By Keith Bradsher

SHENZHEN, China — China is preparing to build three times as many nuclear power plants in the coming decade as the rest of the world combined, a breakneck pace with the potential to help slow global warming.

Nuclear plant trainees working at a simulator in a Chinese training center, which uses the lastest in digital equipment.

China’s Big Appetite for Electricity China’s civilian nuclear power industry — with 11 reactors operating and construction starting on as many as an additional 10 each year — is not known to have had a serious accident in 15 years of large-scale electricity production.

And with China already the largest emitter of gases blamed for global warming, the expansion of nuclear power would at least slow the increase in emissions.

Yet inside and outside the country, the speed of the construction program has raised safety concerns. China has asked for international help in training a force of nuclear inspectors.

The last country to carry out such a rapid nuclear expansion was the United States in the 1970s, in a binge of reactor construction that ended with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. And China is placing many of its nuclear plants near large cities, potentially exposing tens of millions of people to radiation in the event of an accident.

In addition, China must maintain nuclear safeguards in a national business culture where quality and safety sometimes take a back seat to cost-cutting, profits and outright corruption — as shown by scandals in the food, pharmaceutical and toy industries and by the shoddy construction of schools that collapsed in the Sichuan Province earthquake last year.

“At the current stage, if we are not fully aware of the sector’s over-rapid expansions, it will threaten construction quality and operation safety of nuclear power plants,” Li Ganjie, the director of China’s National Nuclear Safety Administration, said in a speech this year.

A top-level corruption scandal is already unfolding in the nuclear industry.

In August, the Chinese government dismissed and detained the powerful president of the China National Nuclear Corporation, Kang Rixin, in a $260 million corruption case involving allegations of bid-rigging in nuclear power plant construction, according to official media reports. No charges have been reported against Mr. Kang, who is being held incommunicado for interrogation.

While none of Mr. Kang’s decisions publicly documented would have created hazardous conditions at nuclear plants, the case is a worrisome sign that nuclear executives in China may not always put safety first in their decision-making.

In contrast with its performance in industries like toys, China has a strong safety record in industries like aviation, which receive top-level government attention.

The challenge for the government and for nuclear companies as they increase construction is to keep an eye on a growing army of contractors and subcontractors who may be tempted to cut corners.

“It’s a concern, and that’s why we’re all working together because we hear about these things going on in other industries,” said William P. Poirier, a vice president for Westinghouse Electric, which is building four nuclear reactors in China.

Philippe Jamet, the director of the division of nuclear installation safety at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said that China had welcomed foreign inspectors at its reactors and that “they show pretty good operations safety.”

But he added that the international agency was concerned about whether China would have enough nuclear inspectors with adequate training to handle the rapid expansion.

“They don’t have very much staff, when you compare their staff with how many they will need,” Mr. Jamet said. The agency accepted a Chinese request to send a team of international experts to the country next year to assess staffing and training, he added.

In late October, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao ordered a quintupling of the safety agency’s staff by the end of next year, to 1,000, according to United States regulators. Chinese officials did not respond to requests for confirmation.

China has two rival state-owned nuclear power giants: the China National Nuclear Corporation, mainly in northeastern China, and the China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group, mainly in southeastern China.

Western experts regard the Daya Bay nuclear power plant in Shenzhen, which mainly uses French designs and is run by China Guangdong Nuclear, as evidence that China can run reactors safely. A display case holds trophies the power plant won in global safety competitions. Full story…

By Kim Tae-gyu

Korean companies’ nuclear power plant deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is expected to cast a silver lining to the otherwise gloomy job markets of Asia’s fourth-largest economy.

According to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Sunday, the country’s five corporations associated with nuclear power generation will need to recruit up to 2,648 employees by next year.

“The country will continue to build nuclear power stations over the coming years as well as continuing research on the technologies, which require specialists,” said an official at the ministry that takes charge of the nuclear industries.

“In particular, the nuclear energy contract of Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) is expected to boost the job markets for nuclear experts and related staff members.”

