Monday Morning Breakfast

...nuclear energy news you may have missed this weekend.

The DOE report on long-term storage of used fuel will be delayed one year....Algeria, Jordan, Libya, the UAE and now Tunisia: French President Nicolas Sarkozy will sign an agreement on civilian nuclear energy development in Tunis on Monday....The British government has warned that the shortage of nuclear engineers could cause delays in the country's new plant building program and expects to bring engineers out of retirement....Turkey's first nuclear power plant is to be inaugurated by 2015....British Columbia has announced a ban on all uranium mining and exploration in the province....Rick Montgomery's Kansas City Star article from April 19th runs this weekend in another McClatchy-owned paper, the Detroit Free Press. DFP editors have retitled the piece, Towers of Potential....Public meetings to discuss safety procedures at Indian Point are being held today in Cortlandt, NY....The Tri-City Herald looks at the possibility of new plant development in Washington state and quotes Governor Chris Gregoire, "I think it has to be on the table...I think we're going to have to revisit this question."...Staying in the Pacific Northwest, a new museum, the Washington Nuclear Museum and Educational Center, has been proposed for the U-Dub campus in Seattle.

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Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...

Nuclear Utility Moves Up in Credit Ratings, Bank is "Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy"

Some positive signs that nuclear utilities can continue to receive positive ratings even while they finance new nuclear plants for the first time in decades: Wells Fargo upgrades SCANA to Outperform from Market Perform Wells analyst says, "YTD, SCG shares have underperformed the Regulated Electrics (total return +2% vs. +9%). Shares trade at 11.3X our 10E EPS, a modest discount to the peer group median of 11.8X. We view the valuation as attractive given a comparatively constructive regulatory environment and potential for above-average long-term EPS growth prospects ... Comfortable with Nuclear Strategy. SCG plans to participate in the development of two regulated nuclear units at a cost of $6.3B, raising legitimate concerns regarding financing and construction. We have carefully considered the risks and are comfortable with SCG’s strategy based on a highly constructive political & regulatory environment, manageable financing needs stretched out over 10 years, strong partners...

NEI Nuclear Notes

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