April, 2011

Video of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station – Unit 4 Spent Fuel Pool.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. recently released a more detailed schedule to install a water treatment system at its severely damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The company also released further details on an earlier explosion at unit 4 and revised fuel damage estimates. Bloomberg Thursday quoted TEPCO officials as saying a floating barge to store contaminated water at the site will arrive...

Wednesday night’s extreme winds in the southern U.S. cut power to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Browns Ferry nuclear plant, causing all three units to shut down. Two units were operating at full power and another at reduced power when the outage tripped the plant’s safety systems at 4:36 p.m., according to a TVA release. Seven of eight backup diesel generators ensured...

“Without the other units, the strategic rationale for continuing to own Kewaunee is diminished and we believe it is time to pursue a sale of the plant,” said Thomas Farrell II, chairman, president and CEO of Dominion Dominion Resources intends to sell the Kewaunee Power Station, its chairman said this morning during an earnings conference call.

The boards of directors of Exelon Corporation and Constellation Energy announced today that they have signed a definitive agreement to combine the two companies in a stock-for-stock transaction. The agreement brings together Exelon's large, environmentally-advantaged generation fleet and Constellation's industry-leading customer-facing businesses, creating a platform for growth. ...

Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported Wednesday that another worker at its severely damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has exceeded legal radiation exposure limits. According to a company release, a woman was taken off the job March 23 after accumulating a dose of 17.55 millisieverts. Under Japanese regulations, the maximum 3-month dose for women is 5 millisieverts. (View full post for the latest...

A proposal to build a new nuclear plant in rural Colorado failed to win an essential zoning change this week from Pueblo County authorities. County commissioners voted 3-0 Monday night to deny a special designation for 24,000 acres near Highway 50 between Avondale and Fowler where property owners proposed building nuclear and renewable electricity generation. While the county’s...

Several days after hydrogen explosions tore through three reactor buildings at the tsunami soaked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and a fire damaged a fourth, radiation dose readings in parts of the plant remained dangerously high, Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported. A map released by the power company Sunday and widely reported in the Japanese media Tuesday showed readings as high as 130 millisieverts...

With the station blackout at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant providing a stark illustration of the risks inherent to storing spent fuel at reactors, an MIT study released Tuesday argues the United States needs to build centralized repositories for its nuclear waste. “The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle,” a set of recommendations from scientists and nuclear experts two years...

Ceremonies honoring the Chernobyl nuclear workers (Liquidators as they were called) are taking place in Ukraine today to mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. The main service was held in the central square of Slavutich, a small city 40km from the site. The service was at held at 1.23am, the exact moment 25 years ago that the Chernobyl reactor No 4 exploded, spreading a cloud...

The NRC published in the Federal Register today a call for public comments on a proposed amendment to its fitness-for-duty rule that would allow nuclear power plants to use a different method to determine when employees must be given time off from work.

“Deployment of this innovative American technology will support thousands of U.S. manufacturing and operations jobs and will contribute to our energy security and national security at a pivotal time for our country.” said USEC President and CEO John K. Welch USEC Inc. announced today that it had reached a significant step in the Company's application for a $2 billion loan guarantee...

The Japanese government on Monday accepted Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s measurements of radioactive material that escaped into the sea from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Japanese regulators released a summary of samples taken in early April at various distances from seawater intakes at the plant. It concluded that TEPCO’s earlier estimates were correct...

Unit 1 at New Jersey’s Salem nuclear plant came back online Saturday after river vegetation blocking water intakes halted generation for about 37 hours. As is occasionally an issue for the plant on the Delaware River in springtime, weeds and grasses built up around intake screens Thursday afternoon. Reduced water flow from the river prompted operators at the PSEG-owned plant to...

On Friday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. representatives told reporters that crews will continue to flood not only the pressure vessels within damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, but also their containment vessels. The effort to ensure fuel rods are entirely covered with water in the absence of functioning cooling systems has progressed at unit 1, where its suppression pool is filled...

On Thursday the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted 20-year license extensions to all three reactors at Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear plant – the largest power plant in the United States. First brought online in the mid-1980s, the reactors’ licenses were not set to expire until 2025 through 2027. Based on a renewal application filed in 2008, the NRC’s decision...

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC) relied on flawed historical global temperature reconstructions to make the case that unprecedented warming occurred in the latter half of the last century. Furthermore, the UN IPCC preached that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels most likely caused the warming. When the Canadian Government’s mass mailing to...

As expected, Japan’s prime minister on Thursday outlined stricter enforcement measures for what had been a voluntary evacuation zone around the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Unauthorized people traveling within 20 miles of the plant could be subject to fines up to 100,000 yen or jail time. Also on Thursday, plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Co. issued the...

Unit 1 at Georgia’s Vogtle nuclear plant went offline unexpectedly Wednesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported. At 5:34 p.m. EST safety systems in the reactor tripped, shutting it down from full power, according to the NRC. The agency stated “no significant activities were in progress that should have challenged the Reactor Protection System.”

TEPCO has released these videos that show the iRobot PackBot working in the Fukushima reactor buildings. The videos show significant damage inside the buildings and the challenges with just navigating around the wreckage. The robot is equipped with cameras and numerous sensors that will help the workers asses the conditions in the buildings.

EDF has issued its first set of recommendations to the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) commission for improvements to safety and management of its nuclear power fleet. Existing facilities, along with new ones, are constantly benefiting from the feedback gathered from all of its plants and learning the lessons from accidents that happen all around the world.

After a day of pumping, the level of radioactive water flooding unit 2 of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant dropped 2.3 centimeters – a modest start to pumping efforts expected to take at least five weeks. Crews had run hoses from the basement of unit 2 to a nearby waste treatment building specially prepped for water storage and eventual treatment using equipment provided...

Two new AP1000 reactors planned for South Carolina’s Virgil C. Summer plant received environmental approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers Tuesday. The federal agencies granted the proposed units 2 and 3 a final environmental impact study that concludes the reactors will have no substantial environmental impact.

AREVA is targeting to process highly contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant by late next month, with an installation that can remove radioactive material from 50 tons of water an hour. Chief Executive Officer Anne Lauvergeon told a Tokyo news conference Tuesday that a end of May start date represents the best-case scenario. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) had said it expected...

Operators at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan have begun pumping highly radioactive water from unit 2 into a waste storage building 800 meters away. Of an estimated 25,000 tons of water accumulated in the unit's basement, tunnels and turbine building, Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to pump about 10,000 tons to the second-floor basement of the storage building by mid-May, according...