Merkel declines to discuss with energy cos issue of nuclear plants' lifespan - Forbes.com

FRANKFURT (AFX) - Chancellor Angela Merkel has declined to discuss the issue of extending the lifespan of nuclear plants during last night's meeting with top managers of energy companies, sources said. They said the chief executives of RWE AG, E.ON AG, Vattenfall Europe AG and Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG told Merkel there was a need to allow utilities to continue operating their nuclear plants beyond the current limit. Merkel, however, refused to discuss the issue, sources said. Representatives of the German government coalition have previously stated they will not scrap the deal reached between the utility companies and the previous government led by Gerhard Schroeder. That agreement states that nuclear plants have to be shut down after they have been in operation for 32 years.

Telegraph News The nuclear option

Despite their pragmatic attitude to nuclear fuel, it has not passed the Finns by as they build Europe's first nuclear reactor in over a decade (see today's print story Finns give nuclear power a positive reaction) that this month marks the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
The people I spoke to in the municipality of Eurajoki, which is home to the Olkiluoto plants (see www.olkiluoto.info), recalled vividly the events of 26 April 1986.
When alarms rang at the plant signalling that something was wrong, it took the Finnish government 48 hours to react. It wasn't until the Swedish government broadcast the news, followed by the Ukrainians, that it was finally taken seriously.
Many have not forgiven their government for that. Reindeer meat was off the menu for months because it was so contaminated due to the animals' dependence on lichen (which itself was heavily contaminated).
Washing that had been drying on the line at the time was mostly thrown away.
The council leader, Juha Jaakola, told me that they immediately redesigned their plans for the town hall to provide a bunker where school children could be sent in case of a similar accident happening on Olkiluoto. Now it is used as a bowling alley, but it is still intended to function as a bunker in an emergency.
Even two decades on, the berries and mushrooms in much of Finland are still affected by the fall-out. Yet the Finns in their admirably pragmatic way have for the most part managed to draw a line under the incident, viewing it as belonging to another age, another era of technology, another political system.
The same thing, they insist, could never happen at their plants. A so-called core catcher ensures that a meltdown could be carefully controlled and, say the safety experts, the plant will be able to withstand the impact of the largest fully-tanked jet planes.
The Finns admit it's not necessarily ideal, but ask what else they can do in an age in which energy has shot to the top of the political agenda.
Whatever one's feelings on nuclear power, the Germans could certainly do with taking a leaf out of Finland's book when it comes to the question of whether it has a future in Europe or not.
In Germany, where nuclear provides half of the energy needs, the debate is more emotionally charged than anywhere else in Europe.
But with only 38 per cent in favour of it, there's great support for the parliamentary decision made in 2000 to phase out nuclear power, and a great deal of resistance to mutterings within the conservative wing of the new government to reverse that in the light of the current energy debate.
Christian Wilson, from the French-German company which designed the Finnish plant, and himself a German, maybe tries to simplify the issue too much when he says: "Nuclear power is normal energy production with all its advantages and disadvantages."
He also rather dubiously claims that it is safer than mining, which kills hundreds of people every year. But he gives a good analysis of the German attitude.
"It's to do with its history and the resulting pacifism, 1968 and the rise of the Greens, who played a prominent role in government. You have to approach the nuclear question very carefully and from a very particular angle when you're talking to the Germans."
He concludes that what Germany needs is a shortage of electricity, which there has not been since the war and which would soon win them over to the idea of nuclear.
"If your electricity is always there to power your bakeries, hospitals and public transport you don't have to care about how it is produced," he says. "Germany has had a very solid grid since the war so has never had to think about where it comes from."
But a new film is likely to have the opposite effect. The Cloud is the fictional account of a horrendous nuclear accident in Bavaria which kills 38,000 people within a short time. Chaos breaks out and Germany is relegated to the status of a third-world country.
It is based on a book by Gudrun Pausewang which has been on the school curriculum since its publication following the Chernobyl disaster.
And just to push the point home that although fiction, it could indeed happen, viewers are informed that Germany has 18 nuclear power stations which have registered 114 "accidents" since 2004 alone.
It is not necessarily a useful way to pursue the debate.
It's a shame that the German filmmaker did not make instead a film about the real-life tragedy of Chernobyl which ruined thousands of lives, rather than one which feeds an already angst-ridden nation with a scaremongering but thankfully hypothetical version of a nightmarish series of events.

