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U.S. Nuclear: From Hope to Despair

March 30, 2017

A decade ago, the annual Platts nuclear energy conference in Washington was brimming with optimism over a coming “nuclear renaissance,” as licensing requests poured into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and companies announced ambitious plans for new nuclear construction. Ten years later, the not-so-under-the-surface theme of the conference was nuclear survival.

“The question is survival,” former Entergy nuclear executive Bill Mohl told attendees at the annual Platts nuclear energy conference in Washington, D.C., in early February. Mohl, who led Entergy’s merchant power business and retired February 28, went on to explain that Entergy’s long-term strategy of buying up single-unit nuclear plants at bargain-basement prices and bidding them into the regional transmission operator (RTO) and independent system operator (ISO) competitive wholesale markets was a miserable failure.

It seemed like a really good idea at the outset, but a combination of factors undercut the strategy, and Entergy is now exiting merchant nuclear power in as big a way as it entered. Vermont Yankee is shuttered.…

Global Nuclear Fuel Update

January 26, 2017

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Uranium oxide, the basic fuel for nuclear power plants, has recently sold at prices not seen in the past 13 years. In fact, the price is less than the cost of production in many cases. That could be a problem, because little is being done to increase the fuel supply, even though the world is adding new and larger reactors.

Late last year, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency released a joint 550-page report titled Uranium 2016: Resources, Production and Demand. It was the 26th edition of the now-biennial report, commonly referred to as the Red Book,with data current as of January 1, 2015.

One potentially concerning revelation was that total identified uranium resources had only increased by 0.1% since the previous report had been issued. A reason cited for the minuscule uptick was that very little investment had been made in exploration due to depressed uranium market conditions.

Indeed, the price for uranium oxide (U3O8) has been in a death spiral (Figure 1).…

THE BIG PICTURE: The Nuclear Fuel Cycle

January 20, 2017

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The post THE BIG PICTURE: The Nuclear Fuel Cycle appeared first on POWER Magazine.

POWER Magazine…

17 U.S. Nuclear Units Have Components Forged at Site Under Investigation

January 12, 2017

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Although AREVA recently disclosed that 17 U.S. nuclear power plant units have installed components that were forged at the Le Creusot facility in France—a forge that has been under scrutiny due to questionable quality assurance documentation and carbon segregation irregularities in some parts manufactured at the site—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) does not consider the situation an immediate safety concern.

“We are confident at this time that there are no safety concerns for U.S. nuclear power plants raised by the investigations in France,” David McIntyre, public affairs officer for the NRC, wrote in a blog post about the revelation.

“Our confidence is based on the U.S. material qualification process, preliminary structural evaluations of reactor components under scrutiny in France, U.S. material aging-management programs, our participation in a multinational inspection of Creusot Forge, and information supplied by AREVA about the documentation anomalies. Also, the components supplied to U.S. plants have performed well and inspections during their operating life have revealed no safety issues,” he continued.…

AECOM, EnergySolutions Joint Venture to Decommission San Onofre Nuclear Plant

December 27, 2016

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After a 10-month competitive bid process, Southern California Edison (SCE) has selected a joint venture of AECOM and EnergySolutions as the general contractor for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) decommissioning.

“We are pleased to announce the selection of the AECOM/EnergySolutions team, a global joint venture with extensive commercial and government decommissioning experience around the world, as the prime contractor to safely and efficiently dismantle the San Onofre nuclear plant,” said Ron Nichols, SCE president. The joint venture will be known as SONGS Decommissioning Solutions.

SONGS is one of the largest commercial nuclear plant decommissioning projects to take place in the U.S. with an estimated total cost of $ 4.4 billion including used fuel management, radiological decommissioning, and site restoration costs. The contract represents a significant portion of the work required to decommission the plant. The project is expected to create about 600 new jobs over the 10-year dismantlement and decontamination phase.

“We are currently decommissioning two nuclear power stations in Wisconsin and Illinois and are uniquely qualified for decommissioning projects with state-of-the-art facilities to process and dispose of waste that will be generated throughout the course of this project,” said Ken Robuck, president of Disposal and Nuclear Decommissioning at EnergySolutions.…

Market Conditions Doom Another Nuclear Plant, Palisades, to Closure in 2018

December 8, 2016

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Entergy Corp. has decided to permanently close the Palisades nuclear power plant on October 1, 2018.

The news comes as a bit of a surprise, because Entergy had a power purchase agreement with Consumers Energy—Michigan’s largest utility and the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy—which committed the company to buying nearly all of the power generated at Palisades through April 2022.

Late last year, however, UBS utilities analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith suggested that the contract appeared to be potentially break-even or under water. Terminating the deal early was presumably the best option for both companies.

In a press release, Entergy said Consumers’ customers would save as much as $ 172 million over four years, even after paying Entergy $ 172 million to terminate the contract. The early termination payment is expected to “help assure the plant’s transition from operations to decommissioning.”

The 798-MW plant located about five miles south of South Haven, Mich., faced economic difficulties similar to other single-unit facilities, such as the recently closed Fort Calhoun Plant, and the R.E.…