Skip to main content

Wednesday Update

By

From NEI’s Japan micro-site:

NRC Votes Are All In on Task Force Report

Plant Status

• Tokyo Electric Power Co. has begun erecting the steel support for an airtight cover for reactor building 1 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility. The 17-story polyester fiber fabric cover is designed to shield the environment from the release of radioactive particles. TEPCO is planning similar covers for reactors 3 and 4.

• TEPCO has established a means of sampling the liquids and gases in the primary containments at Fukushima Daiichi. Samples have been taken from the containments for reactors 1 and 2.

Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues

• NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko this morning submitted his voting document on the recommendations of the agency’s post-Fukushima task force. All five commissioners have now cast their votes. The voting papers are on the NRC’s website.

• Residents and business owners evacuated from near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy facility may be permitted to check on their homes and businesses during brief visits next month. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry also said some people from evacuated areas soon may be able to return home permanently. Easing the restrictions would not affect the exclusion zone within 12 miles of the plant, where about 80,000 people were evacuated.

• Japan has agreed to share the lessons learned from Fukushima Daiichi in a summit-level United Nations meeting Sept. 22 in New York. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Japan this week, including a stop in Fukushima Prefecture.

Media Highlights

• In the early days of the Fukushima Daiichi accident, Japanese government officials withheld information about radiation dispersal that could have assisted evacuees, The New York Times reports.

• Britons see a “major role” for nuclear facilities as part of the country’s energy portfolio, a survey by the Nuclear Industry Association has found. World Nuclear News reports that 68 percent of respondents support nuclear energy.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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

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

By
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...
Post a Comment
Read more