Reuters Business Channel Reuters.com

Questions emerge on India's nuclear power push
Mon Apr 3, 2006 6:53 AM ET
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By Rajat Bhattacharya and Anirban Nag
SINGAPORE/MUMBAI (Reuters) - India could pay an exorbitant price and still fail to strengthen its energy security by accelerating the development of its nascent nuclear power industry with the help of the United States.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's pact with U.S. President George W. Bush last month, which promised to give India access to closely guarded nuclear fuels, was seen as the answer to the rapidly developing country's quest for unlimited energy supplies.
But dissent has begun to emerge as uranium fuel prices surge and questions about the hidden costs of decommissioning, waste disposal and insurance arise. Then there is the specter of accidents and terrorist attacks on nuclear plants in one of the world's most densely populated countries.
Some say by pushing for nuclear power with U.S. help, Singh's government could be bartering one form of bondage, that to Middle East oil and gas suppliers, with another -- that to a 45-nation club of nuclear fuel suppliers -- to secure its energy needs.
"The deal will help revive the decrepit U.S. nuclear power industry but slow down India's own search for energy security," said Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
"Yet those pushing the deal fight shy of discussing the economics of generating electricity from high-priced imported reactors dependent on imported fuel. Creating a new Indian dependency on imports is not a path to energy security."
Instead of joining the global renaissance of nuclear power, driven in part by the soaring cost of natural gas and environmental penalties against using coal, he said India should tap more of its vast coal and hydroelectric reserves.
Both could be cheaper in the long run than investing the $50 billion needed to build as many as 25 nuclear power plants by 2020, and would do more to ensure its energy security.
ENERGY DEFICIENT
A shortage of energy has been India's Achilles' heel since the country aimed to ratchet up economic growth in the 1950s.
India currently imports 70 percent of its oil, mostly from the politically volatile Middle East. While China and India have similar coal reserves, among the highest in the world, China is producing its own resources four times more quickly.
The nuclear agreement, if approved by the U.S. Congress, promises to end India's nuclear isolation and allow nuclear suppliers such as U.S.-based General Electric (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research), British Nuclear Fuels, France's Areva (CEPFi.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) and Japan's Toshiba Corp. (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) to sell fuel and components to India's atomic power plants.
But nuclear power plants lose out to other forms of energy generation in terms of construction costs.
P.S. Bami, president of India Energy Forum, New Delhi, said the cost of building nuclear power plants works out to 60-70 million rupees ($1.6 million) per megawatt compared with 30-40 million rupees for thermal power.
He says the costs converge after a decade of generation.
In the long run, a study by India's Planning Commission found that the marginal cost of supplying nuclear power was higher than thermal power for atomic plants built in India's coal-rich eastern region and the riverine northern regions and was slightly cheaper in the country's south and west.
These studies exclude the additional billions of dollars required to dispose of nuclear waste and to shut down the facilities at the end of their 35-40-year life. Moreover, the price of uranium fuel has tripled in the past 18 months.
Chellaney adds that India's limited uranium deposits mean it will have to depend on imports from the club of 45 nuclear material suppliers for this critical nuclear fuel.
"The global nuclear reactor and fuel business, controlled by a tiny cartel of state-guided firms, is the most politically regulated commerce in the world, with no sanctity of contract," Chellaney said.
The United States halted the supply of fuels to India's two nuclear plants built by General Electric in the 1960s after the country conducted its first nuclear tests in 1974.
But Bami, who backs the U.S.-India partnership, said short-term costs could not be the sole determinants for choosing energy sources for a country where energy requirements are growing at 10 percent annually.
"The price of which commodity has not risen? We have to be practical," he said.
"The overall life cycle of a nuclear power plant is very competitive compared to a thermal plant. It could also prove to be a reliable source of energy once the agreement is approved."
S. Chandrasekharan, director of New Delhi-based think tank South Asia Analysis Group, said the U.S.-India nuclear pact was beneficial but not sufficient to bolster India's energy security.
"Right now, nuclear energy makes up only 3 percent and with nuclear fuel likely to be available, by 2010 India could raise it to 20 percent. This essentially means that India cannot live by nuclear energy alone," he said. (With additional reporting by Jonathan Leff in Singapore)

