Platts - Thursday, November 29, 2007 http://www.platts.com ------------ Lithuania government approves nuke waste repository near Ignalina London (Platts)--29Nov2007 Lithuania's government has approved a low- and medium-level nuclear waste repository site close to the Ignalina nuclear power plant, the Lithuanian Radioactive Waste Management Agency, or RATA, said in a November 28 statement. Design work on the near-surface repository is scheduled to start in 2008, with opening set for 2015. The repository will cover 40 hectares, RATA said. ------------ Dominion files application with NRC for new North Anna reactor Washington (Platts)--28Nov2007 Dominion has filed an application with NRC for a new nuclear unit at North Anna, but the company has not yet decided whether it will build the reactor, Chairman and CEO Thomas Farrell said at a November 28 press conference in Richmond, Virginia. Dominion's combined construction permit-operating license, or COL, application, the third filed with NRC thus far, is for a 1,520 megawatt ESBWR. The company is partnering with GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Bechtel Corp. on the project, Farrell said. If NRC approves the COL in 2010, construction could begin that year, with commercial operation as early as 2015, Dominion Chief Nuclear Officer David Christian said. NRC granted an early site permit to Dominion for the North Anna site on November 20. If the unit is built, its operation must also be approved by Virginia and North Carolina regulators, he said. Dominion is sharing the COL application costs equally with DOE under a cooperative agreement. Dominion said in a statement that "it will cost about $500 million to complete all of the necessary work to be able to build the unit," but "the maximum expense to Dominion will be $60 million," with partners providing the balance. However, it is "too difficult" at this early stage to estimate the total cost of constructing the new reactor, or the cost of the electricity it would generate, Christian said at the press conference. ------------ B&W forms commercial nuclear power subsidiary Washington (Platts)--27Nov2007 B&W has formed a commercial nuclear power subsidiary, the company announced November 27. The subsidiary, Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Power Generation Group Inc., is headquartered in Lynchburg, Virginia. The subsidiary's president is Richard Reimels, former president of Babcock & Wilcox Canada Ltd. The subsidiary is staffed "primarily" by employees moved from B&W's other operating units, said spokesman Steve Stultz. The subsidiary's offerings include manufacture of pressure vessels, engineering expertise, and fuel service inspection and repairs. The company has also changed its name from The Babcock & Wilcox Companies to The Babcock & Wilcox Company. It also renamed other major operating units: the former Babcock & Wilcox Company is now Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group Inc.; BWXT Services Inc is now Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Group Inc.; and BWX Technologies Nuclear Operations Division is now Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Operations Group Inc. The four groups have a workforce of about 22,000, Stultz said. In a statement, B&W CEO John Fees said, "Moving forward, we will be better able to leverage our product and service offerings, particularly in the expanding nuclear power sector, and to pool our vast resources to play a major role in this growing market." ------------ NRC approves release of Connecticut Yankee site for public use London (Platts)--27Nov2007 NRC has approved releasing most of the 210-acre Connecticut Yankee site for unrestricted public use. In a November 26 statement, NRC said Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co.'s license for the Haddam Neck plant site will still apply to the spent fuel dry cask storage facility and a parcel of land surrounding the facility. The total land remaining under the license is about five acres, NRC said. Residual contamination on the land is below NRC's limit of 25 millirem per year for maximum radiation dose, it said. The 616-MW Westinghouse PWR started commercial operation in 1968. The joint owners voted in December 1996 to close the plant, after an economic analysis showed they could save $100 million by closing the plant and buying replacement power instead of repairing and running it. Dismantling and decommissioning were completed in July 2007. ------------ EC considers new rules on the transport of radioactive materials London (Platts)--27Nov2007 The EC is considering new rules on the transport of radioactive materials. The European Commission launched an "impact assessment" November 26, starting with a public consultation, which could lead to the adoption of new rules intended to simplify the legal framework governing transports. The EC