Platts - Friday, May 09, 2008 http://www.platts.com ------------ FPL's 518-MW Point Beach-2 unit is exiting outage, US NRC says Washington (Platts)--9May2008 FPL Energy's 518-MW Point Beach-2 nuclear generating unit is starting to exit a refueling outage and is operating at 1% capacity, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday in its reactor status report. The unit in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, was shut down early Thursday and had been out of service since early April. There is no estimate of when it will connect with the power grid or reach full power. The adjacent and same-sized unit 1 at Point Beach is operating at 100% capacity, the NRC said. ------------ Hokuriku Electric restarts 1.358 GW nuclear unit after glitch Tokyo (Platts)--9May2008 Japan's Hokuriku Electric Power Co. restarted its 1.358 gigawatt nuclear reactor at Shika in northwestern Japan at 2:00 pm local time (0500 GMT) Friday after fixing a glitch, the company said. It shut the unit after the problem arose April 2, a week after a restart from a turnaround that began in February 2007. Commercial operations are expected to start in June after more testing, the company said. It remains unclear when Hokuriku Electric will be allowed to restart its remaining 540 MW reactor, which was ordered to close on March 16, 2007, for failing to report a nuclear accident at the facility in 1999. Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry is still conducting special investigations into the 540 MW reactor. Hokuriku Electric has had to rely fully on thermal power generation since the two closures, for which its capacity is 4.400 GW. It plans to buy 400,000 kiloliters (2.52 million barrels) of crude and 700,000 kl of fuel oil in fiscal 2008-2009 (April-March), compared with an estimated 400,000 kl of crude and 500,000 kl of fuel oil in fiscal 2007. Most, or 320,000 kl of last year's crude, was Nile Blend from Sudan. Hokuriku reduced its volume of the Sudanese crude in fiscal 2007 due to political concerns in the country and intends to reduce its dependency further this fiscal year. ------------ EPZ has applied for license to use MOX fuel in Borssele Paris (Platts)--8May2008 EPZ has applied for a license to use mixed-oxide fuel in Borssele, notably to "decrease its dependence on the volatile natural uranium market," the Dutch utility said May 7. EPZ said it was submitting a Project Initiative Document to the environment ministry, VROM, to start the licensing process by writing an environmental impact statement on the use of MOX fuel in the PWR. The EIS will demonstrate the feasibility of using MOX in Borssele, examine alternative options and select the best available option, EPZ said. It said it expects to submit the EIS by first-half 2009. EPZ said that in addition to recycling plutonium and depleted uranium as MOX, it wants to "improve its use of recycled uranium," which it has been loading in Borssele for the past few years. EPZ's reprocessing contract with Areva NC leaves open the end use of the recovered energy products; previously, EPZ had said it had no intention to use MOX fuel. ------------ Georgia Power says its share of new reactors is $6.4 billion Washington (Platts)--7May2008 Georgia Power on Wednesday said its share of the cost of two potential new reactors at its Vogtle site would be about $6.4 billion. The Southern Company subsidiary said the estimate reflects its 45.7% ownership interest and is subject to adjustments and performance bonuses under an engineering, procurement and construction contract it entered into last month with Westinghouse Electric and The Shaw Group. Georgia Power spokeswoman Carol Boatright said she could not estimate the entire cost of two units because the other owners may have access to different types of financing. The other owners are Oglethorpe Power (30%), the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, or MEAG Power (22.7%), and Dalton Utilities (1.6%), owned by the city of Dalton, Georgia. As cooperatives, the owners may have access to lower-cost options for financing than Georgia Power, Boatright said. The co-owners must finalize their ownership percentages by July 2, except for changes allowed under certain circumstances during the Georgia Public Service Commission certification process, Georgia Power said. Georgia Power also said its proposal for new reactors at Vogtle will be the only options the PSC will be reviewing. The company said it received no bids in response to a request for proposals for baseload capacity for 2016 to 2017. The company's nuclear proposal will be reviewed by the PSC's independent evaluator before Georgia Power submits a final recommendation to the PSC on August 1 for approval. A final certification decision is expected in March 2009, the company said. --Tom Harrison, tom_harrison@platts.com ------------ NRC rejects OIG recommendation on security inspections Washington (Platts)--7May2008 NRC does not plan to conduct inspections of plant security programs on short notice, contrary to a recommendation by the agency's Office of Inspector General. Executive Director for Operations William Borchardt responded in a May 6 memo to an OIG audit report (OIG-08-A-07), saying "it would not make a difference if the security officers were told 1 hour, 1 day, or 1 year in advance that we were planning to conduct the inspection." The OIG report said NRC might miss problems in the day-to-day operations by giving advance notice. But Borchardt said the inspectors need to give licensees time to get their historical records together for the agency's review. NRC did agree with other OIG recommendations, including the need to revise the regulations governing licensees' behavior observation programs and to integrate those programs into a regulatory framework with access authorization regulations. ------------ Areva chooses Idaho site for centrifuge enrichment plant Washington (Platts)--6May2008 Areva has chosen an Idaho site for a centrifuge enrichment plant, the French company announced May 6. The site, near Idaho National Laboratory, was one of five finalists for the construction project; the others were in New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and Washington state. As Areva noted in its press statement, the company now must obtain approval from various local, state and federal agencies, including the NRC. In an interview, Sam Shakir, the head of Areva's enrichment effort, said the company was "working hard" to get the application to NRC in the next eight to 10 months, and perhaps sooner. Areva's timetable calls for the plant's first module to be operational by early 2014, he said. The remaining construction, to bring the plant to its planned capacity of about 3 million separative work units a year, is projected to be finished in 2018 or 2019, he said. Subsequent expansion of the Areva plant is "always a possibility" and depends on "market conditions," he said. ------------ US, Russia sign agreement for