Latest Updates - WNA Weekly Digests
Subscribe to WNA Weekly Digests emails
Recent developments with links to updated WNA Public Information Service Papers. For previous items from Weekly Digest see archive menu.
1 August 2013
EdF gets set to pull the plug on US ambitions
Electricite de France, the world’s largest operator of nuclear power plants, is preparing to quit its US nuclear power investments and plans, after six years involvement there. EdF owns 49.99% of Constellation Energy Nuclear Group (CENG), with Exelon owning the balance, and has agreed to have the five CENG units (3.99 GWe) consolidated in Exelon’s large fleet for a $400 million exceptional dividend from CENG (funded by a loan from Exelon) and a put option to sell the CENG stake to Exelon at fair market value between 2016 and 2022. It paid $4.5 billion for the CENG share in 2009 and attributes the withdrawal to present economic factors. Also, since Constellation pulled out of the joint venture in 2010, EdF now owns Unistar Nuclear, which was set up to build a fleet of Areva-designed nuclear plants in North America with the "objective of leading the nuclear renaissance in the USA" with French technology. The first plants were to be at Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, and Nine Mile Point, New York. These Unistar plans are shelved primarily due to US law requiring majority domestic ownership of nuclear power plants.
WNN 30/7/13. US Nuclear power
Japan carbon emissions blow out
Carbon dioxide intensity from Japan's electricity industry climbed again in FY2012, reaching levels 39% greater than when the country's nuclear reactors were operating normally, and taking the sector far beyond climate targets. Up to March 2011 the CO2 intensity of all Japan’s power generation was 350 g/kWh. Over the next two years, with progressive reactor shut-downs, it rose to 487 g/kWh in FY 2012. A climate change goal was for the electricity sector to reduce carbon intensity by 20% from 1990 levels, to 334 g/kWh CO2 on average.
WNN 1/8/13. Japan
Chilean desalination project to boost power demand
BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto plan a $3.43 billion, 216,000 m3/day seawater desalination plant with pipes and pumps for their Escondida copper mine in Chile’s northern Atacama Desert, which is 3100 m above sea level and 150 km inland. It will require over 1000 MWe from the grid for desalination plus another 100 MWe or so to get the water to the mine, and is to be commissioned in 2017. This will boost northern Chile electricity demand which is already stretched.
Chile is heavily dependent on gas imports from Argentina, which are being scaled back. The country's mining industry has called for the establishment of nuclear power by about 2025 to counter escalating energy costs and an impending electricity deficit. Early in 2010 the Energy Minister said that the first nuclear plant of 1100 MWe should be operating in 2024, joined by four more by 2035 to replace coal capacity. Chile currently has about 16 GWe of generating plant. A public-private partnership is proposed to build the first plant, with a tender being called in 2016. A 2011 agreement between Chilean and French Atomic Energy Commissions on "institutional cooperation in nuclear energy" provides for training. A high-level group, co-chaired by senior executives of GdF Suez and Chile's Quinenco, promotes French nuclear industry collaboration with Chile. In October 2012 the Energy Minister said that said that two studies would be launched in 2013, one to examine technological options for a nuclear power plant, and a second into locations for it.
BHPB 25/7/13. Emerging nuclear countries, Desalination
Other papers significantly updated in the WNA Information Library (see WNA web site): Enrichment, Generation IV reactors, Iran, US nuclear power policy
25 July 2013
Voters in Japan’s election affirm nuclear revival
The recent elections for the Diet’s upper house gave the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) 115 seats out of 242. Its coalition partner and another pro-nuclear party won 29 seats. This consolidated the LDP position and role in reviving the economy, including restoring power supplies by restarting idled nuclear power plants as soon as possible. The DPJ with its policy of abandoning nuclear power by 2040 won only 59 seats. The LDP won a seat in every constituency with a nuclear power plant. In Fukushima prefecture the LDP candidate polled more than twice as many votes as the DPJ candidate. In Fukui prefecture, where Kansai has 11 units, Japan Atomic Power Co. has two units, and the government has the Monju prototype breeder reactor, the LDP candidate beat the DPJ contender, 237,000 votes to 56,000.
WNN 22/7/13, Platts 22/7/13. Japan
Industry urges US government to expedite nuclear trade
As a major agreement to be renewed with South Korea remains bogged down, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the US Chamber of Commerce and the Nuclear Energy Institute are urging the US Administration to adopt a more determined and pragmatic approach to increasing international trade in nuclear goods and technologies. “We strongly encourage the administration to promote such engagement aggressively by, among other things, rapidly concluding cooperative agreements with countries that have decided to pursue nuclear energy and promptly renewing expiring agreements with existing US trading partners.” In today’s highly competitive and global market “Unyielding and inflexible insistence on [unilateral enrichment and reprocessing restrictions] ... threatens the ability of the United States to engage in nuclear cooperation with countries embarking on civil nuclear programs, thereby jeopardizing the safety, security, nonproliferation and economic benefits of such cooperation.”
“Nuclear suppliers from such countries as France, Japan, Russia and Korea offer inter- national customers a competitive range of products and services, and a growing number of nations are considering developing civil nuclear energy programs in partnership with these countries rather than the United States,” the organisations said. In contrast to 1954 when the current legislation was drawn up, the USA is “no longer …. the dominant supplier to a global market that will grow to nearly $750 billion over the next decade.” Several countries such as Vietnam and Saudi Arabia are seeking other suppliers, while renewal of seven bilateral agreements with the USA are pending. "Given the nuclear energy industry’s requirements for long-lead items and use of long-term contracts for nuclear fuel and services, timely renewal of these agreements is critical to maintaining the credibility of the United States as a reliable supplier and partner.”
