Episode 35

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This Week in Nuclear Episode 35 – November 5, 2006

Hi folks. This is not a normal episode of this week in nuclear. This is a special service announcement of sorts. Today is Sunday November 5^th and by the time you hear this podcast it will probably be Nvember 6^th or 7^th. So what’s so special about November 7^th? Well, in the United States it’s election day!

Besides all the local elections going on across the nation, all of the seats for the US House of Representatives are up for grabs, as are a good number of the US Senate seats. Don’t let your vote be wasted – get out and vote!

There are a lot of issues facing the nation and the world, and the legislation and policies of the next government will have a profound impact on the future – not just for the nuclear industry, but for so many other issues – the economy, national security, taxes…the list goes on and on.

I thought about doing a special pre-election show and discuss specific candidates and their position on issues related to nuclear energy. That turned out to be too much to tackle – there are just too many other issues out there that are on the table, and I would never advocate one candidate over another without having the opportunity to study their positions on many topics, not just those related to nuclear energy.

The bottom line is this: find out what elections are going on in your local, state and national districts, who the candidates are, and where they stand on things important to you – then go out and vote. Regardless of what you might think, or regardless of the specific situation in the races that affect you, your vote DOES matter! Think of all the times that races have been won or lost by just a handful of votes – by fractions of a percentage point. Inevitably there are people who didn’t vote who could have swung those races either way.

If I’m preaching to the choir, then that’s cool – ignore me. But if you’re on the fence, or if you’re inclined NOT to vote then get out and make your voice heard. Even if the candidate you vote for comes out on the bottom, you are making your voiced heard, and it DOES MATTER!

For all my listeners outside the USA, I can’t keep track of all your election days – but assuming you CAN vote in your country, when the time comes then replay this message and YOU get out and vote, too. The right to vote is a right that was fought for by the blood of our ancestors, and in many part of the world that fight is still being fought every day! Another way to look at it is this…if you don’t vote then you are giving away your piece of that power to those people who do!

OK – I’ll get down off my soap box... and I’ll see you at the polls!

John Wheeler

Episode 34

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1. Russia’s Nuclear Program is Building Steam
2. Atomstroyexport Wins Belene Bid
3. Russia to Consolidate Nuclear Businesses
4. Six More Mideast Nations to Build Nuclear Plants
5. Australia’s PM Howard Pro-Nuclear Remarks
6. OPAL Reactor Reaches Full Power
7. Japan Begins Reactor Fuel Reprocessing

Russia’s Nuclear Program is Building Steam

There’s a lot going on that demonstrates how serious Russia is about capturing a larger share of the world market for building nuclear plants. This past week they won the long-awaited bid to build two units at the Belene station in Bulgaria. Before we get into the details of the deal, I want to review the history of the project, and the energy supply situation in the region.

Bulgaria has four pressurized water reactors operating at the Kozloduy station that together provide more than 40% of their nation’s electricity, plus enough left over for export to neighboring states. Units 3 and 4 are VVER-230’s, and units 5 and 6 are VVER-1000 ver. 320 reactors. Bulgaria has been the largest exporter of electricity in the Balkans, but in a little over a month that will be a thing of the past. That’s because they’ll be shutting down units 3 and 4 as part of their agreement for entry into the European Union. This is a really bad idea and is really unnecessary because all four units under went extensive safety upgrades in the 1990’s. Units and 2 were previously taken out of service. That will leave Bulgaria with only two operating nuclear plants, AND a power shortage. Russia will make huge profits on this situation because not only will Bulgaria be buying electricity from them, but Russia’s energy sales to the other Balkan states will increase to fill the gap that will be created by the closure of Kozloduy 3 and 4. There is a group called the Initiative Committee defending NPP Kozloduy who is fighting to keep Units 3 and 4 open, and they’re plan a round-table meeting on December 13 with local government officials and perhaps the EU, but they really don’t have much of a shot at keeping it open.

Construction began on a coal fired plant earlier this year that will be on line in 2009. So much for the EU’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions! They’re mandating the shutdown of two nuclear plants and replacing the power they generate with coal! Where’s Greenpeace now?!

Now back to the Belene project – by the way, the new plants are worth about $5.1 billion USD to Atomstroyexport!

