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FirstEnergy, owner of Davis-Besse nuclear power plant and operator of seven electric utility companies, laid off 335 employees Tuesday. Advertisement FirstEnergy spokesman Mark Durbin said 29 of those worked in the Toledo area, which includes Davis-Besse, but Durbin couldn't say how many Davis-Besse employees were laid off. "Employees were notified today," Durbin said, "and severance packages were given." Durbin said packages included 1.5 weeks' pay for every full year of service as well the company's continuing contribution toward health benefits during that time. Durbin said the layoffs covered FirstEnergy's entire operation, which includes portions of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland. "It's something we didn't want to do," he said, "but based on the current economic climate it's something we had to do." Durbin said lower energy consumption by residential, industrial and business customers meant the company had to cut its operations, as well.

The United Kingdom is nearing a crucial decision as it tries to tackle the climate crisis -- whether to make a major push into new nuclear power or to proliferate coal-fired power plants constructed so their carbon emissions are captured and safely stored. A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line. While U.S. officials and America's utility industry continue to mull this question, Britain's decisional clock is ticking much faster. At stake are not just the government's pressing legal commitments to slash the country's contribution to global emissions of climate-changing carbon gases, but also a stated policy goal of reducing dependence on energy imports from unstable regions.

Areva and Electricité de France (EDF) are French-based companies at the heart of worldwide attempts to re-launch nuclear ordering - the so-called Nuclear Renaissance. Areva is an electricity industry equipment supplier offering transmission and distribution equipment as well as the full range of civil nuclear technologies. For its nuclear business, it operates as Areva NP, a joint venture with the German company Siemens in which Areva holds 66% and Siemens the balance, although in January 2009, Siemens announced it would be withdrawing from the joint venture (see below). EDF is an electric utility operating all the main generating technologies. The French state retains a majority holding in both companies although the priorities of their private shareholders, for EDF small shareholders and for Areva NP, Siemens, can no longer be ignored. In addition, the European Union law on unfair State Aids only allows governments to meet company losses or provide other assistance if such measures do not distort competition. For the markets Areva and EDF operate in, it would be hard to argue that any state aids did not distort competition.

RWE AG Chief Executive Officer Juergen Grossmann urged Chancellor Angela Merkel to scrap a plan to close Germany's nuclear reactors, saying an extension would protect the country from fuel price swings. "They're a predictable part of the power-generation cost" for Germany's industrial electricity users, Grossmann, who heads the country's second-largest utility, said in an interview at an energy conference in Berlin yesterday. "We hope to carry on our nuclear operations in Germany." RWE and competitor Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG are trying to build support before Merkel's September re-election bid. While she's in favor of extending nuclear power plants, her Social Democratic coalition partners oppose it. If she's able to form a partnership with the liberal Free Democratic Party, that may open the way to keeping reactors operating beyond 2021. "We don't need to mention that I would be in favor of extending the lifespan of nuclear power plants," Merkel told delegates at the conference.

Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project, New Mexico AGENCY: Bureau of Reclamation, Interior. ACTION: Notice of Availability of the Navajo-Gallup Water Supply Project Planning Report and Final Environmental Impact Statement FES 09-10. SUMMARY: Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (as amended), Public Law (Pub. L.) 92-199, and the general authority to conduct water resources planning under the Reclamation Act of 1902 and all acts amendatory thereof and supplementary thereto, the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), in cooperation with the Navajo Nation, Jicarilla Apache Nation, City of Gallup, State of New Mexico, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Heath Service, Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, and Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments, has prepared and made available to the public a Planning Report and Final Environmental Impact Statement (PR/FEIS). This document was undertaken to provide a discussion for the (1) Various ways to provide a municipal and industrial (M&I) water supply to the Navajo Nation, City of Gallup, and Jicarilla Apache Nation; (2) identification of a preferred alternative; and (3) associated environmental impacts and costs of the No Action and two action alternatives.

Opponents of nuclear power are gearing up for a big fight over changes to the state's nuclear moratorium. Nuclear plants are just too expensive to build, opponents say, and the lack of a resolution to the nuclear industry's waste problem means the time hasn't arrived to reconsider a Wisconsin policy that's been in place for 25 years that, in effect, bans construction of new reactors. No bills to change the state's nuclear moratorium have yet been introduced, but opponents are reacting to increased lobbying by the nuclear industry in the state. Wisconsin's utilities say nuclear power, which generates no greenhouse gas emissions, must be at least on the table for consideration as the nation and state move toward regulating heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide.