WNN 23/7/13. US nuclear policy
Australian projections affirm nuclear potential
A high-level conference in Sydney has considered a range of issues concerned with the country’s electricity future, and in particular the prospect of nuclear power. Two studies in particular have received attention: one showing that nuclear power is among the lowest-cost options out to 2050, and another projected over 50% nuclear contribution to electricity in 2050 as being a cost-effective scenario. The first study was the 2012 Australian Energy Technology Assessment by the Bureau of Resource & Energy Economics (BREE), which evaluated 40 utility-scale generation technologies including large nuclear plants and small modular reactors. These two were among the six lowest cost options ($/MWh). The second was the eFuture study by the Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). It showed that the inclusion of nuclear power as an option caused wholesale prices to be 34-37% lower, and led to a 53% nuclear share in 2050. Assumptions in both studies took into account carbon emission costs. The conference was put on by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering.
Australia, http://efuture.csiro.au/ , http://www.bree.gov.au/publications/aeta.html
Other papers significantly updated in the WNA Information Library (see WNA web site): Russia fuel cycle, Energy subsidies, India, Germany, Australian U mines
18 July 2013
New Russian reactor in India starts up
After many delays, the first unit of Kudankulam nuclear power station at the southern tip of the country in Tamil Nadu state has started up and is expected to be connected to the grid within six weeks. Russia's Atomstroyexport is supplying this, the country's first large nuclear power plant, comprising two VVER-1000 reactors, under a Russian-financed contract - a long-term credit facility covers about half the cost of the plant. Construction started in 2002 with the AES-92 units being built by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, and also commissioned and operated by NPCIL under IAEA safeguards. The turbines are made by Leningrad Metal Works. Unlike other Atomstroyexport projects such as in Iran, there have been only about 80 Russian supervisory staff on the job. NPCIL required the vendor to rework some of the control system documentation. Russia is supplying all the enriched fuel through the life of the plant, though India will reprocess it and keep the plutonium under IAEA safeguards. These are the first foreign-sourced reactors in India since 1969, the first pressurised (light) water reactors, and the country’s largest, at 917 MWe net.
WNN 12/7/13. India
China rules out fuel plant site while transferring control to Beijing
Two months ago China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and China General Nuclear Power (CGN) announced that their new China Nuclear Fuel Element Co (CNFEC) joint venture planned to build a new plant at Daying Industrial Park in Jiangmen city, Guangdong province. It would have 1000 tU/yr fuel fabrication capacity by 2020. Construction was due to start this year, but the plan for that Guangdong site has been abruptly cancelled. The CNY 45 billion ($7.3 billion) project also involves a conversion plant and a uranium enrichment plant.
At present all fuel fabrication takes place inland, in Sichuan province and Inner Mongolia. Conversion and enrichment are also inland. The country will need further conversion, enrichment and fuel fabrication capacity in the timeframe envisaged for this project, and national policy is to import only one third of nuclear fuel requirements in the future. Since all nuclear power plants so far are on the coast, that is likely to be a factor in finding a new location for this project among the sites already short-listed. Beijing is in the process of taking control of CGN – a major Guangdong-based nuclear enterprise - and making it 82% owned by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), so this may affect plans and lead to the project being located further north.
WNN 18/7/13. China fuel cycle
11 July 2013
Pakistan commits to major nuclear energy project
After several years of ambitious rhetoric on expanding power generation in the light of chronic shortages, Pakistan’s top-level Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) has approved 3.5 GWe of new power projects totalling Rs 1303 billion, including 2200 MWe nuclear capacity, 425 MWe gas combined cycle, and 969 MWe hydro. These will increase generating capacity by one sixth, or effectively more, and are designed to reduce the high reliance on oil and to reduce escalating power costs. The Karachi Coastal Power Project will involve building two 1100 MWe Chinese reactors near Karachi at a cost of Rs 959 billion ($9.6 billion).
At present Pakistan has a very small 40-year old Canadian reactor near Karachi and another nuclear power plant at Chashma in Punjab province, in the north. This has two 300 MWe Chinese reactors operating and two more under construction. Pakistan is outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and excluded from world trade in nuclear materials and technology, though China is more accommodating. The country’s nuclear power reactors are under item-specific international safeguards. China has argued that Chashma units 3 & 4 under construction are "grandfathered" from arrangements before it joined the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2004, and arrangements are consistent with those for units 1 & 2. The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission signed a preliminary agreement with China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) for a large new reactor earlier this year.
WNN 12/7/13. Pakistan
EdF upgrades oldest reactor
Following the EU ‘stress tests’ on nuclear power reactors after the Fukushima accident and the regulator’s conditional approval of operation for the next ten years, Electricité de France has completed modification of the concrete basemat of its Fessenheim 1 reactor. Two years ago the French regulator ASN said that the basemat had to be made half a metre thicker to survive a possible core melt which might come through the bottom of the pressure vessel, and also a larger surface area was needed for such molten core material to spread. EdF has undertaken the work despite a government decision to close both Fessenheim reactors by 2017 (when unit 1 is only 40 years old), for political reasons and regardless of safety evaluations. The decision may be appealed, and EdF has committed to much the same work on unit 2.
WNN 9/7/13. France
Other papers significantly updated in the WNA Information Library (see WNA web site): Russia nuclear power, Russia fuel cycle, US policy, Japan