Platts - Friday, February 01, 2008 http://www.platts.com ------------ Areva ends 2007 with 55% more orders Paris (Platts)--31Jan2008 Areva ended 2007 with 39.8 billion euros in orders, up 55% from the level at year-end 2006, the French vendor said January 31. Orders for nuclear equipment and services represented the lion's share of the total at Eur 34.927 billion, a 58% rise, due in particular to a contract worth some Eur 8 billion to supply nuclear reactors, fuel and related services to China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp. Areva reported total sales revenue in 2007 of Eur 11.923 billion, up by 9.8% over the 2006 level, with a 16.7% increase in fourth-quarter sales to Eur 3.858 billion. Sales revenue for Areva's Front End division rose 7.6% to Eur 3.140 billion, with "strong growth" in the enrichment business unit. Sales revenue in 2007 for Areva's Reactors and Services division rose 17.5%, driven by a recovery in reactor services business, on top of "progress" on construction of the Olkiluoto-3 EPR in Finland and start of construction on Electricite de France's Flamanville-3 EPR. ------------ Susquehanna plant to add 205 MW Washington (Platts)--30Jan2008 The two-unit Susquehanna plant will increase capacity by about 205 MW, after receiving NRC approval for the uprate, operator PPL Susquehanna said January 30. PPL said it will own 185 MW of the additional generation, with plant co-owner Allegheny Electric Cooperative owning the rest. The increase will be implemented in phases between 2008 and 2010 as plant modifications primarily to turbines and generators -- are completed, PPL said. PPL applied to the NRC in October 2006 for the uprate. Unit 1 is currently rated at 1,202 MW and unit 2 at 1,207 MW. ------------ Nevada lawmakers seek US help for laid off Yucca Mountain workers Washington (Platts)--30Jan2008 Nevada's US congressional delegation has asked the Department of Labor to help find jobs and provide transition funding for the more than 500 employees expected to be laid off this year from the US Department of Energy's high-level nuclear waste disposal project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. In a Tuesday letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Democratic Senator Harry Reid, Republican Senator John Ensign, Democratic Representative Shelley Berkley, and Republican Represenatives Dean Heller and Jon Porter said that while they want to kill the Yucca Mountain project, but they want to alleviate some of the unintended consequences of the effort to stop the project. Earlier this month, DOE's program director said at least 500 workers would be laid off from the Yucca Mountain project this year because of steep cuts to the program's fiscal 2008 budget. DOE said most of the 500 layoffs would occur at facilities in Nevada, while others would affect Yucca-related jobs at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and other states. The project employs about 2,400 people in Nevada, New Mexico, California, Washington state and Colorado. The lawmakers asked Chao to "make the necessary resources available for rapid response to this situation and to ensure that these hardworking individuals receive appropriate assistance for transitioning into new jobs." They said Nevada has one of the country's highest unemployment rates at 5.8% and the state has been hit hard by problems in the US housing market. ------------ NRC accepts North Anna COL application Washington (Platts)--29Jan2008 NRC has accepted Dominion's North Anna combined construction permit-operating license, or COL, application for a technical review, the agency said January 29. Dominion submitted the application for a COL for an additional reactor at North Anna in Virginia on November 27. It is the reference, or lead, application for GE-Hitachi's ESBWR. Entergy, working with the industry consortium NuStart Energy, plans to submit later this quarter a COL application to build an ESBWR at its Grand Gulf site in Mississippi, company officials said January 29. Entergy will submit an ESBWR application for its River Bend site in Louisiana by mid-year, they said. ------------ US DOE uranium leasing program faulted over royalty collections Washington (Platts)--29Jan2008 An US Department of Energy program that leases federal land in Colorado to companies for uranium mining is not collecting some royalties on time and has not reviewed its methodology for calculating royalties since 1982, despite increasing demand for uranium, DOE's inspector general said in a new report. Gregory Friedman recommended that DOE conduct periodic reviews of royalties to make sure they reflect current market conditions. Friedman also called on the agency to take steps to collect royalties when they are due. The department's Office of Legacy Management, which conducts the leasing program, agreed with the findings. Earlier this year, DOE said it planned to increase to 38 from 13 the number of tracts it leases in southwestern Colorado because of greater demand for uranium and higher prices. Friedman