WAMSR-Nuclear Power Solution

[jneal3]

Has anyone else heard of this technology? This presentation was almost a year ago and I'm just learning of it. If it's not too good to be true, it sounds like a real breakthrough:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHJuz...ature=youtu.be


http://www.businessinsider.com/waste...reactor-2012-6

Time to sell XOM?

[don]

Re: WAMSR-Nuclear Power Solution

meanwhile, back in the old school . . .

Wisconsin Nuclear Reactor to Be Closed

By MATTHEW L. WALD

WASHINGTON — The owner of a small nuclear reactor in Wisconsin said Monday that it would close the Kewaunee Power Station early next year because it was unable to find a buyer and the plant was no longer economically viable.


The decision was viewed as an early sign that the wave of retirements of old generating stations across the Midwest is now stretching from the coal industry into nuclear power, driven by slack demand for energy and the low price of natural gas.


After receiving a 20-year extension from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February 2011 to continue operating Kewaunee, Dominion, based in Richmond, Va., put the power station up for sale. At 556 megawatts, it is about half the size of the largest plants now operating and is the only reactor at the Carlton site, rendering costs higher per unit of power than sites with two reactors. Dominion had hoped to buy several reactors in the Midwest that could share some overhead expenses with Kewaunee, but did not succeed.


“This was an extremely difficult decision, especially in light of how well the station is running and the dedication of the employees,” said Thomas F. Farrell II, Dominion’s chairman, president and chief executive, in a statement. “This decision was based purely on economics.”


He said nuclear power would be essential to the nation’s energy future — just in other places. The company owns six other reactors at three sites, and will take a one-time charge of $281 million for the closure, which it expects in the spring.


The industry’s trade association, the Nuclear Energy Institute, tried to play down the significance of the Kewaunee closing, saying it was because of circumstances unique to Dominion. Marvin Fertel, the president and chief executive of the association, said that nuclear energy “remains a reliable, cost-effective producer of electricity for America’s homes and our economy.”


This did not explain, however, why no better-situated company came forward to buy the plant.


When Dominion bought the plant from local owners in 2005, it signed contracts to sell them the electricity, a common practice, but as those contracts expire, the plant faces selling electricity at the lower rates that now dominate the energy market.


Bruce Biewald, the founder and chief executive of Synapse Energy Economics, a consulting firm, said that low electricity prices were a severe problem for generators in places like the Midwest, where power is sold at auction. “You’re looking at margins that are declining in a really serious way,” he said.


Counting Kewaunee, there are 104 power reactors licensed in the United States. Kewaunee, which received its 40-year operating license in December 1973, will be the first reactor to retire since Millstone 1, near New London, Conn., in July 1998.


Annual capital costs on a 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor range from $60 million to $70 million, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute; average annual costs for operation and maintenance plus fuel are $140 million to $150 million. And when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is finished ordering improvements prompted by the Fukushima disaster of last year, some plants will face significant expenses. Perhaps more could decide that continuing to operate was not worth the investment given current revenues.


In some regions, the average selling price of a megawatt-hour today is less than $50 at times. But a survey of the industry by the Electric Utility Cost Group, an industry consortium, found that one quarter of nuclear plants with the highest costs were spending an average of $51.42 to produce a megawatt-hour from 2008 through 2010. And costs have gone up since then.


Other companies have also reported falling revenues, although they may not be on the verge of closing reactors because they are in regions where the market price of electricity is higher. Nearly all the operating reactors are approaching or have reached the end of their initial license periods, and have applied for extensions or received them. But the license may not indicate the lifetime of the reactor.


“No nuclear plant I know of has ever closed because it hit the end of its license,” said Peter Bradford, who served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1977 to 1982 and was later chairman of the New York State Public Service Commission. A nuclear plant needs a life expectancy of a few years for its owners to consider major new investments, he said in a telephone interview, but if low electricity prices persist, even that may not be enough.