Group items tagged

Ameren is seeking to remove a barrier in state law that will allow it to increase rates while it is building a $6 billion nuclear power plant. Ameren is telling lawmakers that without a change to the law, it won't get financing. Speaker of the House Ron Richard addressed the issue in his opening statement. Gov. Jay Nixon has addressed the issue. Senators have spoken to Ameren's lobbyists and know what the issues are. But at the seminar designed to educate senators on the issue, Ameren danced around the issue, as Crowell pointed out.

The 2009 legislative session will address the need for more base-load electricity generation in Missouri. Ameren Corp. serves 1.2 million Missouri electric customers representing nearly 50% of Missouri's total consumption. They expect demand to increase 30% by 2020. Ameren is seeking the necessary licenses and funding to construct a second nuclear unit at their existing Callaway nuclear facility near Fulton, MO. Some changes to Missouri laws regulating electric utilities may be needed in order for Ameren or any utility to finance new base-load plants.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted for review the combined license (COL) application for an Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) at the Callaway site near Fulton, Mo. Ameren submitted the application and associated information July 28. The application, minus proprietary or security-related details, is available on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/callaway.html. Ameren is seeking approval to build and operate an EPR at the site, approximately 10 miles southeast of Fulton. The EPR is an Areva-designed pressurized water reactor, with a nominal output of approximately 1,600 megawatts of electricity. Areva filed its application Dec. 11, 2007, to certify the design. A version of the EPR is currently under construction at the Olkiluoto site in Finland and at Flamanville, France. The EPR application, minus proprietary or security-related details, is available on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/design-cert/epr.html.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has made available to the public the combined license (COL) application for a new reactor at the Callaway site near Fulton, Mo. The applicant, Ameren, submitted the application and associated information July 28. The application, minus proprietary or security-related details, is available on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/col/callaway.html. The Ameren application seeks approval to build and operate an Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR) at the site, approximately 10 miles southeast of Fulton. The EPR is an Areva-designed pressurized water reactor, with a nominal output of approximately 1,600 megawatts of electricity. Areva filed its application Dec. 11, 2007, to certify the design. A version of the EPR is currently under construction at the Olkiluoto site in Finland and at Flamanville, France. The EPR application, minus proprietary or security-related details, is available on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/design-cert/epr.html.

* $1 bln in deals signed with PG&E, Ameren Corp, Luminant * Will give Russia 20 percent of U.S. uranium market 2014-2020 * Russia sees nuclear fuel storage in U.S. as next step (Recasts with quotes, details, background) By Simon Shuster MOSCOW, May 26 (Reuters) - Russia signed a landmark deal to supply nuclear fuel directly to U.S. companies on Tuesday, setting itself up to control 20 percent of the U.S. uranium market and extending its global reach in the nuclear sector. At a ceremony in the Russian capital, U.S. electricity firms PG&E, Ameren Corp and Luminant signed deals to get more than $1 billion in uranium supplies from Russia's state nuclear fuel exporter Tenex between 2014 and 2020.

* Exelon Corp to buy Russian uranium directly in 2014-2020 * 4th such deal since "wall" to U.S. market broken last week * Rosatom subsidiary plans $3 bln bond to fund expansion By Simon Shuster MOSCOW, June 3 (Reuters) - Russia's state nuclear firm Rosatom sealed a uranium supply deal with U.S. utility Exelon Corp (EXC.N) on Wednesday and voiced plans to issue a 100 billion rouble bond as it intensifies its global expansion. Last week, the company said it had "broken down the wall" into the U.S. uranium market by striking three landmark deals to supply nuclear fuel worth more than $1 billion to U.S. power firms PG&E (PCG.N), Ameren Corp (AEE.N) and Luminant.

A federal judge has overruled a request from AmerenUE to stop television ads in opposition to a proposed new nuclear plant. The ads were paid for by industrial users of electricity, led by Noranda Aluminum. They're opposed to AmerenUE's attempts to change Missouri law so it can charge consumers for some costs of a new nuclear facility while the plant is being built. Current law doesn't allow utility companies to pass expenses on to consumers until after a plant is running. The Ameren-backed proposal faces a vote in a Missouri Senate committee Tuesday.

'It's premature to saddle ratepayers with potential construction costs' before project has permits and utility has decided to build, Missouri governor says. Gov. Jay Nixon said Friday he opposes legislation that would pave the way for AmerenUE to build a second nuclear plant in Callaway County. The St. Louis-based utility, which sells electricity to 1.2 million customers in Missouri, should focus on getting the necessary federal permits before seeking authority to charge consumers for construction costs while the plant is being built, Nixon said.

Russia signed a landmark deal to supply nuclear fuel directly to U.S. companies on Tuesday, setting itself up to control 20 percent of the U.S. uranium market and extending its global reach in the nuclear sector. At a ceremony in the Russian capital, U.S. electricity firms PG&E, Ameren Corp and Luminant signed deals to get more than $1 billion in uranium supplies from Russia's state nuclear fuel exporter Tenex between 2014 and 2020.

