The state owned utility, ENEL, has made brave efforts to keep in touch with nuclear technology and is participating in the Mochovce-3 & 4 projects in Slovakia and in two new reactors at Cernavoda-3 & 4 in Romania. In addition ENEL has an agreement with Electricite de France (EDF) to take 12.5% of the output of the 1600 MWe EPR being built at Flamanville-3 with 52 of its engineers participating directly in the project. A similar participation will be offered by EDF for future EPR projects in France while EDF has an option to participate in any projects in Italy.

The Italian government has a plan to start constructing new nuclear plants in 2013 with an ambitious target of producing 25% of its electricity from nuclear by 2030. That means 13 GWe of capacity which could be produced by eight EPRs or 12 AP 1000s.

Earthquake effect
It is now accepted that four reactor at Kashiwazaki Kariva in Japan were exposed to a much greater level of seismic ground movement due to the July 2007 earthquake than had been used in the design criteria. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which carried out an independent review, has reported that ground movement of 270 to 650 Gal was actually experienced compared with the design figure of 450 Gal. Even so they concluded that there were adequate margins built into the design and the reactors remained safe during and after the quake. None the less the plants have been subjected to an extended shut down while the safety standard was reset at 1000 Gal and investigations made to ensure that they were good for the increased load.

The plants, operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), are now being put back into service. It included two 1350 MWe advanced boiling water reactors which are the first third generation plants to operate. The shut down put a considerable burden on TEPCO operations but all now looks good.

Now it is Spain
The latest country to show interest in building a new nuclear plant in the UK is Spain. Iberdrola, a large Spanish utility, along with Gas de France Suez of France have entered into a partnership to jointly participate in the construction of new nuclear plant in the UK. They plan to work with Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) and to join in the forthcoming site auction. Good luck to them. They are a very sound company with nuclear operating experience.

India interested in EPR
The Jaitapur site in India has been named as a potential location for up to six European Pressurized Water Reactors (EPR). The French company Areva signed a memorandum of understanding recently with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited. Up till now India’s only deviation from its domestic heavy water reactor (Candu type) has been two Russian built pressurized water reactors. This is the first indication of interest in the wider international market and the French, after the relaxation of embargoes on selling nuclear plant to India, are pleased to be offering their EPR which they are building in Finland, France and soon China. The EPR is also the choice of some US utilities and is likely to be offered in the UK.

Another Finnish plant
Fennovoima has submitted an application to the Finnish government to build another nuclear power plant. This is in addition to the additional plants proposed by Fortom for either Lovisa or Olkiluto. The company has already conducted the environmental impact studies that are required before seeking government approval. A decision is now expected in the coming year. A construction start is envisaged in 2012 and operation by 2020.

The proposed plant would have a capacity of 1500 to 2500 MWe which could mean one reactor of 1600 MWe like the EPR being built at Olkilluoto or two smaller units.

Fennovoima is a new consortium formed in 2007 with 60% held by Power Company SF and 34% by the Nordic subsidiary of the German utility EOn. Power Company SF is 55% owned by Finnish industry and 45% by local and regional energy companies. Each of the 64 shareholders in Fennovoima will be able to take electricity output at cost price from the station in proportion to their shares.

Another EPR
French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has confirmed that Electricite de France (EdF) will build a second European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) at Penley, the site of two operating 1300 MWe near Dieppe. Gas De France Suez will hold a minority stake in the project and EdF are also committed to offering the Italian utility, ENEL, a share. A public debate will be held and the project hopes to be ready for a start of construction in 2012. This would allow operation by 2017. This is considered significant as it suggest that EdF is now building to meet expected demand rather than ordering ahead of need which was said to be the case with the first French EPR unit now being constructed at Flamanville-3. There is a possibility for another unit – which could also be built at Penley – in which GdF Suez could assume majority ownership.

Siemens parts company with French
The German company, which held 34% in a joint venture with France’s Areva Nuclear Power, has pulled out. This is partly due to the contract for the steam generator and associated equipment on the latest French nuclear plants going to Alstom. At the plant being built in Finland this plant is being provided by Siemens but their big French competitor, Alstom, has an alternative of the Aribelle steam turbine which it is supplying for Flamanville-3, at two EPR units at Taisham in China and three proposals in the US. The Germans are also unlikely to get a look in with further units being talked about in France though they are thought still to have a role in EPRs being proposed for the UK. Areva plans to buy the Siemens share for an estimated 2 billion Eur ($2.6 billion).

