NEW YORK: When General Electric called in reporters for a briefing on its new nuclear partnership with Hitachi, it said that atomic power plants could be built faster than before, operated reliably and had a vanishingly small chance of an accident.

But what will they cost? After some hemming and hawing, company executives Monday gave figures by the standard industry metric, dollars per kilowatt of capacity, but in a huge range: $2,000 to $3,000.

“Theres massive inflation in copper and nickel and stainless steel and concrete,” said John Krenecki, president and chief executive of GE Energy. The uncertainty is not just in nuclear plants, he said. Coal plant prices are similarly unstable.

As talk of building new power plants rises sharply, so does the cost. In the United States, the work on a new fleet of coal-fired power plants and a revival of nuclear construction after three decades are both looking tougher lately.

For example, in late 2004, Duke Energy, one of the largest U.S. utilities and most experienced builders, started planning a pair of coal-fired power plants to replace several built around the middle of the last century, at Cliffside, in North Carolina.

In May 2005, the company told regulators it wanted to spend $2 billion to build twin 800-megawatt units. But 18 months later, in November 2006, Duke said that it would cost $3 billion. Then the state utility commission said to build only one of the plants.

And in May of this year, Duke said that would cost $1.83 billion, an increase of more than 80 percent from the original estimate. Dukes experience may be extreme, but it is hardly isolated.

“Theres real sticker shock out there,” Randy Zwirn, president of the Siemens Power Generation Group, said in an interview. He estimated that in the past 18 months, the price of a coal-fired power plant had risen 25 percent to 30 percent.

Part of the problem is huge price increases for the raw materials that plants are made from, including copper and nickel, which is what makes steel stainless. But the cost of finishing those commodities into components is also rising.

“Theres a lack of production and manufacturing facilities in this country, and that may be partly to blame,” said Jason Makansi, a consultant with Pearl Street, a consulting firm in St. Louis, Missouri, that specializes in electric utilities. But, he said, “the bigger culprit is the incredible demand in China and the rest of Asia.

“Basically everything is being sent over that way,” he said.

A result of the demand in China and India, he said, is that “Duke and others want to build a new power plant based on inexpensive coal, but the capital cost to build that plant is doubling before they even put a shovel in the ground.”

And other kinds of projects that use similar materials, everything from oil refineries to natural gas terminals, are competing for the same materials and labor, experts said. “So many industries are at cyclical peaks at the same time,” Krenecki of GE said. “We cant forecast how long that will continue.”

Makansi and others say a result is that consumers, already paying more for electricity because the price of coal and especially natural gas is up, will pay even more for new generating stations.

Analysts say that the companies that make major plant components will gear up to meet new demand, and eventually price increases will moderate. But James Turner, president and chief operating officer of Dukes U.S. electric and gas system, said that the company could not wait for prices to reverse.

“Given customer needs and demand growth on our system, we dont have the luxury of waiting to see if it all settles down in a decade,” he said.

GE and Hitachi detail venture

General Electric and Hitachi said they were forming their nuclear business to capitalize on rising demand for electricity amid increasing concerns about carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired plants, The Associated Press reported from New York.

John Krenicki, president and chief executive of GE Energy, said Monday that nuclear plants produced virtually no carbon gases and reactors could take the place of aging power plants that relied on fossil fuels.

“We believe nuclear is going to step in, and were getting ready to execute that plan,” he said.

Customers seeking fuel diversity are helping to rebuild a market for nuclear energy that faltered in the 1970s as safety worries mounted. And nuclear energy could become more attractive in the United States if the U.S. Congress and state legislatures eventually impose a carbon tax to discourage carbon-producing plants, Krenicki said.

David Miliband has personally reassured the family of jailed British teacher Gillian Gibbons that he is doing “everything he can” to secure her release, it emerged today.

The foreign secretary called Mrs Gibbons’ family last night to offer his support for the 54-year-old teacher from Liverpool.

And two British Muslim peers have travelled to Sudan in an effort to secure the teacher’s release, a move which the Foreign Office said was separate to their efforts to secure her freedom, but which they described as “very welcome”.

The peers, Labour’s Lord Ahmed and Conservative Baroness Warsi, made the journey on their own initiative after negotiating with Sudanese officials.

“Analysts believe it would suit the Sudanese government to be seen to be showing mercy in handing her over to a Muslim delegation, instead of appearing to ‘give in’ to their former colonial masters, the British government,” said the BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner.

Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi met Mrs Gibbons at a secret location in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. They have already met one Sudanese official and hope to meet the Sudanese president later today.

Mrs Gibbons was jailed by a Sudanese court on Thursday for insulting Islam after allowing her class of seven-year-olds to name a teddy bear Muhammed.

