Nuclear: In Flamanville, the EPR farce continues

During a meeting of the local information commission on April 12, the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) assured that it could give the green light to the start-up of the reactor by the beginning of May. However, not all technical problems are resolved. And now a new one – of vibrations – appeared at the end of last year on the primary circuit. Revelations.

Blast, Thierry Gadault , 22 Apr 24

A few kilometers from the Flamanville nuclear power plant, Les Pieux (Manche) is typical of the many nuclear communities that we cross along the Rhône and Loire valleys: stone facades scrubbed with a toothbrush, paved sidewalks shiny as a new penny, innumerable municipal facilities that a town of some 3,500 inhabitants could never hope to afford, even in its wildest dreams, if it were not for the millions poured every year by EDF into the Department………………………..

Dialogue of the deaf in the basement

Behind the town hall, an old mansion which dominates the village, is the Pieux proximity center. In the basement of the building, which houses part of the municipal services, an auditorium with around fifty seats hosts the meetings of the Local Information Commission (CLI), a consultative body bringing together EDF, the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), local elected officials, the State and association representatives.

April 12, 2024, there was a crowd for the extraordinary meeting of the CLI. The menu was potentially copious: it was a question of taking stock of the EPR, before the ASN gave the green light to EDF to install the nuclear fuel in the vessel. While the independent authority was in full public consultation (it ended on April 17), an essential prerequisite for its decision-making, the associations had obtained this appointment in the form of a last-chance meeting, to try to derail the process. 

But neither the ASN representative, Gaëtan Lafforge, the head of the Caen division, nor that of EDF, Alain Morvan, the director of the Flamanville EPR project, had the intention of revealing the reality of the numerous problems which still affect the reactor. And it was a dialogue of the deaf that the participants engaged in.

On the ASN and EDF side, the speech can easily be summarized: officially, everything is in order and the objective is now to gradually bring the reactor to operate at full power, at the end of the year. The authority also specified that the green light will be given by the beginning of May. Alain Morvan, with slides reduced to the strict minimum, simply outlined the process of starting up the new reactor.

On April 12, questioned on this subject by Yannick Rousselet, nuclear safety consultant at Greenpeace, the ASN representative had the greatest difficulty in answering the question clearly. “I can’t tell you that there won’t be anything left, there could be possible deviations during the tests,” stammered Gaëtan Lafforge. This then led to a short lunar exchange with the anti-nuclear activist, which triggered laughter from the audience.

On the anti-nuclear activist side, the troops left after two hours with their questions. In particular, lo and behold, a new vibration problem on the primary circuit detected last year.

The information was given to Blast by Julien Collet, the deputy director general of ASN, during the authority’s annual press conference organized at the end of last January. The DGA then told us that EDF was in the process of investigating this umpteenth glitch on the EPR.

On April 12, questioned on this subject by Yannick Rousselet, nuclear safety consultant at Greenpeace, the ASN representative had the greatest difficulty in answering the question clearly. “I can’t tell you that there won’t be anything left, there could be possible deviations during the tests,” stammered Gaëtan Lafforge. This then led to a short lunar exchange with the anti-nuclear activist, which triggered laughter from the audience.

Strangely, Alain Morvan, who could have provided technical details, remained silent. And no one thought to give him the floor. Especially since the president of the CLI, perhaps impatient to go to lunch, hastened to close the session. Questioned by Blast after the meeting, the director of the EPR project, cornered by a member of EDF communications, refused to answer us.

Hardly any more luck with the Parisian communications department, a few moments later. “The vibrational issues have been dealt with and technical solutions put in place,” she simply responded in the usual wooden language. In short, move around, there is nothing to see.

Yes, but here it is: questioned by a journalist from Presse de la Manche, the local daily which covered the event, EDF gave another answer : “There is no new vibration subject,” said the electrician. to our colleague.  Um… we should know: has the subject been covered or does it not exist?

It’s not me, it’s him !

To try to see things clearly, Blast turned to the Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), the public research establishment which provides technical advice to the ASN.

Perhaps concerned about its future – following the merger with the ASN imposed by the government and ratified by the National Assembly and the Senate – the establishment informed us through its press manager that the subject was not his responsibility. And to send us back to the ASN… 

Unfortunately, ASN did not answer our questions. As Martine Aubry, the mayor of Lille and former candidate defeated in the 2011 socialist primary, said about François Hollande, “when it’s vague, there’s a wolf…” 

The lid saga

This new problem… sorry “subject” vibration is therefore added to the numerous unresolved technical files that EDF has decided to leave as is, with the agreement of the ASN, to provide a response only after the commissioning of the reactor – it is unusual, we will agree. Starting obviously with the lid of the tank, weakened by a manufacturing defect (positive carbon segregation also present in the bottom of the tank). When the authority finally authorized the use of the tank and its lid in 2018, when it was no longer possible to exclude the risk of rupture but only to prevent it (which does not have the same meaning), she had asked EDF to change the cover no later than December 2024.