The Germans, who took up their partnership with the French in 2001, are now looking towards the establishment of a partnership with the Russian company Rosatom. This would allow them to maintain a strong interest in the nuclear power field as Rosatom is gaining a stronger position in international markets.

Decarbonising electricity One of the more welcome features of the first report from the newly formed Climate Change Committee was the recognition that the critical step in meeting the target of an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will be in eliminating fossil fuels in generating electricity. Hitherto there has been an almost obsessive belief that the principal means of mitigating the effect of climate change was to increase the share of ‘renewable’ energies. This can be seen in the binding target set by the EU to combat climate change that 20% of energy (15% in the case of the UK) should come from renewable sources.. Decarbonising goes further in recognising the potential contribution of nuclear power – greenhouse gas free – in reducing total emissions. A 20% target for ‘decarbonised’ electricity would have been more realistic in terms of energy security, reliability of supply, and cost. Likewise the scope of the UK draft ‘Renewable Energy Strategy’ should be widened to a ‘Decarbonised Energy Strategy’.

In June last year John Hutton, then Secretary of State of the BERR, declared that “Increasing renewable energy is a key element of our strategy for delivering our two key goals of tackling climate change and ensuring that the UK has a secure supply of affordable energy.” Both these aims can be more readily achieved by increasing decarbonised energy. With the addition of nuclear power the supply of energy will certainly be more secure than from the intermittency of wind – unless the wind is supported by backup from standby fossil fired stations which will only add to greenhouse gas emissions, while the burden on the consumers of the subsidy they pay for renewable electricity through the Renewables Obligation makes it a more costly option than nuclear power.

The UK share of the EU target, is that 15% of energy supply by 2020 should come from renewables. This is almost certainly beyond reach – it would require that 40% of our electricity generation came from renewables. As Hutton admitted it “may (may? – surely would) require a tenfold increase in renewable generation in the UK from 2006 levels. This might mean, for example, needing up to an extra 4 000 onshore and 3 000 offshore wind turbines.” On the other hand by decarbonising electricity generation the UK could go a long way towards meeting the requirements for an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. The Climate Change Committee report gives the shares of greenhouse gas emissions for the main emitters in the UK for 2006 as electricity generation 28%, transport 23%, industry 19% and residential 13%. Moving towards a complete decarbonisation of electricity generation would then give a 28% reduction in emissions. But the additional measures the committee foresaw, such as an increase in the number of electric vehicles and technological advances in industrial processes, would lead to a greater electricity consumption so that the share of emissions from those sectors would be reduced, while with the resulting increase in electricity consumption the share of emissions from electricity generation might rise to about 50% of the UK total with the possibility of further increase as the consumption of fossil fuels declines. Full decarbonisation of electricity generation could then lead to a 50% reduction in UK total emissions.

Such a complete decarbonisation is possible. Some countries are already close. In Switzerland fossil fuels account for just under 2% of generation (55% hydro and 40% nuclear); in Sweden under 3%, in France under 10%. At the other end of the scale the share of fossil fuel in electricity in Poland is 97%, Netherlands 86%, Italy 82%, Denmark 78% and UK 75%. (EIA figures for 2006) It would be quite possible for the UK (and others) to move closer to the French position within the next 20-30 years. Following a government decision in 1974, after the first oil shock, Electricité de France (EDF) commissioned 34 reactors of 900MW within an 11 year period, 1977-1988. This was followed by 20 reactors of 1300 MWe which came into operation between 1985-1999, and 4 units of 1450 MWe between 1996-2000. The latest 2 units of 1650 MWe are now under construction at Flammanville. The 59 nuclear reactors operated by EDF with total capacity of over 63 GWe now supply over 430 billion kWh per year of electricity, 78% of the total generated in France. Regrettably the UK no longer has a nuclear reactor industry of its own. Can we now look to EDF, EoN, RWE and Westinghouse – (under its new owners) – for a similar nuclear renaissance?

Don’t give up
Decarbonisation is the answer to the more pessimistic and indeed alarmist forecasts of climate change, as in an article in the Guardian of 17th March by G. Monbiot. This is headed by the assertion that “However unlikely success might be, we can't afford to abandon efforts to cut emissions…”.

But success in cutting emissions is not unlikely – with a decarbonised electricity supply, supported by small scale nuclear heat units, it is already within our grasp. While practical measures to adapt to a warmer climate will go as long way to alleviating the problems that may occur. To wring our hands and pretend that wind or in the future, wave and solar power will meet all our needs, together with drastic cuts in energy usage is a counsel of despair.

