B&W subsidiary to design and provide support for manufacture of replacement steam generators in South America

The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) (NYSE:BWC) announced today that its subsidiary Babcock & Wilcox Canada Ltd. (B&W Canada) has been awarded a replacement steam generator (RSG) contract from Industrias Metalúrgicas Pescarmona Sociedad Anónima (IMPSA) in Argentina.

B&W Canada will design and fabricate key components and provide manufacturing technology for the completion of four CANDU RSGs. IMPSA will deliver the completed RSGs to the Embalse nuclear plant, which is owned and operated by Nucleoelectrica Argentina, S.A. (NA-SA).

The work will be performed by B&W Canada’s operations in Cambridge, Ontario, which has designed and manufactured more than 300 nuclear steam generators for customers worldwide.

“This contract represents our ongoing commitment to help Argentina meet its demand for power through reliable, safe and clean nuclear energy,” said Mike Lees, President, B&W Canada. “B&W Canada is not only equipped to extend the life of existing plants through nuclear products, services and technology, but also nuclear plant builds of the future.”

About B&W

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., The Babcock & Wilcox Company is a leader in clean energy technology and services, primarily for the nuclear, fossil and renewable power markets, as well as a premier advanced technology and mission critical defense contractor. B&W has locations worldwide and employs approximately 13,000 people, in addition to approximately 10,000 joint venture employees. Learn more at www.babcock.com.

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Source: Babcock and Wilcox

TVA to spend $248M to revive Bellefonte NPP

The board of directors for the Tennessee Valley Authority on Friday approved nearly $250 million toward the possible reopening of one of its nuclear reactors in Alabama.

The board, meeting in Knoxville, Tenn., approved the fiscal year 2011 budget that included $248 million to fund the initial engineering design and site preparation for Unit 1 at the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant. Final approval for the project is not expected until next year.

Construction at the plant in northeast Alabama was started in 1974 but was stopped in 1988. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009 approved TVA’s request to reinstate Bellefonte’s original construction permits while the utility evaluated its two reactor sites.

Babcock & Wilcox announces second quarter 2010 results

The Babcock & Wilcox Company (NYSE: BWC) (“B&W” or the “Company”) today reported net income attributable to the B&W operations of McDermott International, Inc. (“MII”) for the second quarter ended June 30, 2010 of $47.6 million, an increase of $30.8 million or 183% from the first quarter of 2010, and a decrease of $0.8 million or 1.6% from the second quarter of 2009. Revenues for the second quarter of 2010 were $688.5 million, an increase of $26.1 million or 3.9% from the first quarter of 2010 and a decrease of $43.6 million or 6.0% from the second quarter of 2009.

Recent Highlights

• MII Board of Directors approves spin, B&W trading on New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “BWC”
• Executed alliance with Bechtel for development and deployment of Generation mPower small modular nuclear power plants using B&W mPower^tm reactor
• Awarded $285 million Department of Energy Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant environmental cleanup contract in alliance with LATA-Stoller
• Incorporated Thermax Babcock & Wilcox Energy Solutions Private Limited, a joint venture to provide highly efficient subcritical and supercritical boilers and pulverizers to the power generation market in India
• Selected by Department of Energy to design, build and test a modular, baseload molten salt power plant using concentrated solar power, in alliance with eSolar, Inc.
• Signed definitive agreement to invest $100 million in USEC Inc. in support of the American Centrifuge Project, contingent on certain conditions
• Manufactured 70-ton nuclear reactor vessel closure head for Diablo Canyon
• Acquired electrostatic precipitator aftermarket and emissions monitoring business unit of GE Energy

“Earnings for the second quarter were better than expected due to outstanding project execution and cost savings initiatives. Also our Government Operations segment continued to deliver solid earnings as seen in the quarter,” said Brandon C. Bethards, President and Chief Executive Officer of B&W. “While indicators appear to suggest that the U.S. economy is beginning to recover, albeit at a slow pace, utilities are reluctant to initiate new investment programs while power generation remains in excess capacity. Despite a difficult operating environment in power generation, the Company continues to focus on activities over which we have more control, such as safety, continuous cost improvement and project execution, all through Lean Six Sigma initiatives, and ongoing research and development of new clean energy technologies.” Continued…

B&W to construct test facility for modular reactor

Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) is to construct a test facility for the mPower reactor design in Bedford County, Virginia. The facility – not far from B&W’s headquarters in Lynchburg – will be used to support licensing activities for the small, modular reactor design.

