Environmental permit granted for first Polish Nuclear plant

22 September 2023

Poland's General Director for Environmental Protection (GDOŚ) has issued to Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe (PEJ) its decision on the environmental conditions for the construction of a nuclear power plant in the province of Pomerania.

How the plant in Pomerania could look (Image: PEJ)

PEJ, the Polish government company that is progressing its policy to deploy up to six reactors at multiple sites in the country by 2040, submitted the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report for the first plant to GDOŚ on 29 March 2022. GDOŚ is an expert institution responsible for environmental protection and control of the investment process.

The EIA report examined the environmental impact of constructing and operating a plant with a generating capacity of up to 3750 MWe in the area of ​​the municipalities of Choczewo, Gniewino and Korkowa in the province of Pomerania. PEJ said the final EIA report complied with the provisions of the decision of GDOŚ, which in 2016 defined the scope of the environmental report in relation to the considered location variants and their technical sub-options, as well as in relation to the infrastructure accompanying the power plant.

The draft decision was reviewed by the Director of the Maritime Office in Gdynia, the State Sanitary Inspector for the Pomorskie Voivodeship, the Director of the Regional Board of Water Management in Gdańsk of the State Water Holding Wody Polskie, the President of the Polish National Atomic Energy Agency, and the Minister of Climate and Environment.

GDOŚ has now issued its final decision, which PEJ said is "a key permit obtained in the investment process, as subsequent administrative approvals, including the location decision and the construction permit, must be consistent with the terms and conditions contained in the decision on environmental conditions".

The obtained decision on environmental conditions determines the site variant for the first nuclear power plant in Poland, at the Lubiatowo-Kopalino site in the Choczewo municipality. It also defines the conditions of using the environment at the stage of development and operation of the facility, requirements concerning the environment protection necessary to be included in the design documentation, requirements for counteracting the effects of industrial accidents, and it also imposes an obligation of the reassessment of environmental impact, as part of the procedure for issuing the construction permit.

The decision was preceded by national and transboundary consultations with 14 countries that applied for participation in this procedure. The national consultations, held from 20 July to 18 August 2023, included all residents of Poland, who could review the documentation and submit their comments and conclusions. The transboundary consultations were held from September 2022 until July 2023. As part of the procedure, relevant protocols were signed with all the countries involved, including four protocols signed after intergovernmental expert meetings held under Article 5 of the Espoo Convention, which contributed to closing the process within the assumed timeframe.

"The issued decision on environmental conditions is one of the most important stages in the permitting process and brings us significantly closer to the start of the construction of the first nuclear power plant in Poland," said PEJ President Mateusz Berger. "It defines the conditions that must be met in order to execute a nuclear investment project in compliance with environmental regulations and requirements on both the national and international level."

PEJ - a special-purpose vehicle 100% owned by the State Treasury - has already obtained a decision-in-principle issued by the Ministry of Climate and Environment confirming that the company's investment is in line with the energy policy implemented by the state. In August, it applied to the head of the Pomeranian Voivodeship for a location decision for the plant.

The Polish government selected the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor technology for construction at Lubiatowo-Kopalino in Pomerania in November 2022.

Westinghouse and Bechtel have just signed a formal agreement to partner on the design and construction of the plant. They expect to sign an engineering services contract with PEJ within the next week.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Westinghouse, Bechtel sign consortium agreement for Polish plant

21 September 2023

Westinghouse Electric Company and Bechtel have signed a formal agreement to partner on the design and construction of Poland's first nuclear power plant at Lubiatowo-Kopalino. They expect to sign an engineering services contract with Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ) within the next week.

From left: US Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski, Ahmet Tokpinar, general manager of Bechtel’s nuclear power business line, Elias Gedeon, Senior Vice President for Commercial Operations at Westinghouse, Miroslaw Kowalik, President, Westinghouse Poland, and Anna Łukaszewska-Trzeciakowska, Poland Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure at the signing ceremony (Image: Westinghouse)

The Polish government selected the Westinghouse AP1000 reactor technology for construction at Lubiatowo-Kopalino in Pomerania in November 2022. The country's Ministry of Climate and Environment in July this year issued a decision-in-principle for Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ) - a special purpose vehicle 100% owned by the State Treasury - to construct the plant. "Significant licensing and engineering work" on the project is already under way, Westinghouse said.

An agreement signed earlier this year by Bechtel, Westinghouse and PEJ set out plans for the delivery of the project, with Westinghouse to lead the consortium at the design stage and Bechtel during construction.

Westinghouse President for Energy Systems David Durham said the team has "demonstrated ability" to deliver on large nuclear projects. "The fleet experience we have earned with our advanced, proven AP1000 technology, including a 100% complete design and construction lessons-learned, will serve Poland well as it seeks decarbonisation and increased energy security," he said.

"Bechtel and Westinghouse bring more than 140 years of combined nuclear power experience," John Howanitz, president of Bechtel's Nuclear, Security & Environmental global business unit, adding that the companies are "eager to partner with the local workforce, suppliers, and community, to deliver the clean and reliable energy Poland needs."

The consortium agreement was signed at the US Embassy in Warsaw.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Bechtel awarded $1.2B to destroy mustard weapons at Pueblo plant
By Christen McCurdy

This 2015 photo shows a worker at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant. This week Bechtel received a $1.2 contract modification to continue destroying mustard munitions at the plant. Photo by Bethani Crouch/U.S. Army

April 1 (UPI) -- Bechtel National received a $1.2 billion contract extension this week to destroy surplus chemical weapons stored at the U.S. Army Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado.

The deal funds the construction of three new buildings -- called static detonation chambers -- to destroy munitions that could not be destroyed by automated equipment in Pueblo, according to Bechtel.

The Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant in Pueblo began pilot operations in 2016 and has destroyed more than 1,300 tons of mustard weapons. According to Bechtel, that's more than half of the stockpile in Colorado.

By the time the project is complete, Bechtel estimates staff will have destroyed more than 2,600 tons of mustard gas in three formats -- 155mm projectiles, 105 mm projectiles and 4.2-inch mortar rounds -- before ultimately closing the plant.

According to materials published by the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant, staff at the plant use three processes to destroy chemical weapons: neutralization followed by biotreatment; explosive destruction; and static detonation.

"The mission of this plant, our people, and our customer has international significance: to help rid the U.S. of chemical weapons," Barbara Rusinko, president of Bechtel's Nuclear, Security and Environmental global business unit, said in a press release. "The team overcame the challenge posed by some munitions and is now simultaneously operating the main plant and building the new destruction facilities."

Michael S. Abaie, program executive officer for the Army's Program Executive Office for Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives, said the project puts his office in a "good position" to finish destroying the weapons stockpile by December 2023.

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Secret IRS files reveal how much the ultrawealthy gained by shaping Trump’s 'Big Beautiful Tax Cut'

Justin Elliott, ProPublica Robert Faturechi, ProPublica
August 11, 2021

Donald Trump and Melania Trump at Mar-a-Lago (Photo: Screen capture)

In November 2017, with the administration of President Donald Trump rushing to get a massive tax overhaul through Congress, Sen. Ron Johnson stunned his colleagues by announcing he would vote “no."

Making the rounds on cable TV, the Wisconsin Republican became the first GOP senator to declare his opposition, spooking Senate leaders who were pushing to quickly pass the tax bill with their thin majority. “If they can pass it without me, let them," Johnson declared.

Johnson's demand was simple: In exchange for his vote, the bill must sweeten the tax break for a class of companies that are known as pass-throughs, since profits pass through to their owners. Johnson praised such companies as “engines of innovation." Behind the scenes, the senator pressed top Treasury Department officials on the issue, emails and the officials' calendars show.

Within two weeks, Johnson's ultimatum produced results. Trump personally called the senator to beg for his support, and the bill's authors fattened the tax cut for these businesses. Johnson flipped to a “yes" and claimed credit for the change. The bill passed.

The Trump administration championed the pass-through provision as tax relief for “small businesses."

Confidential tax records, however, reveal that Johnson's last-minute maneuver benefited two families more than almost any others in the country — both worth billions and both among the senator's biggest donors.

Dick and Liz Uihlein of packaging giant Uline, along with roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, together had contributed around $20 million to groups backing Johnson's 2016 reelection campaign.

The expanded tax break Johnson muscled through netted them $215 million in deductions in 2018 alone, drastically reducing the income they owed taxes on. At that rate, the cut could deliver more than half a billion in tax savings for Hendricks and the Uihleins over its eight-year life.

But the tax break did more than just give a lucrative, and legal, perk to Johnson's donors. In the first year after Trump signed the legislation, just 82 ultrawealthy households collectively walked away with more than $1 billion in total savings, an analysis of confidential tax records shows. Republican and Democratic tycoons alike saw their tax bills chopped by tens of millions, among them: media magnate and former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg; the Bechtel family, owners of the engineering firm that bears their name; and the heirs of the late Houston pipeline billionaire Dan Duncan.

Usually the scale of the riches doled out by opaque tax legislation — and the beneficiaries — remain shielded from the public. But ProPublica has obtained a trove of IRS records covering thousands of the wealthiest Americans. The records have enabled reporters this year to explore the diverse menu of options the tax code affords the ultrawealthy to avoid paying taxes.

The drafting of the Trump law offers a unique opportunity to examine how the billionaire class is able to shape the code to its advantage, building in new ways to sidestep taxes.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was the biggest rewrite of the code in decades and arguably the most consequential legislative achievement of the one-term president. Crafted largely in secret by a handful of Trump administration officials and members of Congress, the bill was rushed through the legislative process.

As draft language of the bill made its way through Congress, lawmakers friendly to billionaires and their lobbyists were able to nip and tuck and stretch the bill to accommodate a variety of special groups. The flurry of midnight deals and last-minute insertions of language resulted in a vast redistribution of wealth into the pockets of a select set of families, siphoning away billions in tax revenue from the nation's coffers. This story is based on lobbying and campaign finance disclosures, Treasury Department emails and calendars obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, and confidential tax records.

For those who benefited from the bill's modifications, the collective millions spent on campaign donations and lobbying were minuscule compared with locking in years of enormous tax savings.

A spokesperson for the Uihleins declined to comment. Representatives for Hendricks didn't respond to questions. In response to emailed questions, Johnson did not address whether he had discussed the expanded tax break with Hendricks or the Uihleins. Instead, he wrote in a statement that his advocacy was driven by his belief that the tax code “needs to be simplified and rationalized."

“My support for 'pass-through' entities — that represent over 90% of all businesses — was guided by the necessity to keep them competitive with C-corporations and had nothing to do with any donor or discussions with them," he wrote.

By the summer of 2017, it was clear that Trump's first major legislative initiative, to “repeal and replace" Obamacare, had gone up in flames, taking a marquee campaign promise with it. Looking for a win, the administration turned to tax reform.

“Getting closer and closer on the Tax Cut Bill. Shaping up even better than projected," Trump tweeted. “House and Senate working very hard and smart. End result will be not only important, but SPECIAL!"

At the top of the Republican wishlist was a deep tax cut for corporations. There was little doubt that such a cut would make it into the final legislation. But because of the complexity of the tax code, slashing the corporate tax rate doesn't actually affect most U.S. businesses.