said his office conducted the study to see how the program had been performing. The Office of Legacy Management did not collect on time 17% of royalties -- or $700,000 -- in 2006 and 2007, the inspector general said. The office manager, Michael Owen, said during that time his staff focused primarily on completing a programmatic environmental assessment necessary for a new round of leasing. The report is available at www.ig.doe.gov. --Dipka Bhambhani, dipka_bhambhani@platts.com ------------ Constellation may 'break ground' on new nuclear unit in late 2008 Washington (Platts)--29Jan2008 UniStar Nuclear Energy, a joint venture of Constellation Energy and France's EDF Group, said Tuesday it hopes to "break ground" in late 2008 on a 1,600 MW nuclear reactor at Constellation's Calvert Cliffs plant in southern Maryland and bring the unit online by 2015. UniStar made its comments after the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday accepted for review the environmental portion of the company's combined construction and operating license application for a new reactor at Calvert Cliffs near Lusby, Maryland. The agency said while it still needs more information from UniStar to establish a full review schedule, it added the company had assembled enough environmental data for the staff to begin its review. NRC said it expects the full review of the COL application to continue into 2011. NRC rules allow an applicant to submit one part of a COL application up to 18 months before submitting the remainder to the NRC. A COL application has two basic elements -- a safety analysis report and an environmental report -- and the NRC said it expects the Calvert Cliffs safety analysis to be submitted in March. Constellation Energy spokeswoman Maureen Brown on Tuesday said the company expects to ask its board before the end of year whether to proceed with a new nuclear plant at Calvert Cliffs. Brown said that if the board approves the plan, the company could this year begin preliminary work at the site, including clearing the land, non-safety-related construction and other "pre-construction" activities. Michael Wallace, chairman of UniStar and executive vice president of Constellation, said in a statement that UniStar expects to make a final decision in the next 12 to 18 months on whether to proceed with a third reactor at Calvert Cliffs. He said the company also is pursuing a new reactor in upstate New York as part of its strategy to build at least four US Evolutionary Power Reactors in the US. "Ideally, we would like to break ground for a new reactor in southern Maryland in late 2008 so this carbon-free, baseload source of electricity can be in operation by 2015," Wallace said. "However, if we encounter delays in Maryland, we are prepared to proceed with the first EPR at our Nine Mile Point nuclear plant location in New York." ------------ FitzPatrick license extension poses no threat to environment: NRC Washington (Platts)--29Jan2008 Extending the operating life of Entergy Nuclear's 855-MW FitzPatrick nuclear plant near Oswego, New York, would lead to no significant environmental problems, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday in a final environmental impact statement. NRC said the plant's current license expires in October 2014 and Entergy in August 2006 asked the agency to approve a 20-year extension. The NRC said publication of the final environmental impact statement does not represent final agency action on the license renewal application, adding that staff is completing its safety evaluation report, and the commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards will evaluate that report and make its recommendation before the agency makes a final decision. ------------ US, Russia to sign deal on uranium imports this week: sources Washington (Platts)--28Jan2008 Officials from the US Department of Commerce and the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency are expected to sign later this week an amendment to the 1992 Russian uranium suspension agreement, Platts has learned. The final language of the amendment, several sources said, will be virtually identical to the draft document Commerce published for public comment on December 4. Sources said that Commerce at a January 25 meeting told representatives of the original petitioners in the Russian antidumping case that any problems with the amendment would be handled administratively or by the administration supporting legislation to overturn several recent trade court decisions over uranium enrichment services. But Commerce was insistent that the petitioners -- US uranium mining companies and the union that represents workers at USEC's enrichment facilities -- sign "irrevocable" letters withdrawing at the end of 2020 their original antidumping petition. Sources said that Commerce argued that not signing the letters and postponing a final signing of the suspension agreement amendment would usher in a period of great uncertainty in the market. And, as one source put it, the nuclear market, which many