The nuclear safety authorities in Finland, France and the United Kingdom have raised common questions regarding the respective I&C (instrumentation and control) certifications for the EPR™ reactor in each country. AREVA pointed out in a statement today that the authorities have not called into question the safety of the EPR™ reactor.

This constant dialog between operators, constructors and nuclear safety authorities is an integral part of the certification and construction processes for new reactors. AREVA is currently working with the regulators in each country to make the necessary adaptations, if any, to meet local standards.

The EPR™ reactor is currently the most powerful reactor in the world and meets the highest safety standards. EPR™ reactors are currently being built in Finland, France and China and the certification process is underway in the United States. AREVA is working closely with the authorities in each country to determine how its model can respond to various local issues.

AREVA guarantees the safety of its reactor and welcomes the approach made by the safety authorities to introduce a global standardization for its I&C model.

by Jarret Adams

Antinuclear activists lately have been trotting out that old chestnut that nuclear energy is not really CO2-free and that this claim is some type of deception. Here’s the short version: nuclear power plants do not produce CO2 while they are producing electricity. For each new AREVA EPR™ reactor that we build, we can avoid 10 million tons of CO2 emissions per year compared to a coal-fired plant.

Chart courtesy NEI.

Here’s the longer version: all power sources, including nuclear energy, renewables, fossil fuels and everything else, produce CO2 at various points during their respective lifecycles. There are emissions during the construction of new facilities, manufacturing of components, obtaining and refining the fuel, transportation to and from the facility, and so on. On the basis of lifecycle emissions, there is no energy source that does not produce some CO2 emissions when one includes full lifecycle and all related activities.

Nevertheless, even when one considers the lifecycle emissions of nuclear energy and renewables, they are very comparable. Reputable studies confirm this. A 2002 University of Wisconsin study showed that nuclear energy had 17 tons of CO2 emissions per Gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity compared with 14 tons of CO2 emissions per GWh for wind. For comparison, coal had 1,041 tons of CO2 emissions per GWh.

Several other studies, including 2008 study by the International Energy Agency (OECD), and a 2006 study by the U.K. Government, offer similar conclusions: nuclear energy lifecycle emissions are similar to wind and lower than solar photovoltaic. Here also is a great article from a UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) publication that lays it out well.

This should take nothing away from renewables – AREVA supports renewables. We are currently installing our M5000 offshore wind turbines off the coast of Germany and recently announced an agreement to build 80 more. These 5 MW turbines are the world’s biggest, and we hope to build hundreds of them around the world, including here in North America.

The point is that nuclear energy and renewables are complementary and are key elements in helping us move toward a low-carbon future. Anti-nukes seem to believe that a dollar spent on nuclear energy is a dollar taken away from renewables. This is not true. We need to begin investing more in both if we are serious about addressing our energy and climate change goals.

On Sept. 6 AREVA announced a major milestone with the installation of the massive reactor building inner dome for the Olkiluoto 3 EPR™ reactor in Finland.

This is a significant step in the reactor’s construction as it’s now the first generation III+ plant in the world with a covered reactor building. This step also marks the end of the civil works phase. Weighing 210 tons and measuring over 150 feet in diameter, the steel inner dome was put in place with one of the most powerful cranes in the world.

AREVA is using this experience and expertise in nuclear reactor design and construction for its US EPR™ reactor. Eight US EPR™ reactors are currently under consideration for the United States and four are already undergoing licensing.

In preparation for this new reactor boom, AREVA recently broke ground on a manufacturing facility in Newport News, Virginia. This facility will provide the heavy components which are critical pieces for these U.S. EPR™ reactors.

More information on the US EPR™ is available here and for AREVA Newport News, LLC.

Watch a video of the dome installation here.

And stay tuned for updates as AREVA builds the next generation of nuclear generation around the world.

By Katherine Berezowskyj

What’s next for nuclear reactors in the United States? Rebecca Smith of the Wall Street Journal just tackled the answer to this question.  Her recent piece, “The New Nukes,” took a look at what’s being developed for the new nuclear reactors and how they are going to “be safer, cheaper, and more efficient than current plants.”

With the majority of Americans seeing nuclear energy as a safe and effective way to battle climate change, Smith puts forward that “if there were ever a time that seemed ripe for nuclear energy in the U.S., it’s now.” Her piece took a fare look at the three key areas ─cost, safety, and waste─ where the nuclear industry has been vulnerable, but is now working to solve with development and deployment of a new generation of nuclear reactors.

Even with past accidents, the safety record of the nuclear energy industry has proved this image wrong by maintaining a rigorous safety program over the past 30 years.  This next generation currently being developed, the Generation III + reactors, “take everything that’s been learned about safe operations and do it even better.”

“Generation III plants cut down on some of that infrastructure and rely more heavily on passive systems that don’t need human intervention to keep the reactor in a safe condition—reducing the chance of an accident caused by operator error or equipment failure.”

One example discussed was AREVA’s EPR™ reactor whose safety features include upgraded active and passive safety systems and a double containment building.  Smith also pointed out that skeptical Union of Concerned Scientists have named it the “only design that is less vulnerable to a serious accident that today’s operating reactors.”

And just as safety has improved with new technology and design developments, so has the cost of new nuclear plants.  They are extending the traditional life of the plants to at least 60 years, and “the new plants are also designed to be much simpler and quicker to build, reducing financing costs by potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The issues regarding what do to with the used nuclear fuel include more options than building a permanent storage facility.  One possibility Smith mentions is the Generation IV fast reactors which are “designed to burn previously used fuel.”

We would like to mention another option for capturing all of the potential energy still remaining in used fuel─ recycling.  For more than 30 years at AREVA’s La Hague facility, we have been recycling used fuel in a process that exponentially reduces the volume of waste for disposal and allows some of the material to be used again as reactor fuel.

Read the whole article for the complete picture.  And be sure to check out the comments posted by readers where the discussion on nuclear energy continues.

To find out more on AREVA’s EPR™ for the United States, check it out on our website.

A recent Clean Skies TV report tackled the question that many nuclear opponents see as the downside to the reliable, CO2-free energy produce by nuclear power plants; What about the cost?

The report by Tyler Suiters explores how the new nuclear power plants are not necessarily a burden to the taxpayer, but a benefit to the energy ratepayer.

Watch the clip (starting at 23:10) as he looks at the current builds and what it will take to get a new nuclear power plant built in the United States. A large factor to support these new builds will be a strong industrial base. As the report shows, AREVA is already making bold moves in the United States with two projects to meet this demand. AREVA Newport News LLC, which broke ground at this July, will manufacture the heavy components for necessary for new EPR™ reactors. AREVA is also actively working on the Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility, a state-of-the-art centrifuge enrichment plant to meet the current U.S. nuclear energy demands.

Here’s more information about AREVA Newport News LLC and the Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility.

AREVA prides itself on being the leader in the nuclear energy cycle, and the company’s success has caught the attention of Time Magazine. In a piece posted to Time’s online section from August 7, AREVA was identified as “the first place that countries or power companies go when looking for all of their nuclear services─ supplying and enriching uranium, building and managing plants, disposing of their waste ─ under a single roof.”

The article attributes a large part of the company’s success to AREVA CEO Anne Lauvergeon. Ben Elias, a research analyst for Sterne, Agee & Leach, was quoted as saying “if you look at what she’s done since taking her job, you realize Anne Lauvergeon had the drive, creativity and vision to assemble all these parts into a single unit ready for a nuclear renaissance that she saw coming.”

While the Time piece focuses primarily on AREVA’s current profile, it also emphasizes growth in the global demand for nuclear energy. “As governments search for clean, renewable energy sources and consumers worry about volatile oil prices, nuclear power is hot again…over the next decade, the world is expected to build 180 nuclear power plants, up from just 39 between 1999 and today.” These figures include countries like Italy (who just reversed its moratorium on new plant builds), Britain, Japan, and China.

Of these new builds, the attention right now is on Finland where the construction of AREVA’s Generation III+ EPR™ reactor, Olkiluoto 3, is under way. As the article points out “AREVA’s EPR boasts innovations that led the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists to call its design the only one with the ‘potential to be significantly safer and more secure against attack than today’s reactors.’”

While the article notes that the OL3 project is behind schedule and over-budget, AREVA spokesman Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier responded, “You only see how it works once you’ve built it and proved it’s what you’d said it would be.”

Although there are a couple of points with which AREVA may take issue, the full article, “Areva’s Field of Dreams,” by Bruce Crumley, is definitely worth a read. Check it out on time.com.

