Canada offers CANDU for sale

This time they really mean it

In the latest round of what passes for a soap opera plot in the heavy industry world of nuclear energy, the government of Canada has announced yet again it will offer a crown corporation, or at least parts of it, for sale. The part it wants to sell off is the CANDU heavy water reactor technology developed by Atomic Energy Limited of Canada (AECL) and its workforce.

According to the Toronto Star for May 29, Canadian Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt told the news media AECL “faces stiff competition from much larger rivals.” The Star citied an internal government assessment of AECL’s prospects and says, “Atomic Energy's commercial CANDU reactor division "can be best served by a strategic alliance with one or more partners with global scale that can leverage the technology, skills and experience of AECL in Canada and internationally."

The review said a strategic alliance could take the form of a joint venture or merger with another nuclear reactor supplier or the sale of a minority or majority equity interest in AECL.

According to a May 28 report by World Nuclear News, the report came with a conclusion that was no surprise to anyone citing AECL’s inability to access capital markets to grow its operation.

Ms. Raitt also came to some considerable political grief after losing confidential government papers about the future of AECL. They were found but not beffore a tearful Raitt offered to resign. Her offer was turned down by PM Harper. A 20-something aide took the fall for the gaffe.

What price for AECL and what for?

Nobody has put a price on the private equity offering, and it has not yet been released for bids. If Raitt (left) or the Harper government has any idea of what they will accept from investors, they aren’t saying anything. What is likely is that any private equity firm will not also take with the sale accountability for covering cost overruns at Darlington, Ontario, should that $22 billion project be awarded to AECL.

This is the sharp stick that has been poked in the ribs of the central government in Ottawa by the provincial government in Ontario. For nearly a year the Ontario government has delayed making a decision on who to award the new $22 billion nuclear build at Darlington. The primary reason, according to media reports, is “sticker shock” at the costs submitted by bidders and the realization of what cost over runs could do to the success of the project and electricity rates for customers.

Since AECL is a creature of the federal government in Canada, what Ontario has been doing is holding the bids hostage until it can get a guarantee from Ottawa that if the award goes to AECL, with its 30,000 employees in Canada, that cost over runs for the Darlington project will be made good through federal reimbursement. That’s a tough negotiation ploy and has insured there is no love lost between the provincial and central governments over this issue.

Betting dollars for donuts

As the folks in Ontario see it, if AECL is a crown corporation, then unexpected costs, and schedule delays, should be paid by Ottawa assuming AECL is the builder. If another firm is chosen, you can bet dollars to donuts Ontario will issue a fixed price contract with draconian penalties for schedule delays and excessive costs. Of course the question then becomes whether anyone besides AECL would take such a contact. More likely, a risk sharing framework for costs would have to be worked out to achieve success.

All this pressure from the provincial government has added momentum to a process that has been underway for some time. AECL has required increasing subsidies from Ottawa especially for its Chalk River nuclear isotope reactor and for design and development of its next generation commercial nuclear reactor – the ACR1000.

Drawing a line at Chalk River

Chalk River, which is more than 50 years old, is yet again shut down due to a heavy water leak causing chaos in the medical world because it supplies more than half the isotopes used in the U.S. and Canada. The Harper administration has shown some common sense and is separating Chalk River from its sale of AECL.

Further, the federal government will commit to replace the reactor with a new one and take on the over $7 billion in cleanup liabilities associated with the site. An effort to replace Chalk River with two smaller reactors was scrapped last year due to multi-million dollar cost-over runs and repeated failures to get the units to work. In addition to building a new conventional reactor to make medical isotopes, Raitt said the government would seek to privatize that operation while setting aside legacy liabilities to be resolved by the government. Presumably, that would include the $7 billion in cleanup and the eventual decommissioning of the Chalk River reactor complex.

Who will offer new lamps for old?

AECL has not made a profit in the last five years. Last year alone the cost of R&D subsidies for AECL amounted to $350 million. The ACR1000 has just entered design review with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, but despite getting that far, it has not booked any sales nor even firm prospects of one. There are questions of how well it would fare as an export product. It looks like the future of the ACR1000 depends almost entirely on whether AECL gets the Darlington bid award.