……………………………………..Questioned by activists to know why the company was not waiting for this new cover, Alain Morvan got confused in his explanations. He first suggested that it was not finished, and that it would therefore not be installed before the summer of 2025, before contradicting himself to finally assure that it would be delivered to the nuclear power plant at the end of the year…

In fact, the public group has nothing to do with it: in 2023, Framatome obtained from the ASN to postpone the replacement of the cover by one year, without giving any justification for such a postponement. According to the order issued by the authority last year, it must now be replaced during the first full inspection of the installation, after its start-up.

While it was possible to change this part in complete safety for the health of workers, if the new one had been installed before start-up, this postponement changes everything. The current cover will be irradiated and it will in fact become nuclear waste. In other words, an object that cannot be handled like that.

Apart from the fact that this unnecessarily exposes workers to taking doses during operations to replace it, this poses another problem. This question has not been resolved to date by EDF: that of the storage of this contaminated part, when it is removed. ASN asked the EDF group to construct a building for this purpose which would allow it to be stored safely on the power plant site. Which still doesn’t seem to be done…

Radioactivity, haphazardly

Emblematic, the tank cover file is not the only one which demonstrates EDF’s lack of consideration for nuclear employees, whether they are in-house agents or subcontracting employees. A second major project, also planned after the start-up of the reactor, will expose those involved to radioactive risks. Here again, this intervention could have been carried out in complete safety before the installation was started: the modification of the cooling system of the reactor auxiliary networks (RRI) and rescued raw water (SEC). Essential elements, particularly during reactor shutdown…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Later, again

Still in the same logic, EDF has postponed the modification of the tank internals until later, more precisely the lower plenum which directs the distribution of the hydraulic flow in the tank. Since the incident that occurred on one of the two EPRs at Taishan in China, in 2021, we have had some feedback: it has been established that this equipment generates poor distribution of hydraulic flow which causes greater fluctuations. greater than expected in the neutron flux, which could lead to difficulties in controlling the nuclear reaction. Although ASN asked EDF to modify the lower plenum, the studies are still in progress………………………………………………………….

In China, to avoid major problems while waiting for the modification of the lower plenum, the power of the reactors (officially 1,750 MW) would have been limited to 1,500 MW. Will this also be the case for the Flamanville EPR? Questioned during the CLI meeting on April 12 by Yannick Rousselet, neither ASN nor EDF deigned to respond.

Let’s cross our fingers, hoping that there will be no runaway nuclear reaction in the Flamanville EPR tank. Especially since Libération revealed in July 2022, two systems of probes and sensors essential for operating the reactor, installed either in the tank or outside, are malfunctioning.

The EPR, political totem

“It would have been smarter to do all this work before the reactor was started,” exasperates Gilles Reynaud, the president of Ma Zone Contrôlée , which brings together nuclear subcontracting employees. But EDF wants to put the EPR into production to say: “that’s it, it works.” Doing all this work afterwards, I don’t find it very respectful for the workers and the population. » 

No matter the cost

“We are starting at all costs for purely political reasons,” judge Yannick Rousselet, interviewed by Blast at the end of the CLI on April 12. As President Macron announced the relaunch of nuclear power with the construction of new EPRs, they want to send the message that we are out of the rut. » For Rousselet, this is a very short-term vision: “Even if this reactor shuts down in a few months for a long period, no one cares. We must be able to say: “That’s it, the Flamanville EPR is loaded. He started.” This is what is most dangerous. We don’t try to solve the problems first. »

The secrets of an engineer

And then, potentially, there is another problem in the medium term. Recently, an engineer, Thierry C, contacted Blast to tell us about his short experience in nuclear power.

………………………………. “When I took the file, I quickly realized that most of the valves that had to be installed could not meet the temperature and pressure conditions planned during these requalification tests,” he explains to Blast. Of the approximately 650 pipes equipped with valves, there were approximately 450 that had to be cut to remove the equipment and replace it with a temporary device to block the pipes. » A not really reassuring observation. “I spoke about it to my superiors who asked me to keep quiet and not talk to EDF about it. »

The documents and plans consulted by Blast seem to confirm these remarks. Which poses a problem: the requalification tests must be carried out with the valves to be validated. However, this analysis work was carried out in 2008-2009, when the EPR construction site, which had just started, was still in the civil engineering stage. Thierry C. left the group shortly after carrying out this study. What has happened since then? Has the error made by Alstom on the technical characteristics of the valves been corrected? Impossible to know: neither EDF, nor ASN, nor IRSN wanted to answer us.

Overall, given these unresolved problems and the lack of transparency from EDF and ASN regarding the technical setbacks of the installation, within the Flamanville CLI but also vis-à-vis the press, the long nightmare of the EPR construction site may not be over. This bad dream led to its bill exploding – which reached some 19.1 billion euros .  A farce that could end up boring and no longer make anyone laugh. https://www.blast-info.fr/articles/2024/nucleaire-a-flamanville-la-farce-de-lepr-se-poursuit-G9PeKawaRwmShmxp6sJL3g

April 25, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | energy, news, nuclear, nuclear-energy, nuclear-power | Leave a comment

Civil and military nuclear mutuality

‘The UK government is pursuing an uneconomic nuclear programme in large part so as to maintain & renew military nuclear capabilities’.