Corporate taxes are paid by what are known in tax lingo as C corporations, which include large publicly traded firms like AT&T or Coca-Cola. Most businesses in the United States aren't C corporations, they're pass-throughs. The name comes from the fact that when one of these businesses makes money, the profits are not subject to corporate taxes. Instead, they “pass through" directly to the owners, who pay taxes on the profits on their personal returns. Unlike major shareholders in companies like Amazon, who can avoid taking income by not selling their stock, owners of successful pass-throughs typically can't avoid it.

Pass-throughs include the full gamut of American business, from small barbershops to law firms to, in the case of Uline, a packaging distributor with thousands of employees.

So alongside the corporate rate cut for the AT&Ts of the world, the Trump tax bill included a separate tax break for pass-through companies. For budgetary reasons, the tax break is not permanent, sunsetting after eight years.

Proponents touted it as boosting “small business" and “Main Street," and it's true that many small businesses got a modest tax break. But a recent study by Treasury economists found that the top 1% of Americans by income have reaped nearly 60% of the billions in tax savings created by the provision. And most of that amount went to the top 0.1%. That's because even though there are many small pass-through businesses, most of the pass-through profits in the country flow to the wealthy owners of a limited group of large companies.

Tax records show that in 2018, Bloomberg, whom Forbes ranks as the 20th wealthiest person in the world, got the largest known deduction from the new provision, slashing his tax bill by nearly $68 million. (When he briefly ran for president in 2020, Bloomberg's tax plan proposed ending the deduction, though his plan was generally friendlier to the wealthy than those of his rivals.) A spokesperson for Bloomberg declined to comment.

Johnson's intervention in November 2017 was designed to boost the bill's already generous tax break for pass-through companies. The bill had allowed for business owners to deduct up to 17.4% of their profits. Thanks to Johnson holding out, that figure was ultimately boosted to 20%.

That might seem like a small increase, but even a few extra percentage points can translate into tens of millions of dollars in extra deductions in one year alone for an ultrawealthy family.

The mechanics are complicated but, for the rich, it generally means that a business owner gets to keep an extra 7 cents on every dollar of profit. To understand the windfall, take the case of the Uihlein family.

Dick, the great-grandson of a beer magnate, and his wife, Liz, own and operate packaging giant Uline. The logo of the Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, firm is stamped on the bottom of countless paper bags. Uline produced nearly $1 billion in profits in 2018, according to ProPublica's analysis of tax records. Dick and Liz Uihlein, who own a majority of the company, reported more than $700 million in income that year. But they were able to slash what they owed the IRS with a $118 million deduction generated by the new tax break.

Liz Uihlein, who serves as president of Uline, has criticized high taxes in her company newsletter. The year before the tax overhaul, the couple gave generously to support Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. That same year, when Johnson faced long odds in his reelection bid against former Sen. Russ Feingold, the Uihleins gave more than $8 million to a series of political committees that blanketed the state with pro-Johnson and anti-Feingold ads. That blitz led the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to dub the Uihleins “the Koch brothers of Wisconsin politics."

Johnson's campaign also got a boost from Hendricks, Wisconsin's richest woman and owner of roofing wholesaler ABC Supply Co. The Beloit-based billionaire has publicly pushed for tax breaks and said she wants to stop the U.S. from becoming “a socialistic ideological nation."

Hendricks has said Johnson won her over after she grilled him at a brunch meeting six years earlier. She gave about $12 million to a pair of political committees, the Reform America Fund and the Freedom Partners Action Fund, that bought ads attacking Feingold.

In the first year of the pass-through tax break, Hendricks got a $97 million deduction on income of $502 million. By reducing the income she owed taxes on, that deduction saved her around $36 million.

Even after Johnson won the expansion of the pass-through break in late 2017, the final text of the tax overhaul wasn't settled. A congressional conference committee had to iron out the differences between the Senate and House versions of the bill.

Sometime during this process, eight words that had been in neither the House nor the Senate bill were inserted: “applied without regard to the words 'engineering, architecture.'"

With that wonky bit of legalese, Congress smiled on the Bechtel clan.

The Bechtels' engineering and construction company is one of the largest and most politically connected private firms in the country. With surgical precision, the new language guaranteed the Bechtels a massive tax cut. In previous versions of the bill, construction would have been given a tax break, but engineering was one of the industries excluded from the pass-through deduction for reasons that remain murky.

When the bill, with its eight added words, took effect in 2018, three great-great-grandchildren of the company's founder, CEO Brendan Bechtel and his siblings Darren and Katherine, together netted deductions of $111 million on $679 million in income, tax records show.

And that's just one generation of Bechtels. The heirs' father, Riley, also holds a piece of the firm, as does a group of nonfamily executives and board members. In all, Bechtel Corporation produced around $2.3 billion of profit in 2018 alone — the vast majority of which appears to be eligible for the 20% deduction.

Who wrote the phrase — and which lawmaker inserted it — has been a much-discussed mystery in the tax policy world. ProPublica found that a lobbyist who worked for both Bechtel and an industry trade group has claimed credit for the alteration.

In the months leading up to the bill's passage in 2017, Bechtel had executed a full-court press in Washington, meeting with Trump administration officials and spending more than $1 million lobbying on tax issues.

Marc Gerson, of the Washington law firm Miller & Chevalier, was paid to lobby on the tax bill by both Bechtel and the American Council of Engineering Companies, of which Bechtel is a member. At a presentation for the trade group's members a few weeks after Trump signed the bill into law, Gerson credited his efforts for the pass-through tax break, calling it a “major legislative victory for the engineering industry." Gerson did not respond to a request for comment.

Bechtel's push was part of a long history of lobbying for tax breaks by the company. Two decades ago, it even hired a former IRS commissioner as part of a successful bid to get “engineering and architectural services" included in one of President George W. Bush's tax cuts.

