Pressure Over Yucca Mountain

Republican Senators put pressure on energy secretary Steven Chu over his decision that the Yucca Mountain project is “not an option” with a letter asking him “why?”

Yucca Mountain had enjoyed the support of President George W Bush, but President Barack Obama campaigned on the line that it was “not an option.” This was echoed by Obama’s energy secretary, Steven Chu, and the pair decided to reduce funding for the project to all but zero in their February budget.

The result is that, although Yucca has not been officially cancelled, the USA currently has no firm plan for the disposition of over 60,000 tonnes of used nuclear fuel from power stations as well as 20,500 tonnes of wastes from military activities.

The letter sent yesterday by 17 Senators to Chu detailed the various research panels that, since 1957, have guided US radioactive waste policy towards deep geologic disposal as well as the huge sums of money involved. It stated that “neither the National Academy of Sciences, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, nor any of our National Labs… have concluded that there is any evidence to disqualify Yucca Mountain as a respository.”

The Senators then remind Chu that he, as head of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab signed an August 2008 letter on the “essential role of nuclear energy which advocated continuing the licensing of a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain.”

“Given this history, President Obama’s memoranda that science will guide public policy and his commitment to an unprecedented level of openness, we find it difficult to reconcile your statement that Yucca Mountain ‘is not an option’ made after only six weeks in office.”

Chu is then asked, “what is the reason” for his decision that Yucca Mountain is not an option as well as what was the legal basis for that decision and whether he has discovered new research to discredit all that came before in support of Yucca. He is also asked if he consulted on the effects a policy change would have on military programs and weapons site clean-up. Chu is requested to explain what he expects a new blue ribbon panel to find that has not previously been considered.

In addition, the letter includes a request for details of the scientists that briefed Chu on Yucca Mountain, including their qualifications and the materials they used, as well as the public involvement process conducted in support of the decision. A response is requested by 1 June.

Yesterday’s letter comes a week after an optimistic bill backed by Republican Senators which would, if approved, require Obama to either endorse Yucca Mountain or liquidate the $30 billion waste fund for repayment to utilities, customers, power producers and those states holding military waste.

Source: World Nuclear News

Kazakhstan to build nuclear power plants for China

Kazakhstan on Wednesday signed a deal that would see it build nuclear power plants for China, as well as provide its energy-hungry neighbour with more than 24,000 tonnes of uranium.

The deal between state nuclear agency Kazatomprom and the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPG) calls for the creation of a joint venture to build power plants for energy-hungry China, the Kazakh firm said in a statement.

“National atomic energy agency Kazatomprom and CGNPC signed a memorandum regarding the creation of a joint enterprise to build atomic energy stations in China,” Kazatomprom said.

Zhou Zhenxing, general manager of the uranium subsidiary of CGNPC, said that under the terms of the deal the Chinese company would receive the uranium shipments over the next decade, the Interfax news agency reported.

“A long-term contract has been signed on uranium sales from 2008 to 2020 for a total volume of 24.2 thousand tonnes,” Zhenxing was quoted as saying, during his visit to Kazakhstan’s financial centre Almaty for the signing.

The two companies have been working together on nuclear energy issues since signing an initial cooperation deal in 2006, but Wednesday’s agreement appears to be their first direct transaction for nuclear fuel.

Neither side gave the total value of the sale.

Kazakhstan holds almost 20 percent of the world’s uranium reserves and aims to be the world’s number one producer by 2010, overtaking Australia and Canada.

Last year Kazakhstan extracted around 8,500 tonnes of uranium and in 2009 it plans to extract 11,900 tonnes, according to Kazatomprom.

China, driven by its booming economy over the last decade, has been actively building up its atomic energy generation capacity as a means of meeting growing domestic consumption.