Late last month, the Korean consortium headed by KEPCO beat its rivals, including GE, Hitachi and Areva, to receive a $20 billion contract to build four nuclear reactors in the UAE.

The contract, which is already the largest-ever energy deal in the Middle East region, can double in value should the initial projects lead to agreements to construct more nuclear power plants.

Such domestic builders as Hyundai Engineering & Construction, Samsung C&T Corp. and Doosan Heavy Industries participated in the consortium to make Korea the sixth nation to export nuclear plants.

Because the private constructors will also need to hire to fulfill the mega construction jobs, the overall number of jobs generated by the deal is expected to be much bigger in years to come.

The government officially predicts that the construction works of the nuclear power plants will create more than 100,000 jobs over the next 10 years.

This contrasts to the lackluster job market of Korea Inc., which is expected to suffer in the first few months of this year as the government temporarily terminates its schemes of offering public works in January and February.

Private companies seem to be ready to fire their staff members rather than hire new ones for the time being in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

For example, the country’s largest fixed-line operator KT, the nation’s No. 1 insurer Samsung Life Insurance and even the state-backed Industrial Bank of Korea plan to reduce their payrolls.

Adding more to the woes, half a million people are set to pour into the job market in February after graduating from colleges and high schools.

“One of the biggest concerns for the country is the job market. Even though the economy has shown signs of rebounding of late, the recovery of the employment has been lethargic,” a Seoul analyst said.

“Lest the job market bounces back, the full-fledged economic recovery cannot be attained. In this climate, the nuclear power plant deal offers really good news for the country.”

- Sandy Bauers

Ice on the Delaware River has caused the shutdown of the Unit 2 reactor at the Salem nuclear-power plant. It also has caused the Unit 1 reactor to reduce its power output to 80 percent.

WV State Journal–State EDA approves three industrial bond allocation requests for power plants.

Three industrial development bond allocation requests for power plants totaling more than $112 million were approved Dec. 17 by the West Virginia Economic Development Authority.

A $47.8 million request was approved for Longview Power, LLC, a new 695 megawatt electrical power generating facility under construction in the Morgantown area. Requests were also granted from Appalachian Power Company ($35 million) and Ohio Power Company ($30 million) for projects at the John Amos Power Plant in Putnam County.

The EDA also heard an update from American Clean Energy, LLC President Thomas E. Loehr regarding a planned biomass fueled electric generating facility in Mingo County.

Loehr, a former state lawmaker and treasurer, told the board of directors the project is ahead of schedule. He plans to construct a $150 million wood waste power plant at the Harless Wood Products Industrial Park near the Mingo-Logan county line. Projected capacity has been increased to 60 megawatts to be implemented in three stages over a three-year period. That’s twice the output originally planned.

“This will creating supply jobs within a 50-mile radius of the plant location,” said Loehr, of the 900,000 tons of wood waste such as limbs and treetops will be utilized per year.

The board approved preliminary loan application requests from West Hills Development, LLC for a Cabell County expansion project and to Randox Laboratories, Ltd. for an Eastern Panhandle project.

West Hills is getting a $4.3 million loan to finance the purchase and renovation of a former Ames retail location in Huntington to be converted into a DIRECTV inbound call center. Spokesman Bob Childers said 100 jobs will be added to the existing 697 when the facility is relocated in the fall of 2010 from the former Arch Coal building.

Randox is getting a $522,000 loan to finance a sales, warehousing and distribution facility in the Jefferson County community of Kearneysville. Based in Northern Ireland, the company develops and manufactures diagnostic reagents and systems. The site is expected to be staffed by 50 employees within three years.

Also approved was a loan insurance application in the amount of $320,000 to West Union Bank for Troy, LLC, a manufacturer of non-woven textiles including trim products for the automotive industry. The EDA is insuring a bank loan for the Harrisville project which enables the company to retain 41 jobs with projected growth to 60 over a two-year period.