Rishi Sunak backs both civil and military nuclear: ‘Safeguarding the future of our nuclear deterrent and nuclear energy industry is a critical national endeavour’. French president Emmanuel Macron is even more upfront about it all: ‘Without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear.’ With the USA, China and Russia also evidently locked into similar paths, the global future doesn’t look too good. 

‘The UK government is pursuing an uneconomic nuclear programme in large part so as to maintain & renew military nuclear capabilities’.

backs both civil and military nuclear: ‘Safeguarding the future of our nuclear deterrent and nuclear energy industry is a critical national endeavour’. French president Emmanuel Macron is even more upfront about it all: ‘Without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear.’ With the USA, China and Russia also evidently locked into similar paths, the global future doesn’t look too good. 

Renew Extra Weekly, 13 Apr 24

Until recently, the UK government has always said that civil and military nuclear technologies were separate things, for example in response to claims that expansion of civil nuclear power capacity could lead to proliferation of nuclear weapons making capacity. But, as researchers at the University of Sussex have relentlessly catalogued, there seems to have been a change of view underway, culminating formally in March in a new policy document from No. 10 Downing Street. Entitled ‘Building the Nuclear Workforce of Tomorrow’ it claims that ‘domestic [civil] nuclear capability is vital to our national defence and energy security, underpinning our nuclear deterrent and securing cheaper, more reliable energy for UK consumers’.  So they are intertwined and mutually beneficial- we need both!

UK Prime Minister Sunak says that ‘in a more dangerous and contested world, the UK’s continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent is more vital than ever’ and that civil nuclear power is the ‘perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain- it’s green, cheaper in the long term and will ensure the UK’s energy security for the long term’.

There are many issues raised by these claims. Leaving aside all the major moral and political issues associated with nuclear weapons, it is not at all clear that new nuclear reactors will be as costs effective as renewables. Indeed, the cost of renewables has fallen dramatically in recent years while the cost of nuclear projects has continued to escalate. It could be that, recognising this imbalance in cost, what we are now seeing is the government trying to provide a compensating justification for new civil nuclear- it will aid defence. Even if, arguably, it makes little economic sense as Business Green argued: ‘The UK government is pursuing an uneconomic nuclear programme in large part so as to maintain & renew military nuclear capabilities’.

Basically, as the Sussex University researchers have argued, it does seem that the government is just responding to military pressures. More specifically though, it’s a matter of rapidly expanding skill requirements- and shortages. Matthew Lay, Head of EDF Nuclear Skills Alliance, says that ‘the UK Government’s commitment to nuclear power must be seen in the context of a steady increase of nuclear capacity worldwide as well as growth in defence expenditure,’ and especially the growth in the ‘defence industry’s demand for nuclear skills, to deliver established and new nuclear submarine programmes’. So it’s about expanding nuclear skills for building nuclear sub power plants and civil reactors, including possibly Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which have some similarities. Presumably also about making fuels for them both too. 

Some may be happy about civil-military skill sharing, but it’s a long way from the old rhetoric about ‘atoms for peace’. In 1953 President Eisenhower called for nuclear bomb technology to be turned to peaceful ends around the world, with US help e.g. in transferring  nuclear plant technology to developing countries. That had floundered due, in part, to the high cost of nuclear plants. According to a review by Drogan, a State Department Intelligence Report, circulated in January 1954, ‘Economic Implications of Nuclear Power in Foreign Countries’, noted that ‘nuclear power plants may cost twice as much to operate and as much as 50 percent more to build and equip than conventional thermal plants’. So it warned that the introduction of nuclear power would ‘not usher in a new era of plenty and rapid economic development as is commonly believed’. You could say that we are still waiting! 

There were also potential conflicts between the ‘atoms for peace’ idea and proliferation issues. Indeed that is now even more of a problem, with some newly developing countries, following the UAE’s lead, looking to have nuclear plants, which, in theory, could give them the ability to make bombs. And (the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty apart!) why not, if nuclear weapons states like the UK are seen as no longer maintaining a clear separation between civil and military nuclear technology? Except of course the high cost of civil nuclear may make renewables a much better deal- especially solar, of which many countries (in the Middle East and Africa for example) have plenty. ……………………………………………………………………………..

Clearly UK Prime Minister Sunak doesn’t see it this way- he backs both civil and military nuclear: ‘Safeguarding the future of our nuclear deterrent and nuclear energy industry is a critical national endeavour’. French president Emmanuel Macron is even more upfront about it all: ‘Without civil nuclear power, no military nuclear power, without military nuclear, no civil nuclear.’ With the USA, China and Russia also evidently locked into similar paths, the global future doesn’t look too good. 

Do we really have to continue with all this? In 1995, Sir Michael Atiyah, then retiring as President of the Royal Society, said ‘I believe history will show that insistence on a UK nuclear capability [weapons and energy] was fundamentally misguided, a total waste of resources and a significant factor in our relative economic decline over the past 50 years’. He may have been right.  https://renewextraweekly.blogspot.com/2024/04/civil-and-military-nuclear-mutuality.html

April 15, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | energy, news, nuclear, nuclear-energy, nuclear-power | Leave a comment

“Nuclear comes last”

the tail-between-legs exit of the Nuclear Summit conferees declared in a headline: “Taxpayers are needed to foot the bill to achieve 2050 targets.”