A special investigation is underway to find the reason behind the failure of a piece of a safety system last month at the Callaway Nuclear Plant. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday that a team of inspectors is looking into a problem that was found with a secondary feedwater pump at the plant May 25 that has raised concern about that backup safety precaution. "In routine testing that pump didn't start automatically, but we did determine that it could have been started manually," Ameren UE spokesman Mike Cleary said. "It was technically inoperable and we don't know when it failed between the previous test on May 4 and May 25.

AmerenUE CEO Tom Voss said the company is suspending its efforts to build a second nuclear plant in Missouri because of the failure of legislation it was pushing in the General Assembly. At a news conference at Ameren's St. Louis headquarters this morning, Voss said he had asked lawmakers to withdraw from consideration the bill the company had been pushing to repeal the state's construction work in progress law. If passed, the bill would have allowed the utility to charge consumers for some costs of the proposed $6 billion-plus facility before it were up and running. Critics, including consumer groups and large industrial companies, said the bill would have led to huge price hikes and would have gutted the consumer protections available to the Public Service Commission.

ST. LOUIS | Union Electric Co. withdrew plans for a second nuclear reactor in Callaway County in October 1982, but a new generation of executives is back 25 years later with plans for another plant. The St. Louis-based utility, now called AmerenUE, and its partner, Baltimore-based UniStar Nuclear LLC, will seek a construction and operating license as soon as next month for a $6 billion, 1,600-megawatt plant next to the existing Callaway nuclear plant.

A former AmerenUE engineer is accusing the utility and the federal agency that regulates nuclear power of failing to adequately investigate a 2003 incident that led to a two-hour unplanned shutdown at the Callaway reactor. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation found that control room operators delayed a move to insert control rods - equipment required to keep the reactor shut down - since the error occurred just before a scheduled shutdown for maintenance. The NRC called the delay "not prudent," but noted it did not threaten human safety. After discovering the problem four years after it occurred during a routine review and alerting plant managers, nuclear engineer Lawrence Criscione claimed retaliation by his supervisors, including a negative performance review and the loss of his operators' license. Criscione was paid more than $500,000 in a confidential settlement in exchange for his resignation in 2008 and an agreement to not pursue any future legal claims against the St. Louis-based utility, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

It's been a month since AmerenUE declared that it was suspending plans to build a second nuclear plant in Missouri after efforts to repeal the state's ban on construction work in progress (CWIP) failed. Backers of the legislation said Missourians missed a golden opportunity to secure its low-carbon future, and wean the state off its coal addiction (one that could be significantly more expensive if Congress follows through on climate change legislation). AmerenUE had decided whether to go through with plans to build another nuclear plant. In case it did, the plant design it chose was Areva NP's Evolutinary Power Reactor, EPR for short. (Areva was an owner of UniStar Nuclear, which had contracted with AmerenUE to help prepare the construction and operating license that was submitted to federal regulators last summer.)

AmerenUE has asked the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend its review of the company's July 2008 application for a combined construction permit-operating license to build a new nuclear unit at its Callaway plant in Missouri. In a June 23 letter to NRC released on Friday, Adam Heflin, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer, said "we have determined that it is in AmerenUE's best interests to suspend the review" of the COL application and requested "that the NRC staff suspend all activities" related to the review. AmerenUE announced in April that it was dropping plans to build a 1,600-MW Areva US-EPR reactor at Callaway because the company did not think Missouri state lawmakers would be able to overturn the state's ban on recovering costs on construction work in progress. AmerenUE spokesman Mike Cleary said June 26 that NRC's review of the COL continued after that decision while AmerenUE "looked at its options," but it is now deemed "prudent" to suspend the review.

AmerenUE's plan to build a second nuclear power plant in Callaway County may be in jeopardy. But if so, it won't have been CWIP that killed it. CWIP, of course, stands for construction work in progress. It refers to a state law that prohibits utilities from passing along costs of building new power plants until they start generating electricity. AmerenUE spent much of the last year, including the first four months of the Missouri Legislature's session, arguing that building a second nuclear plant in Callaway County - estimated to cost $9 billion - would be too expensive without up-front financing from ratepayers.

AmerenUE's electric rates could rise by 23 percent over eight years if it's allowed to pass through financing costs of a second nuclear plant during construction, according to a Public Service Commission staff assessment of the utility's internal data. That is more than twice the amount projected by AmerenUE on Feb. 25, according to a letter sent to PSC Chairman Robert M. Clayton III on Wednesday. Which estimate is more accurate depends on underlying assumptions that no one can accurately predict, and illustrates the number-bending that has accompanied the debate over the proposed nuclear plant.

A Missouri utility said Thursday that it was suspending its efforts to build a new nuclear reactor, making its proposed plant, Callaway 2, the first of the "nuclear renaissance" reactors to fall by the wayside. The industry has been looking forward to its first construction start in 30 years. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 17 companies have filed applications to build 26 reactors.

Electric consumers across Missouri are receiving phone calls and fliers suggesting they should be wary of legislation designed to help AmerenUE build a second nuclear power plant. They're coming from former Republican House Speaker Rod Jetton, who left office just three months ago but now is a political consultant helping coordinate the opposition to one of biggest legislative issues of the year.