I Don’t Know How–Edison’s Craver on Nuclear Energy and Carbon Goals

Edison International  CEO Ted Craver and Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good lately appeared at separate forums. They talked about the decisions to close the San Onofre (Edison) and Crystal River (Duke/Progress) facilities, describing them as economic in nature. We already understood that. Here’s the real takeaway:

Despite having taken a financial hit on capital-intensive nuclear power, both agreed that nuclear energy has a place in a low-carbon economy.

“I don’t know ultimately how you get to your goals on carbon without nuclear being a part of it,” Craver said.

Me, either. Neither company is what one would call a nuclear pure play. They have a decided interest in renewable energy, too, and Edison in particular is looking at distributed generation.

Craver said electric utilities would be mistaken to dismiss distributed generation as merely a “fringe” business in the future. The Edison chief said his company initially started in the field by supplying big solar arrays for “big box” stores.

“A lot of this is really experimental,” Craver said. Utility subsidiary Southern California Edison (SCE) used to rely on industrial customers for one-third of its load but that is now probably closer to 10 percent, Craver said.

The article at Electric Light and Power does not say whether that difference is due to increasing use of solar panels in industry, though Craver says that “it’s important to realize that manufacturers are looking to generate more of their own power.” Edison has a lot of information about this at its web site, though, so look around for more.

But the important point? “I don’t know ultimately how you get to your goals on carbon without nuclear being a part of it.” But Craver does know. You don’t get to those goals.

Read More

Duke Energy COL for Levy County Nuclear Plant Still Alive Outside Cost Recovery

We've been watching the wires pretty closely every since we caught wind of a potential announcement by Duke Energy about the proposed nuclear project in Levy County, Florida. So far, several outlets have incorrectly reported that the project has been permanently shelved.

It's too bad those reporters didn't bother reading the fine print of the Duke Energy press release concerning a wide-ranging settlement with the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) that went out about an hour ago (Bold emphasis mine):

In 2008, Duke Energy Florida announced plans to construct two 1,100-megawatt nuclear units in Levy County, Fla.

Duke Energy’s EPC agreement was based on the ability to obtain the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) combined construction and operating license (COL) by Jan. 1, 2014. As a result of delays by the NRC in issuing COLs for new nuclear plants, as well as increased uncertainty in cost recovery caused by recent legislative changes in Florida, Duke Energy will be terminating the EPC agreement for the proposed Levy nuclear project.

Although the proposed Levy nuclear project is no longer an option for meeting energy needs within the originally scheduled timeframe, Duke Energy Florida continues to regard the Levy site as a viable option for future nuclear generation and understands the importance of fuel diversity in creating a sustainable energy future. Because of this, the company will continue to pursue the COL outside of the nuclear cost recovery clause.

“We continue to believe that a balanced energy portfolio, including renewable energy, energy efficiency, and state-of-the-art cleaner power plants are critical to securing Florida’s energy future, and nuclear energy should remain an option to meet Florida’s future energy needs,” Glenn said.

So, what we're looking at is a delay, not a cancellation, and regulatory preparation for a potential new plant will continue. Here's hoping that detail gets back into the coverage this evening.

Read More

NextEra Sets Record With 700-MW Power Uprate

NEI’s Top Industry Practice Awards recognize innovation in the nuclear energy industry. Presented at NEI’s annual conference, the awards honor accomplishments that help the industry improve safety, streamline processes and increase efficiency.

In a special series of articles this week, our publication Nuclear Energy Overview highlights the challenges and successes of five winners.

This year’s Westinghouse Combustion Engineering Award went to a gargantuan project—NextEra Energy completed the largest extended power uprate project in history, adding more than 700 megawatts of additional generating capacity across four reactors in Florida and two in Wisconsin.

With more than 30 million hours worked to complete the uprate, NextEra’s project called on a workforce of thousands, an economic boon to the communities that host the facilities.

Terry Jones, vice president of nuclear power uprates, stressed the importance of instilling in the workers the nuclear energy industry’s safety culture.

“They understand how we work, how we’re just absolutely fanatical when it comes to safety,” Jones said.

Much of the workforce was new to the nuclear industry, but extensive training, on-site coaching and daily feedback ensured the work was performed safely and efficiently.


A major workforce challenge was coordinating the logistics of so many workers.

“On any given day, you’re dealing with a workforce that’s in excess of 3,000, in addition to your normal plant staff,” Jones said. “You had to set up a traffic control just to be able to get the workforce to and from the sites in a safe manner.”

The benefits of an extensive workforce outweighed the challenges, however.

“We provided a tremendous amount of employment and economic benefit to the region. We were employing more than 3,500 workers on any given day on average, and about 50 percent of that workforce was Floridian,” Jones said.

He added that NextEra will see many long-term benefits from the uprates.

“You’ve got a more modern plant that will result in improved reliability. You’ve got fuel cost savings for the customer. You’ve got greater fuel diversification. You’re reducing CO2 emissions,” Jones said.

Read More

Duke Examines 6,500 Oconee Reactor Parts in One Refueling Outage

NEI’s Top Industry Practice Awards recognize innovation in the nuclear energy industry. Presented at NEI’s annual conference, the awards honor accomplishments that help the industry improve safety, streamline processes and increase efficiency.

In a special series of articles this week, our publication Nuclear Energy Overview highlights the challenges and successes of five winners.

