Platts - Tuesday, October 24, 2006 http://www.platts.com ------------ Renewables share in Germany could rise to over 20% by 2012: VDN Freiburg (Platts)--24Oct2006 The proportion of renewables in Germany's electricity mix could rise to over 20% by the year 2012, grid operators' association, the VDN, said Tuesday. The industry group said this would be largely due to the expansion of biomass, wind and solar power. "On the one hand, this is a good development, but on the other it means that consumers will have to pay more to subsidize green power," said VDN president Hans-Otto Roth. He added that the new capacities would mean Germany had to "urgently expand power transmission capacities." According to the VDN forecast, biomass will rise to 24 TWh of generation by 2012 from the present 10 TWh; wind power generation is expected to rise to 52 TWh from 26.5 TWh and solar power will double to 4 TWh of generation by 2012. The VDN urged for at least 850 km of new high voltage lines to be built so that the wind power fed into the grid could be transmitted to areas with heavy demand. "(Otherwise), there could be problems with security of supply, quality of supply and efficient use of investment means," said Roth. ------------ Areva announces management changes effective Nov 1 London (Platts)--24Oct2006 Areva announced a set of management changes, effective November 1, Claude Jaouen will become executive vice president responsible for studying and implementing organizational changes in the group's engineering units, and Olivier Mallet will become executive vice president of Mining, Chemistry and Enrichment, the company said October 23. Fabienne Pehuet will become vice president, South Africa Global Partnership; while Jose-Luis Carbonell will become senior vice president, Strategic Risks, Contracts and Claims Management, and Michael Cerruti will become vice president, Marketing. Effective January 1, Remy Autebert will become president of AREVA Japan, and Guy Bousquet will become senior vice president, Sustainable Development and Continuous Improvement. ------------ Cameco's Cigar Lake flooding to delay uranium production Washington (Platts)--23Oct2006 Flooding at Cameco's Cigar Lake mine will delay uranium production by at least a year beyond early 2008, company officials said October 23. Cameco said that construction costs of the mine will increase significantly beyond the (Cdn)$660 million forecast earlier, due to the flooding which occurred this weekend. Those costs will be better defined after the company has had a chance to develop a remediation plan, company officials said. At full production, Cigar Lake was expected to produce about 18 million pounds U3O8 a year. The market impact of the production delay is uncertain, although it is expected to put even more upward pressure on prices. The current spot price, according to TradeTech, is $56.25/lb U3O8. ------------ OKG management investigates recent incidents at Oskarshamn London (Platts)--23Oct2006 Management at OKG, which operates Sweden's three Oskarshamn reactors, said in a statement October 20 that it is investigating why three incidents involving shortcomings in radiation protection routines have occurred at the plant within a few weeks. The problems include: an unnecessary radiation dose to a worker using x-ray equipment during an inspection; unknown origin of radiation on a dosimeter borrowed by a company with an agreement with OKG to use its dosimeters; and radioactive leakage onto the floor of an enclosed area from container with unspecified radioactive material that fell from a transport vehicle. OKG said the incidents do not appear to be related but they indicate that an overall problem exists and that routines need to be improved. ------------ Merrifield won't seek third term as NRC commissioner Washington (Platts)--20Oct2006 NRC Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield will not seek a third term when his current one ends on June 30, 2007, the agency announced October 20. Merrifield, a Republican, was first appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1998 and was reappointed by President George W. Bush in 2002. Merrifield said he has "no specific plans" for what he will do after he leaves the commission. ------------ Nevada seeks comment period extension on spent-fuel rail route Washington (Platts)--20Oct2006 The state of Nevada has asked the US Department of Energy to extend the public comment period on the agency's latest plans to evaluate a new rail route for transporting spent fuel to a repository at Yucca Mountain. In an October 20 letter, Robert Loux, who heads the state's nuclear waste office, also asked DOE Waste Program Director Edward Sproat to extend the comment period on DOE's intent to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement on cradle-to-grave spent-fuel canisters, known as TADs, that it wants to develop for use at reactor sites and Yucca Mountain. Notices for both plans were published in the October 13 Federal Register and both notices give the public 45 days to submit comments. "Taken together, these two notices constitute significant potential changes from the 2002 final environmental impact statement for the potential Yucca Mountain repository, for which the public had available, in 1995, vastly more detailed information and time to prepare their comments," Loux wrote. --Elaine Hiruo, elaine_hiruo@platts.com ------------ US to pursue reprocessing even if partnership fails: official Washington (Platts)--20Oct2006 US Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis Spurgeon said the Department of Energy's pursuit of nuclear fuel reprocessing will include an "off-ramp" in the event there is not sufficient progress on an advanced