Other bidders for Darlington, and likely equity investors in AECL itself, include Areva, SNC Lavalin, a Canadian construction company, Ontario’s Bruce Power, which is also thinking about building an twin-unit ACR1000 power station in Alberta, and General Electric. Westinghouse has stated it wants to supply nuclear reactor components to Darlington, but is not publically on record as being interested in AECL itself.

Ontario’s energy minister George Smitherman (left) has been expected to make a statement on who will take the Darlington Project by June 21. However, the Toronto Star reported he may postpone that announcement until he can see how AECL will be chopped up for sale to be sold off in pieces and to whom.

What he is probably worrying about is that the federal government is going to sell AECL off and, with it, deep six to any obligation to subsidize new reactor R&D and, more importantly, backstop cost over runs if the Darlington project is awarded to AECL.

The worst possible outcome for Ontario is that AECL is left without enough resources, in a private eqity deal, to actually execute a contract at Darlington. Then Ontario has 30,000 jobs to worry about and still needs a builder for its reactor complex. Someone other than AECL might hire its engineers, but cherry picking the best of them might also involve their assignment to the equity firm's projects that are already underway at other nuclear reactor projects in other countries.

Nuclear engineers – pack a bag

In terms of who would bid on the commercial division, that depends on what they think they are buying. Globally, AECL’s current and projected market shares are not significant. The installed base of heavy water reactors is aging and the technology never caught on globally. See World Nuclear’s profile of Canada’s power reactors for more details. Scroll down past the profile of its uranium industry.

The newest offering, the ACR1000, is still on the drawing boards. It is not a product with a defined time-to-market. It could need several hundred million more in R&D and design work before it is ready for sale domestically or for export. This leaves just one factor of immediate value and that is AECL’s workforce.

In a global industry where dozens of new nuclear reactor projects are scrambling for qualified, experienced nuclear engineers, the 30,000 workers on AECL’s payroll looks like a gold-plated body shop.

While there will be continuing work to maintain AECL’s reactors in Canada, and build Darlington if AECL gets the award, the fact is a private equity bidder for AECL most likely would have immediate work for its top nuclear engineers on projects worldwide. Note to ACEL engineers – pack a bag because you are going to need it.

Prior coverage on this blog

• March 8, 2009 – AECL’s destiny to be decided at Darlington
• November 28, 2008 – Is Westinghouse in or out at Darlington?
• November 9, 2008 – Ontario delays reactor new build decision
• May 16, 2008 – AECL gives up on Maple reactors
• April 9, 2008 – GE-Hitachi pulls out of Ontario bidding
• April 4, 2008 – AECL leaves the ice in the U.K.
• March 1, 2008 – Canada posts ‘For Sale” sign at AECL
• December 16, 2007 – Isotope maker restarts after controversy

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NY Times claims “renaissance” is over

Newspaper tries to make the case the “nuclear renaissance” of the future has collided with its past – it is wrong.

In a wrenching review of problems accumulating at Olliluoto, Finland, and Flamanville, France, the New York Times reports that the so-called “nuclear renaissance,” a vision of the future of nuclear energy as an answer to the challenge of global warming, has suffered from a head-on collision with the industry’s past.

In a three way pile up – cost over runs, technical issues, and regulatory mazes – the newspaper says these events are red flags for the Obama administration which has been notably quiet on how it feels about nuclear energy. However, this is the point where the newspaper gets its signals crossed and winds up with a collision of its own between news and opinion.

Plus, where's the hard news peg? The story of the delays at these two project, and what the company has been doing to correct them, has been around since 2007. See the four links to prior coverage on this blog below.

The most significant issues is that the NYT article takes two data points and applies assumptions drawn from them to the global nuclear industry. This would be roughly the same as taking the total consumption of orange juice in Brooklyn and applying it to a projection of what's on everyone's breakfast table for the U.S, England, and France.

I can see the headline now - Obama warned not to send economic stimulous money to Florida due to sharp drop in sales of concentrated juice in Brooklyn grocery stores.

There are problems with Areva’s projects

The NYT article is a litany of serious problems taking place at two enormous reactor projects both being built by Areva, the French state-owned nuclear giant. Both plants are 1,600 MW EPRs which are state-of-the art designs. The key problems are subcontractors which the Finnish regulatory authorities say poured bad concrete and ignored quality assurance procedures and standards for welding and related steel work. The article reports similar problems at Flammanville again with the concrete and steel foundations of the reactor.

