Skip to main content

From the NEI Clip File

Here are some of the news clips we're reading at NEI today. The United States' newly strengthened relationship with India is making waves in the global community. The Boston Globe reports that the United States has pledged to assist the nuclear power in meeting its energy needs:
The Bush administration yesterday reversed a longstanding policy and pledged to provide India with civilian nuclear energy technology, a clear sign of the emerging alliance between the two nations after decades of acrimony over India's Cold War legacy as a leader of the Nonaligned Movement.

India got what it has wanted most in recent years from the United States: promises of nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel to meet its ballooning energy needs. In return, India pledged to ''assume the same responsibilities and practices" as other countries with advanced nuclear technology, including separating its civilian and weapons facilities and programs.
A recent analysis by Planet Ark reports that Uranium prices are soaring, and that investors are taking notice.
Prices of uranium, the fuel used in most of the world's nuclear power plants, have tripled in the last five years to record levels due to years of under-investment in the supply chain, traders and analysts said.

Soaring oil prices and international attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have thrown the spotlight back onto nuclear energy after many years of disfavour.

European manufacturers are looking at nuclear energy to secure long-term power prices, with Alcan considering building a plant to feed its aluminium smelting capacity in France and construction of a reactor in Finland is already under way to supply the paper and pulp industry.

China plans to build 30 new reactors by 2020 and the United States, Britain, South Korea, Russia, Ukraine, India and Chile also looking at reactor programs.

Spot uranium is trading at $29.50/lb according to the Ux Consulting (UxC) website, a leading publisher of uranium prices and price forecasts, against $8-10/lb three or four years ago.
Come back tomorrow for more news from the NEI Clip File.

Technorati tags: , , , , ,

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin