GDF Suez to share nuclear information with Brazil
’PARIS -- France's partially state-owned electric and gas utility GDF Suez said Monday it has signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Brazilian companies Eletrobras and Eletronuclear. The agreement, which covers the exchange of information and experience to develop Brazil's nuclear power industry, was signed during a state visit to Brazil by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Eletronuclear, Brazil's state-owned nuclear energy company, received environmental approval in March to resume construction of the country's third nuclear power plant. Construction on the Angra 3 plant has been held up since the 1980s by environmental concerns. Eletronuclear says Angra 3 will have an installed capacity of about 1,400 megawatts and should be operating by late 2014. Brazil's two other nuclear power plants have a total capacity of about 2,000 megawatts.’

Ansaldo and Westinghouse to partner
’A forthcoming partnership between Ansaldo Nucleare and Toshiba-Westinghouse has emerged as a major future plank in the emerging Italian nuclear market. A consortium agreement between the two is expected on 29 September when economic development minister Claudio Scajola visits the USA, where Toshiba-owned Westinghouse is based. A nuclear cooperation agreement between the countries is also slated for signature which will make business deals possible. The Italo-Japanese consortium would join the Italo-French joint venture between Enel and Electricité de France (EdF) to supply the technology for the Italian renaissance, required to lower Italian power prices and increase its energy security. At the moment, four of the eight new nuclear reactors Italy is expecting are planned to be Areva EPRs operated by Enel, EdF and potentially minor partners. The other four will now be expected to be Westinghouse AP1000s, although other vendors could still enter the market. In all, they should be able to provide about 25% of the country's electricity.’

Borssele excluded from Essent takeover
’Germany's RWE looks set to acquire Dutch utility Essent, but the takeover will now not include the company's 50% stake in the Borssele nuclear power plant. The transaction price has been dropped by â‚950 million ($1.35 billion) to reflect this. In January, RWE and Essent announced an agreement on the terms and conditions for a binding, all cash offer for the German power company to buy all the issued and outstanding shares of Essent for â‚9.3 billion ($12.3 billion). Essent's power plant portfolio includes gas, renewables, coal and its 50%-ownership of the Borssele nuclear power plant. RWE's offer for Essent will see the formation of the fourth largest energy supplier in Europe and was to include Essent's half-ownership of the Netherlands' only operating nuclear power plant. RWE and Essent formally signed the offer agreement in February. RWE received approval from the European Commission (EC) for the acquisition on 23 June. However, Delta, owner of the other 50% of the Borssele plant, said in April that it was taking legal steps to prevent RWE taking over Essent's share of the plant. Delta said that the majority of its shareholders had demanded that EPZ - the joint venture between Delta and Essent for the Borssele plant - should remain in public ownership, in line with EPZ's articles of association and the shareholders' agreement.’

Parsing Enrichment in North Korea
’Last week’s letter of the Permanent Representative of the DPRK to the UN Security Council President - see the KCNA translation - has stirred up a lot of excitement for what it says about uranium enrichment, or, to be precise, for what it doesn’t say about uranium enrichment. The statement doesn’t mention nuclear weapons in connection with uranium enrichment. It doesn’t mention highly enriched uranium. It doesn’t mention vacuum centrifuges or an enrichment plant. It says, ‘Experimental uranium enrichment has successfully been conducted to enter into completion phase.’ Whatever exactly that means, it doesn’t come as a bolt from the blue. Let’s review.’

Uranium follows rare earths as China eyes strategic control
’FIRST rare earths, now uranium. It seems the Chinese are determined to get control of key strategic metals - and Australia seems to be welcoming the idea. Chinese companies have effectively moved to take control of the two most advanced rare earths projects here (although one is still subject to approval by the Foreign Investment Review Board). And, as we saw this morning, uranium is also high on Beijing’s shopping list. It is proposed that China Guangdong Nuclear Power (CGNP) will acquire 70 per cent of Energy Metals (EME) which has the Bigrlyi uranium project in the Northern Territory, where there is already a JORC-compliant economic uranium resource (as well as vanadium). This is almost certain to succeed because Jindalee Resources (JRL) owns 40 per cent of EME and has agreed to the deal.’

IAEA calls for cooperation on regional nuclear issues
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei Monday called for cooperation from Iran, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Syria to solve issues concerning their nuclear programs. Speaking here at a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna, ElBaradei said Iran had cooperated with the Agency in improving safeguards measures at the Fuel Enrichment Plant and in providing the required access to the Iran Nuclear Research Reactor(IR-40) at Arak for purposes of design information verification. However, he also pointed out that Iran had not suspended its enrichment related activities or its work on heavy water related projects as required by the Security Council, nor has Iran implemented the Additional Protocol. ElBaradei proposed three key areas relevant to Iran's nuclear program that need to be addressed: "At first, and specifically, Iran needs to respond fully to all the questions raised by the Agency in order to exclude the possibility of there being military dimensions to its nuclear program." For the second, he said Iran needed to "implement the Additional Protocol." Without the Protocol, the Agency would not be able to provide credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear activities in Iran. For the third, he said that Iran's future intentions concerning its nuclear program "need to be clarified to respond to the concerns of the international community."’

PBMR sends enriched pebble fuel for testing in Russia
’South Africa's Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) Company has shipped enriched pebble fuel to Russia for irradiation tests to demonstrate the fuel's integrity under reactor conditions. The PBMR Company, in collaboration with the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa), manufactured high temperature reactor fuel spheres, or ‘pebbles', containing 9,6% enriched uranium. In December, PBMR and Necsa manufactured enriched uranium-coated particles, 14 000 of which were contained in a pebble. "The manufacturing of the fuel spheres is the culmination of many years of intensive development work at PBMR's Fuel Development Laboratories on the Necsa site at Pelindaba near Tshwane. The irradiation tests are the final step in the development of the fuel for the PBMR demonstration unit and we are keenly anticipating the results," said PBMR CEO Jaco Kriek. The tests would be conducted by the Institute of Nuclear Materials (INM) in Zarechny, near Ekaterinburg in Russia, where similar tests have been carried out previously.’