June, 2011

Water filters expected to last a month accumulated excessive radiation levels after only five hours this weekend at Japan's severely damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. After recovering from delays last week, Tokyo Electric Power Co. again suspended operation of the new water filtration system Saturday. At issue are cartridges that use chemical processes to separate radioactive...

In what could be a major step forward at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. has started using treated water from plant basements for core cooling. For more than a week, engineers have struggled to overcome leaks and higher-than-expected radiation accumulation in a water filtration system installed at the plant. Designed by Areva, Veolia and Kurion...

Levels of contaminated water flooding unit 1 at Japan's disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have fluctuated considerably in recent days as Tokyo Electric Power Co. searches for new leaks. Starting Monday morning, Japan time, water levels in unit 1 rose 376 millimeters in roughly 24 hours before dropping by 79 millimeters between Wednesday and Thursday, the Daily Yomiuri newspaper...

The Shaw Group announced Thursday that it has reached a deal with American Electric Power to help the utility extend the life of its D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant in Michigan. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended licenses for Cook's two 1970-era reactors in 2005. According to a Shaw release, the company will provide engineering, construction and procurement for projects that will...

Following an outage brought on by April's tornado outbreak across the South, Virginia's Surry nuclear plant briefly restarted its unit 2 reactor but took the unit offline again Monday after detecting a problem in its cooling system. Dominion Virginia Power operators restarted unit 2 last Thursday, bringing the unit up to nearly full power by Monday afternoon. It had been offline...

Tokyo Electric Power Co. faces new accusations that it withheld critical information from regulators in the early hours of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, including the likely presence of hydrogen that caused explosions in reactor buildings. A report from the country's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says TEPCO detected 290 millisieverts of radiation per hour in unit 1 - indicative...

In a development that should improve working conditions and the stability of the unit, TEPCO announced Tuesday that a new cooling system for the spent-fuel tank of Fukushima Daiichi unit 2 is now fully functional. As with other units at the blacked-out plant following Japan's massive March 11 earthquake, unit 2's spent fuel tank has threatened to overheat in the absence of...

Drawing further scorn from Japanese regulators, Tokyo Electric Power Co. has said it cannot find a number of subcontractor employees who worked at the Fukuhsima Daiichi nuclear plant in the early days of the crisis. The utility recently checked the radiation exposure of nearly all of the 3,639 people who worked at the site between the station blackout and March 31, but TEPCO said 69 could...

A city-park-sized barge towed to the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan has been put into service for the first time to store water with low levels of radioactivity. Quoting Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials, Japan Today recently reported that crews have started to transfer 8,000 metric tons of water from turbine buildings at units 5 and 6. Their reactors were not damaged...

Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, LLCSM (CENG) announced leadership changes Friday at its R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant, located in Ontario, N.Y., including Joe Pacher as Site Vice President and Sonny Dean as Plant General Manager (PGM). Pacher replaces John Carlin, who is leaving the company for another job.

Westinghouse today welcomed the announcement from the UK nuclear safety regulator that the “Regulatory Issue” connected with the design of the company’s AP1000 nuclear plant had been lifted. This move clears a significant obstacle on the pathway towards Design Acceptance Confirmation by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) that is currently assessing the AP1000 reactor as part...

TEPCO Video of Spraying Decontamination Gel at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power

Eight more Fukushima Daiichi workers have exceeded the allowed radiation dose, Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported recently, with two of those exposed to more than twice the allowed limit. Some 3,700 workers have struggled to contain the ongoing crisis at the plant brought on by Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The government raised maximum dose limit from 100 millisieverts...

Licensing delays for the new AP1000 reactor design and missed construction milestones threaten the April 2016 deadline for the first of two new reactors planned at Georgia's Vogtle nuclear plant, a consultant has told state regulators. The Associated Press reported Friday that it acquired the report by William Jacobs Jr., a project watchdog hired by state utility regulators. Although...

As the International Energy Agency realigns its forecast for global energy supplies following decisions by European countries to close reactors, its executive director has warned that abandoning nuclear power will lead to increased energy costs and more carbon emissions. At the World Energy Prize ceremony in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, IEA executive director Nobuo Tanaka said...

A remote-controlled aircraft monitoring the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan lost power today, making an emergency landing on top of a reactor building. Bloomberg quoted a Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman as saying the 18-pound drone engineered by Honeywell is on top of unit 2, but that it likely did not damage the building.

Westinghouse Electric Company has confirmed that it has made a proposal regarding the planned nuclear new build project for the Visaginas site in the Republic of Lithuania. Westinghouse sees Lithuania as an important market because it is a mature market with significant nuclear experience, and this project has a strategic significance across the whole Baltic Region.

Before congressional panels, during interviews and in speeches, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko has spent the better part of three months defending the safety record of U.S. nuclear plants and their regulators in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis in Japan. As other countries like Germany and Switzerland have moved to abandon the technology, the NRC to date has remained...

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently granted Exelon permission to move low-level waste between two of its nuclear plants. Exelon asked to transfer the waste in 2010 as storage space ran short at its Limerick plant near Philadelphia. Last week, the NRC granted the request to send waste to the Peach Bottom plant about 60 miles away.

Early in the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found itself at odds with Japanese regulators in their assessments of the spent-fuel tank withing fire-damaged unit 4. NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said information from agency experts indicated the tank had gone dry, fully exposing spent fuel rods and elevating the risk of widespread radiation release. The tank's...

The stakes of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s fight against flooding in basements of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant grew even higher Friday as the utility announced the contaminated water could reach ground level this month. Since Japan's devastating March 20 earthquake and tsunami that blacked out the plant, operators have searched for ways to deal with irradiated water flooding...

Italian voters have deep sixed their country's plans to build new reactors, making Italy the third European Union country to move away from the technology following the Fukushima Daiichi crisis in Japan. The Italian government in 2009 had adopted legislation that would derive a fourth of the country's power from domestic nuclear plants by 2030. Politicians hoped to reduce...

Westinghouse announced Monday that it will soon begin shipping fuel to Tennessee's Watts Bar unit 2 – scheduled to be the first U.S. reactor to come online in 15 years. According to a Westinghouse release, fuel from the company's Columbia, S.C., fuel fabrication facility will ship between June and August, with fuel loading expected to begin next year.

Construction began Wednesday on a new 12,000-square-foot emergency operations center at Ohio's Perry nuclear plant. FirstEnergy is building the center to locate emergency facilities for maintaining public health and safety in the event of a plant emergency. According to a FirstEnergy release, it will include state-of-the-art environmental monitoring and communications equipment. The...

Xcel Energy officials today welcomed the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s renewal of operating licenses for Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant units 1 and 2 for 20 years. The NRC issued the renewed licenses Monday. The original licenses had been set to expire in 2013 and 2014.