Platts - Friday, March 23, 2007 http://www.platts.com ------------ House appropriators question DOE's top nonproliferation official london (Platts)--23Mar2007 House appropriators questioned the DOE's top nonproliferation official over the department's plutonium disposition program. At a March 22 hearing of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, Peter Visclosky and David Hobson questioned DOE's continuing adherence to an approach that would turn 34 metric tons of surplus weapons plutonium into mixed-oxide reactor fuel. Visclosky, the panel chairman, is an Indiana Democrat; Hobson, from Ohio, is the panel's top Republican. DOE now estimates that construction of the facility to fabricate the MOX fuel will cost $4.7 billion. In 2002, DOE's estimate was $1 billion. William Tobey, the deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation in DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, said the MOX approach was expensive. But he said it was less costly than continued storage of weapons plutonium and more technically certain than the principal disposition alternative, which involves mixing the plutonium with high-level waste rather than making fuel out of it. ------------ Olkiluoto-3 lowers Areva's 2006 operating income Paris (Platts)--22Mar2007 Areva's operating income dropped 26% in 2006 to 407 million euros, due largely to the negative impact of the Olkiluoto-3 reactor construction project in Finland, but the loss was offset by strong performance in all the group's other businesses, the French vendor reported March 22. Excluding the impact of the sale of subsidiary FCI on the 2005 figures, consolidated net income was up by 43.9% to Eur 649 million, a record level. Operating cash flow fell from Eur 783 million in 2005 to a negative Eur 358 million at the end of last year, due to a sharp increase in capital spending. The latter included three acquisitions, development of new mines in Canada and Kazakhstan, certification of the EPR reactor design, and construction start on a new enrichment plant. Areva also registered a 24.6% increase in 2006 in its backlog, which now stands at Eur 25.6 billion. ------------ NRC Commissioner calls for better security for new nuclear builds london (Platts)--22Mar2007 NRC Commissioner Gregory Jaczko said March 21. Speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations roundtable discussion on safety and security requirements for future nuclear power plants, Jaczko said he believed it would be easier and much cheaper to build in better security features than to retrofit the plants later. He said reactor vendors ought to be looking at developing a "smart design" that relies less on "guards and guns" than the current fleet of reactors. Last month, Jaczko circulated an initiative to require any new plant built in the US to be capable of withstanding a hit from a large commercial aircraft. The proposal is now before the NRC commissioners; Jaczko declined to say how many votes were in. ------------ No bomb found at Sweden's Forsmark after receiving threat New York (Platts)--21Mar2007 Police sealed off the road to Forsmark and brought in bomb-sniffing dogs after the Swedish plant received a bomb threat against unit 1 on the morning of March 21, but no bomb was found, officials at the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate, SKI, said in a statement late the same day. SKI went on high alert, with a crisis group following the situation from Stockholm and inspectors who were already at Forsmark monitoring developments there. Security was also tightened at Ringhals and Oskarshamn but normal operations continued at all three plants. Police are investigating the incident. ------------ German REPower Systems' board agrees Areva's takeover offer London (Platts)--21Mar2007 The supervisory and management board of German renewables company REPower Systems have both approved the Eur1.14 billion ($1.68 billion) takeover offer from French nuclear power company Areva, the German company said Tuesday. Shareholders must vote on the takeover before April 20, but no shareholder meeting date has been set, an REPower spokesman said Wednesday. Areva offered Eur140 per share in what was its second offer for the renewables company. Indian-owned Suzlon Windenergie, joined by REpower's second largest shareholder Martifer (25.4 %), made an offer of Eur126 per share on February 9, trumping Areva's original offer of Eur105 per share for the renewables company. The European Commission has cleared Areva's original bid, saying its initial probe of the deal found no anti-competitive effects for the European energy markets. Areva said January it wanted REpower because of its leading position in high output turbine technology, which is particularly suitable for offshore wind turbines. Areva's transmission and distribution division is to design, supply, install and commission onshore and offshore substations at the Robin Rigg East and Robin Rigg West wind farms in the UK, the company said March 5. E.ON UK, which tendered for the project, is to pay Areva Eur21 million for the work. The project is due online early 2009. An onshore substation will have to be built at Seaton in the North of England, to connect the two wind farms to the 132 kV distribution network. In addition, two high-voltage offshore substations will be installed on monopiles in the Solway Firth -- the estuary that separates Scotland from England -- about 12 km from the English coast. Areva T&D built the UK's first offshore high-voltage