nuclear fuel or a nuclear reactor. In an interview with Platts Thursday, Spurgeon said that even if DOE officials decide not to pursue the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership in its current form, the agency will continue to pursue the program's key goals--closing the fuel cycle, developing proliferation resistant nuclear materials and limiting the amount of waste that would go into a permanent repository. DOE has said it will proceed with GNEP on two tracks. On the first track, it would build a reprocessing facility with industry help using available technology. On the second, it would develop a reprocessing plant based on as yet undeveloped technology that would ultimately produce proliferation-resistant fuels for an advanced fast reactor. As a result the volume and toxicity of nuclear waste would be substantiallly lower. "Anybody has contingency plans and that's just what it is, is an off ramp," Spurgeon said. "This program doesn't fall on its face if the recycling plant is ready before" the advanced reactor. He said the off ramp would involve using fuel from a recycling facility in existing light-water reactors while researchers develop more advanced separation technologies, fuels and reactors. He said, however, that DOE's "plan is not to produce fuel for a light reactor, our...fuel is designed to be fed into a fast reactor." DOE has said it will decide whether to proceed with the multibillion-dollar GNEP project in 2008. The program, which also is supposed to bring in foreign partners to prevent nuclear proliferation worldwide, has received no appropriation from Congress, and has been met by skepticism from Office of Management and Budget officials, sources said. Of the battles over funding, an administration source GNEP is a presidential priority that Bush has mentioned recently in speeches and interviews, and that in the end the project would likely get funded. The source said Spurgeon and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman met Thursday with Allan Hubbard, the director of the National Economic Council, and Stephen Hadley and Jack Crouch, both deputy national security advisors to Bush to discuss how to advance GNEP. --Daniel Whitten, daniel_whitten@platts.com For more news, request a free trial to Platts Inside Energy at http://insideenergy.platts.com or subscribe now at http://www.platts.com/infostore/product_info.php?cPath=23_33&products_id=61 ------------ Areva and MHI will co-design 1,000-MW LWR Paris (Platts)--19Oct2006 Areva and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, MHI, will co-design a third-generation 1,000-MW LWR as the first step of a broad cooperation agreement initialed October 19 in Tokyo. The firms' announcement did not specify whether the reactor will be a PWR or a BWR, but MHI has no BWR technology and an Areva source said the new reactor would likely combine the two companies' PWR expertise. The reactor is aimed at emerging markets in Asia such as Thailand or Vietnam, as well as at the US market where some potential customers balk at the 1,600- to 1,700-MW PWRs offered currently by Areva and MHI. The companies expect to sign a specific agreement on development of the 1,000-MW plant within a few weeks and expect design work to last three to four years, an Areva spokesman said. The memorandum of understanding also foresees cooperation in equipment procurement, services, fuel cycle (essentially the back end), and future reactors (essentially high-temperature reactors and fast reactors). Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of Areva, and Kazuo Tsukuda, president of MHI, signed the MOU two days after the announcement that MHI's domestic rival Toshiba Corp. had successfully closed its purchase of Areva's rival Westinghouse Electric Co. ------------ New nuclear design center to open at INL in 2008 Washington (Platts)--18Oct2006 A newly formed DOE team will open a center for Nuclear Systems Design and Analysis at DOE's Idaho National Laboratory in 2008, DOE said October 18. DOE said in a press statement that INL has joined with engineering firm Burns & Roe and nuclear fuels analysis software company Studsvik Scandpower to establish the center. Personnel from Burns & Roe and Studsvik will manage research and development work at the center, while INL will give the center access to other facilities at the lab. The center "will begin by integrating digital design technology, reactor, and nuclear system simulations with advanced virtual reality software," DOE said. "Designs of next generation reactors and nuclear fuel cycle facilities will be developed and inspected in virtual reality before being built physically." ------------ New nuclear design center to open at INL in 2008 Washington (Platts)--18Oct2006 A newly formed DOE team will open a center for Nuclear Systems Design and Analysis at DOE's Idaho National Laboratory in 2008, DOE said October 18. DOE said in a press statement that INL has joined with engineering firm Burns & Roe and nuclear fuels analysis software company Studsvik Scandpower to establish the center. Personnel from Burns & Roe and Studsvik will manage research and development work at the center, while INL will give the center access to other facilities at the lab. The center "will begin by integrating digital design technology, reactor, and nuclear system simulations with advanced virtual reality software," DOE said. "Designs of next generation reactors and nuclear fuel cycle facilities will be developed and inspected in virtual reality before being built physically." ------------ Biblis-A, -B offline indefinitely London (Platts)--18Oct2006 Biblis-A and -B are offline indefinitely for inspection and possible repair of support anchors, following discovery of several incorrectly installed anchors at the 1,167-MW Biblis-A PWR during a scheduled outage that began September 15. Biblis spokesman Frank Staude said October 17 that the length of the outage depends on the extent of defects in the anchors' installation and the solution to the problem, which he said is also under study. The outage takes a total of some 2,300 MW off the German grid. RWE and the Hesse state environment ministry said the anchor defect had no impact on routine operation but that the utility must demonstrate that the anchors would withstand a major transient such as a pipe break or a large earthquake. Staude said there were between 3,500 and 4,000 of the affected anchors in each unit. For more news, request a free trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/ or subscribe now at http://www.platts.com/infostore/product_info.php?cPath=22_41&products_id=67 ------------ Toshiba completes acquisition of Westinghouse Washington (Platts)--17Oct2006 Toshiba Corp. completed acquisition of Westinghouse October 16, the company announced October 17. Combining the resources of the two companies will form "a world leading company with experience and expertise in both BWR and PWR" technology, Toshiba President/CEO Atsutoshi Nishida said in a briefing in Tokyo. Toshiba will hold 77% of the company, while the Shaw Group will own 20% and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries will have 3%. Toshiba will continue to hold discussions with potential partners, Nishida said. Westinghouse will continue to be headquartered in Pennsylvania and be operated as an independent company, he said. ------------ UK's Sellafield fined $929,000 over leaking nuclear pipe: press London (Platts)--17Oct2006 The operator of Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant was fined GBP500,000 ($929,000) Monday after 83,000 litres of radioactive acid leaked out of a broken pipe, British media reported Tuesday. British Nuclear Group Sellafield was handed the fine after pleading guilty to three counts of breaching conditions attached to the Sellafield site license. The "Daily Telegraph" reported the case at Carlisle Crown Court that heard scientists had taken eight months to detect the spillage when it should have been discovered "within days." The acid, which contained 20 tonnes of uranium and 160kg of plutonium, was destined for a sealed concrete holding site at the west Cumbrian plant but dripped from a crack in the system, the report said. No one was injured in the leak and no radiation escaped, but the plant has been closed ever since it was uncovered, it added. Monday's punishment comes on top of a GBP2 million penalty imposed on BNG Sellafield by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority earlier this year. News of the fine came on the same day that British Energy announced it was shutting down key nuclear reactors after discovering cracks inside boilers. The discovery forced the firm to shut down its Heysham plant in Lancashire and prepare to shut down two similar reactors at Hinkley and Hunterston, in Ayrshire. ------------ BE's stock prices plunges 23.8% Oct 16 London (Platts)--17Oct2006 BE's stock price plunged 23.8% October 16 on news two more reactors would be taken offline for inspection of boiler tube cracking. In a regulatory announcement released mid-day October 16, BE said that an inspection of Hinkley Point B-1 had revealed more extensive boiler tube cracking than previously experienced, indicating that "early inspections" of the same components were required at Hunterston B-2 and Hinkley Point B-2. BE's share price dropped 133.50 pence in trading October 16, closing at 427.50 pence (US $7.95). The stock had traded as high as 760 pence in mid-August before the extent of the cracking issue was revealed. The cracking issue first arose in mid-August during the statutory outage at Hunterston B-1. The four advanced gas-cooled reactors at Hunterston B and Hinkley Point B are sister plants, commissioned within months of one another. BE said that "preparations are being made to shut down" the B-2 units but would not say when that would happen or how long they would be down for inspection and repair. BE Finance Director Stephen Billingham said they should be back online "in a matter of months" but that the company would have to buy back power it had sold for delivery in the winter months. ------------ British Energy's stock price plunges on tube cracking news Paris (Platts)--16Oct2006 British Energy's stock price plunged 23.8% October 16 on news two more reactors would be taken offline for inspection of boiler tube cracking. In a regulatory announcement released mid-day October 16, BE said that an inspection of Hinkley Point B-1 had revealed more extensive boiler tube cracking than previously experienced, indicating that "early inspections" of the same components were required at Hunterston B-2 and Hinkley Point B-2. BE's share price dropped 133.50 pence in trading October 16, closing at 427.50 pence (US $7.95). The stock had traded as high as 760 pence in mid-August before the extent of the cracking issue was revealed. The cracking issue first arose in mid-August during the statutory outage at Hunterston B-1. The four advanced gas-cooled reactors at Hunterston B and Hinkley Point B are sister plants, commissioned within months of one another. BE said that "preparations are being made to shut down" the B-2 units but would not say when that would happen or how long they would be down for inspection and repair. BE Finance Director Stephen Billingham said they should be back online "in a matter of months" but that the company would have to buy back power it had sold for delivery in the winter months. ------------