This sounds suspiciously like the lowest bidder phenomenon. It has two parts well known to construction project managers. The first is if you want it bad, you’ll get it bad, and the second is, there is never time to do it right, but always time to do it over. The cost increases to double the original estimate and at least three years of delays in an estimated completion time are ample evidence that both factors are present at both sites.

For Areva’s part, the company has repeatedly pointed to delays in Finland caused by an understaffed and overwhelmed regulatory agency. However, as similar problems with pouring concrete and fabricating the steel have turned up on France, it is clear that control of subcontractors, getting them to work to nuclear industry standards, is at the heart of the problem.

The company says on its U.S. blog that it knows it has problems, expected some of them, and is applying lessons learned in Finland to Flamanville and to its planned U.S. projects.

We recognize that as with any first-of-a-kind project, there is bound to be a learning curve. We have learned much from the EPR reactor under construction in Finland and will apply this experience to future projects around the world. At our second EPR project in France, we’ve already implemented many of the improvements we’ve learned from the Finland project.

Areva isn’t the entire nuclear industry

What’s wrong with the NYT article is that it uses issues that are clearly within Areva’ control to fix as deal breakers for the nuclear industry as a whole. This is where the newspaper’s article derails itself and attempts to spike the nuclear renaissance like a bad story of cops and robbers from the police blotter.

The newspaper then takes on what can only be called a “kitchen sink” approach tossing every anti-nuclear argument it can muster into the pile.

It adds in specious claims about airliner impacts on containment building. Note to NYT editors – in such cases the airline loses, the concrete containment structure gets some scratches and scorch marks, but the reactor itself is untouched by the impact. Also, the NRC hasn’t bought the airliner issue.

The newspaper also turns to Caren Byrd, a wall street banker, who lately has wailed that the “warning lights are now flashing more brightly” for potential investors in the nuclear industry. Well, there is a reason for that – the wall street bankers, like Ms. Byrd’s employer, tanked the entire western economy, ours and Europe’s, with a Las Vegas gambling mentality. I don’t see how the newspaper can turn to them for authoritative comments on other industries when they’ve done so badly with their own.

As the the issue of the Missouri legislature rejecting Ameren’s request to overturn a 1976 anti-nuclear law, that clearly was a mix of ineptitude by both the utility and the legislature. Ameren came in the a proposal which undercut ratepayer rights. It gave opponents all the opening they needed to kill the measure despite compromises later in the session by the utility. A surprise in the mix was the opposition of one of Ameren’s biggest customers, an aluminum plant, which actually needs the electricity from a second reactor in order to grow.

In short, just about everyone involved in the “show me” state shot themselves in the foot. Ameren and the legislature have two more tries before the NRC issues a license to the utility sometime in late 2011. Maybe hanging together rather than separately would be a good way to go during next year’s legislative session.

So what we have with the NY Times is two articles. The first is a reasonably accurate account of old news about Areva’s problems which the utility has stated it is working to correct. The other half of the article is a collection of unrelated anecdotes which use Areva’s problems as a spring board for an anti-nuclear tirade against the entire industry that belongs on the op ed pages and not in the news section.

Prior coverage on this blog

News of problems with Areva's EPR projects in Finland and France, and what the firm is doing to correct them, are not news. Why the NY Times pursues the story now remains a puzzle since the original, cited above, has no hard news peg.

• August 28, 2008 -Areva's double trouble with EPRs
• August 8, 2008 - New trouble at Olkiluoto
• December 27, 2007 - Areva's EPR for Finland will be late
• December 4, 2007 Areva's Flamanville project is underway

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Rethinking nuclear power hits the road

Robert Hargraves takes his Dartmouth class to Vermont Yankee on a field trip and then lights up Google with a talk on thorium power

by: Robert Hargraves
Guest Contributor to Idaho Samizdat

Students enrolled in the Dartmouth ILEAD course, Energy Policy and Environmental Choices: Rethinking Nuclear Power toured Entergy's Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant May 21. Weeks before we had submitted personal identification information for screening by homeland security. After a brief talk by our hosts we passed through several security checkpoints, where we were given ID badges, X-rayed and puffed at metal and radiation detectors, issued two dosimeters each, and escorted into the heart of the plant.

