Skip to main content

Latest Issue of Nuclear Policy Outlook Available

By
Building Confidence in Licensing New U.S. Nuclear Plants

Now that companies have submitted license applications for new nuclear power plants, the industry, regulator, financial community and others are taking stock of the challenges that lie ahead. Demonstrating confidence and stability in the new NRC licensing process is a critical first step toward building new reactors in the United States. This issue of Nuclear Policy Outlook focuses on how companies are meeting the key challenges of licensing new nuclear plants, their recent successes and plans for the future. For the PDF version click here.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Speaking of "Building Confidence in the Licensing Process," this notice in today's Federal Register (02-20-2008)regarding the first of the "completed" COL applications submitted:

"The Commission is issuing a Notice Withdrawing the Hearing Notice Regarding the Application for a Combined Operating License for South Texas Project Units 3 and 4. This has the effect of indefinitely postponing the deadline by which petitions to intervene must be filed."

On you mark...
Get set...
Go... no wait...
stop... indefinitely

That's an expensive crappy application---and it do NOT build confidence in the licensing process as it took the filing of a motion to suspend even an expedited rubberstamping one.
February 20, 2008 at 4:50 PM
Anonymous said…
Wrong again, Gunter. That was so last week. Way back on 2/14, the Clinton News Network (CNN) stated that "NRG last month told federal regulators that cost negotiations were continuing with its reactor vendors, which would make it difficult for the company to respond to specific design questions the government has about the application, NRG spokesman David Knox said Thursday." That's not a bad application, it is a cost uncertainty issue, which I figured you would be all over, as you are fond of claiming nuclear power is too expensive, while you simulataneously attempt to drive up costs with your intervention.
February 20, 2008 at 6:11 PM
Anonymous said…
The reason for the delay is that Toshiba and GE-Hitachi cannot reach an agreement going forward. GEH prepared the COLA, an excellent work product. When it came time to decide the EPC contract Toshiba won. Toshiba has not been able to reach an agreement with GEH to provide the design basis for the STP COL application. NRG cannot build an ABWR design that was certified by GE without GEH support. Copyright issues apply to the decision making process. I thought NRG was a smarter company than they appear to be.
February 20, 2008 at 6:29 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

By
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
1 comment
Read more

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

By
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
Post a Comment
Read more

Wednesday Update

By
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
Post a Comment
Read more