October 17, 2011

FirstEnergy finds cracks at Ohio nuclear reactor


* Cracks not like Progress Florida Crystal River reactorNEW YORK, Oct 17 (Reuters) - FirstEnergy said it discovered small cracks in the concrete shield building surrounding the containment structure at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio, which was shut for another reactor vessel head replacement, a spokesman for the Ohio-based energy company said Monday.”We don’t believe there will be a problem with the schedule to replace the vessel head. Engineers are conducting a thorough investigation of the cracks. We should have an answer later this week,” FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Schneider told Reuters.Schneider was quick to point out that these cracks were different than the concrete problems with the containment dome at Progress Energy’s Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida.Crystal River has been shut since September 2009 after workers discovered a gap in the concrete containment dome after they cut through the structure to replace the plant’s aging steam generators. The plant is not expected to return until at least 2014.Schneider said the “microcracks” at Davis-Besse were barely visible. He said they were discovered while workers were cutting away the concrete with pressurized water to create an opening for the vessel head.The shield building is a 250-foot (76.2 meters) tall, two and a half foot thick concrete structure that surrounds the steel containment structure, which is about an inch and a half thick. The steel containment and the concrete shield building surround the pressurized water reactor’s vessel and steam generators and are designed to keep radioactive materials within the reactor in case of an accident.The containment structures do not have a door big enough for the reactor vessel head, which is nearly 17 feet in diameter, eight feet tall and weighs more than 82 tons (74,389 kilograms), FirstEnergy said.THIRD VESSEL HEADThis is Davis-Besse’s third reactor vessel head.It cost the company about $600 million to replace the first vessel head ($300 million) and buy replacement power ($300 million) after workers in 2002 discovered borated water, which acts as the reactor coolant, leaked from a control rod drive mechanism and ate a six inch hole in the first vessel head. The plant did not return to service until 2004.In 2010 during a scheduled refueling outage, the company found small cracks in the control rod nozzels and decided to replace the second vessel head. Schneider said this head replacement project would cost about $115 million.Schneider said the company was still moving f

October 17, 2011   46 notes

FirstEnergy finds cracks at Ohio nuclear reactor


* Cracks not like Progress Florida Crystal River reactorNEW YORK, Oct 17 (Reuters) - FirstEnergy said it discovered small cracks in the concrete shield building surrounding the containment structure at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio, which was shut for another reactor vessel head replacement, a spokesman for the Ohio-based energy company said Monday.”We don’t believe there will be a problem with the schedule to replace the vessel head. Engineers are conducting a thorough investigation of the cracks. We should have an answer later this week,” FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Schneider told Reuters.Schneider was quick to point out that these cracks were different than the concrete problems with the containment dome at Progress Energy’s Crystal River nuclear plant in Florida.Crystal River has been shut since September 2009 after workers discovered a gap in the concrete containment dome after they cut through the structure to replace the plant’s aging steam generators. The plant is not expected to return until at least 2014.Schneider said the “microcracks” at Davis-Besse were barely visible. He said they were discovered while workers were cutting away the concrete with pressurized water to create an opening for the vessel head.The shield building is a 250-foot (76.2 meters) tall, two and a half foot thick concrete structure that surrounds the steel containment structure, which is about an inch and a half thick. The steel containment and the concrete shield building surround the pressurized water reactor’s vessel and steam generators and are designed to keep radioactive materials within the reactor in case of an accident.The containment structures do not have a door big enough for the reactor vessel head, which is nearly 17 feet in diameter, eight feet tall and weighs more than 82 tons (74,389 kilograms), FirstEnergy said.THIRD VESSEL HEADThis is Davis-Besse’s third reactor vessel head.It cost the company about $600 million to replace the first vessel head ($300 million) and buy replacement power ($300 million) after workers in 2002 discovered borated water, which acts as the reactor coolant, leaked from a control rod drive mechanism and ate a six inch hole in the first vessel head. The plant did not return to service until 2004.In 2010 during a scheduled refueling outage, the company found small cracks in the control rod nozzels and decided to replace the second vessel head. Schneider said this head replacement project would cost about $115 million.Schneider said the company was still moving forward with the head replacement work and would next cut the steel rebar that supports the concrete in the shield building before cutting through the inner steel containment structure.He said the discovery of the cracks has not impacted the work schedule but he could not say when the reactor was expected to return to service. He did note the outage was expected to last longer than a typical refueling outage.The reactor shut on Oct. 1. A typical refuel lasts about four weeks. Electricity traders guessed Davis-Besse would return after about six weeks in the middle of November.Schneider said FirstEnergy was not refueling the reactor at this time. According to Reuters data, the reactor is on a 24-month refueling cycle and will likely shut in the spring of 2012. It last shut for refueling during the spring or 2010.