Banks reject nuclear funding, stocks nosedive and the industry says it should, believe it or not, slow down

 By Linda Pentz Gunter  March 31, 2024   https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2024/03/31/nuclear-comes-last/

NuScale, the company whose small modular reactor project collapsed so spectacularly last November, is “burning cash at the rate of $185 million per year”. On March 22, the company’s CEO, John Hopkins, sold 59,768 of his shares in the company. This is the same CEO who declared NuScale’s SMR project, aptly named VOYGR, “a dead horse.” It’s clearly on a journey to nowhere.

Wells Fargo, with an eye on prudent investments, has declared, “We think investor enthusiasm for SMR is misguided”. As The Motley Fool reported, “NuScale’s VOYGR nuclear power product has ‘no secure customers’ and is ‘not cost competitive’ says the analyst.” 

The splashy cheerleading Nuclear Energy Summit organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Brussels on March 21 proved to be just that. The participants arrived floating on the hot air of their misplaced enthusiasm but “left humbled by the tepid reaction of bankers assessing the price tag of their ambitions”.

European Investment Bank Vice President Thomas Ostros, told Summit attendees to their face that “The project risks, as we have seen in reality, seem to be very high”. Representatives from the European and Latin American banking worlds said that “their lending priorities lean toward renewables and transmission grids” and that “nuclear comes last”.

Even the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission couldn’t quite bring itself to slam down its rubber stamp on Oklo’s chalet-in-the-woods micro reactor, the Aurora, which remains about as real as its namesake fairy tale princess. 

In January 2022, the NRC denied Oklo’s license application outright because it “continues to contain significant information gaps in its description of Aurora’s potential accidents as well as its classification of safety systems and components,” wrote the NRC. 

Oklo reapplied nine months later but according to the NRC docket there is “no further action”. 

Nevertheless, Oklo brags on its website that it “made history” simply by developing “the first advanced fission combined license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission”, which sums up the second nuclear “renaissance” perfectly: Make a drawing. Hit ‘send’.

Meanwhile, the US military canceled its contract for an Aurora reactor originally intended for the Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska.

And finally, an executive from the industry that has consistently delivered its latest new reactors decades late and billions over the original budget — in one case $20 billion over — suggested they should all just slow down. Said Ian Edwards, chief executive of Canadian reactor producer, Atkins Realis, “we all become too optimistic. We have this optimism bias towards being able to deliver faster. Really we should probably slow things down a little bit.”

But nuclear power is the answer to our current climate crisis! Ya think?

It’s tempting to ask whether things can get any worse for the nuclear power industry, but they almost certainly will. Unless we end up paying for it all. As the Bloomberg article that related the tail-between-legs exit of the Nuclear Summit conferees declared in a headline: “Taxpayers are needed to foot the bill to achieve 2050 targets.”

At the moment, a majority in the US Congress seem intent on making sure that is exactly what will happen. Because after all, why should multi-billionaire, Bill Gates, be forced to pay for his own nuclear toys when he can milk (read ‘bilk’) US taxpayers instead?

The US government has already pledged $2 billion of our money to Gates for his proliferation-friendly liquid sodium-cooled molten salt fast reactor produced by his company, TerraPower (more properly, TerrorPower). Gates can’t wait to export it the United Arab Emirates. Nuclear weapons anyone?

The strokey-white-beard-named ADVANCE Act, has been passed by the US House with 365 voting in favor and only 36 Democrats-with-a-conscience voting against it. By its own description, the ADVANCE ACT aims to “advance the benefits of nuclear energy by enabling efficient, timely, and predictable licensing, regulation, and deployment of nuclear energy technologies.” In other words, do away with burdensome — and expensive — safety regulations. 

Indeed, New Mexico Democrat, Senator Martin Heinrich, told E&E News in January that “These regulatory timelines do not lend themselves to fighting the climate crisis.” Oh those wascally wegulations!

Meanwhile, Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia doesn’t want to seat any new NRC commissioners who might be “too focused on safety.” 

The NRC’s motto is “protecting people and the environment,” a mandate it demonstrably endeavors to avoid already, but even some vestige of interest in safety is probably better than none. Not that safety oversight will be needed of course because, hey, SMRs are “walkaway safe” and “meltdown proof” and any new light water reactors are too “advanced” to be a safety risk.

This makes the insistence by SMR manufacturers that they must be covered by the Price-Anderson Act (PAA) all the more curious. Price-Anderson, due to expire in 2025, was culled out of the ADVANCE ACT, now moving out of Senate committee and working its way through the reconciliation process, and handled separately. The Senate adopted the House version of the PAA, giving it a 40-year extension to 2026, and expanded limited liability for a major accident to just over $16 billion per reactor.

President Biden duly signed it into law, marking another misstep on what is becoming an increasingly problematic presidency.

Ed Lyman, Nuclear Power Safety Director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Nuclear Intelligence Weekly that “The nuclear industry’s push for a 40-year Price-Anderson Act extension is a sure sign that it doesn’t believe its own messaging about how safe the next generation of nuclear reactors is going to be.”

