Welcome to Charlotte for NEA 2012

Greetings from Charlotte, North Carolina, where I've decamped to attend the 2012 Nuclear Energy Assembly at The Westin Charlotte Hotel. Though the conference won't officially begin until tomorrow, participants have already started to arrive in town ahead of tomorrow's opening session.

Working with my colleague, John Keeley, I'll be doing my level best to give you some insight into what's happening here via NEI Nuclear Notes as well as our Twitter feeds (@N_E_I and @NEI_Media) and our Facebook page. We've also set up a dedicated page on our website, NEI.org. When you follow us on Twitter, please be on the lookout for our hashtag, #NEA2012.

That'll be especially important on Wednesday morning when we'll be covering a panel discussion chaired by NEI's Chief Nuclear Officer Tony Pietrangelo on lessons learned from Fukushima. If you'd like to ask a question of the panelists, send us an email at questions@nei.org or simply tweet them with the #NEA2012 hashtag.

So who's here? I've cut and pasted parts of our official media advisory into the space below to give you a better idea. So please stick around, we'll have plenty of great content to share over the next 72 hours.

Nuclear Energy Industry Leaders Will Hold Major Conference in Charlotte, N.C., May 21-23

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Hundreds of nuclear energy industry executives will convene May 21-23 in Charlotte, N.C., for business meetings and policy discussions associated with the Nuclear Energy Institute's major annual conference, the Nuclear Energy Assembly.

The conference takes place with five new reactors under construction in the Southeast, license extension applications for 15 operating reactors under review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and 65 reactors being built worldwide. It also comes with Congress taking early steps to advance used nuclear fuel management recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, and with the industry implementing a "flexible and diverse" strategy to enhance the readiness of U.S. facilities to safely respond to extreme events based on key lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi accident.

NEA will be held at The Westin Charlotte, 601 S. College St. Several leading U.S. government officials will speak during the conference:

• U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC)
• NRC Chairman Greg Jaczko
• North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue
• Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Scott O'Malia

Other non-industry speakers include:

• Anthony Foxx, mayor of Charlotte
• Former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
• Sir Ken Robinson
• Philip Jones, vice president, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners
• Dr. Susan Winsor, president, Aiken Technical College in South Carolina
• Mark Mills, founder, Digital Power Group
• William Borchardt, NRC executive director for operations
• David Lochbaum, director, Union of Concerned Scientists

Industry leaders who will participate include:

• William Johnson, chairman, president and chief executive officer, Progress Energy and chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute
• Marvin Fertel, president and CEO, Nuclear Energy Institute
• Charles Pardee, chief operating officer, Exelon Generation Co.
• Dennis Koehl, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, Excel Energy
• Caroline Reda, president and CEO, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy
• Stephen Kuczynski, chairman, president and CEO, Southern Nuclear Operating Co.
• Stephen Byrne, COO and president, generation and transmission, South Carolina Electric & Gas Co.
• Clarence Ray Jr., CEO, Shaw Power Group
• Bob Willard, president and CEO, Institute of Nuclear Power Operations
• Steven Lau, first deputy general manager, Daya Bay Nuclear Power in China
• Anthony Pietrangelo, senior vice president and CNO, Nuclear Energy Institute

Nuclear energy provides 20 percent of American electricity supplies, and 70 percent of the electricity generated by low-carbon sources. U.S. nuclear facilities produced nearly 800 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2011, with an industry-average production cost of about two cents per kilowatt-hour.

For news coverage visit our dedicated NEA Web page. During the Fukushima Daiichi panel discussion Wednesday morning, Pietrangelo and his fellow panelists will take questions submitted via email and Twitter. Interested parties can submit their questions to questions@nei.org, or simply publish their questions on Twitter with the conference's official hashtag, #NEA2012.

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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