The company's lobbying on the Trump tax bill, and the tax break it received, highlight a paradox at the core of Bechtel: The family has for years showered money on anti-tax candidates even though, as The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has written, Bechtel “owed almost its entire existence to government patronage." Most famous for being one of the companies that built the Hoover Dam, in recent years it has bid on and won marquee federal projects. Among them: a healthy share of the billions spent by American taxpayers to rebuild Iraq after the war. The firm recently moved its longtime headquarters from San Francisco to Reston, Virginia, a hub for federal contractors just outside the Beltway.

A spokesperson for Bechtel Corporation didn't respond to questions about the company's lobbying. The spokesperson, as well as a representative of the family's investment office, didn't respond to requests to accept questions about the family's tax records.

Brendan Bechtel has emerged this year as a vocal critic of President Joe Biden's proposal to pay for new infrastructure with tax hikes.

“It's unfair to ask business to shoulder or cover all the additional costs of this public infrastructure investment," he said on a recent CNBC appearance.

As the landmark tax overhaul sped through the legislative process, other prosperous groups of business owners worried they would be left out. With the help of lobbyists, and sometimes after direct contact with lawmakers, they, too, were invited into what Trump dubbed his “big, beautiful tax cut."

Among the biggest winners during the final push were real estate developers.

The Senate bill included a formula that restricted the size of the new deduction based on how much a pass-through business paid in wages. Congressional Republicans framed the provision as rewarding businesses that create jobs. In effect, it meant a highly profitable business with few employees — like a real estate developer — wouldn't be able to benefit much from the break.

Developers weren't happy. Several marshaled lobbyists and prodded friendly lawmakers to turn things around.

At least two of them turned to Johnson.

“Dear Ron," Ted Kellner, a Wisconsin developer, and a colleague wrote in a letter to Johnson. “I'm concerned that the goal of a fair, efficient and growth oriented tax overhaul will not be achieved, especially for private real estate pass-through entities."

Johnson forwarded the letter from Kellner, a political donor of his, to top Republicans in the House and Senate: “All, Yesterday, I received this letter from very smart and successful businessmen in Milwaukee," adding that the legislation as it stood gave pass-throughs “widely disparate, grossly unfair" treatment.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, responded with a promise to do more: “Senator — I strongly agree we should continue to improve the pass-through provisions at every step. You are a great champion for this." Congress is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, but Treasury officials were copied on the email exchange. ProPublica obtained the exchange after suing the Treasury Department.

Kellner got his wish. In the final days of the legislative process, real estate investors were given a side door to access the full deduction. Language was added to the final legislation that allowed them to qualify if they had a large portfolio of buildings, even if they had small payrolls.

With that, some of the richest real estate developers in the country were welcomed into the fold.

The tax records obtained by ProPublica show that one of the top real estate industry winners was Donald Bren, sole owner of the Southern California-based Irvine Company and one of the wealthiest developers in the United States.

In 2018 alone, Bren personally enjoyed a deduction of $22 million because of the tax break. Bren's representatives did not respond to emails and calls from ProPublica.

His company had hired Wes Coulam, a prominent Washington lobbyist with Ernst & Young, to advocate for its interests as the bill was being hammered out. Before Coulam became a lobbyist, he worked on Capitol Hill as a tax policy adviser for Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch.

Hatch, then the Republican chair of the Senate Finance Committee, publicly took credit for the final draft of the new deduction, amid questions about the real estate carveout. Hatch's representatives did not respond to questions from ProPublica about how the carveout was added.

ProPublica's records show that other big real estate winners include Adam Portnoy, head of commercial real estate giant the RMR Group, who got a $14 million deduction in 2018. Donald Sterling, the real estate developer and disgraced former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, won an $11 million deduction. Representatives for Portnoy and Sterling did not respond to questions from ProPublica.

Another gift to the real estate industry in the bill was a tax deduction of up to 20% on dividends from real estate investment trusts, more commonly known as REITs. These companies are essentially bundles of various real estate assets, which investors can buy chunks of. REITs make money by collecting rent from tenants and interest from loans used to finance real estate deals.

The tax cut for these investment vehicles was pushed by both the Real Estate Roundtable, a trade group for the entire industry, and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts. The latter, a trade group specifically for REITs, spent more than $5 million lobbying in Washington the year the tax bill was drafted, more than it had in any year in its history.

Steven Roth, the founder of Vornado Realty Trust, a prominent REIT, is a regular donor to both groups' political committees.

Roth had close ties to the Trump administration, including advising on infrastructure and doing business with Jared Kushner's family. He became one of the biggest winners from the REIT provision in the Trump tax law.

Roth earned more than $27 million in REIT dividends in the two years after the bill passed, potentially allowing him a tax deduction of about $5 million, tax records show. Roth did not respond to requests for comment, and his representatives did not accept questions from ProPublica on his behalf.

Another carveout benefited investors of publicly traded pipeline businesses. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, added an amendment for them to the Senate version of the bill just before it was voted on.

Without his amendment, investors who made under a certain income would have received the deduction anyway, experts told ProPublica. But for higher-income investors, a slate of restrictions kicked in. In order to qualify, they would have needed the businesses they're invested in to pay out significant wages, and these oil and gas businesses, like real estate developers, typically do not.

Cornyn's amendment cleared the way.

The trade group for these companies and one of its top members, Enterprise Products Partners, a Houston-based natural gas and crude oil pipeline company, had both lobbied on the bill. Enterprise was founded by Dan Duncan, who died in 2010.