Rachel Doss’ team at Duke Energy’s Oconee nuclear energy facility in South Carolina earned the 2013 AREVA Vendor Award, but its project—developing and implementing guidelines for inspecting and evaluating pressurized water reactor internals—was many years in the making.

Rather than scheduling reactor internal inspections over multiple refueling outages, Duke’s winning team performed one of the industry’s largest-ever reactor vessel inspections, examining more than 6,500 reactor components during one outage at the Oconee 1 reactor.

Its scope required planning with vendors, performing numerous risk assessments and developing contingency plans.

“The engineering work contract was in place three years in advance of the project. The inspection service to get all of the tooling developed, that was in place two and a half years in advance. We started our biweekly calls one and a half to two years in advance of the inspections,” said Doss, a fleet programs engineer with Duke Energy.

“Because we started planning so far in advance, we were able to come up with a list of unknowns prior to the outage,” Doss said. The team was then able to gather reactor vessel measurements and develop new tools that allowed inspections to be performed remotely and in parallel with other work, helping the company avoid the high costs of completing the work over the course of multiple outages.

Read More

Why Building Too Much Natural Gas Capacity to Generate Electricity Could Come Back to Haunt Florida

NEI VP Richard Myers

About a week ago, the Tampa Bay Times published an analysis by Ivan Penn claiming that ratepayers in Florida would be better served if Duke Energy built a natural gas plant in place of a proposed nuclear energy facility in Levy County. Over the weekend, that same paper published a letter to the editor by NEI's Richard Myers taking issue with that conclusion:

Nuclear plants offer benefits

The May 12 article "Levy nuclear plant more costly than a natural gas facility" fails to account for the economic and environmental benefits the two nuclear plants would bring to Florida. Progress Energy Florida, now Duke Energy Florida, determined in 2008 that the Levy nuclear plants would benefit the state by providing fuel diversity and price stability for consumers while avoiding air emissions.

In 2012, Florida generated 68 percent of its electricity from natural gas, a significant increase from 47 percent in 2008. Floridians may recall that in 2008 and 2009, the state endured its highest-ever electricity costs when natural gas prices were hitting all-time highs. Five years later, Florida relies even more on natural gas.

Just like a diversified financial portfolio is important for investors, so is a diversified energy portfolio for consumers. By relying ever more heavily on natural gas, Florida is putting itself in an increasingly vulnerable position if and when natural gas prices change.

Further, if natural gas plants are built instead of the two Levy nuclear plants, the gas plants will consume nearly 8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and emit more than 500 million metric tons of carbon dioxide over 60 years.

The Levy nuclear plants will help Florida manage and balance any future that includes changes in carbon regulations and natural gas fuel costs, and an overreliance on any one form of electricity generation.

Richard Myers
Vice President
Nuclear Energy Institute

This isn't the first time Richard has addressed this issue. Back in January, he took issue with a piece in the Wall Street Journal that concluded that the natural gas boomlet we're currently experiencing might undo nuclear energy. The key takeaway here: nothing is forever, and that goes double for natural gas prices.

Read More

The Nuclear Reactor on Crystal River

Crystal River 3

No one wants drilling rigs to topple into the ocean. Or coal mines to leak toxic and/or explosive gases into tunnels. Or windmills to wipe out populations of bats. There are risks to virtually any human endeavor, of course, and there are benefits to balance against them, but the goal is always to minimize risk and maximize benefits. If the risk can be close to zero and the benefits considerable, that’s of course ideal if difficult to achieve.

I know all of this is obvious, but it’s nice occasionally to see it reaffirmed publically.

“The review found that the current repair plan appears to be technically feasible,” said Alex Glenn, incoming president of Progress Energy Florida, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, “but significant risks and technical issues still need to be resolved, including the ultimate scope of any repair work.

Glenn is talking about a crack in a containment dome at Progress Energy’s Crystal River 3 facility in Florida. Progress (which is now part of Duke Energy) wanted to figure out how much it would cost to fix the problem and hired an outside company, Zapata Consulting, to review the situation.
The cost? A fair amount.

The Zapata report estimated the repair cost at approximately $1.49 billion. Progress Energy's prior assessment indicated expected repair cost of $900 million to $1.3 billion, with the costs trending up.”

And if Zapata is correct, trending up is what those costs are doing. As with many reports, Zapata offered scenarios to estimate how much the process would cost if it went extremely well and if it went very badly.

Under the worst-case scenario, Zapata estimated that the cost could be $3.43 billion with a 96-month schedule.

That’s a lot of money and we would be naïve to think that Progress Energy will not consider its options. Crystal River 3 has been operating since 1977 and has paid its way.

“We have not made a final decision on whether to repair or retire CR3,” Glenn said in a statement on Monday. “The decision and schedule will be driven by the final analysis. We will carefully analyze and settle each finding as we continue to evaluate the technical and licensing implications, estimated costs and the time required to make the repair. We will proceed with a repair option only if there is a high degree of confidence that the repair can be successfully completed and licensed within the final estimated costs and schedule.”

The shuttering of any nuclear energy facility means the loss of a lot of carbon emission free baseload electricity generation – 860 megawatts in this case, with an uprate pending if it returns to service. And it may yet return to service – Progress Energy will figure out what’s best for its customers.

But if Progress Energy decides to retire the reactor, that’s that. No company runs unsafe nuclear reactors; and no company can afford to lose money. There’s just no upside.

Read More