Inside Vermont Yankee

We visited the turbine generator room. I'm impressed that 640 megawatts of electric power is produced by a single generator on a single shaft spun by high and low pressure steam turbines. The water that cools the reactor passes directly through the turbines, so this area is mildly radioactive.

My own Russian radiation counter showed rates about 10 times normal background; the Entergy-loaned dosimeter showed I was exposed to a total of 0.6 mrem during the tour. (Background radiation is about 350 mrem/day here.)

We also walked around the reactor vessel containment structure and looked at the hydraulic actuators for the control rods. After another security check we visited the control room. On the way out we passed through security checkpoints, surrendered the dosimeters, and were measured for any radioactive contamination. Everyone enjoyed the interesting visit and many asked for an opportunity to ask further questions.

Course motivation

I started teaching this course in 2008. I had previously written a tutorial blog about the pebble bed reactor, a Gen IV technology that promises high temperature and efficiency, passive safety, and continuous refueling. After many talks I was too often confronted with "but what about the waste?".

Consequently I decided to address the energy issue more broadly, writing an eight-week course with about 700 PowerPoint slides entitled Energy Policy and Environmental Choices: Rethinking Nuclear Power, offering it to members of Dartmouth College's Institute for Lifelong Education at Dartmouth (ILEAD).

ILEAD ILEAD has about 1500 members -- mostly business, educational, and professional people who have retired in the area surrounding Dartmouth College in Hanover NH. It offers over 200 courses a year led by former writers, bankers, CIA-spooks, submariners, musicians, ecologists, doctors, farmers, publishers, and teachers.

Rethinking Nuclear Power course topics

• 1. Introduction: energy, power, units, efficiencies, uses, demand growth, doing the math.
• 2. Fear: Chernobyl, TMI, weapons, biological effects, medical radiation.
• 3. Environmental choices: impacts of oil, natural gas, depletion, global warming, coal, oil shale, tar sands, wind, hydro, solar, corn, ethanol.
• 4. Current technology: submarines, PWR, LWR, Candu, NRC, Westinghouse AP-1000, GE ESBWR, Areva.
• 5. New technologies: high temperature gas reactors, hydrogen electrolysis, fuel synthesis, waste reprocessing, integral fast reactor, Gen IV, GNEP, molten salt reactor, and my Aim High! talk.
• 6. Site visit: Vermont Yankee (Seabrook last year). The students heard guest speakers: Howard Shafer, a submariner; Neal Boucher, DHMC radiation safety officer; Richard Bower, NY PUC member during Shoreham; Graham Wallis, NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards.

Results

Twenty-nine students enrolled in the course, nearly twice as many students as last year. They told me that previously they had no knowledge of the costs and benefits of nuclear power compared to other energy sources. They are urging me to teach it again, so others can also learn. One student told me "Taking your course is one of the best things I have ever done."

Aim High! Teachers also learn

After giving the course last year I learned about the molten salt thorium reactor. I was so impressed with its potential that I put together the Aim High! presentation and have spent many days in trying to make people aware of the need for R&D in this area.

Course presentation materials availability

The course presentations are based on about 700 graphic, tutorial PowerPoint slides, with web references for further discovery. They are all posted on the course website, in .ppt and .pdf form.

There are also audio recordings to accompany the slides. I encourage anyone to use these materials to educate interested people in other communities.

Hargraves at Google

Mankind's fossil fuel burning releases CO2 into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming and deadly air pollution. Natural resources are rapidly being depleted by world population growth. Safe, inexpensive energy from the liquid fluoride thorium reactor can stop much global warming and raise prosperity of humanity to adopt US and OECD lifestyles, which include lower, sustainable birth rates.

Category: Science & Technology Tags: google tech talk liquid flouride thorium nuclear energy

Video of Hargraves at Google May 26, 2009

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G8 Energy ministers endorse nuclear option

New nuclear reactors are a “common low-carbon technology platform”

In the arcane world of international diplomacy, it is unusual to see an absence of the usual contorted language in a joint statement from a group of western nations with wildly divergent interests.

The Wall Street Journal reports that energy ministers from the world's eight richest nations said on May 24 they would work to create a common low-carbon technology platform as solutions to climate change and a lack of secure energy supplies.