Source: Google News

Toshiba expands its nuclear power business

Toshiba will open a nuclear engineering center in Charlotte, North Carolina in August, the company said in an April 28 statement. The center “will bolster Toshiba Group in expanding its nuclear power businesses” in the US by supporting construction of ABWRs and supplying steam turbines and “other major equipment” for AP1000s, Toshiba said. About 200 workers will be employed at the center by the end of 2013, it said. Toshiba Corp. and Westinghouse have been awarded engineering, procurement and construction contracts for eight planned nuclear units in the US. Westinghouse is majority owned by Toshiba.

Toshiba America Nuclear Energy Corp. has secured nearly $5 million in state incentives in exchange for creating 194 new jobs in Charlotte over the next five years, Gov. Bev Perdue’s office announced Tuesday.

The company, which designs and builds nuclear power plants and sells nuclear reactors, plans to open a new national project management and engineering center in Mecklenburg County. The company will spend $2.8 million on the project.

The jobs, mostly for nuclear engineers and construction managers, will pay an average of $122,037, excluding benefits, the governor’s office said in a written statement.

The state’s Economic Investment Committee on Tuesday awarded a Job Development Investment Grant to the Virginia-based company, which is part of Toshiba America Inc. If the company creates the 194 jobs and sustains them for nine years, it will receive $4.9 million in JDIG incentives.

In addition to the state grant, the company will receive a local business-investment grant from Mecklenburg County totaling nearly $47,000 over 10 years.

Toshiba America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba Corp.

Source: Platts & Triangle Business Journal

The Aerospace Industry continues to battle the counterfeit issue

Electrical, military and aerospace industries face a dangerous resurgence: the unintentional use of counterfeit components in place of certified parts.

Counterfeit components can often be identified before use, but their accidental application in critical military and aerospace projects can yield devastating results. The inadvertent use of substandard parts is by no means a new phenomenon, but as markets change, counterfeiters have found new ways to push their products.

The problem is huge in scope because nearly anything can be counterfeited. In a recent report from Boeing, parts such as bolts, nuts, rivets and fluid bolts are all listed as components that can easily be replicated and sold. But the list doesn’t end there. Electronic components, such as capacitors and integrated circuits, as well as materials like titanium and composite chemicals, are also commonly counterfeited.

“It’s not just the high-value items [such as] semiconductors. It can be connectors, resistors, anything that can turn a good profit, anything that’s on allocation, anything that’s in high demand,” EDN recently quoted Robin Gray, executive vice president of the National Electronic Distributors Association (NEDA), as having said.

Military applications have been hit especially hard. Significant changes since the 1990s have led the military to move toward commercial manufacturers for parts, unfortunately granting counterfeiters a new way in. Because the military “has moved away from mil-spec components and now relies almost exclusively on commercial manufacturers for parts,” it’s even easier for counterfeiters to pass off uncertified products as the real deal, Military and Aerospace Electronics reported in mid-July 2007.

When such parts are substituted for their safe and certified look-a-likes, the results are both expensive and harmful. “Although it’s impossible to know for sure, industry experts estimate counterfeiting costs at $100 billion to $200 billion annually, or nearly 10 percent of all electronic components sold worldwide,” according to EDN this month.

You don’t have to know the exact cost of industry counterfeiting to understand just how damaging it can be. According to a Houston Chronicle report last month, NASA’s acting administrator Christopher Scolese experienced first-hand the ravaging effects of counterfeit components. A few months ago, the identification of a counterfeit part on the Kepler aircraft delayed the project, which has since experienced a “20 percent project cost overrun, which [has] driven the project’s total costs to up to $595 million,” the Houston Chronicle reports.

The identification of counterfeit components in the Kepler project is far from an isolated incident. In correlation with the rise of counterfeiting, although no one can say for certain that counterfeit parts are the sole reason, many of NASA’s projects have exceeded cost and deadlines.

In a recent hearing before the Committee on Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, results of the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) investigation of NASA’s projects were presented. “According to the GAO’s review of 18 of NASA’s large-scale projects, the agency had difficulty meeting cost, schedule and performance objectives for a majority of those projects,” says the Committee on Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics.

