to the debate on new nuclear power, notably whether the EPR's design represents progress in protection against a potential suicide aircraft crash. Because of these and other problems, the EPR debate remains "unfinished," CPDP Chairman Jean-Luc Mathieu told a Feb. 17 press conference. Mathieu said that by calling for construction of a demonstration EPR in energy legislation passed in July 2005, the parliament had left little room for debate, and both the prime minister and the President had made statements last year talking about the Flamanville-3 EPR "as if it were already being built." At all of the debate sessions held since last fall in Paris and around the country, he said, participants asked what was up for debate, since the decision to build the EPR had already been made. "The government and the parliament did not have the wisdom to delay the second reading of the (energy) bill until after the debate was closed," Mathieu said last week. Legally, Electricite de France (EDF) can't start construction of the 1,600-MW PWR until after the CPDP has handed in its conclusions, which Mathieu said he expected to do by the March 10 deadline. As the project sponsor, EDF must pay for the debate. Such debates are obligatory under a 1995 law for all major infrastructure projects, but they are relatively little known by the French public at large. At the press conference, the five CPDP members expressed disappointment that the debate had largely been ignored by the public, despite a Web site (http://www.debatpublic-epr.org/) full of documentation and 21 individual sessions in all regions of the country. Debate sessions typically drew fewer than 200 people, except for one near Flamanville at which the project to build a new high-voltage transmission line was also up for debate; that session drew some 800 people, the CPDP's Francoise Zonabend said. CPDP members also expressed frustration that they hadn't been able to investigate in depth issues like life extension for EDF's existing reactors or the merits of reprocessing and recycling. Separately, antinuclear group Sortir du Nucleaire (SDN) called the debate a sham, but Greenpeace said it had at least been useful in exposing "abusive" practices of secrecy by the French administration and nuclear industry. In statements issued Feb. 17,SDN (http://www.sortirdunucleaire.fr), a federation of some 700 antinuclear groups, and Greenpeace France (http://www.greenpeace.org/france) said the debate had not answered numerous questions, notably whether the new reactor model could withstand a suicide aircraft crash and how the reactor's waste would be managed. The debate, which began last fall, had its final sessions last weekend in Paris and Cherbourg. SDN issued a seven-page "final report" terming EPR "dangerous and obsolete" and called for annulment of official decisions to build EPR, the fusion reactor ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), and a new enrichment plant in France. Greenpeace nuclear campaign director Helene Gassin said EDF's justification of the Flamanville head-of-series plant as needed to maintain industrial competence was misguided and "in the end, is good mainly for Areva and the old fantasy of France's nuclear grandeur." Greenpeace said "the debate is far from over," calling for French citizens to "mobilize against EPR April 15 and 16 in Cherbourg," where "several hundred organizations and personalities" are expected for a demonstration 10 days before the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. SDN had refused from the outset to participate in the debate's public sessions, after Mathieu had deleted six lines of SDN's written contribution to the debate last summer. In its submittal, SDN offered to distribute a document classified "defense-confidential" in which EDF laid out its view of EPR's ability to withstand a potential terrorist aircraft strike. Greenpeace and several other antinuclear environmental groups withdrew from the debate in the fall after the government refused to allow discussion of the defense-confidential information. Mathieu and other members of the CPDP said they regretted the absence of the antinuclear groups from the open debates. They underlined that the confidentiality issue?both defense confidentiality and commercial confidentiality?had been another disturbing factor in the debate. Danielle Faysse, one of the CPDP members, said the debate had made some progress, both because it was the first such debate on nuclear power in France and because it spawned a special agreement among critical scientists' group GSIEN, EDF, and safety authorities. Under that agreement, GSIEN members were able to see parts of the EPR preliminary safety report. But both Faysse and Mathieu said the commission "regretted" that it had had no legal authority to investigate and oblige EDF to answer tough questions. A full version of this story was published in Platts Nucleonics Week. Request a free trial at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/ ------------ Industry, NRC begin discussing standardized approach for COLs Washington (Platts)--24Feb2006 NRC staff and industry representatives