Four "new" reactor projects cancelled in Texas and North Carolina

Industry plans for four new reactor projects in Texas and North Carolina have collapsed.

Reports the Dallas News: "Plans to build two new reactors at the South Texas Project nuclear facility outside Bay City hit a road block Tuesday. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled that a partnership between NRG and Toshiba Corp. through the holding company Nuclear Innovation North America violated a U.S law prohibiting foreign control of nuclear power plants." The holding company will appeal. The case appears similar if not identical to the situation at Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Maryland. There, Électricité de France was left as sole owner of a proposed third reactor after U.S. partner, Constellation Energy pulled out, leaving the French utility flying solo in the umbrella corporation they had created, UniStar. Foreign ownership and domination of a US reactor is prohibited under federal law via the Atomic Energy Act. Meanwhile, back at NRC Headquarters, federal officials are making a "fresh assessment" of the foreign ownership prohibition and how it might be modified for a voting paper to be handed over to the Nuclear "Railroad" Commissioners.

In North Carolina, the nuclear retreat continues apace. Duke Energy suspended its application for two new reactor units at its Shearon Harris site in North Carolina. The company said it saw no resource need for two new reactors based on the likely electricity needs of its customers for at least the next 15 years.  Although Duke continues to pursue plans for new reactors at Levy, FL and Gaffney, SC it has no firm commitment to either plant.

LA City Council tells NRC to put the brakes on San Onofre restart

A unanimous Los Angeles City Council has demanded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) conduct extended investigations before any restart at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Writes Harvey Wasserman: "On April 23, Los Angeles’ 11 city council members approved a resolution directing the NRC to “make no decision about restarting either San Onofre unit” until it conducts a “prudent, transparent and precautionary” investigation. The city wants “ample opportunity” for public comment and confirmation that “mandated repairs, replacements or other actions” have been completed to guarantee the public safety." There is intense opposition to the re-start of the San Onofre reactors after faulty steam generators were installed at the plant and tubes began to spring leaks. San Onofre 2 and 3 have been shuttered since January 2012. San Onofre 1 is permanently closed.

No nuclear "renaissance;" just resuscitation

The US Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook, 2013 takes a look at the future of nuclear energy in the US, with graphs showing that a continued role in the US electricity market is dependent on extending current 40-year operation licenses out to 60 years. The practice of propping up old reactors well into their geriatric years - where safety becomes ever more compromised - has been routinely adopted by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But new construction, even if projects at Vogtle,  Summer and Watts Bar reach completion, will make only a small contribution, just 5.5 GW of new capacity. Renewable energy is expected to add 104 GW of new capacity by 2040.

The report also notes that "Key drivers include changes in the price of natural gas as well as the possible future operation of existing nuclear power plants beyond the 60-year period for which most units are currently licensed." With nuclear construction costs high and natural gas prices low, new nuclear construction is unattractive. More.

Japan should pull the plug on reprocessing: editorial

Now that the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) - Japan's equivalent to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission - has put a hold on starting up the Rokkasho reprocessing plant (pictured), the Asahi Shimbun, a leading Japan daily newspaper, has called in an editorial for a cancellation of the project. The NRA will not allow pre-operational tests at the plant until new safety standards are in place. The Asahi Shimbun wisely opines: "We need to face the fact that the government’s program to establish a nuclear fuel recycling system is as good as dead. If the plant starts operating, the plutonium it churns out will pile up with no definite plan to use it. The situation could spark concerns within the international community that Japan’s nuclear power generation might contribute to nuclear proliferation."

An additional reason to abandon the reprocessing plan is that "the project to develop fast breeder reactors, which are supposed to play a central role in the recycling system, has been stalled for years due to a series of problems at the Monju fast breeder prototype reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. There is little prospect for commercialization of the technology."

Groups like Green Action have been fighting for years to prevent the start-up of Rokkasho. Victory now looks a step closer.

Former NRC Chairman Jaczko calls for all U.S. atomic reactors to be shut down

Gregory Jaczko, who served as U.S. NRC Chairman from 2009-2012As reported by the New York Times, former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko recently came to the realization that all U.S. atomic reactors have unfixable safety flaws, and should be shut down. He added, however, that "new and improved" so-called small modular reactors could take their place.

Jaczko thinks that perhaps none of the reactors that have received NRC rubber-stamps for 20-year license extensions will ever last that long, in reality, let alone an additional 20-year extension NRC is currently flirting with the idea of allowing (40 years of initial operation, plus two 20-year license extensions, adding up to 80 years of operations!).

Oyster Creek, NJ (a Mark I) is the oldest still-running reactor in the U.S., although it is already planned to close by 2019, ten years short of its 20-year extension. Dominion Nuclear has also announced the permanent shutdown of Kewaunee in WI next month, although it still have decades of permitted operations on its license.

Ironically, Jaczko himself approved many 20-year license extensions, including at Palisades in MI (opposed by NIRS and a state-wide environmental coalition) and Vermont Yankee (opposed by the vast majority of Green Mountain State residents and elected officials). Jaczko even voted to not hearing Beyond Nuclear's contentions at the Seabrook, NH and Davis-Besse, OH license extension proceedings regarding renewable alternatives, such as wind power, to the 20-year extensions at the dangerously degraded old reactors.

Jaczko reached out to Beyond Nuclear in May 2012 to set up a meeting between his entourage from NRC and concerned local residents and environmental group representatives near Palisades after he toured the problem-plagued reactor. During the closed-door meeting, concerned locals pressed Jaczko on why the 42-year-old, dangerously age-degraded reactor was allowed to operate. He responded, ironically enough, given his yes vote on Palisades' license extension in 2007, that once NRC grants an atomic reactor a license to operate, there is little that can then be done about it.

Jaczko did, however, earn the enmity of the nuclear power industry and his fellow NRC Commissioners, as by his past work against the proposed Yucca Mountain dumpsite, his invocation of emergency powers during the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, and his votes against proposed new reactors in GA and SC because Fukushima "lessons learned" had not yet been applied or required. Although Jaczko often voted the industry's way, as above, he didn't always (often the sole dissenting vote), making him "insufficiently pro-nuclear" for the nuclear establishment, as Beyond Nuclear board member and investigative journalist Karl Grossman put it.

Jaczko was first appointed to the NRC Commission in 2005. In 2009, President Obama appointed him the chair the agency, which he did till 2012. He had previously worked on Capitol Hill, as a staffer for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), and as a science fellow for U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), working on the Yucca Mountain and other nuclear power and radioactive waste issues.