The Trump tax bill delivered a win to Duncan's heirs. ProPublica's data shows his four children, who own stakes in the company, together claimed more than $150 million in deductions in 2018 alone. The tax provision for “small businesses" had delivered a windfall to the family Forbes ranked as the 11th richest in the country.

In a statement, an Enterprise spokesperson wrote: “The Duncan family abides by all applicable tax laws and will not comment on individual tax returns, which are a private matter." Cornyn's office did not respond to questions about the senator's amendment.

The tax break is due to expire after 2025, and a gulf has opened in Congress about the future of the provision.

In July, Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., proposed legislation that would end the tax cut early for the ultrawealthy. In fact, anyone making over $500,000 per year would no longer get the deduction. But it would be extended to the business owners below that threshold who are currently excluded because of their industry. The bill would “make the policy more fair and less complex for middle-class business owners, while also raising billions for priorities like child care, education, and health care," Wyden said in a statement.

Meanwhile, dozens of trade groups, including the Chamber of Commerce, are pushing to make the pass-through tax cut permanent. This year, a bipartisan bill called the Main Street Tax Certainty Act was introduced in both houses of Congress to do just that.

One of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, pitched the legislation this way: “I am committed to delivering critical relief for our nation's small businesses and the communities they serve."

Polish-US nuclear cooperation expands to USNC microreactors

31 March 2023

Grupa Azoty Police, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation and the West Pomeranian University of Technology have signed an agreement to build a nuclear energy research facility based on Ultra Safe Nuclear's Micro-Modular Reactor (MMR) technology. Meanwhile, Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe, Westinghouse and Bechtel expect to soon sign a contract for the design of Poland's first large-scale reactor.

The signing of the agreement between Grupa Azoty Police, Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) and the West Pomeranian University of Technology (Image: Grupa Azoty)

Polish chemicals producer Grupa Azoty Police, the USA's Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) and the West Pomeranian University of Technology in Szczecin agreed on 29 March to develop and construct a research facility based on USNC's MMR at Police, a town in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, in northwestern Poland. Over the next six months, the parties will prepare a comprehensive research programme and will jointly develop a plan for the construction, operation and maintenance of the MMR.

The first stage of the collaborative project will consist of the construction of a 30 MWt MMR to serve as a training, research and test facility. It will be connected to the existing energy infrastructure of Grupa Azoty Police, providing a unique opportunity to study, test, optimise and integrate the MMR as a zero-carbon generation source into an industrial plant.

The collaboration will ultimately lead to the development of a plan for full-scale use of nuclear energy to power chemical processes and to generate steam and hydrogen at Grupa Azoty Police's plant.

"The Grupa Azoty Group's strategy for 2021-2030, with its flagship Green Azoty project, targets new renewable capacities totalling nearly 380 MW across the group by 2030," noted Tomasz Hinc, CEO and President of the Management Board of Grupa Azoty. "In our strategic plan, we have also communicated entry into the segments of wind power and small nuclear sources, including MMRs, which will provide us with additional megawatts of zero-carbon energy.

"The tripartite agreement signed today at the Szczecin Province Office is paving the way for the Grupa Azoty Group to successfully deploy the 4th Generation MMR technology at our sites by the end of the period covered by our current strategy, that is by 2030. Seeking to make the fastest possible transition towards climate neutrality, clean energy and diversified energy sources, we want to agree on the detailed framework of our cooperation within the next six months."

"Deploying our high-temperature nuclear batteries with Grupa Azoty and the West Pomeranian University of Technology opens the path for decarbonisation and the development of modern nuclear infrastructure and workforce in Poland and exemplifies US support of Poland's national energy independence," said USNC CEO and founder Francesco Venneri. "Together with our partner Hyundai Engineering Corporation, we fully support Grupa Azoty's plans to reduce CO2 emissions and we are glad to offer the West Pomeranian University the possibility of research in the area of our high-temperature nuclear batteries."

USNC's MMR is a 15 MW thermal, 5 MW electrical high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, drawing on operational experience from reactors developed by China, Germany, Japan and the USA. It consists of two plants: the nuclear plant that generates heat, and the adjacent power plant that converts heat into electricity or provides process heat for industrial applications. The USNC system is designed to be simple, with minimal operation and maintenance requirements, and no on-site fuel storage, handling or processing. The MMR uses TRISO fuel in prismatic graphite blocks and has a sealed transportable core.

The MMR is at an advanced licensing stage at the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's Chalk River Laboratories campus in Ontario. The project is a collaboration between USNC and Ontario Power Generation through the jointly owned Global First Power Limited Partnership.

The project at Police joins the growing list of global training, test, and research MMR projects at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the USA, McMaster University in Canada and Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland.

Plans for large-scale plant progresses

Poland's Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ) and the USA's Westinghouse Electric Company and Bechtel Corporation have held talks about enhancing cooperation in the project for the first nuclear power plant in Poland.

The talks were attended by the acting President of PEJ Łukasz Młynarkiewicz, President of Energy Systems at Westinghouse David Durham, Vice President and CEO of Bechtel Craig Albert and John Howanitz, President of the Nuclear Energy, Safety and Environment segment at Bechtel.

"In the near future, it is planned to sign a Memorandum of Understanding between PEJ, Westinghouse and Bechtel, which will allow to formalise the selected model of cooperation in the form of a consortium," PEJ said. "Such a model of cooperation, preferred by Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe from the beginning, will be applied already at the stage of the next contract, planned later this year, i.e. the contract for engineering services, covering the first stage of work on the detailed technical design of the power plant in Pomerania.

"Signing the contract with the Westinghouse-Bechtel consortium will allow us to use the unique competences and experience gained during the construction of two AP 1000 reactors in the USA, which is now being finalised."