A nuclear power plant utilizing mPower reactors (Image: B&W)

The company said that the mPower Integrated System Test (IST) facility will be built at the Center for Advanced Engineering and Research (CAER), currently being constructed at the New London Business and Technology Center.

The IST facility, which is expected to be operational in 2011, will include a scaled prototype of the mPower reactor that will undergo extensive testing. B&W said that while all the technical features of the mPower integral reactor are included in the IST the source of heat for testing is electric rather than nuclear.

B&W said that the three-year initiative will collect data to verify the reactor design and safety performance, supporting its licensing activities with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Once testing concludes, the company anticipates using the facility for on-going training of utility workers who would be operating mPower reactors.

The CAER was selected for the IST facility after an extensive evaluation of various sites, B&W said in a statement. It added, “One of the key factors in the decision was a $2.4 million grant provided by the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission (TICRC).”

Chris Mowry, president of B&W Nuclear Energy, commented: “B&W is pleased to have the support of the Virginia Tobacco Commission in locating our IST facility in Bedford County. This facility will play an important role as we move forward with testing and licensing of B&W mPower reactors, while also reaffirming the region as a hub for nuclear technology.”

The CAER, with a focus on nuclear energy and distance education, aims to promote economic development in the region. Commenting on B&W’s decision to construct the test facility there, Bob Bailey, executive director of CAER, said: “This is exactly the type of opportunity we had in mind when we created CAER. Our research facility is designed to support innovation in our region’s industries and strengthen the role of science and technology in our economy.” He added, “B&W’s decision to locate their IST facility here fits this objective like a glove.”

Earlier this month, B&W and Bechtel entered into a formal alliance to design, license and deploy B&W’s mPower design, a 125 MWe modular reactor. Under the alliance – to be known as Generation mPower – B&W will focus on designing and testing the nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) and nuclear island, including the design certification application development and submission, and NSSS production. Bechtel will complement these responsibilities with integrated engineering and project management leadership.

Source: World Nuclear News

B&W-Bechtel’s Generation mPower alliance

Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) and Bechtel have entered into a formal alliance to design, license and deploy B&W’s mPower reactor design. B&W announced plans for the 125 MWe modular nuclear power reactor in June 2009.

Cutaway of a single mPower module inside its own independent, underground containment (Image: B&W)

B&W, a subsidiary of McDermott International, describes the mPower reactor design as “a passively safe Advanced Light Water Reactor (ALWR) with a below-ground containment structure,” and is air-cooled. According to B&W, “this optimized ALWR represents true Generation III++ nuclear technology that B&W believes can be certified, manufactured and operated within today’s existing US regulatory, industrial supply chain and utility operational infrastructure.”

The mPower is an integral PWR designed to be factory-made and railed to site. The reactor pressure vessel containing core and steam generator is thus only a few metres in diameter. It will have a “conventional core and standard fuel” enriched to 5%, presumably with burnable poisons, to give a five-year operating cycle between refuelling. This is intended to provide a low-cost approach to plant operations. B&W notes that nuclear security and near-term management of used fuel would be improved through the underground containment design that will store fuel for the planned 60-year life of the plant.

When announcing the design, B&W said that the “scalable nature of nuclear power plants built around the B&W mPower reactor would provide customers with practical power increments of 125 MWe to meet local energy needs within power grid and plant site constraints.” Several units would be combined into a power station of any size, but most likely 500-750 MWe and using 250 MWe turbine generators, constructed in three years.

Under the new alliance – to be known as Generation mPower – B&W will focus on designing and testing the nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) and nuclear island, including the design certification application development and submission, and NSSS production. Bechtel will complement these responsibilities with integrated engineering and project management leadership.