Construction was started on two nuclear plants at the Belene site in the 1980’s but was stopped in 1992 because of a shortage of funding, and because of strong opposition by Greenpeace and other anti-nuclear groups. In April of 2005 the Bulgarian government approved construction to startup again, and they began the process of deciding who would build the plant. I’ve covered different aspects of those deliberations in earlier episodes of this podcast. Well, it’s taken over a year and a half, but they finally made their decision and selected Atomstroyexport to lead the project. The deal will give Bulgaria two 1000 MW AES-92 version reactors, each with a design life of 60 years. Atomstroyexport apparently plans to use some of the equipment and components that are still on site from the earlier construction project, something that helped them offer the lowest bid. By the way, Gazprom, the Russian gas company owns more than 40% of Atomstroyexport – that little fact would keep me awake at night if I was trying to get a nuclear plant built on time. Every month that the project is delayed is one more month that Gazprom can sell energy, and Belene will steal huge profits from Russia the minute it connects to the grid – not just in Bulgaria, but in the entire region. That alone would have led me another reactor supplier! Areva and Siemens are in on the deal, too, as subcontractors and equipment suppliers.

Russia Restructuring Nuclear Businesses

Russia’s nuclear business was in the news for other reasons. The Russian government is planning a restructuring and takeover of all the nuclear plants in their country. Their parliament is negotiating the terms of a new law that will consolidate all their nuclear assets and businesses – operating power plants, their internal nuclear supply company, and their international business. I’ve said before that Russia is making a play for the world energy market any way they can. By taking over control of their nuclear businesses, and by putting then all under common operating authority they will be able to implement a more coordinated nuclear energy strategy. The new organization will be called “Atomprom” . Just when I finally got accustomed to saying Atomstroyexport they have to go and change the name!

Six Mideast Nations to Build Nuclear Plants

This week Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates notified the IAEA that they plan to build nuclear power plants. At least three of the nations are considering using nuclear reactors as a heat source to desalinate water – something I’ve thought was a good idea for years! The announcements signified a shift in policy for Saudi Arabia who has in the past opposed nuclear plants in the region.

Well, you might ask why would Saudi Arabia want or need nuclear plants? They have more oil than they will ever use! Well, that’s not the case. They know their oil wealth won’t last forever, and they need to develop other forms of energy so they will not be left without it 50 years from now. There’s a quotation by Saudi Arabian oil barons that goes something like this, “My grandfather rode a camel, my father drove a car, I fly and airplane, and my grandchildren will ride a camel.” They know the oil will run out, and they are predicting it will happen in their grandchildren’s lifetimes. I think they are wise to being the process of building a nuclear energy infrastructure now when they can use a small fraction of their wealth to invest for the future.

It’s also a great business move because the less oil they use at home the more they can export, and electricity and steam for desalination made from nuclear plants is far cheaper than if made from oil! This is a very simple and logical step for them to take!

This announcement has some non-proliferation strategists proclaiming they’re all out to match Iran’s nuclear weapons program, but I think that’s unfair. Every nation has the right to build nuclear plants as long as they follow guidelines set forth by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which this group all appears to be doing. Another observation…None of these nations have threatened their neighbors with annihilation, nor have they supported terrorists.

Australia’s Nuclear Posturing Continues

This week Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard spoke out again in favor of nuclear energy when he stated that “Australia would be 'foolish' not to consider nuclear energy” he also said "Nuclear power is potentially the cleanest and greenest of them all" Well, Mr. Howard – you are absolutely right on both accounts.

The Prime Minister was speaking to the Queensland branch of his Liberal Party. His talk was full of pro-nuclear remarks. He also said that Australia would be foolish, from the national interest point of view, if, with their vast resources of uranium, they were to fail to consider nuclear power."

Howard said growing concern about global warming caused by the burning of greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuels to make electricity was causing people to rethink their opposition to nuclear energy.

"I believe that the world attitude to nuclear power is changing and Australia's attitude to nuclear power is changing," Howard said.

OPAL Reactor At Full Power

http://www.ansto.gov.au/opal/about1.html

My other news from Australia this week comes via one of my listeners - Michael Walsh, who is the operations manager of the Opal research reactor. His exact title is Acting General Manager, Reactor Operations of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization. His note was dated November 3, and he let me know that the new Opal research reactor had just achieved 100% power for the first time. The power ascension went smoothly and without any surprises – just they way we like them, right Michael!