Her son said she is “bearing up very well”. Speaking outside his Liverpool home this morning, Mr Gibbons, 27, said he had spoken to his mother and told her the family missed her and loved her.

“We’re all in touch with each other and I spoke to my mum,” he said. Referring to his sister he added: “We both feel a lot better about speaking to my mum.

“It was nice to hear her voice. She’s bearing up very well. She sounded strong. I’m hoping to speak to her again today.”

He added that Mrs Gibbons did not want the situation to spark “resentment” towards Muslims.

Disclosing her first reaction to her jail sentence, he quoted her as saying: “I don’t want any resentment towards Muslim people”.

He added: “She doesn’t want people using her and her case as something to stoke up resentment towards anyone, towards Sudanese people, towards Muslim people or whatever.

“You know, that’s not the type of person she is, that’s not what she wants.”

There are no plans for the family to travel to Sudan, Mr Gibbons said, as they hope the situation will be resolved soon.

Mrs Gibbons was yesterday moved to a secret location for her own safety after thousands of weapon-wielding protesters gathered outside the presidential palace in Khartoum to demand a harsher sentence.

The perceived leniency incensed Sudan’s hard-line Muslim clerics - described as “hot heads” by one Sudanese official.

Massing in central Martyrs Square for an hour, the hordes burned pictures of Mrs Gibbons and chanted: “Shame, shame on the UK,” and “No tolerance: Execution,” and “Kill her, kill her by firing squad”.

Riot police kept the mob, who had been ferried in on pick-up trucks after Friday prayers, from the presidential palace.

Dreadlocked protester Yassin Mubarak, swathed in green and carrying a sword, said: “It is a premeditated action and this unbeliever thinks that she can fool us?

“What she did requires her life to be taken.”

Most of the crowd did not believe Mrs Gibbons’ claim that she meant no offence to Islam.

During Friday sermons, the Muslim cleric at Khartoum’s main Martyrs Mosque denounced Mrs Gibbons, saying she intentionally insulted Islam.

“Imprisoning this lady does not satisfy the thirst of Muslims in Sudan,” said cleric Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karouri.

Addressing worshippers, he added: “But we welcome imprisonment and expulsion.

“This is an arrogant woman who came to our country, cashing her salary in dollars, teaching our children hatred of our Prophet Muhammad.”

Mrs Gibbons was moved from the Omdurman women’s prison near Khartoum, said her chief lawyer Kamal al-Gizouli shortly after visiting her to discuss the verdict. She is eight days away from being deported to the UK.

He said: “They moved this lady from the prison department to put her in other hands and in other places to cover her and wait until she completes her imprisonment period.”

Adding that she was in good health, he said: “They want by hook or by crook to complete these nine days without any difficulties which would have an impact on their foreign relationship.”

(12-01) 04:18 PST PARIS, France (AP) —

A manuscript page from Napoleon Bonaparte’s loosely autobiographical short novel about ill-fated love will go on sale in Paris on Sunday, an auction house said.

The page was recently identified by scholars at the Paris-based Fondation Napoleon as the first 26 lines of the final draft of Napoleon’s 1795 “Clisson and Eugenie,” the owner of the Osenat auction house said.

The three other earlier versions of Napoleon’s first page belong to a library in Kornik, Poland. The story was not published in the legendary French emperor’s lifetime.

The page up for sale was long believed to be part of a text that Napoleon wrote about a historical figure named Clisson, until Peter Hicks, a historian at the Fondation Napoleon, realized it was actually the beginning of his novel. The long-standing confusion was caused in part by Napoleon’s sloppy handwriting, Hicks said.

The tale is about a young officer who befriends two sisters and falls in love with the more spiritual of the two. The story was loosely based on Napoleon’s short-lived romance with Desiree Clary, the sister of his brother’s wife.

The page has been part of a private French family collection since the 1950s. Before then, it belonged to Andre de Coppet, a financier who amassed a significant set of Napoleonic memorabilia in the early 20th century.

The manuscript is estimated at between $29,500 and $44,300, but is expected to sell for more than the base price, said Jean-Pierre Osenat, auctioneer at the Osenat auction house of the Fontainebleau outside Paris.

Napoleon enthusiasts from Australia, Russia, the U.S. and Europe are expected to bid, he said.

“Clisson and Eugenie” Д only 22 pages in its original handwritten form Д is the last piece of creative writing that Napoleon did before turning his literary attention to political matters, said Hicks, who helped publish the most complete text of the novel in September.

According to Hicks, the 26-year-old general was well-read and heavily influenced by the Enlightenment thinker Rousseau, whose ideas of the solitary poet and reverence for nature find their way into the romantic novel.

Napoleon was a gifted stylist whose political writing was greatly admired by many of his contemporaries Д despite his notoriously poor spelling and barely legible handwriting, Hicks said.