Chris Mowry, president of B&W Nuclear Energy, said: “The formation of our Generation mPower alliance demonstrates a new level of commitment by American industry to address the growing challenge of climate change in an economical and practical way with small modular reactor technology. It brings together industry leaders in the areas of nuclear technology, manufacturing and construction.”

He added, “We believe that Generation mPower positions us to collectively deliver greater certainty in nuclear project cost and schedule, which are necessary to enable broader, more timely deployment of nuclear power.”

Jack Futcher, president of Bechtel’s power business commented: “The formation of Generation mPower is a turning point in the nuclear power plant industry – it has the potential to be a real game changer.”

He said, “This alliance intends to advance the development and deployment of nuclear power in a way that makes nuclear power more accessible to utilities and more affordable to consumers. Bechtel brings the plant engineering, procurement and construction capability to complement B&W’s expertise in nuclear engineering and manufacturing. Together, we have the resources, experience and expertise to deliver on the promise of a new clean energy option.”

A memorandum of understanding was signed last year by B&W, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and a consortium of regional municipal and cooperative utilities to explore the construction of a fleet of mPower reactors to meet the consortium’s need to diversify its power generation assets.

In a joint statement, B&W and Bechtel said, “Depending on regulatory approval and other factors, the first plant could be deployed as early as 2020.”

Source:World Nuclear News

Small reactors a nuclear energy option?

There has been renewed interest in nuclear power in the past few years, and two recent speeches in Oak Ridge touted small modular reactors as an optional energy source, with one possibly located in the Secret City.

Those small reactors could produce 125 megawatts, or about one-tenth the power of a large, traditional nuclear reactor.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, has urged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to consider using a small, modular reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A 125-megawatt nuclear reactor could generate enough electricity to power the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex.

One possible site would be the former Clinch River Breeder Reactor site, a 1,300-acre site in West Oak Ridge, where a now-scrapped reactor was to be built in the 1980s.

At one of the two recent speeches, Andrea Sterdis, Tennessee Valley Authority senior manager for strategic nuclear expansion, said the public utility is trying to help make the Oak Ridge Reservation, which uses lots of electricity for supercomputers and other activities, become “greener.” Only 30 percent of the power supplied by TVA, which mostly relies on coal-fired plants, is “clean electricity,” Sterdis said. Continued…

Source: John Huotari, Gatehouse News Service

Babcock & Wilcox’s mPower reactors

Lynchburg-based Babcock & Wilcox and competitors set sights on “small modular reactors” as momentum builds for nuclear power.

The current calculation seems to yield disaster — fossil fuels plus national dependency equals big trouble.

An oil spill leads to environmental catastrophe. Twenty-nine coal miners die in a West Virginia mine. Fly ash from a coal-fired power plant escapes a failed dike in Tennessee.

Lynchburg-based Babcock & Wilcox has high hopes for an alternative that would involve a sort of Mini Cooper version of a nuclear reactor housed underground in a concrete bunker.

As envisioned, the reactor would measure about 12 feet wide by 75 feet long, (or tall, when installed). B&W’s trademarked mPower reactor would be small enough to travel by rail or similar means from the point of its manufacture to its underground home. Unlike fossil fuel-fired facilities, mPower’s generation of electricity would not emit carbon dioxide.

And utilities would not have to bet the farm to finance the bone-rattling costs of a conventional reactor.

Chris Mowry is president of Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Energy, a subsidiary of Babcock & Wilcox Co., which will soon be spun off as a separate company by parent McDermott International.

“We have an army of people working on this,” Mowry said during a May 25 interview.

B&W has more than 50 years of experience in nuclear engineering and manufacturing. Mowry said the company’s experience building small nuclear reactors for ships helped inform mPower’s design.

The reactor would generate about 125 megawatts of electricity, enough to power between 75,000 to 100,000 homes, Mowry said. By comparison, the North Anna nuclear reactors units 1 and 2 have a net generating capacity of about 1,806 megawatts.