In September 2021, it was announced that six large pressurised water reactors with a combined installed capacity of 6-9 GWe could be built by 2040 as part of Poland's plan to reduce its reliance on coal. According to the adopted schedule, the construction of the first nuclear power plant will start in 2026, with the first reactor, with a capacity of 1-1.6 GWe, being commissioned in 2033. Subsequent units will be implemented every 2-3 years.

In November 2022, the Polish government selected Westinghouse for the country's first nuclear power plant. In February this year, PEJ and Westinghouse signed a contract commencing joint activities that will lead to the preparation of the design of the first nuclear power plant in Poland.

Meanwhile, Poland's ZE PAK, Polska Grupa Energetyczna and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power have signed a letter of intent to cooperate on a nuclear power plant project in Patnow, in central Poland, assessing the viability of building South Korean APR1400 reactors on the site.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

WTO: Privatization of Water

This round of WTO Ministerial talks is not just about agriclutural subsidies, but also about international agreements to create the Market State, specifically around the privatization of public services.

WTO releases the first draft on services


Saturday, 17 December , 2005, 12:37

Hong Kong: The WTO on Saturday released the first version of the draft text on services negotiations, scaling down expectations and reflecting little movement in the sector, on the penultimate day of the Ministerial in Hong Kong.

The first version of services draft meets the demands of G-90 group of developing countries and completely rules out the launch of plurilateral negotiations, which could have helped countries like India having offensive interest in the sector to secure greater market access.

The draft leaves the date for finalisation of agreement undecided. It has also left out any proposal for a possible framework agreement on government procurement of services, another key demand of G-90 countries. This provision was important for countries like India, who face a threat of legislation in the US on outsourcing.

So its not just opening the market up to more outsourcing of Telework or IT but also opening the markets up for essential services such as water and utilities privatization. And as former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed warned Canada yesterday we must be prepared for the push to sell our water to the U.S. And while our current Premier agreed with Lougheed that Canada should oppose selling our water south of the border, he left himself an out.

But Klein also says water exports shouldn't be decided by the federal government because it's an environmental issue over which provinces have authority.

This services agreement means a further expansion of corporate governance of the emerging Market State over the soveriegnty of people and their ability to govern themselves. In other words the Nation State. And as limited as self governance is under the Nation State, it would and will be even less in the privatized Market State. Corporate governance would dominate.

The current development of the Market State is a convergence of Civil Society (TM), that is the NGO community, National Governments and the Transnational Corporations. The NGO community which claims to speak for you an me in opposition to both the National State and the TNC's. But does it? As we have seen from numerous disasters in the past year, the NGO's are bound hand and foot to the UN, and the national governements. Now European based NGO's are becoming a third party in the delivery of privatized services, through disaster relief.

The issue of privatization of water shows them as being agents of the Market State, promoting the private delivery of water services first during disasters and then allowing for its expansion as an alternative to the so called failure of National governments to provide for their citizens.

And the companies that are benefiting are the same old rogues gallery Halliburton, Bechtel, Nestles, Coca Cola etc! These are the privateers of water. And they are not just focusing on the Third World, as Lougheed says expect them to come knocking at our door soon. This is not just about America wanting Canada's water, as the nationalists like Maude Barlow have proclaimed, its about the creation of the Market State, where corporations rule by dominating how services are delivered. And the so called organizations of Civil Society, the NGO's are now its partners. Its newset form of P3, Public Private Partnerships. Its the new Trilateralism neccasary for the Market State.

The Canadian state has been outsourcing and privatizing services for the past twelve years, it has promoted more P3's as the new model of the State both in policy decisions and through the recent pronouncements of the Bank of Canada President David Dodge. This is the devlolution of the National State as the Market State comes into being.

An execellent article on this which I feel obliged to quote a lengthy excerpt from is below. The whole article is very detailed and much longer and worth saving in your files.

Global Wars for Water, Facts on World Hunger and Poverty

Belgium (HAN) December 17, 2005 -

In Manila, the capital of the Philippines, with a population of 12 million, cholera broke out in November 2003 as a result of E coli bacteria being transmitted by the drinking water-supply. Two transnational companies, Suez (France) and Bechtel (USA), have been responsible for the public water system in the huge metropolis since 1997. Bechtel had already hit the headlines in the year 2000 on account of another affair: after the giant company took over the public water system in Cochabamba/Bolivia and increased water-rates by an exorbitant amount, public protests and revolts broke out. Many people were left wounded and one person dead, after the government declared a state of martial law and protestors were fired on with live ammunition. Bechtel employees “fled” and the water privatisation deal had to be called off. Less well-known is the fact that a $25 million legal action, which Bechtel subsequently filed against Bolivia in a WTO secretive trade court operated by the World Bank, is still pending at this moment in time.

The largest water companies have their headquarters in Europe:

• Suez Lyonnaise; Véolia; Danone; SAUR in France
• RWE/ Thames Water/ American Water Works; Aqua Mundo; Berlinwasser; Gelsenwasser in Germany
• Biwater; Severn Trend and United Utilities in Great Britain and
• Nestle in Switzerland
• Add to this list the two US heavyweights: Bechtel and Coca Cola.

Alongside France and Great Britain, those pioneers of water privatisation, Germany plays a unique role in all of this because two government departments, the BMZ (Department of Agricultural Cooperation and Development) and the BMWA (Department of Finance and Employment) have meanwhile become two of the most aggressive architects of water privatisation not only at EU level but also at the WTO level: hundreds of millions of euros are being invested via “development aid funds” in order to make it easier for German companies to gain access to public water systems in the Third World as well as in EU countries. The BMZ offers companies a veritable “conjuring set” of assistance in the form of: loans, “insurance facilities”, Hermes sureties, offices in foreign countries which can be used as bases, German embassies acting as contact partners, profit guarantees and useful advice on how to gain the trust of decision-makers in foreign countries. Under the guise of providing “aid”, a “powerful German water industry” (Dr Uschi Eid, permanent secretary at the BMZ) is to be set up, which will be able to defy and even outstrip the two largest water companies in the world (Suez and Véolia, France). Well-known organisations such as the GTZ (German Association for Technical Cooperation), the KFW (Credit Institution for Reconstruction), the DEG (German Investments and Development Limited), the European Central Bank and others are all helpers faithful to the cause.

