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9 September 2010
German government milks nuclear cash cows
The new Christian Democrat (CDU) and Liberal Democrat (FDP) coalition government elected a year ago has been committed to rescinding the German nuclear power phase-out policy it inherited from the former red-green coalition, but the financial terms have taken until now to negotiate. A new agreement has been reached, to give 8-year licence extensions for reactors built before 1980, and 14-year extensions for later ones. The price exacted for this is several new measures: a tax of EUR 145 per gram of uranium or plutonium fuel for six years, yielding EUR 2.3 billion per year, payment of EUR 300 million per year in 2011 and 2012, and EUR 200 million 2013-16, to support renewables, and a tax of 0.9 c/kWh for the same purpose after 2016. While this is an economic reprieve ensuring that the country is not deprived of its main clean electricity source, the life extensions from average 32 years may not be sufficient to justify the level of investment in upgrading the plants that longer life extensions in the USA have brought about. The high government take beyond present tax levels also works against such investment.
WNN 6/9/10.
Proposal for new Dutch reactor
A company owned by Dutch provincial and municipal authorities has applied to build one or two new nuclear power reactors at the Borssele site in Netherlands, where it has a half share in the 485 MWe reactor there which started up in 1973. One 50% owner, Delta Energie, last year applied to build 1600-2500 MWe of capacity at the site. Now the other half-owner - Energy Resources Holding (ERH) - has independently done likewise, proposing up to 2500 MWe of capacity using two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors or an Areva EPR or BWR. ERH came into being last year when German utility RWE agreed to buy Dutch energy company Essent for EUR 8.35 billion, but ran foul of a Dutch law which did not allow Essent's half share in Borssele to be included, so that share stayed with the original owners as ERH. RWE intended to build new nuclear capacity in Netherlands through Essent, so it is still waiting in the wings. The Dutch government is still nominally opposed to building new nuclear plants, but having abandoned its close-down policy for Borssele, all advice suggests that its climate policy cannot be implemented without new clean base-load plants such as now proposed.
Russia's Putin shoots the breeze
The Russian prime minister has said that nuclear energy is the only alternative to traditional energy sources. As energy demand increases, energy consumption patterns will only undergo minor changes, he said. "You couldn't transfer large electric power stations to wind energy, however much you wanted to. In the next few decades, it will be impossible." Nuclear energy is the only "real and powerful alternative" he asserted, calling other approaches to meeting future electricity demand simply "claptrap."
Russia relies on gas for half of its electricity and has a policy of replacing gas-fired generating plant with nuclear as fast as possible so as to be able to export more gas to Europe. Its latest projection is to increase nuclear capacity from 24 to 43 GWe by 2020, and is on track for that.
WNN 7/9/10.
