Rejecting American pressure, Russia announced the planned launch this summer of Iran’s first, Russian-built nuclear power plant.
Russian Premier Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow would start up Tehran’s first and only nuclear power plant this summer. Moscow has been helping Iran build the Bushehr facility since 1995, but work has been delayed several times.
The statement of Russian Premier came at a time when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is in Moscow for talks on the Middle East and a stalled US-Russia nuclear arms reduction treaty. Russia’s foreign minister, gave Mrs Clinton short shrift and argued that making Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant operational would keep Tehran engaged with the international community.
was first posted on March 19, 2010 at 12:23 pm. Copyright @
104 Nuclear Power Plants, 104 Nuclear Reactors: The people of Georgia may soon be neighbors to the first two new U.S. nuclear plants approved in decades, thanks to billions in loan guarantees just proposed by the Obama administration. But discontent in state legislatures is signaling that those new nuclear plants may not be warmly welcomed in every neighborhood.
Around the country, a problem-plagued nuclear industry is being met by public mistrust. Just last month, the Vermont senate voted 26–4 to block a license extension for Vermont Yankee, the state’s only nuclear power plant, when it reaches the end of its original 40-year license in 2012.
BEIJING: China is driving ahead with an ambitious programme to expand its atomic energy capacity over the next decade, raising questions about its ability to find the uranium it will need, at home or abroad.
Total capacity reached 9.1 gigawatts by the end of 2008, and the government fully expects to hit its official 40 gigawatt target well before the 2020 deadline.
China currently operates 11 reactors and has 17 under construction, but has 124 more on the drawing boards, according to industry group the World Nuclear Association (WNA).
The expansion programme will cause its demand for uranium to rocket 10-fold by 2030, making it the world’s second biggest consumer of the radioactive metal following the United States, according the WNA forecasts.
Zhang Guobao, the country’s senior energy official, has repeatedly stated that China intends to raise the bar “by a large margin”, and those in the know believe it should easily smash its existing targets.
Pan Zhiqiang, director of science and technology at the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), one of the country’s two major state-owned nuclear developers, said last month that “reaching 70 GW before 2020 will not be a big problem.”
“There are also estimates that by 2030, total capacity will reach 200 gigawatts, and by 2050, 1,000 gigawatts,” he said.
Concerns have been raised about the availability of sufficient fuel to feed the growing demand in China and elsewhere, but Pan discounted any immediate problems.
He claimed there was “absolutely no problem” finding the uranium to run 40 gigawatts of capacity, either within China’s borders or through overseas acquisitions.
Over the longer term, however, others concede that acquiring enough of the key ingredient in nuclear power generation could be a big challenge.
“The uranium market in the future faces a lot of uncertainties with not a small supply shortage,” said Zhou Zhenxing, who heads the uranium development unit at the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Corporation (CGNPC), the second of China’s big nuclear firms.
RAISING THE BAR
When China announced in a 2006 policy document that it would aim for 40 GW of nuclear capacity by 2020, sceptics noted this meant finding the wherewithal to bring at least two reactors into operation every year. They also pointed out plans were already behind schedule, with no new projects due until 2011, and bureaucratic problems had already delayed others.
But momentum was quickly regained. China had 11 reactors in operation by the end of last year, using a variety of “second-generation” designs from Russia, Canada and France as well as its own research institutes, and there are now another 24 — with 25.4 GW of capacity — approved or under construction.
U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric, now owned by Toshiba is building four of its new AP1000 reactors in coastal Zhejiang and Shandong provinces, securing a much-needed showcase for its untested “third-generation” designs. In exchange, China was granted a generous technology transfer agreement that would make the AP1000 the model for its own “localised” reactors.
Meanwhile, France’s Areva agreed to build two of its European Pressurised Reactors for the Taishan nuclear project in southeast China’s Guangdong.
China’s own nuclear contractors are already looking well beyond the 40 GW target, with Zhou of CGNPC saying his company was already planning to increase capacity to 34 GW by 2020, up from the current level of 3.94 GW.
For a FACTBOX on China’s nuclear power plants and plans, click on
With every province and region keen to grab a stake in the lucrative nuclear sector, both CGNPC and CNNC have been scouring the country for potential projects. Every province along the eastern coast is building new reactors, and a multitude of cities in China’s interior are also lobbying to become the country’s first inland nuclear plant.
URANIUM SCRAMBLE
The need to feed such growing capacity has required the two state-owned giants to hunt the globe for new sources of fuel — with CGNPC chasing uranium reserves in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Australia and Namibia, and CNNC signing deals to explore and develop in Mongolia and Niger.
China has been developing its own uranium mines since the 1950s, mainly in the remote northwest. But total output is a state secret, and it is unclear whether it will be enough to power the dozens of reactors due to go online before 2020.
According to figures from the China Nuclear Industry Association, China has currently developed only a third of the uranium required to fuel 40 gigawatts of capacity by 2020, and exploration needs to be stepped up if China wishes to avoid being exposed to the volatile foreign market.
“The exploitation rate of Chinese uranium mines is actually very low right now, so there is room to improve the supply volume,” said He Kun, a professor at the Nuclear and New Energy Technology Research Institute at Tsinghua University.
Zhou of CGNPC said his company alone would need more than 10,000 tonnes of uranium per year by 2020.
With CGNPC likely to control about half of China’s nuclear capacity by then, that would put total annual demand at around 20,000 tonnes, a massive increase on the 769 tonnes produced in 2008, according to World Nuclear Association estimates.
Pan of CNNC conceded that there was an urgent need to develop new mines for the longer term.
“Uranium supplies don’t constitute an obstacle to the development of nuclear power in China, but we must strengthen our prospecting work, and our research into prospecting technologies. This is absolutely crucial.”
Pan said the supply problem has been overstated, however, noting that both Japan and South Korea have managed to keep their reactors running despite having no uranium of their own.
“Uranium is a commodity and we can import it, and also participate in international uranium mining projects. People say that uranium isn’t very plentiful, but I don’t agree.”
Three Mile Island, three mile island nuclear plant updates:- A small amount of radiation has been detected in a reactor building at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in central Pennsylvania.
Officials say about 150 employees were sent home after the radiation was detected Saturday afternoon, but that there is no public health risk.
Investigators say radiological surveys showed the contamination was confined to surfaces inside the containment building.
The unit has been shut down for refueling and maintenance since Oct. 26.
Bill Noll, Exelon’s senior executive at Three Mile Island, says workers were sent home until the area could be cleaned. The company hopes to resume activities Sunday.
Officials are checking employees who had been working in the building for possible unusual radiation exposure.
A partial meltdown occurred in Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor in March 1979. Source philly.com
Rejecting American pressure, Russia announced the planned launch this summer of Iran’s first, Russian-built nuclear power plant.
Georgia may soon be neighbors to the first two new U.S. nuclear plants approved in decades, thanks to billions in loan guarantees just proposed by the Obama administration. But discontent in state legislatures is signaling that those new nuclear plants may not be warmly welcomed in every neighborhood.