began discussing this week ways to reduce the review time for combined construction permit-operating license (COL) applications through a standardized approach. While there has been lots of talk about standardization, with promises from the industry that the next batch of reactor licensing applications will not be for custom designed plant orders like those in the 1970s and 1980s, the application of that concept has yet to be worked out. NRC staff is developing a "design-centered" review approach that would involve a single review and decision on issues that would then became the accepted approach for all other applicants using the same design. Phillip Ray, senior project manager in NRC's new reactor licensing division, said at a Feb 21 meeting with the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and industry officials that the agency envisioned applications being divided into three groups, based on whether they had chosen Westinghouse's AP1000, General Electric's ESBWR, or Framatome ANP Inc.'s US Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR). Ray said the staff wants to review portions of a license application that would be transferred to a "reference COL" and applied to all subsequent application for that design. There would be one decision on issues that "propagates down" to the other applications, he said. For its part, the NRC would structure the staff to have an overall program manager (PM) for the design-centered review. This manager would serve as a "super PM" who would ensure that "each decision is applied through (all the) COLs," Ray said. Below the program manager would be individual project managers for each design certification, and COL application. The staff said the approach would only be successful if it received applications that contained identical sections, a consistent level of detail, and standard methods. Ray said there also needs to be consistent terminology. "A 'widget' in one application should be a 'widget' in all applications," he said. The applicants and NRC must work together, Ray stressed. "We're trying to leverage our resources to make a decision one time and leverage that across multiple applications," said Patrick Madden, chief of the new reactor infrastructure planning branch. Industry officials agreed that approach made sense. Industry officials working through NEI have been putting together their own ideas for standardizing COL applications. Key to that approach is developing and referencing "standardized content" in COL applications. Peter Hastings, licensing manager for nuclear projects at Duke Power Co., said the industry has been working to develop a standard content down to the sections in each chapter of a final safety analysis report (FSAR). Laura Dudes, chief of NRC's new reactor licensing branch, asked the industry whether it could reconfirm the dates of each planned COL submittal and identify the reference COL for each of the three designs. She also asked when the industry could share a list of FSAR sections that would contain standard content. Mark Geckle of Constellation Energy said some of those questions could be addressed by the New Plant Oversight Committee (NPOC), which would be meeting in a couple weeks. NPOC is a group of chief nuclear officers or more senior company officials who plan to file COLs or early site permit applications. "We'll have to consult and collaborate on your questions," said Hastings. Dudes pressed for an estimate on the response, asking whether these questions could be answered by summer or if more time was needed. "I don't want to spend the next couple months planning time-critical events and have them not come through," she said. Dudes said she was not trying to push the industry for a response by a specific date but wanted a general idea of how long the industry needed to sort through these issues. "It's weeks of work, not days of work," Hastings said. Geckle said that the industry's early estimate is that about two-thirds of a COL application could be standardized. Industry officials indicated that the reference COL for each design probably would emerge based on which applicant was farthest along in its preparations. The NRC staff said the press releases and statements from some companies didn't necessarily appear to match the level of readiness displayed at industry meetings. For more information, take a trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://nucweek.platts.com. ------------ Canada, Australia cool toward lifting Indian uranium embargo Bonn (Platts)--24Feb2006 The governments of Australia and Canada have internal reservations thus far about an anticipated lifting of an international trade embargo against sales of natural uranium (NATU) or enriched uranium product (EUP) to India, Western officials said last week. As a part of a US-India nuclear trade proposal launched last year, India aims to get approval from the members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to lift the NSG's embargo on member states exporting uranium to India. Because India's domestic uranium resources are very limited, getting access to imported uranium is a key Indian objective