believe is poised to grow, does not need more uncertainty. The amendment to the Russian suspension agreement would, among other things, set new limits on how much low-enriched uranium Russia can export to the US from 2011 to 2020, the year the suspension agreement would end. It also would allow Russia to sell without limits low-enriched uranium for initial cores to US utilities building new reactors. The export limits in the draft agreement would begin to have the greatest market effect in 2014 when Russia would be allowed to export 485,279 kilograms of LEU, an amount equivalent to about 12.65 million pounds U3O8 and about 2.93 million separative work units, a measure of enrichment services. --Mike Knapik, newsdesk@platts.com ------------ Flowserve to supply pumps for Chinese nuclear plants Washington (Platts)--28Jan2008 Flowserve has won a $25 million to $30 million contract with China Nuclear Power Engineering Co. to provide concrete volute pumps for the first four units of the Hongyanhe and Ningde nuclear power plants projects, Flowserve said January 28. Six units are planned for Hongyanhe in Liaoning province, with the first two units scheduled to be completed in 2011, and another six units are planned for Ningde in Fujian province, with an estimated completion date of 2012 for the first two units, Flowserve said. The two projects consist of 1,000-MW PWRs of French design that were originally built in Guangdong province at Daya Bay and then at Ling Ao, beginning in the late 1980s. ------------ MidAmerican abandons plan for new merchant nuclear plant in Idaho Seattle, Washington (Platts)--28Jan2008 MidAmerican Energy Holdings has abandoned plans for economic reasons to build a merchant nuclear plant in Payette County, Idaho, that would have supplied power to western states, the company said on Sunday. The Des Moines, Iowa-based MidAmerican plans to send a letter to residents and local Payette County officials this week notifying them of the change in plans, company spokesman Alan Urlis said on Sunday. "We are disappointed that the present economics of building the next generation of nuclear power plants are not in our customers' best interests," Bill Fehrman, president and chief nuclear officer of the newly formed MidAmerican Nuclear Energy, said in a notice placed on the company's Website. The company was considering building a new nuclear plant, with up to 1,600 MW of capacity, on a merchant basis. MidAmerican had said in December that it was testing soils and making preliminary borings on 3,300 acres on which it has an option and it expected to make a decision by fall on whether to proceed. At a December 20 community meeting, the utility parent company outlined its proposal to Payette County residents, noting that it would take at least 10 to 12 years before a nuclear plant would begin service. MidAmerican Energy Holdings "continues to believe that nuclear energy must be an important part of the nation's energy future. However, consumers expect reasonably priced energy, and the company's due diligence process has led to the conclusion that it does not make economic sense to pursue the project at this time. The decision is based on economic considerations and not on issues related to the suitability of the Idaho site," Fehrman said. ------------ India's DAE to take 3% stake in France's Jules Horowitz project London (Platts)--28Jan2008 India's DAE will take a 3% stake in France's Jules Horowitz reactor project under a scientific cooperation agreement signed January 25 in New Delhi. The agreement was signed by Anil Kakodkar, head of the Department of Atomic Energy, and by Alain Bugat, chairman of the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, which is responsible for the project to build a 100-MW (thermal) materials test reactor at the Cadarache site in southern France. DAE will be the ninth partner in the JHR project; the three French partners -- the CEA, Electricite de France and Areva -- and five foreign research organizations signed a consortium agreement for the project in March 2007. Construction of the JHR is projected to cost 500 million euros (in euros of 2005) on top of Eur 70 million the CEA spent during the design phase. Up to now, the CEA has been financing 50%, the other French partners 30% and the foreign partners 20%, but that could change with the entry of DAE, a CEA official said. Construction is scheduled to start this year and first criticality is scheduled for 2013. ------------ SCE&G suspends plans to ask US NRC for license to build new nukes Washington (Platts)--25Jan2008 Scana Corp.'s South Carolina Electric & Gas utility has suspended plans to submit to federal regulators an application for a combined construction permit-operating license for a new nuclear plant, spokesman Robert Yanity said Friday. Yanity said the utility has put its nuclear plans on hold while it examines other options for meeting future baseload power needs. SCE&G was expected to submit to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission by late 2007 an