In short, they are talking about two things. First, nuclear energy can meet Europe’s energy needs, and second, as a result the G8 nations will not be held hostage to Russia’s political manipulation of natural gas supplies to Europe.

The NY Times reports that U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu (right) said the participants had agreed on the need for diversifying energy sources to help keep prices stable and help the economic recovery.

''There's a continued, renewed interest in trying to stabilize energy prices, so that the world economy, both the oil exporting and the oil importing countries, can have a stable future,'' Chu said at a joint news conference.

The statement comes as a number of countries, including the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE), are planning to build nuclear reactors to produce electricity. Not only are they worried about energy security, the oil-producing nations are also concerned that a future run up of the price of oil could tank global demand and with it their own national investment strategies.

The WSJ reported that in a closing statement at their two-day meeting, held in Rome, the energy ministers from the Group of Eight leading nations, plus the European Commission, said,

"In the opinion of a growing number of countries, the use of nuclear energy can contribute to energy security while reducing greenhouse emissions."

"We encourage all countries interested in the civil use of nuclear energy to engage in constructive international collaboration," the statement said, while reiterating "the fundamental prerequisite for the peaceful use of nuclear energy."

The last sentence was a reference to North Korea’s underground nuclear test on May 23 said to be in the range of 4 MT. However, the G8 ministers made a strong distinction in their statement between nuclear weapons and nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

German greens say not so fast

Critics have condemned the new thinking in Europe on civilian commercial nuclear power, claiming that the G8 ministers are letting themselves be fooled by the nuclear lobby's "climate" arguments. German greens want to shut down all 17 of the country’s nuclear power plants and have a deal to do so with the current ruling coalition which would result in seven being shut as soon as September 2009. They have railed against the claim that nuclear energy is part of the solution to the challenges of global warming.

"If you wanted to be really cynical you could say that the nuclear industry had to invent the whole climate discussion in order to see a chance for themselves," said Rebecca Harms, (left) an MP from Germany's Green party.

"I know of no other case in which a huge industry tries so hard to benefit from a huge global problem as the nuclear industry does in the case of climate change."

Next September German Chancellor Andrea Merkel will swing for the fences and seek to overturn the nuclear deal with the Social Democrats. She will bet the election on this issue and her handling of the current financial crisis.

UAE deal leading the Middle East drive for nuclear energy

That argument did not cut any ice with Arab nations. The WSJ also reported the G8 statement was endorsed in a subsequent statement signed by Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, as well as India and China, which are fastest growing developers of nuclear energy.

The UAE has a deal pending with the US to allow it to engage in trade for nuclear reactors and related technologies. The new build is said to be in the range of 5 GWe to be built in three stages near the UAE border with Saudi Arabia. This would aid wheeling electricity to that country.

Competition for the deal is reported to be intense with French President Nickolas Sarkozy traveling to the UAE last week to try to sell them on buying Areva EPRs for the project. According to press reports from the UAE, a short list of potential bidders will be released in September 2009.

Italy and Japan cut nuclear deal

While the G8 ministers were making global pronouncements, two members cut a side deal. According to wire service reports, Japan and Italy signed a memorandum to cooperate in nuclear power development. It is the third such deal the Italians have inked in as many months. It previously agreed to “cooperate” with Russia and with France on new nuclear reactor projects.

Japan's METI minister Toshihiro Nikai and Italy's Industry Minister Claudio Scajola (right) met Sunday on the sidelines of the G8 countries' Energy Ministers meeting held in Rome, and signed the memorandum. The Japanese government agency METI issued a statement in Tokyo announcing the deal.

This is the sixth country METI has a nuclear cooperation memorandum with, the others being Jordan, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Vietnam and the UAE. A common factor for these deals in their relation to very large consumers of electricity including current or planned aluminum smelting plants.

The memorandum with Italy calls for a three-year project in which Japan will cooperate with Italy in the education of experts and government regulatory policy. Last year Italy decided to resume nuclear power generation to combat global warming and increase its energy security.

Japan Steel Works (JSW) currently is the leading source globally of long lead time reactor vessel components, but other countries, including the U.K. and France, plan to build competing facilities. While JSW has a comfortable backlog in its order book, that situation might not last if these other facilities come online. Clearly, Japanese export earnings would take a hit hence the multiple deals for “nuclear cooperation” to keep JSW’s hand in at the deal table.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa – 7th chevron is locked

As Japan was signing a deal with Italy, which could lead the way to exports from Japan for heavy nuclear components for new reactors, there was good news back in Tokyo that raised the credibility of the Japanese nuclear establishment.