in reaching an agreement on nuclear cooperation with the US, a US official said last week. It will be up to NSG to decide, on the basis of the US-India agreement currently under negotiation, whether it will agree to a US proposal to provide an exception for India and allow NSG members to export NATU and EUP to India. The NSG will be briefed by US officials on progress in negotiations during an NSG meeting in Vienna next month. But NSG sources said last week that NSG is not expecting that it can proceed to make any decisions until there is much more progress in the negotiations, delaying any NSG action until perhaps mid-2006. Nonetheless, Western officials said, inside both the Australian and Canadian governments, on grounds of nonproliferation policy, there are deep reservations about changing national rules or guidelines which so far prohibit Australian-origin or Canadian-origin uranium from being exported to India. Even if NSG were to agree to lift the NSG embargo by consensus, officials said, Ottawa and Canberra might not agree to amend national rules and allow uranium to be exported to India. At the same time, US diplomatic sources said, it can be assumed that other major uranium exporting countries, including Kazakhstan, Namibia, South Africa, and Russia, would likely permit sales of uranium to India on the basis of the pending US-Indian deal. But they said such an agreement by these countries would likely depend on whether the NSG would by consensus lift its embargo on uranium exports to India. In Canada, Ottawa sources said, it can be expected that the issue of whether the Canadian government would approve future exports of Canadian uranium to India will be far more sensitive than a pending relaxation of Canadian controls on NSG Part II dual-use items to India as part of a Canada-India nuclear safety agreement which Ottawa has agreed to but, because of outstanding Indian assurances, is not yet in place. The national significance of any proposal to allow Canadian uranium exports to India would be great enough, the sources said, to require that a formal cabinet decision be taken by the Canadian executive branch. Input would be given by the departments of foreign affairs (FAC), international trade, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), and the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). FAC would be the lead agency and will likely file a memo to PMO on the subject, and the most significant nonproliferation policy input will be provided by FAC and CNSC, sources said. Thus far, the issue of uranium trade with India is not on the agenda of the PMO, the sources said. The minority government which took power this month is beset by other issues, they outlined. Canada's uranium producers are aware that the Canadian government has strong reservations about aspects of the US-Indian nuclear deal, particularly regarding safeguards on the Cirus reactor supplied by Canada to India during the 1960s. Canadian uranium producers are therefore mulling how to sell non-Canadian-origin NATU to India. Last year, Canadian sources outlined that, unlike in the case of trade with India, Canadian uranium miners may export NATU to China, since there is in place a bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement between the two countries and because Ottawa has determined that China is conforming to nuclear proliferation standards which are the yardstick for bilateral cooperation. There is presently no such basis for Canadian-Indian uranium commerce since Canada's bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement with India was nullfied by Canada in 1974 following India's use of plutonium generated by the Cirus reactor in a nuclear explosion. Commercial sources spelled out last year that, on the basis of existing Canadian law, Cameco may export output from a joint venture in Kazakhstan to China in a few years. Sources said that should Kazakhstan agree, Cameco may also in the future ship Kazakh-origin U to India without recourse to Canadian restrictions on nuclear commerce with India, since there is no Canada-Kazakhstan nuclear cooperation agreement. In the case of any planned export of US-origin U from Cameco to India on the heels of a final US-Indian nuclear agreement and a shift in NSG policy toward India, however, the matter may be "more complicated," one diplomatic source said, since there is a Canadian-US nuclear cooperation agreement in place. If it is ruled that that agreement permits extra-territorial application of Canadian nonproliferation rules in the US, Ottawa may be able to prevent the export of US-origin NATU by Cameco's US subsidiaries to India, sources suggested. For more information, take a trial to Nuclear Fuel at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/ ------------ CNSC releases report on new nuclear plant licensing in Canada Washington (Platts)--24Feb2006 The licensing process for new nuclear power plants in Canada is discussed in a new document released today by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). Topics covered include the licenses required for the different phases in the life cycle of a nuclear