The Chronicle states:

NASA has been trying to weed out counterfeit parts for years, Scolese said. But the problem has been growing, with foreign firms and counterfeiters manufacturing equipment that ends up in NASA’s supply chain… .

In an effort to address the counterfeiting issue and increase industry awareness, the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) has formed a Counterfeit Parts Integrated Project Team. Because many aerospace systems and components are designed to last a long time, it can be difficult to procure the same part from a manufacturer to replace the original — a dilemma that makes aerospace applications an especially desirable target for counterfeiters.

“Aerospace, space and defense products are targets for counterfeiters because the systems are intended for use over extended time, leaving them vulnerable to obsolescence of parts, materials, subsystems and technologies,” according to a statement from the AIA.

Standards for independent suppliers can be inconsistent as well, allowing counterfeits to slip past inspection. However, because of part unavailability from the original manufacturer, many industries find they must turn to independent distributors. “As the time of use for a system increases, a substantial number of the products required to support aerospace, space and defense products are no longer available from the original manufacturers or through franchised or authorized suppliers,” the AIA statement continues.

Solving the problems surrounding counterfeiting is no small task, but the AIA aims to bring together “government agencies, original manufacturers, industry associations and independent distributors” to begin tackling the issue head-on.

Source: ThomasNet

Nuclear energy is cheaper than coal power, survey tells

A survey that will help the Alberta government determine whether to allow nuclear reactors to be built in the province says nuclear power is cheaper than coal.

A workbook attached to a questionnaire posted Monday on the Internet also says that living near coal-fired power plants exposes people to 10 times more radiation than from a nuclear reactor.

Energy Minister Mel Knight said the government is simply presenting Albertans with the facts they need to make an informed decision on nuclear power.

“Let me make this perfectly clear, we are not selling any option,” Knight said in response in an interview. “If that happens to be a fact, it’s a fact.”

The information attached to the seven-page survey says the cost of nuclear energy ranges from 3.5 to six cents per kilowatt hour, while the cost of electricity produced from coal “typically” costs 6.3 cents per kilowatt hour.

There’s also a section comparing the safety of nuclear power versus coal that states “the increased dose from natural radioactivity in coal is 10 times higher than that from living next to a nuclear power plant.”

Liberal energy critic Kevin Taft said the workbook is clearly slanted to sell the public on nuclear energy, which has been an expensive choice in other parts of the world.

“This reads like a promotional brochure for the nuclear industry,” said Taft.

“They don’t mention cost overruns and the staggering public liability of nuclear plants,” he said. “I think the public is going to see right through this.”

The workbook says Alberta currently gets about two-thirds of its power from coal, but adds coal releases more carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels.

The document posted on the Internet also says nuclear power has attracted renewed interest because it does not emit carbon dioxide during operation.

The workbook does mention that there are no permanent storage facilities for nuclear waste in Canada.

There are 31 questions in the Internet survey, including one that asks whether the province should encourage or oppose nuclear power projects or consider them on a case-by-case basis.

The survey also asks people to say how important carbon dioxide emissions are in the consideration of nuclear power as an energy option.

“I think what it does as much as anything else is gives factual information relative to the generation of nuclear as it exists in other locations,” said Knight. “And as it may or may not fit into Alberta’s generating base.”

The workbook was written using facts from a report released a month ago by a government-appointed expert panel that studied the nuclear power issue.

Source: CNews

New Jersey’s Oyster Creek Plant shuts down reactor

LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) — The operator of the nation’s oldest nuclear power plant manually shut down its reactor after equipment failed on one of its two transformers.

Officials at the Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey said the shut down came at 6:04 p.m. Saturday and occurred without incident.

But they would not say how long it was expected to last or when repairs would be completed at the facility in Lacey Township, about 60 miles east of Philadelphia.

Plant spokesman David Benson said Sunday that the shut down caused no risk to the public and there was no release of radiation.