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.

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.

Greenpeace and France's Sortir du Nucleaire are seeking to implicate Electricite de France Chairman Pierre Gadonneix in alleged spying by the utility on the anti-nuclear organizations. In a press statement, Greenpeace said it had asked the French government to suspend Gadonneix. It said it had learned through court documents that EDF contractors had been spying on its operations in France, the UK, Spain and Belgium since 2004. Greenpeace said that it asked French environment and energy minister Jean-Louis Borloo to name an "independent commission to evaluate the nuclear industry." Separately, Sortir du Nucleaire said it and its spokesman Stephane Lhomme had simultaneously filed for intervener status in the county court in Nanterre, outside Paris, where an investigative judge is examining evidence in the alleged spying case. SdN said it wants the judge to file charges against Gadonneix and not just against lower-level managers and contractors. EDF said last week that it had suspended two security managers who were implicated in the ongoing investigation.

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.

"Statement of Tyson Slocum, Director, Public Citizen's Energy Program Taxpayers are about to take another huge hit. Reports that the Obama administration Tuesday will announce a "conditional" loan guarantee for corporate utility Southern Company to build two new nuclear reactors at its Vogtle site in Georgia will once again put taxpayers on the hook when they can least afford it. In addition, it takes us entirely in the wrong direction. Proven efficiency and renewable energy technologies that can benefit millions of households are more cost-effective public investments than financially risky and uncertified nuclear technology. Initially authorized by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the loan guarantee program was designed to back "innovative" energy technologies such as renewable wind and solar power, as well as new commercial nuclear reactors. While the program has finalized one $525 million loan guarantee for a solar power facility in California, the size and scope of proposed new nuclear reactors - with a price tag of roughly $10 billion per reactor - will overwhelm the public's bank account. In fact, nuclear power cannot be financially viable without taxpayer support, which includes not only federal loan guarantees but also risk insurance and production tax credits that manipulate the cost of nuclear generated energy. Since 2005, Southern Company has spent nearly $70 million lobbying the federal government, including to ensure these industry-friendly subsidies."

"I've mentioned a number of times the ways in which France's nuclear energy giant, Areva, has benefited from the U.S. opening foreign markets to nuclear energy. The U.S.-India 123 agreement is the most flagrant example, since it really involved bringing India in from the NSG cold. So it's worth noting that among the beneficiaries of President Barack Obama's new nuclear energy initiative is none other than . . . Areva. They've been partnering up with U.S. utility and nuclear power companies for the past few years in anticipation of the U.S. shift to nuclear. And part of their strategy of making themselves a more attractive partner involves in-shoring industrial manufacturing in order to emphasize job creation. (For more background on the reasons behind Obama's decision, Saurav Jha's WPR feature article on the "new nuclear age" is worth the time it takes to register for a free trial subscription.) "

"A San Antonio municipal utility's public and acrimonious divorce from a proposed two-unit, 2,700-megawatt nuclear power plant is nearly final. San Antonio municipal utility CPS Energy has been trying to separate itself from South Texas Project units 3 and 4 for several months. Last week, a settlement was reached between CPS Energy and Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA) (New York, New York), a consortium of NRG Energy Incorporated /quotes/comstock/13*!nrg/quotes/nls/nrg (NRG 21.84, -0.23, -1.04%) (Princeton, New Jersey) and Toshiba Corporation (TYO: 6502) (Tokyo, Japan) that is developing the two-unit nuclear expansion of the South Texas Project (STP). All that remains is for the CPS Energy board to ratify the deal. Toshiba is the engineering, procurement, and construction firm for STP units 3 and 4. Subcontractors include Fluor Corporation /quotes/comstock/13*!flr/quotes/nls/flr (FLR 42.80, -2.25, -4.99%) (Irving, Texas), Sargent & Lundy LLC (Chicago, Illinois), Bechtel Group Incorporated (San Francisco, California) and Westinghouse (Monroeville, Pennsylvania). "

"A bill that would have put the legislature in charge of the state's renewable energy standard was pulled Thursday following a blitz by solar industry officials and local governments. House Bill 2701 was killed two days after hearing from several solar companies, including Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd., which threatened to abandon plans to locate a factory in Goodyear. The bill was seen as a potential showdown with the Arizona Corporation Commission, which had set standards requiring state utilities get 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources such as solar and wind by 2025. Provisions included the classification of nuclear power as a renewable."