The Rio Bravo Rocklin biomass power plant was named a top renewable power plant by POWER magazine, an energy industry publication.

The Rocklin plant is owned by Constellation Energy, based in Baltimore, and Denver-based North American Power Group Ltd.

The plant, which burns about 240,000 tons of wood waste annually, was recognized for its recent turnaround.

“By 2008, the 19-year-old wood-fired Rio Bravo Rocklin Power Station’s operating performance had been significantly degraded by boiler erosion and corrosion caused by (among many other problems) poor fuel,” Power magazine said. “After much consideration, the plant owners elected to invest in a comprehensive upgrade to restore the plant to its as-built performance. Today, the plant operates very reliably. A newly implemented predictive maintenance program should continue to drive down operating costs and further reduce the number of forced outages.”

Constellation and North American Power Group in 2008 invested $14 million in the plant to refurbish its boiler. The plant produces 25 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power more than 10,000 homes. The power is sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

Rio Bravo Rocklin is one of 50 biomass plants in California

Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

by Candace Lombardi

GE’s 2.5-megawatt wind turbines, installed at a wind farm in Germany.

Power company Caithness Energy has given General Electric a $1.4 billion contract to supply wind turbines and 10 years’ worth of maintenance for an Oregon wind farm, GE announced Thursday.

The massive 845-megawatt wind farm, Shepherds Flat, will be located near Arlington, Oregon, but span approximately 30 square miles and cover parts of Oregon’s Gilliam and Morrow Counties.

GE estimates that it will supply 338 of its 2.5-megawatt wind turbine models to be installed between 2011 and 2012. Although they have been used in Europe and Asia, the company says the Shepherds Flat project will include the first U.S. installations of these specific GE turbines.

“When completed, [the Shepherds Flat project] will be larger than any wind farm currently in operation around the globe,” GE said in a statement.

Of course, that comment depends on how you decide to calculate what constitutes a single farm and whether it matters if the wind farm is on land or in the ocean. In July, for example, Texas announced plans to host two 750-megawatt offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Regardless of whether this wind farm will be the largest, or among the largest in the world, there’s no question that once completed, it will make a significant impact on power supply.

Shepherds Flat, which has been contracted to provide to power utility Southern California Edison, is predicted to generate about 2 billion kilowatt-hours per year. That’s enough power to supply about 235,000 households annually, according to statistics provided by GE.

That power does not come without significant layout costs. New York-based Caithness Energy predicts that the project setup will cost $2 billion, including necessary improvements to area roads and power connection equipment to the grid in order for the wind farm to be operational.

GE and Caithness Energy have also touted how the project will bring some jobs to American workers. An estimated 400 workers will be hired for construction of Shepherds Flat, scheduled to break ground in 2010 and be complete in 2012, and an estimated 35 permanent workers will be hired to operate the wind farm. The estimated number of jobs to be created for the wind turbines’ assembly, in a GE plant in Pensacola, Fla., was not disclosed.

By REBECCA SMITH And TIMOTHY AEPPEL

Industry groups vowed to fight an Obama administration proposal to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, even as some companies prepared to comply with restrictions they regard as inevitable.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday declared emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, to be a danger to human health. That clears the way for the EPA to limit emissions, initially from power plants, refineries, cement plants and other big factories.

Critics questioned the timing of the announcement, on the same day as the start of an international climate conference in Copenhagen.

It is hardly the time to risk the remainder of the U.S. industrial sector in an attempt to achieve a short-term international public-relations victory,” said Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association.

“American consumers and businesses alike will be dramatically affected” if the agency forces refiners to make costly changes to their facilities, Mr. Drevna said in a statement. The refiners group contends the EPA has failed to consider science that contradicts its conclusions.

Others questioned the impact of limiting greenhouse gases in one country, when airborne emissions easily cross borders and the threat of climate change is global. “We don’t fly just within the 50 states,” said Elizabeth Merida, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association, a Washington-based industry group for U.S. airlines.