said the framework now is "rather complex, since it is based at the same time on international agreements and on EC regulations," which themselves are based both in the Treaty of the European Union and the separate Euratom Treaty. More information about the impact assessment is at http://ec.europa.eu/energy/nuclear/consultations/tram_en.htm. ------------ Tepco to bring nuke generation capacity to 52.5% by late Dec Tokyo (Platts)--27Nov2007 Tokyo Electric Power Co. expects to maximize its nuclear power generation capacity outside of the quake-hit 8.21 GW Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in northwestern Japan in December after finishing scheduled maintenance programs, Platts learned this week. Japan's largest power utility is scheduled to restart the 784 megawatt No. 3 nuclear power generation unit, the 1.1 gigawatt No. 6 reactor at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant and the 1.1 GW No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima-2 nuclear power plant in late December, a company source said. After restarting the three reactors, Tepco will have 10 nuclear units with a combined capacity of 9.09 GW, which accounts for 52.5% of its total nuclear capacity of 17.31 GW at 17 units across Japan. Tepco's thermal power generation increased this year after damage from the earthquake on July 16 forced it to shut the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. Tepco's switch to more thermal generation in order to make up for the loss in nuclear power has seen increased use of feedstocks such as direct-burning crudes, low sulfur waxy residue, LSFO, LNG and coal. In December, Tepco expects its oil procurement to hit 1.1 million kiloliters (6.92 million barrels), an increase of 100,000 kl from its earlier estimate, in a bid to move away from increasingly expensive LNG, Platts reported last week. Tepco's oil procurement in December includes spot purchases of 100,000 kl of low sulfur fuel oil from unidentified countries as well as 30,000 kl each of Minas, Cinta, and Widuri crudes from Indonesia. The power utility's LNG purchase is expected to total 1.6 million mt in December, almost unchanged from the volume bought in November. In December 2006, Tepco bought 378,000 kl of oil and 1.42 million mt of LNG. "We expect to have 1.4 million kl of oil and 900,000 mt of LNG in our storage in December," a source told Platts last week. This means that Tepco will have near full storage capacity of oil and LNG in the month as the company's oil and LNG storage capacities stand at 1.4-1.5 million kl and 1 million mt, respectively. Winter is about to set in and its severity will have a direct impact on fuel oil and LNG consumption in Japan. Japan's winter runs over December-March. PLANT MAINTENANCE OVER JAN-MAR "As a result of the expected increase in our nuclear power generation and in our fuel stocks, we are confident of making it through January," the Tepco source said. Meanwhile, Tepco plans to start three-month maintenance programs at the 784 MW No. 5 reactor and the 784 MW No. 2 reactor at its Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant in mid-January and mid-March, respectively, the source said. Tepco also plans to start another three-month maintenance program at the 1.1 GW No. 4 reactor at its Fukushima-2 nuclear power plant in early February, the source added. --Takeo Kumagai, takeo_kumagai@platts.com ------------ Areva to supply Cgnpc with two EPRs Washington (Platts)--26Nov2007 Areva's EPR contract with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co. is "the largest in the history of nuclear power," the vendor said. The contract with Cgnpc was signed in Beijing November 26 and is worth 8 billion euros (US$11.8 billion at current rates). The contract covers supply of two EPR nuclear islands to Taishan, west of Hong Kong, and fuel supply for the reactors to 2026, according to Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon, who signed the contract with Cgnpc Chairman Qian Zhimin. The nuclear islands are said to be worth about Eur 3.5 billion, but the exact breakdown was not revealed. The contract is partly denominated in euros, a major victory for Areva considering the sharp drop in the US dollar's value. The uranium supply portion remains denominated in dollars, industry sources said. Cgnpc and Areva will "shortly" set up a joint venture for engineering of EPR plants, Areva said. The 1,700-MW Taishan EPRs are expected to be online in 2013 and 2015, according to Areva. Cgnpc has separately issued a request for bids on the plants' conventional parts, with Siemens AG and Alstom, with Chinese partners, vying for that business, an industry source said. ------------ New nuclear could have a role to play in UK: PM Gordon Brown London (Platts)--26Nov2007 New nuclear power plants could "potentially" have a place in the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a