Oyster Creek — which opened in December 1969 and was granted a new 20-year operating license earlier this month — generates 636 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 600,000 homes a year. It provides 9 percent of New Jersey’s electricity.

Source: Yahoo News

Nuclear renaissance awaits its ‘rebirth’

One of the biggest question marks in the nation’s energy and climate policy is the future of nuclear power. In the past, the United States has made a major commitment to it. The U.S. nuclear power industry is the world’s largest. The nation’s 104 operating plants produce 20 percent of its electricity, making them, by far, the largest source of electricity that does not result in greenhouse gas emissions.

If a cap and a price are imposed on carbon dioxide emissions, these plants could be among the biggest economic winners in the vast economic shifts that would be created by greenhouse gas regulations.

But the future of the industry may still hang precariously on decisions made by the Obama administration, in which multiple issues remain unsettled. While former President George W. Bush joined the industry’s chorus proclaiming that a “nuclear renaissance” is under way, President Obama has approached the issue with his lawyer’s penchant for nuance, caution and opacity as he listens to conflicting voices within his administration.

“The president needs to show his cards on nuclear energy,” said energy consultant Joseph Stanislaw, a Duke University professor. “He cannot keep this industry, which must make investments with a 50-year or longer horizon, in limbo for much longer.”

To be sure, the “limbo” he refers to isn’t just a policy matter. The industry faces political, legal and technological issues in the disposal of spent nuclear fuel. The economics of nuclear power, including the future costs of new plants, appear to be the biggest current hurdle.

The most-cited evidence for the “renaissance” is that U.S. energy companies have filed 17 applications with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for 26 new reactor operating licenses. On Friday, the first of these fell by the wayside. A Missouri utility, AmerenUE, said it was suspending plans to build its proposed plant because the state Legislature would not allow it to charge consumers for some of the project’s costs before the plant’s completion. Without that “financial and regulatory certainty,” the company said it couldn’t proceed.

On the other hand, the industry’s political acceptance has improved since the 1990s, when new power plant construction stopped as if dead. A shift in the policy debate to climate change mitigation has helped the industry make its case. The availability of nuclear power reduces U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 680 million tons a year, says Paul Genoa, policy director for the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the industry. “It’s a big number — roughly equivalent to all the CO2 emissions from our passenger [vehicle] fleet,” Genoa says.

An industry with a new, international face

The new face of the U.S. nuclear industry that is emerging will have a number of foreign players eager to stake their claim. Virginia officials rolled out the carpet in October for the French energy company Areva and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, which plan to build a $363 million manufacturing plant in Newport News to make nuclear reactor components. More than 500 employees would be at work by 2012, the companies said. “This joint venture project is tremendous news for Virginia,” said Gov. Tim Kaine (D), whose state holds large uranium deposits.

Today, 40 nuclear plants are under construction in 11 countries, led by China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, according to the World Nuclear Association. “Nuclear energy is going to be used,” asserted William Magwood IV, a physicist who directed nuclear programs in the Department of Energy under both former Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush. “People underestimate how quickly this is going to happen.” Internationally, more than 100 nuclear reactors are planned and more thans 250 have been proposed.

Climate concerns led Congress to approve $18.5 billion in federal loan guarantees in 2005 to support construction of perhaps a half-dozen new nuclear plants that are meant to demonstrate new, safer and more efficient reactor designs. The guarantees would cover up to 80 percent of project costs. The 2005 Energy Policy Act also provided a limited production tax credit for a few new nuclear facilities. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is following a new licensing process designed to speed the review process and prevent recurring environmental challenges.

The first few new plants, aided crucially by the 2005 financial incentives, could be in operation by 2015-17, industry officials say. But the industry’s U.S. ‘renaissance’ could well stop there unless more favorable economic and political conditions appear. “The industry’s success in the coming years will turn largely on money, attention to detail, and an ability to earn and retain the trust of all its stakeholders,” said Roland Frye Jr., a senior NRC appellate attorney, writing in the Energy Law Journal last year.