substation, at the Barrow offshore windfarm project. ------------ Urenco's world enrichment services market share up in 2006 Washington (Platts)--20Mar2007 Urenco's share of the world's enrichment services market was about 23% in 2006, up from just under 20% in 2005, the company said March 20. In reporting its 2006 results, Urenco said that its order book stood at 15 billion euros (US$20 billion) at the end of 2006, an increase of more than 90% compared to the European enrichment consortium's order book at the end of 2005. Urenco indicated that growth occurred in Europe, Asia, and North America. By comparison, USEC Inc. reported recently that its sales backlog totaled $7 billion. Urenco said that in 2006 it delivered 9.5 million SWU, up from 7.4 million SWU in 2005. Urenco also noted that the first production from its LES enrichment plant in the US will occur in mid-2009 instead of the end of 2008. But LES customer deliveries will remain on schedule, Urenco said, because additional enrichment capacity will be installed at Urenco's European plants. Capacity at those plants was 9 million SWU at the end of 2006, an increase from the 2005 capacity of about 8 million SWU. ------------ Westinghouse Electric to move nuclear operations' headquarters Washington (Platts)--20Mar2007 Westinghouse Electric Co.'s expanding nuclear business will be based in Butler County, Pennsylvania, the company said Tuesday. Westinghouse's selection of Cranberry Woods in Butler County over its existing Monroeville site in Allegheny County means that the company's Monroeville operations will be moved. A Westinghouse statement said construction of the new facility would begin within three months, with occupancy expected by the first half of 2009. Employees at Westinghouse's existing facilities in Monroeville and Churchill, Pennsylvania, will be re-located to the new facility by the end of 2010. Both sites are in the Pittsburgh area, and their respective counties had been courting Westinghouse with support for tax-free zones. The facility is expected to employ close to 4,000 employees over the next five years, including the existing 1,800 jobs at the company's headquarters. Westinghouse said it picked Cranberry Woods for a number of reasons, including the flexibility of construction options to accommodate future growth. --Elaine Hiruo, elaine_hiruo@platts.com ------------ British Energy to market nuclear power from Magnox reactors London (Platts)--20Mar2007 UK generator British Energy Monday said it struck a deal with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to sell power from the NDA's ageing stations. NDA's Magnox nuclear power stations -- Wylfa and Oldbury -- are expected to generate about 7 TWh year until 2011, when the last Magnox plant is taken offline, the companies said. "The agreement provides the NDA with certainty and confidence in the continuity of trading services with a service provider that understands the complexity of managing and trading nuclear output," Mark Leggett, commercial director at the NDA, said in a statement. Neil O'Hara, trading director at British Energy said the deal would increase "the depth and diversity of the portfolio we manage." The two Magnox stations are the last of eight still online. Oldbury, which started generating electricity in 1967, is scheduled to cease operations at the end of 2008. And Wylfa, which went online in 1971, in 2010. The NDA and its subsidiary British Nuclear Group in December chose British Energy to take over the BNG subsidiary that manages trading for the UK's Magnox nuclear power stations. The sale of Energy Sales and Trading Ltd, a BNG subsidiary, to British Energy is subject to final negotiations and regulatory approvals, BNG said in a press release. A BNG spokesman in December told Platts the companies hope to complete the sale by the spring. No price for the deal was released. The NDA, owned by the government, is in the process of selling off BNG units as part of a privatization process. ------------ Nukes to be 'engaged' in GNEP by last quarter of FY-07: US DOE Washington (Platts)--19Mar2007 The Department of Energy's "goal" is to have the nuclear industry "engaged" in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership during the last quarter of fiscal-year 2007, DOE's Paul Lisowski said Monday. In comments to reporters during a public meeting on the GNEP, Lisowski said he hoped "to have money actually going to industry" in FY-07, which ends September 30. DOE has not decided on what the contract vehicle will be for securing industry involvement, but the $168 million the department plans to spend on GNEP in FY-07 will allow DOE to pursue that aspect of the program "aggressively," Lisowski said. GNEP is a fuel-cycle initiative that aims to develop new types of reprocessing and fast reactors. The meeting, which was held in Washington, was to receive public comments on DOE's notice of intent on GNEP, a preliminary stage in the process required by the National Environmental Policy Act. --Daniel Horner, daniel_horner@platts.com ------------ Cameco postpones Cigar Lake startup date Washington (Platts)--19Mar2007 Cameco postponed the production startup target date for its Cigar Lake uranium mine to 2010, about three years later than the company planned before the mine flooded in October 2006. The startup is "subject to regulatory approval and timely remediation," Cameco said in a March 18 statement. Cameco said its share of capital costs, including mill modifications, to bring Cigar Lake