Mowry said the company has spent “tens of millions of dollars” already on developing mPower. B&W plans to apply in 2012 to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for design certification and envisions deploying one or more demonstration plants by 2020.

B&W is not alone in the arena of “small modular reactors,” or SMRs. Competitors include NuScale Power, Westinghouse Electric Co., Hyperion Power Generation and others.

Neither is it the sole cheerleader.

Nuclear renaissance?

Steven Chu, the U.S. secretary of energy, has expressed support for the development of SMRs. And on May 20 he announced awards totaling $38 million to help fund university-led research and development to spawn new nuclear technologies. President Obama is onboard in a big way.

Momentum continues to build for nuclear energy, especially as a “clean” alternative to fossil fuel-fired power plants.

In March 1979, a partial meltdown of a reactor core occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa. In April 1986, the catastrophic and deadly failure of a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine followed.

The two events caused a meltdown of the nuclear power industry in the U.S.

Mark Pierson is an associate professor in Virginia Tech’s nuclear engineering program. He said the university terminated its nuclear program in the late 1980s “due to lack of student enrollment and jobs after graduation.” Tech revived the nuclear engineering program in 2007 “based on demand from the Virginia nuclear industry,” Pierson said.

Safer and cheaper?

Pierson, who once served on U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarines, said he is “very much in favor of SMRs.”

Because SMRs are smaller, contain less nuclear fuel and are less complex than conventional reactors, “the impact of an accident — probably less likely in the first place — would be much less severe,” he said. Some SMRs, like mPower, would operate and store spent fuel underground, which could make it less vulnerable to attack and less likely to release radioactivity in the event of an accident, he said.

So far, according to B&W, three large utilities, Tennessee Valley Authority, Oglethorpe Power Corp. and First Energy Corp. have committed to helping get the mPower reactor approved for commercial use in the U.S.

Mowry said other utilities are contemplating similar involvement. For now, the list does not include American Electric Power, parent of Appalachian Power Co.

AEP depends primarily on coal-fired power plants to generate electricity. It operates one two-unit, 2,191-megawatt nuclear plant in Michigan.

“B&W approached us a few years ago about participating on an advisory council for small modular reactors,” said Pat Hemlepp, an AEP spokesman. “At that time our chief nuclear officer said we were interested in learning more about how the advisory council would function, but nothing ever came of it.”

“Our management has said repeatedly that AEP will not be in the first wave of companies planning new nuclear plants,” he added. “Our hands are full right now pushing the development of clean coal technologies like our carbon capture and storage project in West Virginia.”

On the other hand

Nuclear power reactors, small or large, share many of the same problems.

Among others: The reactors generate radioactive wastes in need of secure storage, an issue that remains unresolved; reactors and their spent fuel could be targets of international terrorism; they consume a non-renewable fuel source and are not pollution-free.

And, in spite of major design and safety improvements since Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, there is always a chance for a “high consequence accident.”

Some say the nuclear power industry has become unduly dependent on government handouts, a reality that bothers the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“We are opposed to federal subsidies for construction of new nuclear plants,” said Thomas Cochran, a senior staff scientist for the NRDC. “The momentum [for nuclear energy] has been driven by the subsidies. You take the subsidies away, and there is no interest.”

He said it is not clear that cutting costs through modular fabrication of SMRs in factories would compete with the economies of scale offered by larger reactors.

“If it were clear that these [SMRs] were economical, they would have already been building them,” Cochran said. “The big issue is whether these guys are all going to turn to the federal government or whether they are going to risk their own money.”

Large nuclear reactors can cost billions of dollars. B&W has not provided a comparative figure for mPower.

“Currently, we project a cost of about $4,000 to $5,500 per kilowatt for what we’d call a ‘four-pack,’ which would be four integrated 125 megawatt reactors,” said Jud Simmons, a company spokesman.

Meanwhile, the mPower reactor is generating interest if not electricity. Mowry’s schedule has included scores of media interviews.

On May 25, a reporter from Nikkei Business magazine awaited his turn.

Source: The Roanoke Times