One of the most recent campaigns is the “Multi-Stakeholder Review”, a worldwide “study” intended to clarify whether or not and in which areas water privatisation “makes sense”. Large numbers of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) are being dragged in and integrated into the process. The day-to -day running of this business lies with the “relief organisation” Water Aid (Great Britain) and is funded mainly by the German companies GTZ and RWE/Thames Water, the third largest water company in the world. The slogan “Water is a human right” is being linked in this campaign to the “Millenium Target 2015” which is to halve the number of people in the world who have no access to drinking water by the year 2015 (United Nations Conference on the Environment 2000). The World Bank, the BMZ and the companies involved have named the sum necessary in order to achieve this goal: 180 billion US dollars per annum. Since governments are not (any longer) able to raise this money, people will now have to rely on the readiness of companies to invest.

This financial “assistance” would, however, have consequences: with regard to the public water systems, the right of disposal would pass into the hands of the companies, who would then proceed to make millions of dollars in profit by exploiting the predicament of those dependent on the water for their survival.

Tags
WTO
Water
privatization
Africa
globalization

Contract signed for the first nuclear power plant in Poland


TVN24 | TVN24 News in English
27 września 2023, 23:12
Autor:  gf
Źródło:TVN24 News in English, TVN24 Biznes, Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe



Mark Brzezinski: one of the most significant steps forward to date in U.S.-Polish civil nuclear cooperation

Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ) and the consortium of Westinghouse and Bechtel signed the Engineering Services Contract (ESC) for the first nuclear power plant in Poland.

The contract was signed at a special ceremony in Warsaw attended by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and U.S. Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski.


The agreement was signed by PEJ CEO Mateusz Berger, Westinghouse CEO Patrick Fragman and John Howanitz of the Bechtel company.


"We have ambitions to rebuild the entire Polish nuclear sector. Today we are attracting specialists from all over the world," said PM Morawiecki. "This Polish-American friendship, which is cemented today by the Nuclear Power Plant, is developing on many levels. It is a multi-faceted cooperation that gives a boost to the development of Poland as a whole. We will thus be a security provider for other countries as well," he added.

"Under the contract, in cooperation with Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe, Westinghouse and Bechtel will design the first nuclear power plant in Poland," PJE said in a press release.

"The design/engineering documentation includes the main components of the power plant, i.e. the nuclear island, the turbine island and the associated installations and auxiliary equipment, as well as administrative buildings and infrastructure related to the safety of the facility," the company added.

"The primary objective of the conceptual design/engineering is to define the requirements and design/engineering criteria, and specify norms and standards in accordance with which the Polish nuclear project will be executed. The engineering work at this stage will result in more than 400 final deliverables."

The company also informed that "a similar AP1000 reactor, which is referential for the Polish project, is already in operation in the United States".

"Six units of this type operate around the world and more such units are being built in China. The Polish nuclear power plant will be based on the latest experience of Westinghouse and Bechtel, resulting in particular from the construction of Vogtle Unit 4, which introduced improvements over the previously commissioned Unit 3," we read.

"Experienced employees executing the project in the U.S. will also be involved in the activities for the planned power plant in Pomerania. The engineering services will focus on bringing the design in line with technical and regulatory requirements in Europe and Poland," PJE added.

"The establishment of a nuclear culture in Poland means new opportunities for the whole country, we want to introduce the best models," said Anna Łukaszewska-Trzeciakowska, Government Plenipotentiary for Strategic Energy Infrastructure.

Mateusz Berger, President of the Management Board of Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe, called the deal "a watershed moment not only for our investment project, but also for the entire energy transition process in Poland."

"Today's event concludes the planning stage of the nuclear power plant and commences the execution phase with relevant engineering work," he added.

U.S. Ambassador to Poland Mark Brzezinski called the contract "one of the most significant steps forward to date in U.S.-Polish civil nuclear cooperation".



"I commend the Polish government and the companies involved in the project for their focus in seeing this effort through to this critical point. This is not just a commercial venture - our hope is to support Poland as it becomes a hub for civil nuclear technology deployment. Energy security is national security, and America’s security is interdependent with Poland’s security," he added.


According to theThe Polish Nuclear Power Programme, the first nuclear reactor will start producing energy in 2033.


Źródło: TVN24 News in English, TVN24 Biznes, Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe

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PODZIEL SIĘ

German Study: Public more likely to support climate action if other countries commit as well

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

The public is more willing to bear the costs of climate action if other countries contribute as well. This is the result of a study conducted by Professor Dr Michael Bechtel, member of the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute (University of Cologne), Professor Dr Kenneth Scheve (Yale University), and Dr Elisabeth van Lieshout (Stanford University), which has recently been published in the journal Nature Communications.

In representative surveys, the researchers investigated whether the extent to which the public supports costly climate policies, e.g., the introduction of a domestic carbon tax, depends on whether other countries also pursue climate action. The results suggest that if other countries invest in climate action, the domestic public is more willing to approve introducing a domestic carbon tax because individuals expect these policy efforts to be fairer and more likely to be effective.