Like other trade groups, ATA said its members had already cut emissions significantly, by increasing fuel efficiency of commercial airplanes by 110% between 1978 and 2008. ATA joined global airlines earlier this year in an industry plan that would raise fuel efficiency another 1.5% annually through 2020 and limit carbon-dioxide emissions after that date.

Monday’s action makes it more likely EPA will limit emissions from power plants, which produce about 40% of U.S. industrial greenhouse gases, and other facilities that emit more than 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases each a year. The EPA on Sept. 30 said it would require these plants to limit emissions of carbon dioxide in new or expanded facilities, by requiring them to install the best emission-control equipment, beginning as soon as next spring.

Utility executives, joined by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, have said they prefer that Congress, rather than the EPA, regulate greenhouse emissions. That is because Congress has more freedom than the EPA to set up a system using incentives and, possibly, a trading mechanism, to gradually reduce emissions.

“A carbon bill would give more clarity to what you need to do and when,” said David Ratcliffe, chief executive of Southern Co., a big utility based in Atlanta, in a recent interview.

An executive of DuPont Co. agreed. “Only Congress can enact the kind of comprehensive program needed to ensure we achieve emissions reductions in the most cost-effective manner,” Michael Parr, the chemical maker’s manager of government affairs, said in an e-mailed statement. The EPA, Mr. Parr said, can’t regulate greenhouse-gas emissions “in a flexible and economically efficient way.”

Ms. Jackson has said the administration prefers that Congress act, but that EPA is required to move ahead if Congress doesn’t.

Several utilities are planning to shut smaller coal-burning power plants that don’t warrant upgrades. Progress Energy Inc. and Duke Energy Corp. in recent weeks said they likely will retire nearly 30 smaller coal-fired plants in the next decade.

Emissions of energy-related carbon dioxide dropped 2.9% in 2008, after growing an average of 1% per year from 1990 to 2007, the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration reported Friday.

“The recession has given everyone a chance to stand still” and take stock, Southern Co.’s Mr. Ratcliffe said.

Other executives say they don’t know whether they would be affected by the EPA rules, because they haven’t measured their carbon-dioxide emissions.

Fletcher Steele, president of Pine Hall Brick Co., said he plans to measure how much carbon dioxide his company might release when it is running full tilt. The Winston-Salem, N.C., company uses natural gas and sawdust to fire kilns that bake bricks; it is running at about 40% of capacity because of the building-industry collapse.

Mr. Steele said controls on carbon dioxide would be costly and technically complex. But he knows he is somewhat insulated from such expenses because bricks are too heavy and low value to be globally traded. If other domestic makers face the same costs, they will pass them on to consumers, he said.

Mr. Steele noted that the EPA three years ago forced Pine Hall and other brick makers to study carbon-monoxide emissions. The company found it could significantly reduce those emissions with subtle adjustments in how gases are burned and other technical tweaks.

“I don’t know that we can do the same with CO2,” he said. “It’s a natural byproduct of combustion, so I just don’t know how you get around it.”

Most small businesses wouldn’t be affected by the rule. Rasma Zvaners, policy director of the American Bakers Association, said most members emit fewer than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. But she worries that bakers may be affected by higher natural gas prices, if power plants and other manufacturers switch to burning gas from coal or other fuels.

By IAN TALLEY

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as expected, on Monday declared greenhouse gases a danger to public health, a decision that could soon lead to new emissions regulations for businesses across the economy.

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson announcing that greenhouse-gas emissions pose a danger to public health.

The “endangerment finding” announced by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is necessary to move ahead on new emissions standards for cars due out in March 2010. Made under the Clean Air Act, it also opens up large emitters such as power plants, oil refineries, chemical plants and metal smelters to regulations that limit their output of carbon dioxide and other gases.

“These long overdue findings cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the U.S. government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution and seizing the opportunity of clean-energy reform,” Ms. Jackson said.

The controversial decision, proposed by the administration earlier this year, comes as a global climate summit opens in Copenhagen. It gives the administration leverage in its negotiations and puts pressure on Congress to pass a bill that cuts greenhouse gases in a more economically efficient way.