But in a joint statement, Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.) declared that “The extension of the Price-Anderson Act in the minibus sends a clear message that we are committed to the advancement of this safe and reliable power source.”

The “clear message” this actually sends is that, in the event of a major nuclear accident, US taxpayers will be thrown under that minibus. The $16 billion coverage will be chicken feed and we will all be stuck with the bill. Let’s remember that the Chornobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters are each racking up costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars and counting. We have been warned.

But a bi-partisan group of Representatives and Senators think it’s perfectly fine for all of us to pay for such an eventuality. Meanwhile, if you own a home and are forced to abandon it in the path of a nuclear accident, you cannot claim a dime off your homeowner’s insurance. It will just be a total loss. Think about that for a moment.

Are we outraged yet?

Linda Pentz Gunter is the international specialist at Beyond Nuclear 

April 1, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | energy, news, nuclear, nuclear-energy, nuclear-power | Leave a comment

Nuclear energy everywhere costs an arm and a leg

By Jean-François Julliard, Mar 30, 2024,  https://johnmenadue.com/nuclear-energy-everywhere-costs-an-arm-and-a-leg/

The contribution of nuclear power to electricity generation is the lowest for thirty years and its price twice that of renewables.

It crackles like a Geiger counter in a uranium mine: in 2023, Emmanuel Macron announced plans for six additional EPR [European Pressurised Reactor] nuclear power plants. Hang on, no, perhaps fourteen in the long term.

In reviving nuclear in the name of the struggle against global warming, the European Union has followed suit. Japan is promising new developments on the nuclear front. The US is experimenting with miniature reactors. China is building with gusto … All these ‘ionising’ projects seem to indicate that fission-based nuclear power is in full swing.

In fact, it is to the contrary. A report of experts published in December 2023, the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2023 [549pp!], using data supplied by the International Atomic Energy Agency and national states, provides the evidence. The part of electricity generation due to nuclear power is the lowest in 30 years (9.2 percent), compared to near double that figure in the 1990s.

Over twenty years, the cost of a nuclear kilowatt hour has increased slightly, whereas the cost of solar and wind has plummeted (‘melted’), these days coming in at roughly half that of nuclear. In 2022, the report highlights, €35 billion has been invested in nuclear globally, compared to … €455 billion in renewables.

France is still trying to recover from an annus horribilis in 2022. In addition to higher costs associated with the war in Ukraine, reactor shutdowns have multiplied. In August 2023, 60 % of France’s 56 reactors were dysfunctional. During 2023, production has augmented, but it has stayed at the level of … 1995.

Showcases of French savoir-faire, the EPR reactors are not ‘making sparks’, accumulating shutdowns, delays (twelve years for Flamanville, on the English Channel, and thirteen years for Olkiluoto, in Finland) as well as cost blowouts (the bill multiplied by 1.7 [for now] at Hinkley Point, in Great Britain, by 3 at Olkiluoto and by 6 at Flamanville!).

During this time, plutonium (for which every gram is of fearsome toxicity), an essential fuel for these ‘toys’, piles up. The accumulated stock for France has reached an unprecedented level of 92 tonnes.

Small problem: how can EDF [Électricité de France], which has acquired a debt of €65 billion, finance the announced projects? This question doesn’t stop Brussels from supporting them – in spite of the industrial disaster on course. No matter that, for several years, within the EU, renewable energy (hydraulic, wind and solar) has generated the most electricity, ahead of nuclear, followed by gas and coal.

South Korea was formerly one of the principal international competitors of EDF for conquering foreign markets. These days South Korea shows itself more reluctant, especially after a calamitous 2022. Kepco, the national electrician, has lost more than €22 billion, adding to a debt of €131 billion – a record. Nuclear contributes 29.6 % to production, currently less than coal. But the promises – within ten years coal’s contribution is supposed to be cut in half and that of renewables tripled. As for nuclear, it will grow by … 5 %.

Japan only starts to pick up with the atom after the closure of several reactors following Fukushima. To the subsequent shortage of electricity add the financial dimension of the catastrophe: in 2021, the government estimated it at more than €200 billion. Thirteen years after the event, the Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, wants to rekindle nuclear (‘accelerate the particles’) but furnishes no details on new reactors.

Last year, production in Japan was at its lowest level (equivalent to that of the 1970s), and only 6 % of electricity was of nuclear origin. In spite of announcements, distrust persists, especially since the discovery of misrepresentations (modification of results of chemical analyses, falsification of measures of resistance of materials) of Japan Steel Works, manufacturer of components for reactors, selling them worldwide and notably to France.

China is the country the most committed to the atom. On 58 reactors currently under construction globally, 23 (40 %) are in the Middle Kingdom. However, if nuclear trots, renewables gallop, flat out. Nuclear represents 5 % of electricity, whereas wind and solar furnish 15 %, progressing more quickly than coal, which remains far and away the main ‘source of the juice’. Other vexation: Beijing exports little of its savoir-faire. This because the US, among others, which have blacklisted Chinese enterprises, accused of having siphoned American technology for its military ambitions. Slanderous!