AREVA executives cut the ribbon on the new Chemistry and Materials Center.

Today in Virginia we at AREVA celebrated the grand opening of a new, $6.5 million Chemistry and Materials Center (CMC). It’s an 8,000 square foot, two-story building at our facility in Campbell County. Here several labs will work and provide key services to help AREVA’s customers with their continuing efforts to fight corrosion damage to plant components and fuel.

For the already operating nuclear power plants, the CMC will dedicate general and specialized chemistry, corrosion, and metallurgical testing and analysis support. It will also aid with the design development and deployment for the US EPR™.

Why is reducing corrosion damage so important? The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) estimated in a study from 2001 that corrosion damage costs the U.S. electric power generating industry $17.3 billion annually or nearly 8% of the cost of electricity to consumers. As much as half of all forced outages at power plants can be traced back to corrosion damage, and this $3.8 billion cost is considered avoidable.

As AREVA NP Inc. CEO Michael Rencheck pointed out, “Our new Chemistry and Materials Center will increase efficiency at current plants helping utilities control costs that are eventually passed on to the consumer.” But the CMC is also great news for Central Virginia. Bryan David, the executive director of Virginia’s Region 2000 Economic Development Council, said that “AREVA, with its growing, high-skilled base of employees, is doing the right things to help our region provide a supportive environment for business and knowledge creation.”

Here’s a video from Jarret Adams’ recent visit to the Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) construction site in Finland. This is where AREVA is building its EPR™ reactor- it’s a pressurized water reactor that will produce approximately 1,600 megawatts of electricity per year. Right now AREVA is the only company in the world with a Generation III+ reactor under construction.

As you can see in the footage, construction is moving right along for this first-of-a-kind project with nearly 3,500 people working to complete the OL3 EPR™.

AREVA and its U.S. consortium partner Bechtel Power Corporation have signed a term sheet with UniStar Nuclear Energy outlining the terms and conditions for an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for UniStar’s proposed Calvert Cliffs 3 nuclear energy facility project in Maryland. The EPC term sheet agreement is a critical step in negotiating an overall EPC contract.

The EPC contract for Calvert Cliffs 3 is planned to be the first in a series of standardized EPC contracts for a fleet of U.S. EPR™ facilities that will be licensed, developed and constructed as part of the UniStar Nuclear Energy business model.

The proposed U.S. EPR™ project at Calvert Cliffs 3 will provide a boost to the local economy. U.S. EPR™ facilities are estimated to generate as many as 4,000 skilled crafts jobs during construction.

In addition to the craft jobs during construction, the facility will generate approximately 400 permanent positions once the facility begins commercial operation. Many more indirect jobs and new business growth will be generated in nearby communities.

We’re really glad to see that Bloomberg is taking notice of the EPR reactor’s popularity in Europe – and the unique position of AREVA in the emerging global nuclear power renaissance, as the only nuclear power company in the world who works at all levels of the supply chain, from uranium mining to spent fuel recycling:

“Areva has a leg up on the competition,” said Ben Elias, a New York-based analyst with Sterne Agee & Leach Inc. “They will help utilities run their nuclear plants,” as the French company also supplies uranium and disposes of nuclear waste. “That’s important for Chinese and Indian clients.”

As the article points out, one of AREVA’s other advantages is the number of skilled people we’ve got in our workforce.

The French company has a larger workforce than Westinghouse, which may give it an advantage because of the skills shortage in the industry, said Colette Lewiner, the global leader of energy and utilities at management consultants Capgemini in Paris. She estimates that global spending on building new reactors could reach as much as $1.05 trillion by 2030.

Areva’s nuclear unit boosted its workforce by 33 percent in the five years through 2008 to 44,623, according to Christian Hillrichs, a vice president at the division.

(By the way, we’re also still looking for more good people.)

But what Bloomberg seems to have missed is that the EPR is gaining traction in the US as well. The new Southern Ohio Clean Energy Park in Piketon, Ohio is planning will focus attention on  the AREVA EPR.  And the joint venture between AREVA and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, AREVA Newport News LLC, which will break ground this July for a $360 million manufacturing facility to produce heavy component for nuclear power plants. In fact, there are seven U.S. EPR™ reactors under consideration in the United States.