November, 2011

The Shaw Group Inc. today announced that support services contracted by its subsidiary, Shaw Global Services, LLC, are performing as designed to help recovery at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan. After a tsunami and earthquake hit Japan in March, the Toshiba Corp. led Shaw, Babcock & Wilcox, Westinghouse and Exelon Nuclear Partners to provide emergency response support. Shaw...

After a 126-hour delay, a train carrying 11 containers of nuclear waste vitrified in France returned to Germany Tuesday. An estimated 25,000 protestors tried to disrupt the train and clashed with nearly as many police, resulting in 133 injuries to police and 355 to protestors, according to police and environmental groups quoted by AFP. Anti-nuclear sentiment has run high in Germany since the Fukushima...

Indonesia’s minister for state enterprises said on Monday that nuclear power would be essential to meeting the energy needs of the country, which is conducting site testing for power reactors. Speaking before elected leaders, Minister for State Enterprises Dahlan Iskan said, “In the future, whether we like it or not, nuclear power has to be added [to the energy mix] because...

Lightbridge, a nuclear fuel technology firm based in Virginia, announced it will explore research projects with the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. Their memorandum of agreement seeks joint research of fuel designed by Lightbridge – specifically, pre-irradiation testing in advance of loop irradiation experiments at Russia’s MIR research reactor and the Advanced...

Should it attract enough signatures by mid-April to be placed on the ballot in California, an initiative could effectively shutter the San Onofre and Diablo Canyon nuclear plants. A state law passed in 1976, while exempting the plants now operating, placed a moratorium on power reactor construction in California until the federal government identifies a permanent solution for spent...

Recent nuclear news from the United Kingdom includes the public release of plans for new reactors at Hinkley Point and an unconfirmed report that GE-Hitachi may pitch its salt-cooled PRISM reactor as a solution to the country’s excess plutonium problem. For Hinkley Point, British regulators released the 30,000-page application to build two Areva EPR pressurized water reactors...

In a speech Friday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he was committed to nuclear research and new plant construction, including a third reactor for the Penly plant in Normandy. While his opponents in the Socialist and Green parties recently resolved to decommission 24 of France’s 58 reactors, Reuters quoted Sarkozy as saying that doing so would cost the country 5 billion...

South Korea announced today a plan to become one of the world's top three nuclear power generators by expanding the country's global market share of nuclear reactors to 20 percent by 2030. The "Nu-Tech 2030" plan aims to make the country one of the three major nuclear energy powers, along with the United States and France, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in a press release...

As promised, Florida Power & Light’s $766 million Turkey Point uprate project has provided a much-needed boost to the South Florida communities around it. In the last year, the work has already created 3,200 construction jobs in Miami-Dade County, where the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics pegged the unemployment rate at 11.5 percent in September. In addition to the plant’s...

Citing the drawn-out licensing process, Georgia Power officials told state regulators Monday that completion of the third reactor at the Vogtle nuclear plant could be delayed by as much as five months. The Southern Co. subsidiary and three other utilities are building two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at the plant near Augusta, Ga. Construction has progressed on schedule since it began...

L-3 MAPPS announced today that is has been selected by STP Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC) to develop classroom simulators to augment full scope simulator training at the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station. The classroom simulators will be developed using L-3’s Orchid ® Touch Interface solution released earlier this year and will enter service in the second quarter of 2012...

A bidding war continues to escalate the offer price for Canadian uranium producer Hathor Exploration – a promising sign that the mining industry sees robust demand for nuclear power in the future. Rio Tinto Group and Cameco both want Hathor for its Roughrider uranium deposit in Saskatchewan, just up the road from a Cameco facility. A Hathor release from earlier this year suggested...

Following a shareholder vote, Exelon and Constellation moved closer to their goal of merging by early next year. Exelon currently owns the largest reactor fleet in the U.S., and Constellation Energy Nuclear Group has five reactors at the Calvert Cliffs, R.E. Ginna and Nine Mile Point plants in Maryland and New York.

A 20,000-square-foot Hanford complex that once housed plutonium is coming down. Last week the Department of Energy and its contractor CH2M Hill began demolishing the vault complex within Hanford’s Plutonium Finishing Plant. The demolition work is expected to be complete early next year. Crews earlier had decontaminated the buildings, which involved the removal of glove boxes and...

In their post-Fukushima review of reactors’ emergency preparedness, French regulatory agencies said their country’s plants are safe but should be made more so by enhancing a number of safety systems. The document stresses improvements to plant safety related to beyond-design-basis accidents and severe natural disasters in light of the earthquake and tsunami that overwhelmed...

New waste storage for a water treatment system, further studies of airborne contamination and a detailed timeline of the crisis highlight the recent news from Fukushima Daiichi. Developments over the last week at the damaged Tokyo Electric Power Co. nuclear plant include: Site Visit and Timeline Shed Light on Accident For the first time since the earthquake and tsunami blacked out the plant...

Work may resume on some of China’s new nuclear plants, a Chinese regulatory official has said. On Thursday Bloomberg quoted China Nuclear Energy Association vice secretary general Xu Yuming as saying projects already under construction may restart following government delays imposed following Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi accident. He said approvals for additional reactors, though...

The Board of Directors of Merrick & Company announced yesterday that David G. Huelskamp has been selected as President of the firm, effective January 3, 2012. Merrick & Company is a global, employee-owned, multidisciplinary professional services firm specializing in the energy, national security, life sciences, and sustainable infrastructure markets. The firm provides engineering, architecture...

Australia – home to the world’s largest uranium reserves – should end a ban on exporting the reactor fuel to India, the Australian prime minister argued in an editorial Tuesday. The country has long barred the sale of uranium to India because it refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "It is time for (the governing Labor party) to modernize our ...

The Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio declared an alert for just over two hours Wednesday morning following a small fire on site. An event notification report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that a leaking water pipe caused a breaker to arc in an auxiliary building. Because the incident affected an emergency ventilation fan in the control room, at 2:22 a.m. plant operator...

With a muffled “pop,” a flash of blue light and a few ripples through 14,000 gallons of deionized water, Sandia National Laboratories’ Annular Core Research Reactor (ACRR) recently conducted its 10,000th operation. “The ACRR has been a real workhorse for Sandia, and labs leadership and the nation rely on these experiments and other weapons component testing done at Sandia...

Final approval of the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor design should come in May, federal regulators said in a letter to GE-Hitachi released Monday. The Final Safety Evaluation Report for the Generation III+ design was complete in March, and final rulemaking from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was initially scheduled for September. The Wilmington, N.C., Star-News reported...

Enough uranium accumulated in air filters at a North Carolina nuclear fuel plant earlier this year to pose a risk of criticality, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined. While no one was harmed, regulators announced a $17,500 penalty for the incident Tuesday, a fine Global Nuclear Fuel-Americas has said it will accept.

A Southern Company subsidiary is buying up land near Pensacola, Fla., to build a new power plant, local media reported. And while a decision is well in the future, the company said it may use the site to generate nuclear power. Land owners in Escambia County told WKRG the purchases began a few years ago, and a Gulf Power representative said it hopes to assemble 4,000 acres by the...

Charging that it was provided with incomplete design documents and unexpected plant conditions, Babcock & Wilcox has sued Energy Northwest over a delayed condenser replacement at the Columbia nuclear plant. The Tri-City Herald reported Saturday that B&W filed the suit in U.S. District Court, claiming the delays cost the firm $50 million. For its part, Energy Northwest promised...