False Hope
We rarely agree with Greenpeace, but thre is much in their report on why carbon capture and storage will not save the climate to justify its title – “False Hope”. It repeats in detail many of the arguments we have put forward, on cost, safety and general impracticability. But then we differ. Greenpeace sees the alternative in renewable energy, we in nuclear power. Now there is a third assessment which is equally sceptical of the claims for CCS. An article in the Economist of March 5th under the provocative title “Trouble in Store” adds its weight to the side of the doubters. CCS, favoured by politicians is seen as an act of faith, and as ‘essential’ in the Stern review. It would allow the burning of coal, a plentiful, but dirty fuel without adding to the discharge of carbon dioxide. But as the Economist observes “Despite all this enthusiasm, however, there is not a single big power plant using CCS anywhere in the world. Utilities refuse to build any, since the technology is expensive and unproven. Advocates insist that the price will come down with time and experience, but it is hard to say by how much, or who should bear the extra cost in the meantime.” While oil companies have some experience of pumping carbon dioxide into depleting oil wells to enhance recovery they have not been particularly concerned what happens to the gas after it has been used. One example is the Sleipner gas field where up to 1 million tonnes/year of carbon dioxide have been injected into a saline aquifer since 1996. A 2008 survey confirmed that no leakage has been detected. But this is more a case of making the best of a bad job. The natural gas from Sleipner has a high, 9%, content of carbon dioxide which if released to the atmosphere would, under Norwegian environmental legislation, incur a penalty of over €40 a tonne.

As the Economist points out one of the problems with CCS is the cost. The chemical steps in the capture consume energy, as do the compression and transport of the carbon dioxide, generally estimated to use up a quarter or more of the output of a power station. “So plants with CCS will need to be at least a third bigger than normal ones to generate the same net amount of power, and will also consume at least a third more fuel. In addition, there is the extra expense of building the capture plant and the injection pipelines.” On this last point the National Grid has indicated that a proposed carbon transport network for five large coal stations around the Humber estuary would cost some £5 billion.

A range of estimates are quoted by the Economist for the cost of CCS per tonne of CO2 avoided, but these, up to €90 per tonne, go far beyond the EU price for carbon trading at about €10 per tonne. Carbon trading does not give enough certainty about future carbon prices to justify a company investing €1 billion in a CCS plant, without generous subsidies. “So CCS might not be financially worthwhile for years to come.” The other major uncertainty is leakage. Here the Economist refers to the Greenpeace claim that it is impossible to be certain that carbon dioxide will not eventually leak out of the ground. Carbon dioxide forms an acid when it dissolves in water. This acid can react with minerals to eat through the man-made seals or geological strata intended to keep it in place. A leakage rate of just 1% a year, would lead to 63% of the carbon dioxide stored in any given reservoir being released within 100 years, almost entirely undoing the supposed environmental benefit.

Leakages would also be a health risk, since carbon dioxide is heavier than air, and so can build up in low-lying or poorly ventilated areas. Several leakages from natural carbon dioxide reservoirs are known to have occurred which, in the worst case caused many deaths. A public that is sensitive to the burial of small quantities of inert radioactive waste – which eventually decays – is not likely to willingly accept the burial of many millions of tonnes of a lethal, volatile, and reactive gas that will continue to pose a hazard for all time.

Yesterday’s problem Global Laser Enrichment, (GLE), a company comprising GE, Hitachi and the Canadian uranium producer Cameco has applied for a license to build a laser enrichment plant in North Carolina using the Silex technology developed in Australia, and licensed to GE-Hitachi. This application is an indication that GLE is confident that this technology is now established and ready for commercial production. Indeed it says that some major components are now in the process of being manufactured and delivered for installation. The licensing process, mainly covering environmental matters is now underway, and is expected to be finalised in about 30 months.

While laser separation can be seen as the latest step in the advancing technology of uranium enrichment, succeeding the diffusion and the later centrifuge process, it has more in common with the first separation of U-235 by electro-magnetic separation in the early 1940’s. The Smythe report of 1945 – the Official Report on the Development of the Atomic Bomb – records that an electromagnetic separation plant was in large-scale operation during the winter of 1944-1945, and produced U-235 of sufficient purity for use in atomic bombs.