application for a COL for two AP1000 reactors at its Summer site in South Carolina. Yanity said that while no new submittal date has been set, he expects they will make a decision on whether to move forward on licensing within the next two months. "We're still very pro-nuclear," he said. "We're just taking a step back and pausing." He cited the rising costs of construction, particularly materials such as steel and concrete, as the reason for the company's hesitancy. He acknowledged, however, that the increasing cost of materials was "going up across the industry." --Jenny Weil, jenny_weil@platts.com ------------ US NRC approves raising Crystal River nuke output to 850 MW Washington (Platts)--25Jan2008 The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a request by Progress Energy Florida to boost the generating capacity of the utility's Crystal River-3 nuclear unit to about 850 MW from 838 MW, a 1.6% increase. The agency on Thursday said its staff had determined Progress Energy Florida could safely increase the reactor's output primarily through more accurate means of measuring feedwater flow. NRC staff also reviewed evaluations showing the plant's design can handle the increased power level. The commission said Progress expects to complete the upgrade by the end of January. ------------ Documents to support builds at Beznau, Muehleberg underway: AXPO London (Platts)--25Jan2008 AXPO's CEO Heinz Karrer said documents to support building new nuclear plants at Beznau and Muehleberg are now being prepared. Speaking at a press conference January 23, he said documents requesting general permission from Bern to proceed with construction are to be submitted by year's end. Axpo, a group of leading Swiss utilities, reported that, for the business year ending September 30, 2007, net profit was up more than 35% to 1.44 billion Swiss Francs (US$1.32 billion currently) on sales revenue of CHF 9.2 billion, which was down 2%. Solid nuclear plant performance, with no unplanned outages, was credited with aiding profitability. Under a joint venture announced last month, Axpo and BKW FMB Energie plan to build two reactors of up to 1,600 MW each at Beznau and Muehleberg. ------------ No mention of nuclear in EC's energy, emissions package London (Platts)--24Jan2008 Nuclear was ignored in the EC's energy and emissions package released by the European Commission January 23. The draft, covering the post-Kyoto compliance period from 2013 to 2020, would mandate an EU-wide emissions cap implemented by country-specific carbon emission cuts to realize a 20% reduction in CO2 levels from 1990 by 2020. Power generators would be denied any free carbon allowances and would have to buy them all at auction; some heavy industry would still be granted free allowances. The package would also require the EU to derive 20% of its power from renewables, not including nuclear, and proposes required percentages of renewables for each country. For instance, for France, which gets 78% of its electricity from nuclear, the EC proposed it have to get 23% from renewables by 2020, and Sweden, which gets half its power from nuclear, would have to get 50% of its electricity from renewables. ------------ All planned COLs likely to lead to reactors 'eventually' New York (Platts)--23Jan2008 NRC Chairman Dale Klein said this week he expects "eventually" to see construction of all the units for which operators have formally indicated plans to file combined construction permit-operating license applications. However, Klein said, the construction might be in two "waves." Klein made the comments to reporters January 22 after his presentation to the Nuclear Energy Institute's Nuclear Fuel Supply Forum in Washington. He said NRC, on the basis of statements of intent by utilities, is anticipating 21 applications covering "about 32" units. Recently, sources have said that that some utilities are having second thoughts, apparently because of rising plant cost estimates from vendors (Inside NRC, 21 Jan., 1). Klein said he was not aware of any recent communications from potential applicants either confirming or altering their announced application schedules. Klein said some of the uncertainty may come from the "dynamics" between utilities and vendors. Because of current limits on the worldwide capacity to make the needed components, utilities may be looking for some assurance that the plants can be built on time and on budget, while vendors may be looking for a firm commitment from buyers before ramping up manufacturing capacity, he said. That would create a "chicken and egg" situation, he said. Construction in two waves could have advantages, Klein said. He stated his preference for a scenario in which construction "started small," with one demonstration PWR and one BWR. That would allow NRC to put its "A team" on each project, he said. If the NRC finds itself in a "time crunch" from multiple simultaneous applications, it will give higher priority to applicants that have purchased long-lead items, he said. --Daniel Horner, Washington ------------