"American Dream" looks over for EDF

Électricité de France, the French utility originally planning to expand nuclear energy in the U.S. through construction of the French EPR reactor, is backing away from the U.S. market. Having already been left stranded by its US partner, Constellation, at the planned Calvert Cliffs, MD new reactor site, EDF's French chairman and chief executive, Henri Proglio, now says EDF will look for business elsewhere. For EDF, the world's biggest nuclear operator, the U.S. represents "a significant stake but not an essential one," he told The Wall Street Journal in an interview in his central Paris office.

Trouble-plagued nuclear industry shuts down two reactors on the same day

The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, up for sale and scheduled to close in 2012, was shut down Sunday evening after radioactive water escaped from a pipe leading to the reactor. Meanwhile, half an hour earlier, at Unit 2 of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, NY, a transformer exploded causing the shutdown of that reactor. Both plants are owened by Entergy and have been plagued by leaks, mainly of tritium. Vermont Yankee has also endured a fire and the collapse of its cooling towers (pictured). Newly-elected Vermont Governor, Peter Shumlin, a former State Senator, led the charge to get the plant closed on schedule in March 2012, a move the State Senate approved last February.

Vermont Yankee reactor rocked by election day results!

Less than two weeks after Vermont Yankee (VY) sprung yet another radioactive leak from aged, degraded systems, the headlines in the "hometown paper" of the nuclear power plant, the Brattleboro Reformer, hold huge implications for the future -- or lack thereof -- of the highly controversial, nearly 40 year old reactor: "Dubie Concedes to Shumlin," that is, Democrat Peter Shumlin, who led last February's 26 to 4 victory in the Vermont State Senate to block VY's 20 year license extension, defeated pro-nuclear Republican Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie in Vermont's gubernatorial race on Nov. 2nd; and "VY eminent domain issue gets nod," that is, VY even lost a referendum in its hometown when Brattleboro voters approved a measure urging the state to study the potential to take over and shut down VY. Entergy Nuclear's response to all this bad news about VY's future prospects? "Entergy to put Vermont Yankee on market"!

No new deal for EDF as Constellation exits Maryland reactor project

Constellation officially dropped its demand to sell its former partner, Electricite De France, a large portfolio of conventional power-generating stations but exited its partnership with the French utility to build a French reactor at Calvert Cliffs, Maryland. Constellation departed with a $140 million buyout and will get back 3.5 million Constellation shares bought by EDF in December 2008. However, as a foreign corporation, EDF cannot move forward with the Maryland reactor project without a majority U.S. partner. To date, no new candidates have stepped forward. Constellation withdrew due to financial concerns after the U.S. Energy Department asked for a fee of $880 million to compensate taxpayers for the risk they would take on a loan guarantee of about $7.6 billion, a fee Constellation said would doom the project.

"Honey, I Shrunk the Renaissance: Nuclear Revival, Climate Change, and Reality"

In this Electricity Policy article, former NRC Commissioner Peter Bradford writes "The 'nuclear renaissance' has proven to be a promotion that cannot pass economic muster." Perhaps alluding to The Little Prince, he adds "The nuclear renaissance experience looks like a drawing of a python that has swallowed a pig -- a flat line, a bulge and a flat line."