Platts - Friday, April 20, 2007 http://www.platts.com ------------ UK's NDA to restructure, hire over 100 new staffers London (Platts)--20Apr2007 The UK's NDA is restructuring and hiring more than 100 staffers to increase its numbers to around 370 as it expands its radioactive waste cleanup responsibilities, said the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority April 19. NDA is moving its staffers into teams to better interface with the many international contractors drawn to the UK's roughly 70 billion pound (US$140 billion) cleanup market. Site management competitions are already underway covering about half of NDA's 20 civilian nuclear sites. Additionally, the UK government gave NDA responsibility in late 2006 for planning and implementing geologic disposal of the nation's intermediate- and high-level waste. On March 26, the government tasked NDA with developing a UK-wide strategy for management of nuclear industry low-level waste. The 212 staffers in place on March 31 are to be increased to 330 to help this expanded workload, said NDA spokesman Richard Flynn, and some 40 UK Nirex Ltd. staff joined NDA April 1 when the former waste management company was integrated into the NDA. ------------ Survey: NRC ranked best place in federal government to work Washington (Platts)--19Apr2007 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is ranked no. 1 as the best place to work in the federal government, according to a survey released April 19. The survey, conducted by the Partnership for Public Service and the American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation, scored 283 agencies based on responses from more than 221,000 workers. NRC had the top rating in several of 10 categories, including "best in class," strategic management, effective leadership, and work/life balance. It scored second in satisfaction with pay and benefits. NRC ranked No. 3 in 2005, the last time the survey was completed. The survey results are available at http://www.bestplacestowork.org. ------------ Kazatomprom is "moving fast" towards selling nuclear as a package London (Platts)--19Apr2007 Kazatomprom is "moving fast" towards selling nuclear as a package deal, said Mukhtar Dzhakishev, the company's President/CEO, predicting the concept of "complete package fuel supply" would soon be the market standard. Kazakhstan is the world's third-largest uranium producer and also has nuclear fuel manufacturing at Ulba. Under this situation, said Dzhakishev, speaking April 18 at a fuel cycle meeting in Budapest, "it would be ridiculous to sell only uranium." Focusing supply on nuclear fuel, rather than fuel components like uranium or enrichment, would improve the quality of fuel products--by giving more resources to fuel suppliers--and "improve the morality" of the market because it would discourage speculation such as that now occurring in the natural uranium market, he said. ------------ Report says nuclear power unlikely to solve climate change Washington (Platts)--18Apr2007 Nuclear power is unlikely to play a major, near-term role in countering climate change or in strengthening US energy security, according to a Council on Foreign Relations special report released April 18. The report, by council science and technology fellow Charles Ferguson, said there might not be the required supply of materials and labor to accommodate a rapid near-term expansion of nuclear power to counter climate change. The US now has 103 operating power reactors. "Even with 20-year extensions of their planned lifespan, all existing reactors will likely need to be decommissioned by the middle of the century," the council added in a press statement. According to the report, a reactor would have to be built in the US every four to five months over the next 40 years just to replace the existing fleet. For that reason alone, it said, nuclear power won't be a major part of the solution for at least the next 50 years. ------------ Pro-nuclear group in Fresno, California, aims for ballot measure San Francisco (Platts)--18Apr2007 After a California legislative panel rejected a bill to lift the state's ban on new nuclear facilities, a nuclear group's board on Tuesday voted to pursue a ballot initiative to ask voters to allow a new nuclear facility to be built, the group's president said. California law bans new nuclear facilities in the state until the waste storage problem is resolved, and a bill that would have repealed the ban was defeated in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on Monday. But John Hutson of the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group said the group "will without question" pursue an initiative that addresses California's moratorium on building nuclear power plants. Hutson expressed confidence that his group can gather enough signatures to send a measure to the ballot in 2008. "We've been ready for this initiative process for some time," said Hutson, adding that the group was waiting for the outcome of Monday's legislative vote before deciding to go forward with a ballot initiative. Whether the ballot initiative will call for the ban to be lifted statewide or only in Fresno needs to be determined, Hutson said. A new nuclear plant could