News March 2018

The decommissioning of the Fukushima nuclear power plant will cost an annual US$2 billion (220 billion yen) until 2021, an unnamed source told the Japan Times. Half of the money will be used to tackle the radioactive water buildup at the site of the plant and for removing radioactive fuel from the fuel pools. A small amount of funds will be used to research ways of retreating melted fuel from the reactors that got damaged during the 2011 tsunami disaster. The US$6 billion for the three years is only part of the total estimated cost for taking Fukushima out of operation. The total decommissioning tally came in at US$75 billion (8 trillion yen), as estimated by the specially set up Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corp (NDF). That’s four times more than the initial estimate of the costs around the NPP’s decommissioning. Now the operator of Fukushima, Tepco, and the NDF are due to submit their financial plan for the facility to the government for approval by the energy industry minister. In addition to the US$6 billion allocated for the cleanup, Tepco will spend another US$1.88 billion (200 billion yen) on preparing to start extracting the melted fuel from the three damaged reactors. This seems to be the biggest challenge for the cleanup efforts because of the still high radiation levels as well as technical difficulties.

Oil Price 30th March 2018 read more »

Kyushu Electric Power Co. stopped generating electricity at the Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture on Saturday after a steam leak was detected in a reactor the previous day. The utility said that no radiation leaked and that it will inspect the reactor, which resumed operation just a week ago. According to Kyushu Electric, at around 7 p.m. Friday staff discovered steam leaking from the pipe of a device used to remove oxygen and other dissolved gases from feedwater used in steam generators. Reactor 3 resumed operation on March 23 after being offline for over seven years amid concerns about how to evacuate residents near the plant in a serious accident. It resumed power generation two days later.

Japan Times 31st March 2018 read more »

Citing “market challenges,” electric utility FirstEnergy says it will close three nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania, while at the same time asking the Department of Energy for immediate help to keep its fleet of coal and nuclear plants open. The company, which could be near bankruptcy according to a report at cleveland.com, gave regional grid operator PJM interconnection notice that it will deactivate Beaver Valley Power Station and two other plants — Davis-Besse in Oak Harber, Ohio, and Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio — by 2021. The company says 2,300 employees would be impacted by the closures; most would be laid off, a spokesman said. The plants produce 4,000 megawatts of power, enough electricity to power about 4 million homes.

State Impact 29th March 2018 read more »

Washington Post 29th March 2018 read more »

Sixty years ago, nuclear power was the energy of the future, promising a nearly limitless supply of clean, cheaper power. That future has yet to arrive. In fact, today, utilities are increasingly transitioning out of nuclear generation, shuttering aging reactors and shelving plans to reinvest in new technology. This is more than just a shift from one fuel to another, says David Gattie, an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Georgia. The decline in interest in nuclear energy has significant impacts on America’s national security. “Nuclear energy is a unique resource because of its unmatched energy density and dual-purpose utility for electric power generation and nuclear weaponry,” Gattie writes in a recently published paper. “Triple-purpose if applications in medicine are included. However, the U.S. made critical policy decisions in the past that have carried forward and compromised America’s capacity to advance in the civilian nuclear power space.” Although American scientists began the atomic age, more recently, research and development in nuclear technology, including civilian nuclear, has decreased to a level that threatens American primacy and, by extension, national security.

Inside Sources 29th March 2018 read more »

Krzysztof Tchórzewski, Poland’s Minister of Energy, has said that he wants a decision on the construction of a nuclear power plant to be taken as quickly as possible. His statement comes as the Polish energy industry is beginning to feel the pressure of the country’s race against time to reduce its CO2 emissions. “We need to decide on investment in nuclear energy. All our analyses show that we must go in this direction,” Mr Tchórzewski said during a debate at the Welconomy Forum in Toruń. The minister’s statement demonstrates that the government is aware of the need to accelerate its decision making. In January, Mr Tchórzewski had announced that a decision on nuclear energy would not be made until the middle of the year.

Emerging Europe 30th March 2018 read more »

The federal government, meeting in a restricted Council of Ministers, has reached an agreement on the energy pact. Charles Michel confirms the exit of the nuclear power in 2025 and announces a bill allowing new production capacities. New areas will be defined for wind farm construction.

Le Soir 30th March 2018 read more »