power plant and the environmental assessment process. The document is the precursor to a series of regulatory documents to be developed over the next few years and responds to requests for guidance from governments, CNSC licensees and stakeholders on the regulatory requirements and process for licensing such facilities, the CNSC said. In a statement, CNSC President/CEO Linda Keen said, "While the CNSC has not yet received any applications to start the licensing process for any new nuclear power plants, the information document was prepared as part of the CNSC's due diligence." The report is on the CNSC Web site (http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/pubs_catalogue/uploads/INFO-0756_e.pdf). ------------ Spent fuel removal is industry's top waste legislation priority Washington (Platts)--23Feb2006 The removal of spent fuel from reactor sites tops the nuclear industry's list of what it wants to see in nuclear waste legislation, said Steve Kraft of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). NEI unveiled its top priorities at a media briefing today. The industry also wants Congress to remove the current 70,000 metric ton cap on the amount of spent fuel that can be entombed in a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., said Kraft, NEI's director of used fuel management. It also wants Congress to allow the technical capability of the site, as well as the disposal capacity needed to support a growing nuclear power industry, determine the disposal capacity there, he said. In addition, he said, Congress should eliminate the periodic waste confidence rule now required of NRC. Confidence in DOE's ability to dispose of utility spent fuel was demonstrated in 2002 when Congress approved the administration's recommendation that Yucca Mountain be used for a high-level waste repository, Kraft said. It was demonstrated again last year when comprehensive energy legislation was enacted that contains financial incentives for new reactors, he said. "Where NRC needs to concern itself is with [the] licensing and safety of plants," Kraft said. "Waste confidence would be a distraction." Meanwhile, there was no indication today of when DOE would send its legislative proposal to Congress. ------------ Southern unit appoints Joseph Miller as nuclear development chief Washington (Platts)--23Feb2006 Southern Nuclear Operating Co has appointed Joseph Miller as senior vice president of nuclear development, the Birmingham, Alabama-based unit of Atlanta's Southern Company said Thursday. Miller will oversee the development of Southern Company's nuclear generation expansion efforts. He will report to Southern Nuclear President and Chief Executive Barnie Beasley as well as serving as president of Southern Nuclear Development LLC, a unit created to house Southern Company's unregulated nuclear generation ventures. Miller's role will involve coordination of new nuclear plant development activities, including working with Tennessee Valley Authority to explore the economic viability of potential new nuclear build at TVA's Bellefonte site in north Alabama, and working with Georgia Power and other co-owners of the Vogtle nuclear plant to pursue potential new units at the site, Southern said. Miller also will coordinate Southern's participation in NuStart, a group of utilities awarded funds by the US Dept of Energy for the development of a Combined Construction and Operating license for a new nuclear plant. Miller currently is vice president of government relations for Southern Company and head of its Washington office. His replacement is expected to be named within the next few weeks. Miller joined Alabama Power in 1986 as an engineer in its nuclear generation unit and worked in various jobs at Alabama Power and Southern Nuclear before moving to Washington in 1993 as federal affairs manager. In 1998, Miller was selected to serve as assistant to Southern Company Chairman and CEO Bill Dahlberg, before returning to Washington in May 1999 to take up his current role. For more information, take a trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://nucweek.platts.com. ------------ France still looking for damaged tube at Cruas-4 nuclear plant Paris (Platts)--23Feb2006 Electricite de France is still looking for the steam generator tube that sprang a small leak at Cruas-4, causing the 900MW reactor unit to be pulled from the grid Feb 11, an official at the French nuclear safety authority said. EDF must also identify the cause of the incident, and will probably have to plug the tube, he said. However, he denied a rumor that the tube had ruptured, which is considered a serious incident at a pressurized water reactor. EDF says it has never had a steam generator tube rupture. The leak was only about 500 liters/hour, he said, equivalent to a "leaky faucet," whereas a steam generator tube rupture is at least several tens of cubic meters/hour. EDF said the Cruas-4 leak had been rated at Level 0 (no safety significance) on the International Nuclear Event Scale. For more information, take a trial to Nuclear Fuel at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/ ------------