nuclear cooperation Washington (Platts)--6May2008 The US and Russia on Tuesday signed an agreement to set a framework for nuclear trade and cooperation, Russian and US officials said. Sergey Kiriyenko, the director general of Russian state corporation Rosatom, and William Burns, the US ambassador to Russia, signed the agreement in Moscow. On the US side, President Bush now submits the agreement to Congress for review. The pact does not require an affirmative vote of Congress and can go into effect after 90 days of so-called "continuous" congressional session -- about the amount of time left in Congress' calendar for 2008. Congress could also pass a resolution of approval, with or without conditions, or a resolution of disapproval. Some congressional staffers have indicated strong reservations about the agreement, mainly because of Russia's relations with Iran. The pact was initialed last summer by Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Tuesday signing comes one day before Putin steps down from the presidency. --Daniel Horner, daniel_horner@platts.com ------------ Jacksonville Electric Authority plans 539-MW gas-fired plant Boston (Platts)--6May2008 Jacksonville Electric Authority Tuesday said it plans to build a 539-MW, gas-fired plant at a greenfield site in the Florida city by June 2012 and is considering the possibility of taking an equity stake in one or more of the new nuclear plants under development in the region. Gregg Quick, JEA's director of corporate planning, said in an interview that municipal utility had been planning to build two 177-MW combustion turbines at the site by June 2010. He added that when plans by JEA, two other Florida munis and the Florida Municipal Power Agency to develop an 800-MW coal-fired project in Taylor County were scrapped last July, the muni decided to boost the plant's output by 185 MW. Quick said that while JEA is studying the possibility of taking an equity stake in one or more new nuclear units -- or entering into a long-term power purchase agreement for nuclear power -- it remains concerned about uncertain and escalating capital costs for nuclear projects. He also said JEA is conducting an internal study into the possibility of building a large biomass-fired plant, or co-firing one or more of its existing coal units with biomass. ------------ Areva said to have chosen Idaho site for uranium enrichment plant Washington (Platts)--6May2008 French nuclear company Areva will announce later Tuesday morning that it has chosen a site near Idaho National Laboratory to build a uranium enrichment plant, sources said. A delegation of Idaho officials is scheduled to hold a news conference at 10 am MDT (12 pm EDT) in Boise, after the company has formally made the announcement, the sources said. The plant would require a license from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Under Areva's previously announced schedule, the plant would start up in about five years. --Daniel Horner, daniel_horner@platts.com ------------ US NRC chief says three-year wait for nuclear reactor vessels Washington (Platts)--5May2008 Japan Steel Works, the only company in the world that produces heavy steel forgings for nuclear reactor vessels, has a three-year waiting list, Dale Klein, chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said last week at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The line for those forgings is long and is getting longer, reflecting new interest in nuclear power, he said. Klein, whose May 1 speech at the North American Energy Summit was released today by NRC, said he believes other manufacturers will eventually revive the capabilities they once had to manufacture those components. One potential driver in the renewed interest in nuclear power is the growing demand for electricity. According to the US Department of Energy, power demand is expected to increase significantly during the next several years, Klein said. In the US alone, the demand is expected to jump 50% in the next 30 years, he said. He said he believes it is "significant" that there is a line for heavy forgings in the first place. Companies standing in line "have done extremely careful calculations to determine if the wait is worthwhile. Evidently, they have decided it is," Klein said. "Money for new nuclear reactors is being invested, contracts are being signed, and license applications are being submitted," he said. Still, there are some challenges. "[T]here were concerns expressed by some people that our agency would not be able to handle the extra workload of reviewing a wave of license applications; not to mention reviewing applications for new uranium mining and processing facilities, as well as license renewals and power uprates for existing plants," Klein said. "And the truth is, it has not been easy. But we are doing it." The agency used to hire 30 to 50 new employees year, he said. Now the number of NRC employees has a net increase of about 200 people per year over a three-year period, Klein said. "Most significantly," he said, "we created an Office of New Reactors that now has a staff of over 400 people." --Elaine Hiruo, elaine_hiruo@platts.com ------------ NEI re-elects number of members to its board Washington (Platts)--5May2008 The Nuclear Energy Institute has re-elected John Rowe as chairman and W. Gary Gates as vice chairman of its board of directors, NEI said May 5. Rowe is chairman, president and CEO of Exelon, and Gates is president/CEO of the Omaha Public Power District. Newly elected to NEI's board of directors are Aris Candris, senior vice president, nuclear services, Westinghouse; and Audeen Fentiman, professor of nuclear engineering, Purdue University. Frank Bowman was re-elected president/CEO of NEI. NEI said newly elected members of its executive committee, "which sets broad policy for the industry," are John Fees, CEO of Babcock & Wilcox; David Ratcliffe, chairman, president/CEO of The Southern Co., and E. James Reinsch, president of Bechtel Nuclear. ------------ NRC to set up advisory panel on nuclear education Washington (Platts)--2May2008 The NRC will establish an advisory committee on nuclear education, the commission said in a May 2 staff requirements memorandum. The commissioners approved the staff's plan, detailed in a March 25 paper, Comsecy-08-11, to appoint a committee of eight to 10 members from other federal entities, professional organizations, academic institutions, trade schools and the nuclear industry. The committee will advise on the best allocation of appropriated funds to support nuclear education, staff said in a proposed charter in its paper. The committee will also "undertake studies and activities related to education in nuclear science, engineering, and related trades in order to determine the immediate and projected skills needs of the broad nuclear sector," staff said in the proposed charter. About four full committee meetings and four working group meetings are anticipated per year, it said. ------------