Congratulations to Mr. Walsh and the rest of the staff at the Opal reactor for a job well done! I’ve covered the Opal reactor on a couple of occasions in earlier shows. You might recall that it’s a multipurpose research reactor that was supplied by ARPANSA, an Argentine company. It’s a 20 megawatt pool reactor that uses low enriched uranium fuel, and is cooled by water. The reactor is used for radioisotope production, irradiation services and neutron beam research.

Japan Makes Reprocessed Reactor Fuel

This week Japan Nuclear Fuel, Ltd announced they’ve begun commercial fabrication of reactor fuel that is reprocessed from used fuel, and will have the first batch ready by mid-November. The uranium-plutonium mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX is made at a facility in the town of Rokkasho (Ro-ka-sho) in northern Japan. The factory will reprocess 800 tones of used nuclear fuel per year. Japan Nuclear Fuels is owned by five Japanese nuclear utilities, and two of them have already gotten approvals to start using the reprocessed fuel.

Here’s another example of where the USA has allowed politics to get in the way of sound science and economics. Reprocessing is the right thing to do. When used fuel is taken out of a reactor it still has more than 90% of the original energy in it. Reprocessing removes impurities that build up during the fission process. The impurities stop the nuclear chain reaction or cause other undesirable chemical or metallurgical things to happen in the fuel. Then you put the fuel back in the reactor and run it though again over and over. In the end, the amount of actual waste that needs to be stored is a small fraction of the original amount. That’s one reason that anti-nuclear groups oppose reprocessing – it removes one of their main arguments against nuclear energy – the argument that it produces huge amounts of waste.

In reality, even without reprocessing the volume of waste is very small – if you stacked all the used fuel from all the nuclear reactors in the USA – 40 years worth – it would take up less space than the toxic ash pile from one large coal fired power plant. And by the way – that toxic ash pile contains heavy metals like mercury and other really nasty poisons, and the pile has to be encapsulated and buried in a special landfill where no one will ever be able to live because those toxins don’t decay – ever!

I’ve mentioned before that the USA does not recycle nuclear fuel because of an ill-informed policy imposed by then President Jimmy Carter that prohibited it. Once the infrastructure was dismantled it never came back, even though President Regan overturned the rule. The US department of energy is in the process of sponsoring projects to get reprocessing going again, and several companies are actively pursuing it like General Electric and Areva. Some day soon we’ll be viewing used nuclear fuel as a vital resource, not as something we wan to buy out of sight.

New Web Site for “This Week in Nuclear”

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was working on a new web site for the show – we’ll it’s finally ready, and I launched it this morning. I want to walk though a few features that I think you’ll enjoy.

First of all, you don’t have to change anything to keep getting the show. If you use iTunes or another podcast aggregator it will still work just fine because the RSS feed has not changed. If you get the show via my email list, that’s still working, too. And if you download the show directly from my web site, well that’s not problem either.

The new site pulls together my podcast web page from podomatic and my blog from thisweekinnuclear.blogspot.com. These two sites still exist, but using the marvels of modern technology they’re both pulled into the new site. The nice thing is that all of your old links will still work.

My domain name thisweekinnuclear.com points to the new home page. All the pages have a common look and feel, and there’s a common menu bar across the top of every page.

You’ll notice that I’ve put some advertising on the site. I have tried to make it work without advertising, but the donations just don’t cover the expenses, so it you want to help support the show then visit some of the advertisers from my web site. I’ll point out some other ways you can help, too, in a minute.

The podcast page has an audio player imbedded in it that will allow you to select and play any episode – pretty cool! There are also links to the last several shows, and a link to the archive where you can get any previous episode. You can also click on any of the badges on the left side of the page to subscribe using your favorite podcast provider like iTunes, Yahoo Music, Podcast Pickle, and others. You can also click on a link to sign up to receive an email message whenever a new episode comes out.

The blog and transcripts page is old blogspot page that loads in a frame. This is where I post the show notes, and you can go here to post comments, too. I plan to post show transcripts regularly from now on, and you can go here to read the transcripts. If you have a blog out there and you link to my blog, then do me a favor and make sure your link to my home page at thisweekinnuclear.com .