The United States remains the champion of nuclear energy but its brainpower has not kept pace (‘their neutrons are not very quick’). In 2022, the contribution of nuclear to electricity generation has fallen to 18.2 % – the lowest rate since 1987 – less than coal and renewables, the latter passed for the first time to pole position. American reactors are on average the oldest in the world (42 years), and only two reactors have been brought into service in the last twenty-five years.

And what a debut! The AP1000 (variation of the EPR) of Vogtle (Georgia) began operation in March 2023, eight years later than planned and, above all, at an estimated cost of €28.5 billion, more than double the initial estimate. Les Echos [French business newspaper] (25/1/22) has kindly described the feat as a local ‘Flamanville’. This financial debacle has much contributed to the failure of Westinghouse, giant of nuclear reactor manufacture. The event has also provoked the shutdown of the construction site (nine years work) of two other AP1000s in South Carolina. Living fossils!

As a consequence, the US is paying more attention to mini reactors, or SMR [small modular reactors]. Save that NuScale, the champion of the type, last November, cancelled a vast construction program of six of these miniatures, for which the budget had almost tripled …

Russia is the veritable world champion of the ‘civil atom’. That said, however, it produces only 20 % of the country’s electricity. Rosatom, the Russian EDF, foreshadows a small increase to 25 %, but in … 2045. It is overseas where business is booming. Russia, a nation at war, is building reactors in countries as peaceful as Iran, Egypt, India or Turkey. Without forgetting China, one of Russia’s best customers.

Russia’s commercial secret? Its discounted prices, its turnkey packages and, above all, its control of the indispensable enriched uranium. Russia furnishes much of the latter to Europe but also to the US, 31 % of its supplies coming from Russia. All this while imposing sanctions on Putin’s country, which toys with the nuclear threat, going so far as to bomb the vicinity of Ukraine’s nuclear reactor at Zaporizhzhia – the largest such in Europe.

March 30, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | energy, news, nuclear, nuclear-energy, nuclear-power | Leave a comment

Filling Nuclear Power’s $5 Trillion Hole Is Beyond the Banks

“We need to find a way to make it predictable, stable, bankable and affordable.”

“The project risks, as we have seen in reality, seem to be very high,” said European Investment Bank Vice President Thomas Ostros. – the world’s biggest multilateral lender recommends that countries needing power quickly focus on renewables and energy efficiency,

Nuclear-energy officials arrived in Brussels this week amid a growing wave of public support for atomic power. They left humbled by the tepid reaction of bankers assessing the price tag of their ambitions.

Bloomberg News, Jonathan Tirone,  https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/filling-nuclear-powers-5-trillion-hole-is-beyond-the-banks/wcm/0d2062d5-7120-4480-b53a-a52e70ef2b45/amp/ 22 Mar 24,

The International Atomic Energy Agency convened a summit to build momentum for a low-emissions technology that many expect will be critical for hitting climate targets. A group of mostly Western countries pledged to triple nuclear generation by 2050. But lenders balked at the eyewatering cost of doing so. 

“If the bankers are uniformly pessimistic, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” former US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Thursday after listening to a panel of international lenders explain why they’re unwilling to provide the $5 trillion the industry needs by mid-century.

“The bankers are calling for a proven business case,” said Jozef Sikela, the Czech Republic’s industry and trade minister. “We need to find a way to make it predictable, stable, bankable and affordable.”

Projects in Western economies have been plagued by construction delays and ballooning costs in recent decades. The newest reactor in the European Union — Olkiluoto 3 in Finland — started generating power last year, more than a decade late and three times over budget. Similarly in the US, Southern Co.’s Vogtle facility came in seven years behind schedule and $16 billion over estimates. 

“The project risks, as we have seen in reality, seem to be very high,” said European Investment Bank Vice President Thomas Ostros. While the world’s biggest multilateral lender won’t close the door on nuclear, it recommends that countries needing power quickly focus on renewables and energy efficiency, he said.

China and Russia are building the most reactors. But their state-owned model of development is at odds with the European and US emphasis on private capital. That will likely need to change if Western economies want to maintain nuclear’s market share.

“We need state involvement, I don’t see any other model,” Ostros said. “Probably we need quite heavy state involvement to make projects bankable.”

Ines Rocha, a director at the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, and Fernando Cubillos, a banker at the Development Bank of Latin America, also said their lending priorities lean toward renewables and transmission grids. “Nuclear comes last,” Cubillos said.

Potential new investors could include sovereign wealth funds or philanthropists, according to Charles Oppenheimer, who advocates for nuclear energy at The Oppenheimer Project. 

“If it’s a safe and secure investment with a predictable return, there’s a huge amount of capital,” said the grandson of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the US physicist who ran the Manhattan Project. “What is lacking generally is capital for that risky build.”

Europe and the US have been trying to engineer nuclear out of its malaise, proposing a new generation of smaller reactors that can be factory-made and assembled on-site. Theoretically, that approach could cut costs, but has yet to be proven.

In the meantime, with global temperatures soaring and international climate targets in peril, some nuclear advocates say the focus on such innovations may be misguided. 

“We’ve heard a lot about a leapfrogging to the next generation of nuclear technologies,” Moniz said. “I would submit it might just be better to focus on getting some technologies deployed right now.”