speech to business organization the CBI Monday morning. According to the text of his speech on the PM's website, Brown said: "We have said that new nuclear power stations potentially have a role to play in tackling climate change and improving energy security. And having concluded the full public consultation, we will announce our final decision early in the New Year." Brown is wary of announcing support for nuclear without including the word "potentially," because the government has not yet reported the results of its consultation. If Brown is seen to pre-judge the results of the nuclear consultation he could face another legal challenge from Greenpeace for not consulting properly on new nuclear. Brown also said he was "working to expand the EU Emission Trading Scheme" and that "to meet that and our share of the European Union renewables commitments--and to create a new global carbon market in London--is not just a challenge but an opportunity for British business to lead the world in environmental technologies and finance." ------------ EC should block Belene nuclear reactor:former Bulgarian regulator Brussels (Platts)--23Nov2007 The former head of the Bulgarian Nuclear Regulatory Agency, Gueorgui Kastchiev, said Friday the Belene nuclear power project--two 1,000 MW class Russian VVER reactor designs--should not be allowed proceed on safety grounds. Kastchiev said he opposed planned construction of the AES-92 reactors from Russia's Atomstroyexport, which is majority owned by Gazprom, and urged the European Commission not to approve the project. He was speaking at a press conference organized by opponents of the project--Greenpeace, the Bulgarian Green Policy Institute and Germany's Urgewald--which they held just prior to meeting with EC officials to discuss their opposition to Belene. Heffa Schucking of Urgewald said EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs received at least 20,000 emails opposing Belene in the past week alone and that the opponents were hopeful of dissuading the commission from issuing a positive opinion on the project, which is expected in the next few weeks. While a negative opinion could not block the project, a positive opinion could put it in line for EU loans from both the Commission and the European Investment Bank--financing which could prove critical to the project. Kastchiev said the AES-92 is a design that has never been built. He said it would be built in an earthquake-prone area of Bulgaria. He said Bulgaria lacked a safety culture and a strong, independent regulator for overseeing nuclear projects. He added that Bulgaria had an inadequate construction and engineering pool from which to draw to build it, as much of its skilled workforce has emigrated. He said there were no plans for dealing with the spent fuel from the reactors and no plans for financing the decommissioning of the project. Proposals for a nuclear plant at Belene go back to Soviet Union times in 1981, Kastchiev said, and developers of the original Russian project had actually ruled out siting a nuclear unit at Belene because of seismic concerns. "I am completely against the project, but from a purely professional approach," said Kastchiev. Atomstroyexport is working in a consortium with France's Areva on the project, but a final contract between Atomstroyexport and Bulgarian national electricity company, NEK, for the reactors, has not been signed yet. NEK is currently in negotiations for a 49% share of the project with Belgium's Electrabel, Czech Republic's CEZ, Italy's ENEL and Germany's E.ON and RWE. --David Stellfox, david_stellfox@platts.com ------------ Eight senators seek cut in GNEP funding Washington DC (Platts)--23Nov2007 Eight US senators have called on key appropriators to cut funding for DOE's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership program in fiscal 2008. In a November 20 letter to Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Democratic chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, and to the panel's ranking Republican Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the lawmakers said they had "significant concerns" about GNEP, a DOE effort to develop new kinds of reprocessing plants and fast reactors. The letter, initiated by Wisconsin Democrat Russell Feingold, was signed by five other Democrats, one Republican and one Independent. Senate appropriators earlier this year approved $243 million in GNEP funds for FY-08 while the House-passed funding bill would provide the program with $120 million. The Senate has not yet scheduled a vote on its version of the bill. In their letter, the eight lawmakers questioned "DOE's plans to initiate commercial reprocessing in the United States." The letter added that such action would set in motion a massive multi-decade government-subsidized nuclear reprocessing program. ------------