The next page on the list is a search page. This is really cool! I’ve got a google search tool now that lets you search my show notes. You can also search the internet by clicking on a radio button below the search bar. If you take a look at it you’ll see what I mean. I’ll earn Google Adsense points if you use this search page and click through to other supported links, so that’s another way you can support the show.

The next page is an Amazon book store that provides several nuclear energy related titles, and a couple of mp3 players that are good for listening to the show. There’s also an Amazon search bar on this page so you can find other books, music, movies, or electronics that don’t appear on the page.

I get asked about podcasting all the time, and I decided to share what I’ve learned on another page – I call it Podcasting Tips. Right now I’m covering podcasting hardware for recording to computers, and for recording on portable equipment. In the future I’ll add more information on audio software and editing techniques, podcast hosting, etc.

There’s a charity challenge page that I’m still developing, so I’ll tell you more on that in a couple of weeks. I plan to use it in the future to promote some charity work that I do.

Finally, my favorite part of the site - now you can listen to “This Week in Nuclear” on your cell phone or PDA! I’ve got specially formatted pages that you can read on those small screens, and if your service provider allows you to download audio files then you’ll be able to get the show on your cell phone! I’ve tested it on my cell phone and it’s awesome.

So think about the possibilities! You can sign up for my email list using your text message address or mobile email address, and when a new show is uploaded you’ll get a message on you phone. Then you can browse right to the show on your phone, and “This Week in Nuclear” will come blasting through the airwaves to where ever you are! You’ll also be able to access a few past episodes via the phone, so if you missed one you can get it on your phone. The web address for the mobile site is thisweekinnuclear.com/mobile. Try it out and let me know what you think!

So that’s an introduction to my new web site at this week in nuclear.com! Please check it out and send me some feedback. It really won’t be done until I’ve heard from some you out there and have had a chance to incorporate your ideas and feedback.

Next week I’ll be at the ANS Winter Meeting in Albuquerque, NM and will be appearing LIVE with Rob Adams of the Atomic Show, Eric McErlain of the neinuclearnotesblog, and Randall Parker of the FuturePundit blog. We’ll be talking about this wonderful new form of communications – internet-based media. I hope to see you there!

Peace!

John Wheeler

Episode 33

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1. Cigar Lake Mine
2. Greenpeace Files EU Complaint Against Olkiluoto Nuclear Plant
3. Yet another nuclear plant in China – and it’s a
whopper!
4. Russia runs into technical snags at Iran’s nuclear plant
5. Russia blocks UNSC Sanctions on Iran – fear lost revenue
6. FPL and Constellation Merger is Officially Dead
7. World Utility Leaders Promote Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Emissions
8. Dr. Alvin M. Weinberg, Nuclear Pioneer, dies at 91

Links:
1. Cigar Lake Mine Flood
2. World Sustainable Energy Report

Episode 32

We take a look at the 1953 animated movie "A is for Atom"

Go Here to listen to the podacst and watch the movie!

Episode 31

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1. The Toshiba/Westinghouse Deal is Complete
2. Do NRC Fines Really Work?
3. UK Anti-Nukes To Eat Cold Breakfast
4. Apex, NC Benefits from Nuclear Emergency Planning
5. British Energy's Financial Woes
6. Areva & Mitsubishi Form Alliance
7. Russia's Nuclear Expansion
8. Germany's Energy Crises

Toshiba completes purchase of Westinghouse on October 17

Toshiba's 5.4 billion USD purchase of Westinghouse Nuclear is virtually complete.

Toshiba is buying 77% of Westinghouse nuclear from British Nuclear Fuels. The remaining 23% will be owned by Shaw Group with 20 % and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd, with 3 %. This deal follows more than $8 billion USD investment in their semiconductor business over the last three years!

The European Commission cleared the deal on September 19, and the US federal trade commission approved the deal 10 days later in Sept 29th.

It's time we took a look at the company that is positioned to provide a large percentage of the world's nuclear plants in the coming decade.

Toshiba is an diversified manufacturing conglomerate that produces everything from semi-conductors, computers and televisions, and home appliances, and now nuclear plants. Their computer chips business accounts for more than half the Toshiba's operating profit.

Toshiba's nuclear power business currently generates about 1.7 billion USD in annual revenue, said they expect it to grow to about 7.6 billion USD by 2020. With that increase in earning, Toshiba expects to recoup their investment in 17 years.