More…

Source: The New York Times

First concrete pour of Westinghouse AP1000 celebrated at Sanmen Nuclear Site in China

Westinghouse Electric Company, its consortium partner The Shaw Group Inc., China’s State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) and Sanmen Nuclear Power Company of China National Nuclear Corporation today announced the successful completion, on schedule, of the first pour of basemat structural concrete for the nuclear island at Sanmen, the site of the first of four Westinghouse AP1000™ nuclear power plants to be built under a contract signed in 2007.

Westinghouse President and CEO Aris Candris said the first pour of concrete at the Sanmen site is significant because it shows that SNPTC, Westinghouse and The Shaw Group are committed to bringing all four plants on line in a timely and efficient manner.

“Completion of concrete pour is a major milestone that visibly moves the Sanmen project from the design and discussion stage to the construction stage,” he said. “More importantly, by getting this project underway on schedule, we are further helping to ensure that baseload electricity generation will begin at this plant as intended in 2013.”

Dr. Candris also lauded China nuclear industry, and the government of Peoples Republic of China for implementing a forward-looking nuclear energy program that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and further ensure energy independence.

Source: Westinghouse

Photograph credit: SNPTC

Up to 60 nations in talks to build nuclear power plants

Up to 60 nations are in talks with the United Nations atomic watchdog to build nuclear power plants, a twofold increase over the past four years, a top agency official said yesterday.
“The IAEA is talking with 50 to 60 countries about the construction of nuclear power plants,”

Hans-Holger Rogner, head of planning and economic studies at the International Atomic Energy Agency, said. “There were only half as many just four years ago. That’s a sign of where the journey is headed,” he said.

Source: Vancouver Sun

Areva wins contracts worth $195M to supply reactor coolant pumps in China

Areva will supply a total of 18 reactor coolant pumps for the Yangjiang and Ningde nuclear power plants under construction in China.

The company, through its Areva Dongfang subsidiary, has signed two contracts worth more than €150 million ($195 million) with Chinese utility China Nuclear Power Engineering Co (CNPEC) for the supply of the pumps.

The coolant pumps will be used in the second-generation 1000 MWe plants under construction in Yangjiang, Guangdong province, and Ningde, Fujian province.

Yangjiang will be the second nuclear power base of the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corp (CGNPC). Development of all six units of the plant was approved in 2004, with CPR-1000 later confirmed as technology for it. Construction of the first of two units started in December 2008, for commercial operation in 2013. The second pair of units will follow closely, then the final two, with the last being built by 2017.

Construction of the 6-unit Ningde nuclear power plant commenced in 2008. Phase 1 comprises four CPR-1000 units. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) approved the project in September 2006, and local content will be over 70%. Construction of the first unit started in February 2008, and CGNPC expects commercial operation of it after 58 months, in 2012, with the others following to 2015. First concrete for the second unit was in November 2008.

Areva Dongfang will begin production of the pumps for these plants in 2009. They will be delivered in batches between 2011 and 2013.

Areva said that, to see through these projects, Areva Dongfang would make major investments to increase the production capacity of its plant in Deyang, in the central Chinese province of Sichuan.

Guillaume Dureau, executive vice president of Areva’s equipment business unit, said: “These two contracts follow on from a similar order signed with CNPEC in 2008 and bear witness to the sound, longstanding relationship we have with our Chinese partner.”

In September 2007, Areva Dongfang received a letter of intent to supply 18 reactor coolant pumps to CNPEC. Areva said that the initial part of the contract is worth over $140 million. Manufacturing of these pumps was scheduled to start in 2008, with delivery between 2010 to 2012. The pumps will be installed at second-generation 1000 MW plants in Fujian and Liaoning provinces.

Areva Dongfang is a joint venture created in August 2005 between Areva of France and Chinese power equipment manufacturer Dongfang Electric Corp (DEC).

Source: World Nuclear News

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