Retuers reports that Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said on May 24 it had boosted output from the 1,356 megawatt, No.7 nuclear reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in northern Japan to 50% capacity.

TEPCO, Asia's biggest utility, restarted the No.7 unit for the first time in nearly two years ago following a magnitude 6.8 quake. It resumed power generation from the unit at 20% of capacity on May 19.

A company statement said the output at the No.7 unit was raised to 50% on May 23. The company's website showed that the reactor was generating 719 MW of power. Under a test run, output will be raised to 75% and then full production.

Reuters reported that the restart of the No. 7 unit could cut TEPCO's annual fuel purchases by more than 70 billion yen ($740.2 million) and cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than 5 million tonnes, according to company and Reuters calculations.

TEPCIO said it was proceeding with plans to restart the other six reactors which were closed two years ago due to a severe earthquake. While there was no damage to the plants, provincial government authorities, which have veto power over plant operations, forced them to remain closed while an assessment was made by the IAEA. A series of fires at non-nuclear parts of the plants also alarmed officials and contributed to the delay in restarting the facility.

Japan’s international nuclear energy reputation has taken a beating as a combination of factors increased the delay in restarting the world’s largest nuclear power station. It must come as a relief to TEPCO officials and the government to see the power back on.

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Vermont Yankee bill vetoed

Funding for the decommissioning fund will not be set by legislative fiat

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas vetoed a bill that would require Entergy (NYSE:ETR), the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, to pay hundreds of millions of dollars toward decommissioning the nuclear power plant. This is the second time in two years Douglas has vetoed such a bill.

Earlier this month, the Vermont Legislature passed the bill as part of an effort to get Entergy Nuclear to put the money into the fund, for use cleaning up the Vernon property if the plant closes in 2012. That assumes the NRC does not extend its license for another 20 years.

Anti-nuclear forces in the state legislature are trying to create an atmosphere of inevitability over closure by raising the issue of the adequate funding for immediate closure.

The Burlington Free Press reports Gov. Douglas (right) said the bill threatens the state's economic recovery by increasing electric rates for consumers and businesses.

"Many Vermonters are struggling as a result of the current recession and all are facing pressure from rising costs. While I do believe there are opportunities for operational improvements at Vermont Yankee, this legislation does nothing to increase protections for Vermonters, ratepayers or our state's economy.”

"This legislation's approach is to extract money in any way possible, creating a hostile business environment," Douglas said in a four-page veto message.

He said the bill threatened to drive up electric rates for Vermonters, renege on a 2002 agreement with Vermont Yankee owner Entergy Corp., and circumvent the Public Service Board process.

The plant's decommissioning fund totaled $346 million this winter after suffering extensive losses in the recession hobbled economy. The legislature wants the parent company to fund the $600 million short-fall out of corporate earnings, but as a practical matter is will come out of the rate base with massively higher electricity bills for the people and businesses of Vermont.

Under an agreement with the state when it bought the plant in 2002, Entergy was allowed to consider on-site storage of spent nuclear fuel for up to 60 years. The state legislature disagrees and wants to overturn that arrangement.

Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier, chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, (right) said that the agreement is not binding forever. "There's nothing about a Public Service Board order that can't be changed," he said.

Lawmakers are expected to attempt to call an override vote on the decommissioning fund when they meet in a special session on June 2. Last year, when Douglas vetoed similar legislation, lawmakers did not try to override the veto.

Political analysts told the news media this year's Legislature does not have the votes to do so either, as businesses that rely on large quantities of electricity have been effective in persuading some legislators to vote against it. This includes IBM which reportedly employs 6,000 people in Vermont.

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Ed Kee's slides on status & future of nuclear energy

The slides from a May 19, 2009 presentation by Ed Kee to the Goldman Sachs Power & Utility Conference are available below. Ed posted the slides at 'SlideShare' via Linkedin and they are reproduced here under the terms and conditions of the SlideShare service. This is an excellent overview of where the nuclear industry is today and where it is headed globally for new builds of nuclear reactors.

For questions about the content, see Ed Kee's contact information in the slides

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