Nuclear evaporating “like dry ice on a hot day”

The nuclear industry’s “lingering death” was further accelerated this summer, and exacerbated in the past week by new and on-going shutdowns. Worldwide, nuclear energy represents just 13% of electricity.  In 2010, overall installed capacity of four categories of renewables - wind, solar, small hydro and biomass - exceeded nuclear. The trend continues and, in the US, just this past week, was demonstrably in effect.

At Calvert Cliffs, MD, on the Chesapeake Bay, a control rod fell into the reactor core. The accident prompted a shutdown of Unit 1, one of two reactors at the site where plans for a third reactor have stalled indefinitely.

At the troubled Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert, MI, the reactor was shut down on August 12 after a leak from a control rod drive mechanism inside the containment building. An earlier leak had kept the plant shut down for a month in the summer. In fact, the plant was leaking during a visit by then Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, Gregory Jaczko, who was kept in the dark about the safety problem. Now, the NRC inspector general is investigating NRC Commissioner, William Ostendorff, who has tried to block an investigation into why Jaczko was not informed of the leak.

At the Millstone nuclear plant on the Long Island Sound in Connecticut, Unit 2 was shut down as water temperatures in the Sound soared above 75 degrees. Sound water was too hot to be efficiently used as coolant for the plant and hotter discharges could have harmed biota in the Sound. With the hottest July on record, this a trend that is likely to continue due to climate change, which is why nuclear and coal plants should be scrapped quickly in favor of renewable energy generation that does not require huge quantities of water.

Meanwhile, the Crystal River nuclear station in Florida, has been closed for three years and may never reopen.  The broken containment structure could cost between $1 billion and $2.5 billion to fix according to estimates. Costs could be borne by Duke Shareholders after the company merged with Crystal River owner, Progress Energy this summer, or by ratepayers under the state’s Construction Work In Progress law, according to differing reports. As the Tampa Bay Times wrote in an editorial: “Paying for all of that would be hard to stomach if the nuclear plant were working, but it is absurd for ratepayers to be forced to pay those bills to upgrade a plant that may never be fixed.”

Meanwhile, the Progress Energy-Duke merger could spell the end of the combined companies‘ nuclear expansion plans. As The Energy Collective stated: “It appears the nuclear renaissance is evaporating in the new utility's service area like a chunk of dry ice on a hot summer day.” Prior to the merger, Progress had delayed the start to 2025 of two proposed new Florida reactors in Levy County. Duke has also put off new reactor plans at the Harris site in North Carolina.

The two San Onofre reactor units remain shut near San Diego, due to steam generator flaws and malfunctions. A high-ranking official at the California Public Utilities Commission has called for the reactors to be taken off the customer rate base since the plant is not contributing electricity.

And the Ft. Calhoun, NE reactor (pictured) has never been reopened since flooding devastated the site when the Missouri River crested and surrounded the plant in the summer of 2011, turning it into an atomic island. Miles of electrical cable that should never get wet were inundated during the flood, prompting serious safety questions, particularly for plant workers. Ft. Calhoun owners received a “red warning”, ostensibly because workers ignored the smell of smoke for days even though an electrical fire had broken out. Deficiencies in flood planning had been known about - but left uncorrected - a year before last summer’s inundation. The plant was shut down for refueling when the flooding occurred but federal regulators are not confirming any re-start date after these numerous additional flaws were uncovered.

NRC forced to "retreat" on nuclear waste

In response to petitions filed by Beyond Nuclear and twenty-three other environmental organizations to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) affecting a total of 36 reactors in new licensing and relicensing proceedings, the Commission granted the petitioners’ requests to hold all final licensing decisions in abeyance until the question of what is to be done with the nation’s growing mountain of nuclear waste is resolved.   Beyond Nuclear offered comments in a nationally distributed joint press release.

On June 18, 2012, Beyond Nuclear and the other organizations filed requests to reopen federal licensing hearings on new reactor construction and old reactor license extensions following the safe energy communities’ victory in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals which struck down the agency’s  long standing “Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision.” The so-called “confidence rule” had held that the public was denied environmental impact hearings on continued nuclear waste generation from  new reactor construction and 20-year license extensions on expiring 40-year operating licenses in the absence of a scientifically-accepted and license-approved nuclear waste management plan. The federal regulatory agency responsible for licensing these essentially nuclear waste factories held that it had “confidence” that someday, somewhere, somebody would come up with an acceptable plan.   In particular, the June 8, 2012 federal court ruling struck down the agency denial of public hearings based on NRC “assurance” that approval of a long term geological repository for high-level radioactive waste would be available “when necessary” and that high-level nuclear waste (tens of thousands of tons of irradiated nuclear fuel) can be stored indefinitely  in temporary water filled pools or in combination with onsite and offsite dry storage casks.

The August 7, 2012 NRC Order essentially accepts all of the petitioners’ requests to:   1) suspend any final decisions in reactor licensing cases, pending completion  of action on the remanded  Waste Confidence proceeding; 2) provide opportunity for public comment under the National Environmental Policy Act in Environmental Assessment and Environment Impact Statements and; 3) provide at least 60 days for public interventions in individual licensing cases of any site specific  concerns relating to the remanded nuclear waste proceedings.

Associated Press investigation shows nuclear costs and delays ballooning

America's first new nuclear plants in more than a decade are costing billions more to build and sometimes taking longer to deliver than planned, problems that could chill the industry's hopes for a jumpstart to the nation's new nuclear age.

In this Feb. 15, 2012 file photo, cooling towers for units 1 and 2 are seen at left as the new reactor vessel bottom head for unit 3 stands under construction at right at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Waynesboro, Ga. Vogtle initially estimated to cost $14 billion, has run into over $800 million in extra charges related to licensing delays. A state monitor has said bluntly that co-owner, Southern Co. can’t stick to its budget. The plant, whose first reactor was supposed to be operational by April 2016, is now delayed seven months.(AP Photo/David Goldman, File).

Licensing delay charges, soaring construction expenses and installation glitches as mundane as misshapen metal bars have driven up the costs of three plants in Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina, from hundreds of millions to as much as $2 billion, according to an Associated Press analysis of public records and regulatory filings. More.

General Electric's Immelt down on nukes

The latest confession of the nuclear retreat comes in the interview by Financial Times with none other than General Electric’s Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt. “It’s hard to justify nuclear, really hard,” said Immelt. He joins John “I’m the nuclear guy” Rowe, CEO of Chicago-based electricity giant Exelon Nuclear, who admitted this year that new nuclear power plants were “utterly uneconomical.”  

These latest remarks come as no surprise given the atomic industry’s decades’ old penchant for economic failure going back to what Forbes Magazine described in 1985 as “the largest managerial disaster in business history.”  More egregious is how power executives can ignore the constant and many warning signs. Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investment and Fitch Financial Services have been saying for years that risky new reactor construction likely turns to financially toxic assets. Where were Immelt and Rowe when CitiBank called nuclear power the “corporate killer”?  In fact, they were among the corporate heads vying for tens of billions dollars in federal taxpayer “loans” approved by Congress for ludicrously expensive new reactor construction. 

German utility RWE is out of the nuclear business

German power company, RWE, will build no more nuclear plants anywhere in the world, the company has announced. RWE "will not build any nuclear power plants abroad," a company spokeswoman said, confirming a corresponding report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily. At the end of March, RWE and its bigger rival E.ON decided they would pull out of their British nuclear power joint venture, Horizon Nuclear Power. According to reports, RWE will pull out of the nuclear business entirely and invest heavily in solar. Read more.