Just this week, they announced they're considering issuing 3.4 billion USD in bonds to fund the purchase. That's a bit risky in the eyes of some analysts because it will raise their debt-to-equity ratio to more than twice that of thier competitors. That is, unless you believe the demand for nuclear plants and services will rise faster then the financial bean counters predict. If it does, their purchase will turn out to be the deal of the century!

Toshiba posted better than expected earning this week for the mot recent quarter, and timing couldn't be better because it may help ease investor's concerns that they may be overextending themselves with the huge deal.

NRC issues a fine for error three years ago.

This week the NRC levied a $60,000 fine against the owner of the DC Cook nuclear plant in Michigan because they failed to obtain the NRC's approval before making a change to their Emergency plan in 2003.

I'm not bringing this up to disagree with the fine. I don't know enough about the technical merits of the specific situation to weigh in on that. The utility is not contesting the fine. I do, however, want to discuss how it's being handled, and why fines like this don't work.

The NRC may choose to issue fines as a punitive measure, or punishment, when a nuclear plant violates a regulation. But you have to ask, Who's being punished? Well, the fine is paid by the utility, so it's the shareholders who are bearing the burden. You might think that the shareholders would hold the management team accountable, and in many cases they do. The problem here lies in the length of time that's passed between the infraction and the penalty.

The mistake was made more than three years ago, and was corrected shortly after it was discovered, so the condition has not existed for about three years. As is often the case in these situations, many of the managers and executives who were in charge at DC Cook three years ago are no longer in their positions there. So there's no one for the shareholders to hold accountable. Worse than that, the current plant staff has to deal with the fine and with the negative press they'll get as a result. Believe me, the negative public relations generated by the fine is far, far worse than having to shell out $60,000.

By comparison, this week the British regulating body announced they've issued a fine of 500,000 BSP to British Nuclear Group for a leak that occurred in April of 2005 at the Thorp Fuel Reprocessing facility. British Nuclear Group has the contract to operate the facility. The facility owner, The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority that owns the site also withheld 2,000,000 pounds in payments due last year after the leak was discovered. While the leak was sizable, the fluid was contained within barriers installed at the site, and none escaped to the environment. I have to question the size of the penalty - in essence 2.5 million pounds - for an even in which there was no actual or potential safety risk, and no release to the environment. At least the penalty was levied much more promptly!

In the case of DC Cook, the public good is not served when there is a delay in issuing a fine, because the public is led to believe there are problems at the plant, when in reality, the problem hasn't existed for three years. To make a simple analogy, the NRC is crying wolf, and the utility, rightfully so, says "There's no wolf here! It's been gone for three years!" In the end, the public doesn't know who to believe and both parties loose credibility. This contributes to an environment where the public doesn't feel they can trust either the utility or the NRC, and that gives third parties - the anti-nuclear groups - an open door to run in and save they day. They come to the rescue, claiming utility is covering things up, and the NRC is going easy on the industry. How amny times have we heard that? I've lost count!

What's the fix? I honestly believe the NRC should eliminate the use of civil penalties for all but the most severe cases, and then the penalties should be stiff and swiftly levied out.

Apex, NC Evacuates 16,000 for Chlorine Leak

Since we're discussing Emergency Plans, I wanted to bring your attention to an event that speaks to the incredibly good brought about by the Sharon Harris nucear plant in North Carolina. About two weeks ago in Apex, NC there was a huge fire at a chemical storage facility in the middle of the night that caused a release of deadly chlorine gas. More than 16,000 people had to be evacuated from their beds, and it was done quickly and safely.

From everything I've read it was done with out panic, and without incident. What I didn’t hear was any mention of the fact that the emergency planning infrastructure in Apex and the surrounding communities was developed primarily by Progress Energy, the owners of Sharon Harris as part of their emergency plan. The citizens of Apex have Progress Energy to thank for the well-organized response that kept them informed and alerted them of the need to evacuate.

I've seen this repeated all over the USA. Communities that have nuclear plants have a well organized and well-funded emergency response organization that's had the benefit of training they get from the nuclear plant staff. They put that training to use in all kinds of emergencies.

The newspapers and other mainstream media rarely pick up on this, but if you talk to the state and county officials, and I have, they'll tell you they're much better prepared for all sorts of emergencies because of the funding, equipment, and training they get through the nuclear plant's emergency preparedness program.