The team surveyed a total of 10,000 citizens in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and the United States in early 2019. Respondents were asked to indicate who much they approved or disapproved the introduction of a carbon tax. 60 percent of respondents supported a tax if other countries also introduced one. However, when other countries did not joint these efforts, domestic carbon tax approval dopped to 53 percent. ‘We also find that when domestic climate measures are embedded internationally, people are more likely to believe that these reforms will have a positive impact on important social, economic, and environmental sustainability goals, ' says Michael Bechtel.

In a second study, the research team investigated whether the costs of climate action would be more broadly accepted domestically if other countries pursued more ambitious and thus more costly measures. Participants were asked whether they would be willing to support costly climate policy scenarios in which the researchers varied the level of contributions made by other countries. If domestic monthly household costs increased from a low to a higher level, in the case of Germany for example from EUR 39 to 77 per month, support decreased by seven percentage points if the price of carbon dioxide remained low abroad. However, if other industrialized countries decided to introduce high monthly household costs, domestic policy support fell only by about five percentage points in response to a domestic CO2 price increase.  ‘Even if people generally dislike costs, they are more willing to accept cost increases if other countries also make higher contributions, ' says Michael Bechtel.

Climate change measures in other countries thus play a crucial role in securing mass support for domestic climate policy, according to the study. ‘Investing in well-functioning international agreements is worthwhile not only from a natural science perspective, but also for policymakers interested in securing broader public support for costly climate action domestically, ' says Bechtel.

ECONtribute is the only Cluster of Excellence in economics funded by the DFG, supported by the Universities of Bonn and Cologne. The Cluster conducts research on markets at the intersections of business, policy, and society. With a new approach to markets, it analyses market failures in times of social, technological and economic challenges, including inequality, global financial crises, and digitalization.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-33830-8 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Improving public support for climate action through multilateralism

ATHABASCA TAR SANDS / OIL SANDS 1967 BECHTEL CORP. PROMO FILM ALBERTA CANADA 10494

This is a color film, produced in 1967 by Bechtel corporation called, "The Fabulous Oil Sands". The film looks at the development of the Athabasca Tar Sands, one of largest petroleum deposits in the world, and its effect on the nearby community of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. The film features photography by William Heick, supplementary photography by Richard Finney and Kenneth R.L. Hill and a Script and Narration by Richard Finney. The movie opens with some heavy excavation units digging into the site of a quarry wall and then an aerial view of Edmonton, capital of Alberta 1:00. The city streets of Alberta 1:20. A map of Edmonton is shown in shows the distance to Fort McMurray. Peter Pond visited Fort McMurray in the 18th century as a fur trader. Aerial view of Fort McMurray 2:00. The railroad depot called Waterways is shown 2:33. Steamship pushes a barge, 2:40. 1940s seaplane at Fort McMurray 3:00. Outcroppings at Fort McMurray 3:35. Max W. Ball, built a plant in 1936, with Canadian capital opened Abasand Oils, Ltd in 1940. Trains taking military equipment to Waterways to expedite the building and launching of barges for the war effort 4:40. The Canoil project. 4:43. Equipment on barges 5:13. Scientist test sand for oil 5:52. Sun Oil and Great Canadian Oil Sands (GCOS) Limited. 6:30. Forest clearing on Tar Island, 7:00. Aerial view of plant 7:15. GCOS and Bechtel do oil experiments at the plant 7:35. Edmonton businessmen sit down 8:05. Bechtel designers 8:21. Disassembling scale model of the plant, 8:38. Building of the plant begins 9:50. Plant workers board a bus to boarding house 10:15. The mess hall and the crew eats 10:35. Curling lanes for the men, 11:34. Man commutes to work by dogsled 12:11. Supplies are trucked in over icy winter roads 12:50. The Alberta Athabasca Bridge opens 13:20. Oil tankers come down the road with crude and equipment 13:45. Fort McMurray expands 14:41. Construction at Tar Island 15:00. Aerial view of the new refinery 15:50. Superstructures are built 16:10. Buildings are insulated for the second winter of plant building 17:43. Men lay the first pipeline for the refinery 18:30. Men fill in dirt over the pipeline 19:30. Workers try to keep warm in the frigid cold 20:00. Truckers continue to bring equipment to the site 20:18. Two giant bucket wheel excavators are brought, in exported from Germany, to dig out tar sand 21:20. The ice flow under the Alberta Athabasca Bridge 22:00. Testing of bucket wheel excavators. TCO control room 22:40. Older houses versus new ones in Fort McMurray after plant development. Aircraft land on paved runways in Fort McMurray. Opening Day luncheon for the plant 25:00. J. Howard Pew gives a speech 25:12. GCOS president, Clarence Thayer is honored 27:23. Robert McClements, JR gives a speech of welcome 28:03. An electric shovel is shown digging the sand 28:40. Dump trucks dump the sand 29:00. Bucket wheel excavators mine the tar sand 29:25. Tar sands are moved by conveyor into primary extraction plant 30:00. Sand is fed into conditioning drums with steam and caustic 30:30. Bitumen separation 30:47. Bitumen pumping station 31:40. Diluted bitumen goes into the storage tanks 32:00. Gas and oil power tanks 32:45. Coke is burned to use steam to power the plant 33:00. Blending tanks that lead to pipeline 33:48. Ernest C Manning the premiere of Alberta makes a speech 34:31. Sidney Blair, petroleum engineer wrote first oil report in 1950.Sid Blair’s original report is shown 36:30. Aerial view of finished plant 37:00. The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada – roughly centered on the boomtown of Fort McMurray. These oil sands, hosted primarily in the McMurray Formation, consist of a mixture of crude bitumen (a semi-solid rock-like form of crude oil), silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca deposit is the largest known reservoir of crude bitumen in the world and the largest of three major oil sands deposits in Alberta, along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits (the latter stretching into Saskatchewan). This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com