Italy, Poland (and Its Neighbor Germany), Exxon

Italy has decided to forestall any decision on proceeding with nuclear energy in the wake of Japan. But they need a plan:

Italy currently gets 80 percent of its energy from fossil fuels and the remaining 20 percent from hydroelectric and renewable energy, according to data from power grid operator Terna SpA. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right coalition government had made nuclear energy part of a strategy to cut dependence on fossil fuels to 50 percent, reducing imports from abroad and cutting energy prices in the long term.

And that’s something the country really needs to do:

Italian companies paid twice as much for power in 2010 as their French counterparts, 40 percent more than the U.K. and 27 percent more than German rivals, according to Eurostat, the region’s official provider of statistics.

And all those countries do that with nuclear energy – well, Germany for now, anyway. The Italian government isn’t particularly well known for getting things done, but the drive toward nuclear energy had given its energy sector a route forward. For now, at least, Italy seems driveless.

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In Poland:

Sources at Poland's Economics Ministry told the magazine that Prime Minister Donald Tusk was planning to invite RWE to take a share of at least 20 percent of the main investor in the project, Polska Grupa Energetyczna (PGE).

The plan is to restart work on a nuclear power station in Zarnowiec near Gdansk, which was stopped in the 1990s. The building work is to be taken care of by the French company Areva.

The story said this news was embarrassing to the German power utility RWE, and the company has denied it was asked to participate. I’m not completely sure why it would be a problem, as RWE’s CEO Jurgen Grossman is quite the fan of nuclear energy whatever Germany’s current view happens to be. But okay.

But my main point of curiosity was the Polish nuclear station. I remember that its first plant, Zarnowiec, was stopped when turmoil overtook the country back in the Solidarity days. And a couple of years back, the Polish parliament passed a resolution supporting the construction of two plants. But after that, there’s been very little news.

Most sources still list the effort to build the new plants as ongoing, but I did find some recent comments from Prime Minister Donald Tusk, responding to a Germany neighbor asking Poland to scrap its plan (this little contretemps may account for part of RWE’s hesitance).

“Calls from a friendly political leader from the other side of the border, Mr. Platzeck, for Poland to stop the project appeared somewhat inappropriate to me. A country that has about 16 nuclear power plants shouldn’t be too concerned with our plans to build the most modern plants available on the market,” the Polish prime minister said.

Matthias Platzeck is minister-president of the German federal state of Brandenburg. One gets the impression that annoying Tusk isn’t a great idea. He wasn’t finished with his German friends, either:

“We can’t succumb to hysteria about it [Fukushima Daiichi],” Mr. Tusk said in remarks from northwestern Poland, near the border with Germany. “The reason for radiological risks in Japan isn’t an accident at the nuclear plant, but an earthquake and tsunami.”

Just so. Still not sure how things are going on those reactors, though Tusk is clearly all in. Here’s the best I could find:

According to government plans on nuclear energy, the proposed plant will have an output of 3,000 MW. The final location for the plant is to be chosen in 2013. Three years later construction is to start, with reactors going online by 2020.

So still some time to rope in RWE – if it can get over the embarrassment.

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From Exxon (via the Financial Times – behind a pay wall):

Nuclear energy is too important for world leaders to allow it to decline, said ExxonMobil Chairman, President and CEO Rex Tillerson. He said that the Fukushima Daiichi incident would not stop nuclear's growth but simply "delay" it. "Ultimately, my expectation is the component of nuclear energy that will be in the future mix 25 years from now, or 30 years from now, is probably not changed," Tillerson said.

Poland unfinished Zarnowiec plant. Looks kind of spooky.

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...

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...

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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