Though the House has passed such a bill, the Senate has faced a number of political hurdles.

Environmentalists celebrated the announcement. “This is the most significant step the federal government has taken on global warming,” said Emily Figdor, director for Environment America’s federal global-warming program. “The stage is now set for [the] EPA to hold the biggest global-warming polluters accountable.”

Some lawmakers and groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers warned the decision could bring the entire economy to a halt, not only regulating large emitters within months, but also opening other mobile sources and smaller emitters to regulation.

“With double-digit unemployment and over 3.5 million jobs already lost this year, the administration inexplicably continues to push for a job-killing national energy tax—either through legislation or regulation,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said.

However, Ms. Jackson maintains “there are ways to sensibly move forward on regulations,” and she said the agency has insured that small and medium-sized businesses “will not be regulated.”

Without any cost analyses of new greenhouse-gas regulations, it is difficult to estimate what the actual impact could be on the economy. Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the utility industry group Edison Electric Institute, pointed to cost predictions for federal legislation as a guide to the cost. Estimates for legislation vary between $100 a year to $1,000 a year extra for families, and such legislation is specially designed to moderate costs.

“The only certainty is that EPA regulation would be far more expensive than congressional-designed legislation,” Mr. Riedinger contends.

Although industry officials say no economic study of the impacts of greenhouse-gas regulations under the Clean Air Act has been published, the EPA strongly challenges dire economic assertions.

Ms. Jackson indicated the agency would soon finalize a new “tailoring rule” that will set a greenhouse-gas-emissions threshold for regulators at 25,000 tons a year. This is designed to target the largest emitters in the country.

The EPA says that would mean around 13,600 coal-burning power stations, crude refineries, metal smelters and other industrial facilities would come under existing regulations.

Specifically, for any new construction or modification that would affect greenhouse-gas emissions, companies would be required to apply for permits that include the “best available technology.” The EPA is seen finalizing what is considered the best available technology in 2011.

Asked when the agency would draft new regulations for existing large emitting facilities, Ms. Jackson declined to give a timeline.

Industry lawyers say if the EPA finalizes its auto-emissions rule by March 31, as expected, regulation of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide would automatically start 60 days later.

Jeff Holmstead, a former EPA air administrator under the George W. Bush administration and now head of the Bracewell & Giuliani Environmental Strategies Group, said this is the first time the agency has ever made a standalone endangerment finding. He thinks it was a political decision.

“It’s clearly designed to set the stage for the Copenhagen conference,” Mr. Holmstead said.

Previously, the EPA had synchronized endangerment determinations with its rule-makings.

But provisions in the EPA’s tailoring rule may mean the 25,000-tons-a-year threshold won’t apply in many states.

Peter Glaser, a lawyer representing utilities at the firm Troutman Sanders LLP in Washington, said the EPA tailoring proposal explicitly says that federal law doesn’t preempt state laws on the major pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act. According to the EPA, many states have a 100-ton-threshold level for operating permits and 250-ton level for construction permits. If those levels apply, they would affect one million to four million facilities across the country, the EPA said.

“This is certainly not an ending,” Ms. Jackson said. “We will continue to work under the Clean Air Act.”

Mark Peters contributed to this report

From
“Business Fumes Over Carbon Dioxide Rule”
By JEFFREY BALL and CHARLES FORELLE

Officials gather in Copenhagen this week for an international climate summit, but business leaders are focusing even more on Washington, where the Obama administration is expected as early as Monday to formally declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.

An “endangerment” finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions — even if Congress doesn’t pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital, where no binding agreement is expected.

Many business groups are opposed to EPA efforts to curb a gas as ubiquitous as carbon dioxide.

An EPA endangerment finding “could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement. “The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don’t stifle our economic recovery,” he said, noting that the group supports federal legislation.

EPA action won’t do much to combat climate change, and “is certain to come at a huge cost to the economy,” said the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group that stands as a proxy for U.S. industry.