into production is estimated to be (Cdn)$508 million, with $234 million spent on construction to date. Cameco's share of the cost of remediating flood damage to the mine is expected to total $46 million, $5 million of which was expensed in 2006. Cameco owns 50% of the Cigar Lake joint venture. ------------ Anti-nuclear rallies across France London (Platts)--19Mar2007 More than 40,000 people protested over the weekend against the French government's plan to build a new pilot nuclear power reactor, known as European Pressurized Reactor, EPR, organizers said. According to France's Sortir du Nucleaire, an anti nuclear coalition, the protests across the country on Saturday were among the biggest seen in France since the anti-nuke demonstrations of the 1970's. Police, however, put the total number of protestors under 20,000, reports said. The biggest protests took place in Rennes, followed by Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille. "It was an extraordinary protest," said Stephane Lhomme, spokesman for Sortir du nucleaire. "French people don't want a new nuclear reactor. All the opinion polls show that they don't think new ones should be built but prefer investment in energy saving and renewable energy," Lhomme said. Some 59% of French people said they wanted a reduction in nuclear power in France, according to a poll by Eurobarometer, cited by the group. The government plans to start building the Eur3.3 billion EPR reactor at Flamanville in Normandy in December this year. Campaigners are urging France's presidential candidates to pledge to halt EPR. According to Lhomme, two of the three leading candidates, Segolene Royal and Francois Bayrou, have now recognized that there should be a discussion and democratic debate over EPR. The two-round French presidential elections are scheduled take place in April and May. ------------ US DOE sends Congress 2007 spending decisions with new priorities Washington (Platts)--16Mar2007 The US Department of Energy on Friday sent Congress a $23.6 billion fiscal 2007 spending plan, which included substantial increases over fiscal 2006 levels for nuclear power, coal research and energy efficiency. DOE sent the plan to Congress Friday as required under the fiscal 2007 joint funding resolution signed by President Bush February 15. The resolution gave DOE broad discretion to spend money as officials there saw fit and they used that discretion to bump up spending for presidential priorities and energy needs that have come to the fore since DOE asked for the money in February 2006, said acting Under Secretary Dennis Spurgeon, who also runs the agency's nuclear energy office. The plan includes "an investment in our future and a continued commitment" to advancing Bush's energy initiatives, Spurgeon said. The budget is about the same as it was in fiscal 2006, and $650 million less than DOE requested for 2008. The plan includes $1.5 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy following Congress' mandate to beef up spending in that area; $302.6 million for nuclear research and development; and $425.7 million for coal R & D, all substantial increases over DOE's original fiscal 2007 spending request. It also includes $167.5 million for the president's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership initiative; and provides $15 million for oil and gas research, even though DOE proposed to eliminate the program entirely initially. DOE asked initially for $74 million in fiscal 2007 for carbon sequestration, but chose on its own to bump that up to $100 million, which Spurgeon said "reflects the importance that is being placed on being able to adopt the technology." --Daniel Whitten, daniel_whitten@platts.com ------------ Sweden's Forsmark-1 gets ok to restart New York (Platts)--16Mar2007 Forsmark-1 may restart anytime, the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate, or SKI, said in a statement March 16. The unit has been down since February 2 to change rubber containment sealing that was not sufficiently tight. SKI said it was satisfied with the way plant personnel handled the job and necessary testing that was done in the containment. The Forsmark plant is under special oversight by SKI because of a series of problems with management, routines and safety culture. ------------ Excelon's Clinton receives NRC's first-ever early site permit Washington (Platts)--15Mar2007 Exelon received an early site permit for its Clinton site in Illinois at a ceremony held March 15 at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. About 50 people attended the ceremony to mark the agency's issuance of a first-ever ESP, which allows Exelon up to 20 years to reserve the site for future construction of a nuclear power plant. Among those attending were NRC Office of New Reactors Director William Borchardt, who signed the permit; NRC Executive Director for Operations Luis Reyes; Deputy Executive Director for Reactor and Preparedness Programs William Kane; Exelon Nuclear Vice President of Project Development Marilyn Kray; DOE's Rebecca Smith-Kevern; two representatives of Clinton; and other Exelon and NRC staffers. Exelon currently operates a 1,077-MW BWR at the Clinton site. The permit resolves certain site suitability, environmental and emergency planning issues. It is considered a partial construction permit and authorizes limited preconstruction activities. Exelon will have to apply for a combined construction permit-operating license before it can begin actual plant construction. ------------