—With assistance from John Ainger.

March 23, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | energy, news, nuclear, nuclear-energy, nuclear-power | Leave a comment

Glorious new financial jargon from the nuclear lobby – the “International Bank for Nuclear Infrastructure (IBNI)”

International Bank for Nuclear Infrastructure (IBNI) will become the ‘Gold Standard’ of nuclear finance.

the IBNI will have an estimated 30+ sovereign governmental member shareholders, each with aligned views on nuclear energy and other global policy objectives. …….. IBNI – as a specialised ‘global nuclear infrastructure bank’ – will have a global mandate to finance and support nuclear sector projects, programmes and industries in all its member countries .

where the bank aims to achieve the most significant global impacts will be in catalysing a highly significant ‘capital multiplier impact’, which represents the total quantum of global financial markets capital mobilised relative to each dollar of public investment (by sovereign shareholder member states) in the bank.

IBNI will become the ‘Gold Standard’ of nuclear finance.

Why nuclear energy needs exclusive global multilateral infrastructure bank By Daniel Dean, 18 Mar 2024  https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/why-nuclear-energy-needs-exclusive-global-multilateral-infrastructure-bank/—

The mobilisation of trillions of dollars of global capital necessary for the nuclear sector to scale in the near-term can be supported by a new kind of financial institution – an international multilateral infrastructure bank focused exclusively on nuclear energy, writes Daniel Dean, IBNI-IO SAG chairman.

Attaining current policy objectives, including 2050 Net Zero, will require global nuclear technologies to scale to an unprecedented magnitude and at breakneck speed.

COMMENT on Lie number 1. Attaining 2050 Net Zero may well be impossible anyway, but there is zero likelihood of nuclear power to have anything meaningful to do with it, other than to slow down real solutions – energy conservation and renewable energy .

This historically unmatched scaling will also require the very rapid mobilisation of multiple trillions of dollars of capital into the sector.quick online loans. Existing nuclear project delivery and financing mechanisms rely mainly on governmental support and attract very limited risk appetite from the global financial markets. Such existing models will be insufficient for catalyzing the very significant quanta of capital necessary required to enable nuclear to scale as quickly as possible to achieve multiple 100s of GW’s of additional global nuclear generation capacity. If the world is going to achieve its ambitious climate, clean energy, energy transition and energy security goals in this short period of time, there simply needs to be a fundamental change in the approach toward financing nuclear infrastructure.

Scaling of the nuclear sector faces numerous and multidimensional impediments. These interrelated impediments span a broad spectrum and include among others: public policy; regulatory, markets and ESG frameworks; social license; geopolitical; commercial and risk allocation models; and perhaps most importantly, affordability and accessibility. Each of the nuclear sector’s impediments is manifested in the form of financial risk. Clearly, the nuclear industry will need to do its part through increased on-time and on-budget performance and other progressive improvements, alongside the key roles of governments, owner-operators, end-users/ratepayers and all other stakeholder groups that will each need to do their part. However, the ‘sum of these parts’ (e.g. what each stakeholder can individually do) does not add up to a solution that will enable nuclear to scale.

The mobilisation of the necessary capital required for nuclear to scale, requires formulation of systemic and multidimensional risk mitigation solutions. The nuclear sector is currently caught in a ‘vicious circle’, whereby nuclear cannot and will not scale without access to a ‘runway’ of cost-efficient capital and such capital is not accessible unless nuclear becomes sufficiently de-risked due to scaling. Nuclear’s ‘vicious circle’ needs to be very rapidly transformed into a ‘virtuous circle’, which will require immediate risk mitigation solutions and unlocking capital flows well before scaling can begin.

From a financial risk management perspective, the nuclear sector poses excessive financial risk as it is measured in the form of the Value at Risk (“VaR”) metric. From a financier’s perspective, VaR can be described simply as: the amount of at-risk capital deployed and the probability of loss.

Because nuclear sector financings are both highly capital intensive and the real and perceived risks of the sector are viewed to be high, it is intuitive that the nuclear sector’s VaR profiles currently compare unfavourably against many other alternative asset classes.

Well that one sure is true!

A new nuclear investor

The proposed International Bank for Nuclear Infrastructure (IBNI) will be a new multilateral nuclear infrastructure bank that will be focused on enabling nuclear technology to rapidly scale and become both highly affordable and accessible within all its member countries, globally. Importantly, IBNI will finance and support both the production and supply chain (supply side) as well as the customer side (demand side) of the nuclear sector in member countries ranging from developing countries to highly developed ‘nuclear mature’ countries. The bank will act as the global early and long-term patient capital provider and it will finance and support all areas of the nuclear value spectrum on a technology-, vendor-, and country-neutral basis including new-build (Gen. III/ III+, Gen IV and future fusion, other); life-extensions and re-starts; refinancing and restructurings; fuel cycle (mining through repository); production and supply chains; nuclear infrastructure; and decommissioning and nuclear waste management projects, programs and industries.