Dan Riedinger, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, a power-industry trade group, said the EPA would be less likely than Congress to come up with an “economywide approach” to regulating emissions. The power industry prefers such an approach because it would spread the burden of emission cuts to other industries as well.

Electricity generation, transportation and industry represent the three largest sources of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.

An EPA spokeswoman declined to comment Sunday on when the agency might finalize its proposed endangerment finding. Congressional Republicans have called on the EPA to withdraw it, saying recently disclosed emails written by scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia and their peers call into question the scientific rationale for regulation.

The spokeswoman said that the EPA is confident the basis for its decision will be “very strong,” and that when it is published, “we invite the public to review the extensive scientific analysis informing” the decision.

EPA action would give President Barack Obama something to show leaders from other nations when he attends the Copenhagen conference on Dec. 18 and tries to persuade them that the U.S. is serious about cutting its contribution to global greenhouse-gas emissions.

The vast majority of increased greenhouse-gas emissions is expected to come from developing countries such as China and India, not from rich countries like the U.S. But developing countries have made it clear that their willingness to reduce growth in emissions will depend on what rich countries do first. That puts a geopolitical spotlight on the U.S.

At the heart of the fight over whether U.S. emission constraints should come from the EPA or Congress is a high-stakes issue: which industries will have to foot the bill for a climate cleanup. A similar theme will play out in Copenhagen as rich countries wrangle over how much they should have to pay to help the developing world shift to cleaner technologies.

“There is no agreement without money,” says Rosário Bento Pais, a top climate negotiator for the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm. “That is clear.”

An endangerment finding would allow the EPA to use the federal Clean Air Act to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions, which are produced whenever fossil fuel is burned. Under that law, the EPA could require emitters of as little as 250 tons of carbon dioxide per year to install new technology to curb their emissions starting as soon as 2012.

The EPA has said it will only require permits from big emitters — facilities that put out 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. But that effort to tailor the regulations to avoid slamming small businesses with new costs is expected to be challenged in court.

Legislators are aware that polls show the public appetite for action that would raise energy prices to protect the environment has fallen precipitously amid the recession.

Congressional legislation also faces plenty of U.S. industry opposition. Under the legislation, which has been passed by the House but is now stuck in the Senate, the federal government would set a cap on the amount of greenhouse gas the economy could emit every year. The government would distribute a set number of emission permits to various industries. Companies that wanted to be able to emit more than their quota could buy extra permits from those that had figured out how to emit less.

Proponents of the cap-and-trade approach say emission-permit trading will encourage industries to find the least-expensive ways to curb greenhouse-gas output. But opponents say it will saddle key industries with high costs not borne by rivals in China or India, and potentially cost the U.S. jobs.

The oil industry has warned that climate legislation could force some U.S. refineries to shut down, because importing gasoline from countries without emission caps could be cheaper than making the gasoline on domestic soil.

Legislators “have decided that coal and electric users don’t bear the burden” of emissions constraints for many years, said John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group. “Early in the program, oil users are the ones who are hammered.”

The Iron and Steel Institute, which represents more than 75% of steel made in the U.S., said that successful climate policy — whether through the EPA or Congress — must “reduce emissions without altering the competitiveness of American steelmakers.”

The issue of how curbing emissions would affect jobs in developed countries is likely to erupt in Copenhagen in the battle over how much rich countries should pony up for cleaner technologies in developing nations.

Estimates of the cost for reducing emissions in developing countries vary widely, but the European Commission said in September that the bill could reach $150 billion annually by 2020. Leaders of the EU’s 27 nations have said only that the EU would pay its “fair share” of the total, without committing to an amount.

Yet EU industry lobbies are weighing in against that proposal. It is “not realistic,” said Axel Eggert, spokesman for Eurofer, the trade group for European steelmakers. Steelmakers want to “make sure that the financing is not a subsidy for our competitors,” he said.

– Ian Talley and Stephen Power contributed to this article