recycle and reprocess spent fuel, which would obviate the need for a ban as the waste storage issue would be addressed, he said. Fresno is seeking "energy independence one way or another," and building nuclear plants achieves that goal, said Hutson. ------------ Loviisa to install Westinghouse's loose parts montiroing system London (Platts)--18Apr2007 Loviisa will have Westinghouse's latest loose parts monitoring system installed during this fall's refueling outage. Westinghouse said it won a contract from Fortum to install its Digital Metal Impact Monitoring System, or DMIMS-DX, on the primary systems of both Loviisa VVER-440s, the first time the system has been fitted to the Russian design. The monitoring systems are needed to detect any small items which are inadvertently left in, or come loose from, cooling systems and can cause significant damage if undetected. No value for the contract was given. Westinghouse said its DMIMS-DX systems are installed in Slovenia's Krsko and, in the US, at Dominion's Millstone-3, Pacific Gas & Electric's Diablo Canyon, Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Co.'s Wolf Creek, FirstEnergy's Beaver Valley-1, Progress Energy's Crystal River-3, and, as of May, in Southern Nuclear's Vogtle. Crystal River is a Babcock & Wilcox design; all the rest are Westinghouse designs. ------------ NRC commissioners approve two major rule revisions Washington (Platts)--17Apr2007 NRC commissioners approved two major rule revisions April 17, including long-awaited changes to NRC's fitness-for-duty requirements and amendments to the regulations allowing certain pre-construction activities. One rule updates the requirements of NRC's drug and alcohol testing program to conform to other federal programs' requirements and establishes requirements for managing worker fatigue. The fitness-for-duty revisions have been under review for more than a decade. Separately, the "limited work authorization" rule revision was approved in a 4-1 vote, with Commissioner Gregory Jaczko dissenting. Jaczko said he believed limited work authorization requests would "improperly" segment environmental reviews in the licensing process. ------------ California lawmakers reject bill to lift ban on new nuke plants San Francisco (Platts)--17Apr2007 A California bill that sought to lift the state's ban on new nuclear plants in an effort to help cut greenhouse gas emissions was rejected by a 6-3 vote Monday by the Assembly Natural Resources Committee. California law bans new nuclear plants until the waste storage problem is resolved. The bill by Assemblyman Chuck DeVore would have repealed that ban, citing the need to increase efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The measure faced long odds given that it was opposed by the chairmen of the Assembly Utilities and Commerce and the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications committees. At the same time, Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric have expressed interest in nuclear power. SoCal Ed said recently the utility is tracking developments in the nuclear industry and may consider pursuing nuclear plants in the next 10 to 20 years. ------------ U308 production at Australia's ranger mine falls 28% in Q1 2007 London (Platts)--17Apr2007 Uranium oxide production at Australia's ranger mine falls 28% in first- quarter 2007 from the corresponding period in 2006 due to heavy rainfall at the mine and processing plant, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. said in an April 16 statement. The company said it lost roughly 300 metric tons of U3O8 production as a result of the downpours in late February and early March, causing it to declare force majeure on its sales contracts in March. The 1,006 mt of U3O8 produced in first-quarter 2007 was also roughly 39% below that produced in fourth-quarter 2006, it said. However, the amount of ore mined (769,498 mt) in first-quarter 2007 was 45% higher than in first-quarter 2006, ERA said. It attributed the increase to strategies enacted in 2006 that allowed access to higher grade ore in January and February before the heavy rains struck. The rainfall also affected the amount of ore milled when the processing plant was forced to temporarily shut down, ERA said. It said the 399,303 mt of uranium ore milled was 32% below first-quarter 2006, and 28% below fourth-quarter 2006. ------------ US, Mexico team up against nuclear smuggling Washington (Platts)--16Apr2007 The US and Mexico signed an agreement Monday under which the US will provide advanced radiation detection equipment to Mexico, which will be installed at four seaports, in an attempt to combat nuclear smuggling, the Department of Energy said. DOE said that the four ports account for nearly 90% of the shipping container traffic in Mexico. A DOE spokeswoman, Julianne Smith, said the "Megaports Agreement" calls for a US-Mexico partnership on the project. Smith said it was too early to project the total cost of the project or when the installations might occur. The agreement advances cooperative efforts under the 2005 Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, a trilateral initiative involving the US, Canada, and Mexico that focuses on collaboration in