NTI: Global Security Newswire - Monday, April 3, 2006

Yucca Mountain Expected to Open by 2020
The U.S. Energy Department official leading planning for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada expects the facility to open by 2020, the Associated Press reported Saturday (see GSN, March 2).
The department is preparing legislation that would ensure funding and create a permanent site for the repository, said Paul Golan, acting director of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Office. Golan said the department is open to the idea of interim waste storage at other sites until Yucca Mountain is finished.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said early in March that the bill would be ready within a month, and Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) said last week he was prepared to submit his own legislation if one does not arrive soon from the administration.
Golan said he anticipated the Energy Department would submit its license application in 2008, followed a dozen years later by the opening of Yucca to nuclear waste.
The site now is authorized to hold 70,000 metric tons of defense and commercial waste; 55,000 tons are already stored around the nation.
Golan said the department is beginning preparations on a report to Congress on the need for a second nuclear waste repository. He acknowledged, however, that any such proposal was likely to raise controversy.
“You don’t want it in your backyard?” he said.
He added that the Bush administration’s new plan to study reprocessing nuclear waste could delay the need for a second facility.
“If we can actually get a little bit better on closing the fuel cycle here, that’s going to be very important in minimizing the volume of future waste that we’re going to have to deal with,” he said (Erica Werner, Associated Press/Salt Lake Tribune, April 1).

NTI: Global Security Newswire

U.S. to Propose New Yucca Mountain Radiation Rule
By Joe FiorillGlobal Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials said yesterday that they plan this year to complete a proposal for new radiation standards at the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository in Nevada (see GSN, Feb. 21).
Speaking at a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the Energy Department and Environmental Protection Agency officials defended their proposed standards for acceptable radiation levels put out by the controversial waste dump. The most recent proposal by the environmental agency, issued in August 2005, called for limiting radiation from the site to 15 millirems a year for 10,000 years and to 350 millirems a year thereafter.
The officials expressed hope that the project could soon move forward after years of controversy and delay.
“We could spend another 20 years and several more billions of dollars and arrive at the conclusion that we need to study Yucca Mountain more before we can proceed, [but] the waste is here today,” said Energy’s acting head for the project, Paul Golan of the department’s Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Office.
Yucca Mountain was designed to hold 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, a figure that lawmakers have considered increasing, since the site would reach that capacity soon after opening. Congress in 1992 first directed the Environmental Protection Agency to set radiation standards for a waste dump at the site, and the agency now says the earliest the facility could open would be 2012.
Golan said a new “clean canister” approach at Yucca Mountain is in the works that would sharply limit human exposure to spent fuel and would eliminate the need for dry-cask facilities to contain the material. He said the department hoped by “later this spring” to complete new designs for the facility based on the approach.
Environmental Protection Agency acting assistant administrator William Wehrum told senators the 10,000-year limit of 15 millirems is as stringent as any now in force in the country. He said the agency hoped to complete a new regulation incorporating the standards by year’s end.
Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) expressed support for at last moving forward at the site, calling Yucca “certainly the most well-studied mountain in the world.”
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), though, was less sanguine about the project, which he opposed.“The proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump I don't believe ... will ever be built,” Reid said.
He said Energy “has simply not addressed at all” the security and environmental risks of shipping spent fuel to the dump and called it “obvious that unsound science is prevailing at Yucca Mountain.”
Reid advocated striving for better waste-storage technology and, in the meantime, leaving spent fuel at the sites where it is now housed and storing it in dry casks.
“It’ll be safe there for at least 50 years, and thereafter, we’ll have some idea of what to do with it,” he said.
“It will never open,” he said of Yucca Mountain, “yet we must safely store spent nuclear fuel, so it’s time to look at other alternatives.”
Senator John Ensign (R-Nev.), with whom Reid is sponsoring a bill to mandate the on-site, dry-cask approach, added, “the Department of Energy no longer even pretends to know when Yucca might open or how much it will cost.”