October 14, 2011   61 notes

Pentagon kills Boeing Army radio program


* More Pentagon cutbacks seen likelyBy Jim WolfWASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The Defense Department said Friday it had terminated Boeing Co’s top U.S. Army radio program, kicking off an expected new round of cutbacks as the Pentagon trims spending in an austere budget climate.Full-rate production of the Joint Tactical Radio System’s “Ground Mobile Radio” was once estimated to be worth nearly $20 billion.But the Boeing contract was merely for development and to certify two companies to compete to produce the radio.”Our contract specifically restricted Boeing from production,” said Matthew Billingsley, a company spokesman.The program was canceled in line with the Nunn-McCurdy statute, said Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Melinda Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman. The statute was triggered after the planned purchase was slashed over the summer from 86,209 radios to 10,293.The law calls for a program’s termination once unit-procurement costs exceed the original estimate by 25 percent unless it is deemed essential to national security.In this case, the Pentagon also would have had to certify the lack of a viable alternative and that problems that led to the cost growth are under control.”I can confirm the program has been terminated,” Morgan said. A notice from Frank Kendall, the acting under secretary for acquisition, was sent to the House of Representatives’ and Senate Armed Services Committees on Thursday night, she said.The Army plans to conduct a full and open competition early next year for a lower-cost alternative, said Major Christopher Kasker, an Army spokesman.Prior investment in “software-defined” radios through the program has fostered competitive alternatives, he said in an emailed statement.”The Army has committed to a new way of doing acquisition — an agile approach that emphasizes affordability, embraces innovation, supports competition and rewards technological maturity,” the statement said.”The decision to cancel GMR is fully consistent with this approach,” it said.The Pentagon’s joint program office that oversees the program estimates that GMR’s ten-year development has incurred about $1.6 billion in research and development costs, the Army said.”This investment was fully harvested, as GMR has spawned key breakthroughs in related software and hardware technologies” making it possible to go a cheaper route, the statement said.Boeing is disappointed by the decision to end the development effort, but its contract was scheduled to end in March 2012 anyway, the company said.The decision by the Pentagon simply “confirms that fact,” Billingsley said, adding: “We look forward to applying our experience and knowledge in future competitions.”President Barack Obama and the Congress agreed to a deal in August that requires as much as $450 billion in cuts to security-related spending over 10 years compared with previous Pentagon projections.Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Congress on Thursday that any cuts over the $450 billion “will truly devastate our national security.”The Army and Navy have proposed to terminate a multibillion-dollar Joint Air-to-Ground Missile program, InsideDefense.com, a trade publication, reported this week.But Kasker, the Army spokesman, said Friday that the competition was still under way for the program’s engineering, manufacturing and development phase. Lockheed Martin Corp is competing for the deal against a team of Raytheon and Boeing.

October 13, 2011   73 notes

UPDATE 1-Vienna Insurance has 1.5 bln euro war chest - CEO


* Reiterates interest in Warta, especially non-life business* Shares down 2.2 pct, lag insurance sector (Adds quotes and background)VIENNA, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Vienna Insurance has 1.5 billion euros ($2.1 billion) available for acquisitions but does not see many takeover candidates in central and eastern Europe at the moment, Chief Executive Guenter Geyer said on Thursday.”From today’s perspective there are probably no longer a lot of acquisition possibilities in the CEE region,” he told reporters, noting antitrust considerations played a role in some places and deals made little sense elsewhere.One potential target for emerging Europe’s largest insurer remained Belgian banking and insurance group KBC’s Polish insurer Warta, he reiterated, adding due diligence on a sale could start this year.”We think in Poland that Warta, and especially the non-life part of Warta, could be a fit for us, particularly given our multi-brand strategy, so we will take a close look at this,” he said.Vienna would not need to raise capital should it decide to purchase Warta, he said, adding he did not expect Warta’s life and non-life operations to be sold separately.He said its value depended strongly on how well its distribution channels could be secured.KBC has committed to off-loading a series of businesses in return for 7 billion euros of state aid it got from Belgium and the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders at the height of the 2008-2009 financial crisis.KBC’s remaining big-ticket items are Poland’s Kredyt Bank and insurer Warta, as well as private bank KBL European Private Bankers, originally sold to India’s Hinduja until Luxembourg regulators stopped the deal.Geyer said Vienna would examine possible takeovers in Hungary but there was “nothing serious” available now.Geyer reiterated the group’s target to boost 2011 pretax profit by 10 percent and said he did not envision significant writedowns on its holdings of Greek sovereign debt.”We have no need that is worth mentioning strongly for revaluations,” he said when asked about Greece, noting another 10 million euros in writedowns would take its cumulative markdowns to 50 percent.It has 16 million euros in Italian state debt.He said Vienna would mark down the value of such holdings in third-quarter results “wherever necessary”.”We are excellently positioned,” he added. ($1 = 0.725 euro)

October 11, 2011   89 notes

Congress watchdog probes solar loans after Solyndra


The last-minute approvals of the projects raise fears that “the evaluation of loan guarantees may have been rushed in order to meet a deadline,” said Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, in a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu.Issa and other Republicans in the House of Representatives have pushed to highlight concerns about a loan guarantee to Solyndra, a failed solar panel manufacturer that has filed for bankruptcy and is being investigated by the FBI.Solyndra was the first company to receive an Energy Department loan guarantee, worth $535 million, in 2009. The Solyndra investigation has been politically embarrassing for the Obama administration, which had made clean energy job creation a key plank in its energy policy.Funding for the program expired on Sept 30, and on that day, the department approved loan guarantees to First Solar Inc for two solar power plants and SunPower Corp for another plant.The projects were different than Solyndra. While Solyndra’s loan went toward building a factory, the three power plants approved Sept 30 had a fixed revenue stream from contracts for the electricity produced by the plants.After the Energy Department approved the loan guarantees, the plants were bought by some of the largest utilities in the nation.The committee wants to know whether the sale of the projects to the utilities was a condition for approval of the loans.Exelon bought First Solar’s Antelope Valley project, while NextEra Energy and GE’s Energy Financial Services bought First Solar’s Desert Sunlight plant.NRG Energy bought SunPower’s California Valley project.The fourth loan guarantee was for a project owned by Prologis to install solar panels on industrial buildings, which was also backed by NRG.Issa asked for emails between the Energy Department and all the companies involved, as well as emails between the Energy Department and White House concerning the projects.The panel also asked a series of questions about the technology used by First Solar, and asked why the Energy Department failed to finalize a guarantee for First Solar’s Topaz plant.The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been leading the probe of Solyndra and the loan guarantees, and is slated to hold another hearing on the issue on Friday.