British Energy's Woes

British Energy is in tough shape because of an unplanned outage at the Hinkley B nuclear plant. They'll be unable to produce enough power to meet their contractual obligations, and will have to purchase power on the open market. This means higher cost generators that burn natural gas will be coming on line to fill the gap, and British Energy will have to absorb the added cost. This realization by investors caused British Energy shares to tumble - the company has lost 25% of its market value in a few days.

This situation underscores the vital importance of high reliability and being a predictable generator of electricity. Nuclear plants make lots of money for their shareholder when they are running, but unplanned outages can make that profit disappear in a hurry. That's true of any base load power plant, but when the low cost provider shuts down the problem is amplified because the owner has to make up a greater difference between the contract price for their low cost power, and the market price which in this case is driven by natural gas.

The units are down because of boiler tube cracking that was discovered first at a similar plant at the Hunterston site in September. British Energy made the safe and conservative decision to shut down Hinkley to inspect for cracks, and when they did, they found similar defects.

The Hinkley Point B nuclear plant consists of two 660 MW advanced gas cooled reactors that came on line in 1976 and 1978. They provide about 3% of the United Kingdom's electricity, and are planned to be in service until 2011.

Of course the local anti-nuclear groups are dancing in the streets. Jim Duffy of "Stop Hinkley" was quoted as saying this is the beginning of the end for the nuclear plant, and he added that the government needs to start building wind turbines so they "have enough power to cook their breakfast n the morning." He's off base on more than one account - there's plenty of high priced power available that can be brought into the area. He'll be stuck on a diet of beans on toast when his energy bills triple or quadruple! I'm chuckling at his comment that the government should come to the rescue - he obviously doesn't have a clue of what degradation and privatization of the electrical grid means. The government isn't coming to the rescue. Market forces will dictate where his replacement power will come from, and it won't be from wind!

Jim Duffy is also predicted the plant would be down for three or four months. I don't know the details of where these cracks are or what it takes to fix them, but four months is an eternity in nuclear plant outage space. Heck - plants can replace steam generators altogether in less time than that! My guess is they'll do the inspections in a couple of weeks, will plug any defective boiler tubes, and will be back on line in under a month. They may have to run at reduced power if they plug more than a certain number of tubes, but they'll be back on line none-the-less. I'm going to mark this date and will report back to you in 30 days to see if my predictions are true.

Areva and Mitsubishi To Jointly Develop New Reactor Design

On Thursday Areva and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries announced they've signed an agreement to jointly develop and a new design for a 1000 MW generation III reactor. Both companies stated they expect strong demand for their mid-sized unit in southeast Asia and eastern Europe.

They also said they expect demand for their 1000 MW design in the USA, and they may be right. I kind of doubt it though - the economies of scale have proven to be a dominate factor in nuclear power economics in the USA, and the larger units, while more costly to build, have an advantage with it comes to overall operating costs because the size of the plant staff is not proportionately larger, and the added cost of fuel is a minuscule fraction of the operating cost. This is certainly true for base-load units connected to a well-established electrical grid.

I DO believe in the viability and value of small power reactors, particularly in remote areas where the distances to other forms of generation make transmission costly and there is insufficient local demand to support a large power reactor. Small power reactors also have the potential to be used in other applications like ship propulsion, hydrogen production, and water desalination in arid climates. If you want to learn more about this topic visit Adams Atomic Engines web site at www.atomicengines.com . Mitsubishi and Areva need go no further than Maryland for some great idea!

Anyway, I'm getting off track! Both companies specialize in Pressurized Water Reactors, Areva having supplies all 53 of France's units and MHI 23 of Japan's 55 reactors. In researching this story I discovered something I hadn't realized - Areva is the only company in the world that provides the entire nucear fuel cycle from mining the uranium, enrichment, fuel fabrication, plant design and construction, used fuel reprocessing, and plant decommissioning.

This seems like a good deal for both companies, and follows a pattern that's been shaping up recently with Japanese companies partnering with or acquiring nuclear construction companies - Toshiba and Westinghouse, General Electric and Hitachi, and now Areva and Mitsubishi. It will be interesting to see how this relationship manifests, and what kind of creativity it will being to the nuclear plant drawing board!