"The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a special inspection team to FirstEnergy Corp's 879-megawatt Davis-Besse nuclear power plant to look into indications of cracks in multiple reactor vessel head nozzles. Stocks | Industrials | Utilities The NRC said there was no danger to the public from these cracks since the plant has been shut for scheduled refueling. Before the plant can resume operations, the NRC said it must be satisfied the problem has been addressed. Earlier this week, FirstEnergy could not say whether the repairs would add to the length of the refueling outage."

"A 30-year failure to develop a permanent site for storing nuclear waste has cost the federal government billions of dollars in fines paid to power companies. After putting all of its hopes in the Yucca Mountain repository, Washington now is starting over with finding a location following the Obama administration's rejection of the Nevada underground site. In the meantime, the Department of Energy is not living up to its legal obligation to take nuclear waste off the hands of utilities that have been forced to temporarily store spent fuel rods and other radioactive material. As of 2008, the government had already paid $565 million in damages stemming from industry lawsuits, with nearly $800 million more pending on appeal. And to make matters even worse, the Bush administration promised that the government would take the waste from 21 reactors that haven't been built yet, bringing the total anticipated amount stored waste to the size of two Yucca Mountain repositories."

"Raise your hand if US taxpayers are responsible to pay for the most expensive mistakes you make in your business. Chances are, the only hands that just went up are attached to nuclear power executives and, if that unfair advantage were removed we would see the end of nuclear power in this country. Nuclear Power Plant The five decades old Price-Anderson Act sets a cap on liability by power plants and their insurers for damages arising from nuclear accidents. After $300 million in damages are paid by insurance, the US taxpayer takes over to address catastrophic liabilities, including cleanups, property damage, health care, and lives lost. Including some other payments made into accident funds, the utility industry is on the hook for no more than $10 billion for all accidents that could ever occur at all nuclear plants in the nation. Raise your hand if you think just one major accident would result in far more damage claims than that. In England, the system works about the same, with each nuclear plant responsible for no more than £140 million and similar systems exist in Europe, Japan, and Canada. "

"Iowa Gov. Chet Culver signed a measure Wednesday that calls for a study that would look at where a nuclear power plant could be built in the state, saying nuclear power will be a part of the state's energy portfolio. Culver signed the measure at the Des Moines offices of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He said expanding the nuclear energy industry in Iowa could create jobs, both in the construction and operation of a plant. The measure calls for the study to be funded by public utility companies, but Culver says the cost to consumers would be small. It excludes rural electric cooperatives. Iowa is currently home to just one nuclear power plant, the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Palo in eastern Iowa."

"While officials in Washington continue to pass the political hot potato of nuclear waste production and disposal, the Palmetto State has been left holding the bag. The issues on the ground surrounding the nuclear industry in South Carolina are as perplexing as the national policies at the heart of the debate. On one hand, the Savannah River Site and the two new slated nuclear reactors in Jenkinsville and Cherokee County provide jobs and utilities; on the other hand we face the necessary evil of nuclear waste production and storage, a prospect made grimmer after the federal government recently backpedaled on plans to open the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada. The good news: the four new nuclear reactors slated to be built in our state will be constructed using a state of the art, efficient design, but the bad news: a recent (still disputed) study found a potential flaw in the design that could spew radioactive particles to the four winds. Good news: the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) has rescinded an order to triple waste canister density at SRS, but the bad news: the waste that was supposed to be temporary is still there indefinitely… sort of a black mushroom cloud with a silver lining."

"As the world's attention remains focused on the nuclear calamity unfolding in Japan, American nuclear regulators and industry lobbyists have been offering assurances that plants in the United States are designed to withstand major earthquakes. But the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which sits less than a mile from an offshore fault line, was not required to include earthquakes in its emergency response plan as a condition of being granted its license more than a quarter of a century ago. Though experts warned from the beginning that the plant would be vulnerable to an earthquake, asserting 25 years ago that it required an emergency plan as a condition of its license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fought against making such a provision mandatory as it allowed the facility to be built. Officials at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility that operates Diablo Canyon, did not respond to calls seeking comment before the story was published. After publication, a spokesman for the company said the plant does have an earthquake procedure that had been implemented during a 2003 earthquake near the facility, and that staff are trained to respond. The company did not provide further details upon request. As Americans absorb the spectacle of a potential nuclear meltdown in Japan -- one of the world's most proficient engineering powers -- the regulatory review that ultimately enabled Diablo Canyon to be built without an earthquake response plan amplifies a gnawing question: Could the tragedy in Japan happen at home?"