Laser separation has many advantages over the now-established processes. By only ionising atoms of the U-235 isotope it is potentially possible to produce U-235 in a pure form. Enrichments of 60 to 90 percent could be achieved in a single pass. In addition the plant and equipment are much smaller, and the energy consumption perhaps up to half of that of a centrifuge plant where typically thousands of centrifuges are required in a cascade. If these claims are met it can be expected to become more widely adopted as a more efficient and cheaper method for the manufacture of reactor fuel.

We however undoubtedly spur many institutions throughout the world with access to high powered lasers to try to match this development. Their task is simplified in that much of the initial work could be done using non-radioactive elements such as zirconium and ytterbium, outside the scrutiny of the IAEA, before switching to uranium when the process has been established.

The prospect that a number of small scale units, capable of being quickly converted to the production of highly enriched uranium, may come into existence in a number of countries will pose a new challenge to the nuclear non-proliferation regime and in particular to the concepts of multinational enrichment facilities now being discussed. Suspicions and fears of the Iranian centrifuge programme are yesterday’s problem.

About time too
The World Nuclear University Forum is organizing a forum on the “International Harmonization of Reactor Design Requirements” in Manchester at the beginning of September, with a focus on European affairs. In announcing the meeting it points out that “Over the past two decades, the benefits – in overall cost and safety – of reactor design standardization have been the subject of several initiatives on the part of nuclear regulators, vendors and utilities. Today's context – of expanding nuclear new build worldwide – gives fresh urgency to creating wider understanding of the benefits to be attained and the issues at stake in attaining them.”

There is an obvious need for a common European acceptance of reactor designs. It is an absurdity that the NII should take several years to establish whether a reactor design that the EDF can build on the Channel coast, closer to London than almost all our own nuclear sites with the exception of Dungeness, is acceptable in the UK. This only delays the time before the first of the urgently needed new reactors can come into operation.

It is also only too probable that given the authority to demand changes the NII to justify their efforts, will require some small modifications, possibly alternative means of overcoming a design problem, which may be no more safe but certainly more costly than accepting the established French design, which could otherwise be built as a 3rd or 4th reactor with consequent cost savings. This is repeating the mistakes of Sizewell B when we built a one-off expensive British PWR .

It is apparent from the list of organizations supporting the meeting that the ground work for a sensible harmonization is already there. They include the European Utilities Requirement (EUR) organization, WNA's Cooperation in Reactor Design Evaluation and Licensing (CORDEL) group, the European Nuclear Installations Safety Standards (ENISS) initiative, the Multinational Design Evaluation Programme (MDEP), and the Western European Regulators' Association (WENRA).

Nuclear excellence
It is a remarkable achievement that once a month the performance of all the worlds nuclear power plants – with some reservations of figures from the UK and China – are published openly in a leading nuclear publication – Nucleonics Week – and in a recent edition they have published a comprehensive round up of world performance for 2008. You can’t find the same thing for oil-, gas- or coal-fired plants and getting anything about the output from wind is like trying to get blood from a stone.

For the past year gross output from nuclear plants around the world was 2.69 billion MWh. This was a small decrease of 1.7% the figure in 2007 and only down 3.8% on the record figure of 2.8 billion MWh in 2006. Looked at anyway these figures are truly impressive. Plants recorded a particularly high capacity factor (or load factor) of 79.36%. This compares with wind farm which are optimistically assumed by politicians to have a load factor of 30% but in all probability produce much less. One should also recognise that the nuclear figures include planned outages for maintenance which can usually be arranged to take place at times of low demand for electricity. Nobody has yet been able to plan for shortage or excess wind when a utility has to fall back on often expensive alternative sources of standby power.

The world median in capacity factor for 2008 was an impressive 84.2% and the top quartile of plants all performed above a staggering 91.83%. Top power producers were large plants in France and Germany led by Chooz B-1 in France with 12.84 million MWh and Germany’s Isar-2 plant which produced 12.09 million MWh.

US plants had the highest capacity with Calvert Cliff-2 producing more than it’s rated capacity at 101.37% and Catawba-2 close behind at 101.36%.

Some loss of generation is expected in the coming year mainly due to short-sighted political decisions with Bohunice-2 in Slovakia closing on December 31, 2008, and Ignalina-2 expected to follow unit-1 closure in 2004 at the end of 2009. These plants are being closed down prematurely to meet conditions imposed by the European Union’s accession treaty for joining. In the event both countries felt that they had made enough progress with safety for the plants to be adequately safe but politics is politics.