trade, import and export controls, immigration, and security, DOE said. ------------ NYMEX to start trading uranium futures May 6 Washington (Platts)--16Apr2007 Uranium futures will be traded on two electronic exchanges starting May 6, the New York Mercantile Exchange said in an April 16 statement. NYMEX said it signed a 10-year contract with Ux Consulting Co. LLC, a leading uranium pricing company, to trade concentrated uranium oxide (U3O8) futures contracts on the CME Globex and NYMEX ClearPort electronic exchanges. Randy Warsager, NYMEX vice president of marketing, said in an interview that the contracts, for 250 pounds each, will be listed for 36 consecutive months. The financially settled contracts are investment tools and do not involve the delivery of any uranium, he said. The uranium market, which earlier this month saw the spot price rise past $100/lb U3O8, was a factor in the formation of a uranium futures contract, Warsager said. While some uranium contracts, based on future prices, have been negotiated individually, this will be the first time financially settled uranium futures will be traded on an electronic exchange, UxC President Jeff Combs said in an interview. ------------ French protestors swing from pylons at Flamanville nuclear plant Paris (Platts)--16Apr2007 Protesting against the building of a nuclear reactor pilot, the European pressurized reactor, French anti-nuclear campaigners spent the weekend suspended from a 400,000 volt high tension power pylon at the Flamanville nuclear power plant, campaigners said. Three activists scaled a pylon next to the 2600 MW capacity plant in Normandy, north France on Saturday afternoon displaying huge banners which read "STOP EPR". Two of the protestors remained suspended from the pylon in hammocks right through the weekend until midnight Sunday when they ended their protest, anti-nuclear group Sortir du nucleaire said Monday. The protest was also against the building of a new high tension power link that would accompany the new EPR, which the French government last week gave Electricite de France the go ahead to start building at Flamanville at the end of the year, the group said. The protest forced French grid manager RTE to cut power to the 400,000 volt pylon, according to Sortir du nucleaire, but operations at the Flamanville facility were not affected, the plant said Monday. Neither RTE nor EDF were immediately available to comment. More than 60,000 people marched in France March 17 against the plan to build a 1,650 MW capacity EPR at Flamanville, campaigners said. ------------ Lawrie Haynes steps down as BNG CEO London (Platts)--16Apr2007 Lawrie Haynes is no longer CEO of BNG, according to a London Stock Exchange statement April 12. Haynes is joining engineering consulting firm White Young Green plc as a member of the board in June and will become the firm's CEO July 1, the consulting firm announced. In January 2003, Haynes joined the government services arm of British Nuclear Fuels plc, or BNFL, as CEO prior to it being renamed British Nuclear Group and evolving into a public sector nuclear cleanup contractor. He became a board director of BNG-parent BNFL in August 2005. ------------ US NRC OKs USEC plan to build, operate uranium enrichment plant Washington (Platts)--13Apr2007 The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Friday will issue a license authorizing USEC to build and operate a $2-billion gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio, agency sources said. The NRC action comes about 31 months after Bethesda, Maryland-based USEC applied for the license in late August 2004. Construction of the plant, which will have an initial capacity of 3.5 million separative work units, is considered critical to the future of USEC, which now relies on an aging, energy-intensive enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky. The new plant would use about 95% less electricity, the company said. USEC, however, has yet to say how it will pay for the new plant, which is expected to cost well over $2 billion to build, but is hoping for some help from the US government and is quietly working on legislation that would allow the Department of Energy to make available to USEC some of the government's stocks of depleted uranium, which the company could then re-enrich. Agency officials are expected to formally sign the USEC license later Friday, sources told Platts. --Mike Knapik, newsdesk@platts.com ------------ USEC gets license for centrifuge plant Washington (Platts)--13Apr2007 NRC issued a license to USEC April 13 to build and operate a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plant near Piketon, Ohio. USEC filed the application for the facility, known as the American Centrifuge Plant, on August 23, 2004. The final step in the licensing process was the April 13 decision by an NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board authorizing the staff to issue the license. The license was signed shortly after the board's decision, NRC spokesman David McIntyre said. The centrifuge plant is expected to cost more than $2 billion to build. Last June, NRC issued a license to USEC competitor LES to build a centrifuge enrichment plant in New Mexico. ------------