Russia's Plans for Nuclear Expansion

And finally, here's an overview of Russia's plans for expanding their domestic nuclear power industry. Russia has 31 operating nuclear power plants that provide 16% of their electricity. In addition, a few of their plants provide steam for heating the cities where plants are located.

Russia has an interesting situation in their energy supply. At present, most of their electricity, about 80% of it, is generated from natural gas-fired plants. Russia has large natural gas reserves, and they exports a lot of it to the rest of Europe and Asia. The figures I have for 2004 indicate they export about 157 million cubic meters of gas per year which is a little bit more than 1/3 of the gas they produce. They use 60% of their natural gas to produce electricity.

As it turns out, that is an extremely expensive proposition. Gazprom, the Russian gas company, earns five times more for gas that it exports compared to gas it sells at home, so they have a huge financial incentive to replace gas fired plants with nuclear plants. No only do nuclear plants produce electricity much more cheaply than gas plants, Russia is missing out on a huge source of revenue.

So that gives you an idea of a major factor driving their nuclear energy policies. Earlier this year they announced their plan to reduce their use of natural gas, and to double their nuclear power output by 2020. That will bring nuclear energy to about 23% of the projected electrical generation. This past week I got some details on how they plan to finance their nuclear renaissance.

Russia has formally adopted a $54 billion USD nuclear energy development program. Between now and 2015, the Russian government will contribute $25 billion USD to the program. After 2015, 100% of the program funds will be covered by Rosatom, the Russian nuclear power company.

Russia has 3 nuclear plants under construction, and they will add seven more in the near term. This will result in ten new reactors totaling at least 9.8 GWe on line by 2015. They'll be building two new reactors per year from 2011 through 2014, then three per year from 2014 to 2020.

That's a very aggressive nuclear construction program, and don't forget they'll also be building new plants outside of Russia. I'm putting some links in the show notes to information sources I used in this story.

Russia is not hampered by the politics of western nations. They're seeing an opportunity and they're going to grab it. I for one, think they're smart. Just like an agile company that takes advantage of changing market conditions to gain market share, Russia is making a play for the world nuclear plant market. If you are a county looking to buy a nuclear plant, are you going to buy from someone who hasn't built one in years, or maybe has only built two or three? Or you going to buy from someone who has a robust construction program.

The thing Russia has going against them is the reliability of their plants has not been nearly as high as light water reactors built in the USA and France, or in other countries with western technology. The GE, Westinghouse, and Framatone reactor designs have demonstrated long term capacity factors much higher than Russian built plants. Five or ten percentage points may not sound like a lot, but there's a huge difference in the cost of electricity generated by a nuclear plant running at 75% capacity compared to 90%. That alone more than off-sets the price difference between a Russian-built plant and one built by GE, Westinghouse, or Framatone.

Germany

I really admire Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel for sticking to her guns and speaking out even when her position is in violent disagreement with that of her political party. She's been keeping an open mind about options to secure Germany's energy supply, and just today she made her strongest remarks yet in support of advancing nuclear energy in Germany. In a speech give at a party rally Chancellor Merkel said it was a mistake for Germany to stick with it's plan to phase out nuclear energy over the next 14 years. IN addition, she criticized the Social Democrats for refusing to reconsider laws previously passed that will shut down that nation's nuclear plants by 2020.

Her exact words were "I consider it to be wrong that we're turning off our nuclear plants only because that is what was agreed," later she added "No one can prevent us from discussing the topic of energy anymore. We're facing challenges and need to develop strategies to ensure our energy supplies over the years ahead," Germany's 18 nuclear plants supply 32% of their electricity, and all 18 plants are mandated to shut down by a law that was passed by the greens and social democrat when they were in power.

I wonder where the green and the social democrats think they're going to get their energy from. Hey - how about getting it from the Russians! You'd think the people of Germany would see the writing on the wall. If they phase out nuclear energy they will be wholly reliant on Russia's natural gas for their electricity.

Closing

If you're at the American Nuclear Society winter meeting in Albuquerque, NM in November be sure to look me up. I've mentioned before that I'll joined there by Rod Adams of The Atomic Show and Eric McErlain of the nei nuclear notes blog. The three of us will be holding a panel discuss on the new media that will include some tips on pod casting, and we'll be sharing our experiences spreading the truth and the science behind nuclear energy using this fantastic new media!