IBNI will be capitalised, governed and operated using models similar to those that have been proven mission-successful by the world’s major global multilateral banks, which have been in existence for many decades. Those models include the World Bank Group (WBG); the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD); and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In other words, the IBNI will have an estimated 30+ sovereign governmental member shareholders, each with aligned views on nuclear energy and other global policy objectives. Whereas those existing ‘multilateral development banks’ like the WBG, EBRD and ADB are generally focused on missions such as economic development and poverty eradication (and generally, within defined geographies, developmental and/or income strata), IBNI – as a specialised ‘global nuclear infrastructure bank’ – will have a global mandate to finance and support nuclear sector projects, programmes and industries in all its member countries (not limited to geography, developmental status or income level). The existing multilateral banks are currently not providing any material support for the nuclear sector. While the change in longstanding policies of these institutions toward nuclear is highly encouraged and would be complimentary (not competitive), these institutions are ill-equipped to be seen as a substitute for IBNI’s proposed role as the global nuclear financing institution.

On the one hand, the bank will use its own capital to directly co-finance and support qualified nuclear projects based on the principle of ‘additionality’ (i.e. ‘bridging gaps’ throughout the nuclear value spectrum where existing public and private funding and financing are not adequately accessible on a cost-efficient basis). It is anticipated that the bank’s main commercial operating arm, the IBNI Ordinary Operations Fund will be a self-sustaining entity that will issue long-term debt in the global ‘sovereign and supranational bond markets’. Based on the strong shareholder liquidity and support offered by the bank’s shareholders, it is envisaged that the fund will achieve ‘triple-A’ credit ratings or the highest credit quality that will allow IBNI to borrow funds at the lowest cost and in turn, pass along lowest cost financing for the benefit of the bank’s programme participants. Certainly, accessing least-cost capital is one critical element that will drive down nuclear generation costs and enable nuclear technologies to achieve affordability targets, which are critical for enabling nuclear to scale.

On the other hand, and most importantly, where the bank aims to achieve the most significant global impacts will be in catalysing a highly significant ‘capital multiplier impact’, which represents the total quantum of global financial markets capital mobilised relative to each dollar of public investment (by sovereign shareholder member states) in the bank. IBNI’s advisory team projects that the bank should reasonably target a ‘capital multiplier impact’ of more than 100x, from the bank’s targeted establishment date in 2024/25 through 2050. Accordingly, the potential for the highly significant ‘capital multiplier impact’ effect targeted by IBNI will provide the highest value for money for each public dollar invested. Thus, a comparative investment in the bank would represent the most efficient means of achieving both national and global policy objectives, relative to strictly inward investments in a countries own nuclear sector’s domestic and bilateral initiatives (which the bank would not compete with).

COMMENT: utterly convincing? Not really.

Managing nuclear risk

In order to accomplish the bank’s core mission of scaling nuclear to attain a sustainable 2050 Net Zero World, IBNI will need to enable multidimensional risk mitigation solutions that will rapidly and sufficiently reduce nuclear sector VaR profiles to levels that become acceptable and in line with other similar infrastructure asset classes.

IBNI will implement programmes and offer customised financial product lines that will be engineered to systemically and progressively ‘flatten’ the VaR curves all across the nuclear sector. This ambition goes well beyond the necessary goal of developing market confidence through the necessary demonstration of global fleet deployments of serialised, repeatable, successful nuclear projects delivered within schedule and budget. IBNI will also serve as a global aggregator of an adopted set of universal nuclear-specific standards and criteria and the bank will aim to become a global institutional repository of nuclear financing expertise, which will become relied upon by investors, lenders and financing institutions for their own evaluation of nuclear sector financing transactions. Borrowing from the World Bank’s phraseology, IBNI will become the ‘Gold Standard’ of nuclear finance. While currently there are discrete elements of nuclear-specific financing standards and expertise available (from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development, and Equator Principles IV, International Finance Corporation Standards, for example), there is, by no means, the necessary comprehensive set of nuclear-specific financing standards and criteria, such as those that pertain to every other asset class which are available from the existing major multilateral financing institutions like the World Bank. Nuclear is a very unique asset class that deserves its own global financial institution that would have deep expertise within the sector and an understanding of the unique multidimensional risk elements of nuclear finance. Such an institution would be able to adopt a set of standards and criteria specific to these unique elements.

Without an IBNI, and despite the valiant combined efforts of individual governments, sporadic international cooperation and the nuclear industry itself, the nuclear sector’s ability to scale will most likely continue to be constrained and the ‘vicious circle’ will persist unbroken.

COMMENT. Yes – agreed – the nuclear sector’s ability to scale will most likely continue to be constrained and the ‘vicious circle’ will persist

IBNI offers a unique ‘whole of the world’ proposition that will enable the global nuclear sector to rapidly and efficiently break the ‘vicious circle’ that persistently plagues the sector. Only through a global and systemic approach toward mitigating nuclear’s multidimensional risk elements and sufficiently ‘flattening’ the nuclear sector’s VaR curves can the sector’s ‘vicious circle’ be transformed into a ‘virtuous circle’. IBNI offers this unique global risk mitigation solution which will enable the mobilisation of trillions of dollars of global capital necessary for the nuclear sector to scale in the near term.

This article first appeared in Nuclear Engineering International magazine.

March 21, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | energy, news, nuclear, nuclear-energy, nuclear-power | Leave a comment