April, 2012

The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) has shortlisted Russia's Atomstroyexport along with a French-Japanese consortia consisting of Areva and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to potentially build the country's first nuclear reactor. They said Areva, the world's biggest maker of nuclear plants, was leading a consortium proposing the new generation Atmea nuclear reactor while Russia's...

State Nuclear Power Technology Corp. - a nuclear company backed by the Chinese government - is in talks to invest $10 billion in the abandoned Horizon nuclear power project in Britain. Horizon, previously a joint venture between German companies E.ON and RWE, planned to build up to three nuclear reactors at Wylfa in Anglesey and three more at Oldbury in Gloucestershire. However, last month the companies...

Quoting provincial sources, the Toronto Star reported Thursday that Ontario has narrowed the potential designs for new reactors at the Darlington nuclear plant to the Enhanced Candu 6 and Westinghouse’s AP1000. The province and Ontario Power Generation are said to be negotiating service level agreements with the makers of both designs.

Two days after it received state approval to begin operations, a low level radioactive waste (LLRW) site in Texas announced it received its first shipment. Valhi subsidiary Waste Control Specialists reported Friday it had disposed of a shipment from Bionomics.

The Tennessee Valley Authority board has approved continuing with construction of the second generating unit at Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant in accordance with a revised estimate. Earlier this month, it was revealed that the project required an additional $1.5-$2 billion to complete , bringing the total cost to complete the unit at nearly $4.5 billion.

Warnings of summer power shortages and further analysis of contamination around the plant highlighted the news from Fukushima Daiichi last week. Recent developments related to the Tokyo Electric Power Co. nuclear plant blacked out following last year’s earthquake and tsunami include ...

CH2M Hill has won a five-year extension to its contract for cleanup work at the Department of Energy’s Hanford site. CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company’s contract extension is valued at about $2.2 billion, DOE announced this week. It follows five years of earlier work valued at $3.7 billion under the original contract, which included $1.3 billion in federal economic stimulus funds.

The Point Beach nuclear power plant declared an Alert at 9:06 pm CT on April 25 due to high levels of carbon monoxide in an area adjacent to the diesel generator, according to an NRC release. Normal atmosphere was restored within 15 minutes and the plant terminated the Alert at 11:14 pm CT.

On the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster Thursday, Ukraine officially launched the construction of a new radiation shell to cover radioactive materials as the current one is getting old and degrading. Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych spoke during a ceremony inaugurating the initial assembly of the 20,000 ton structure known as the "sarcophagus".

Southern Company today reported first quarter 2012 earnings of $368 million - or 42 cents a share - compared with earnings of $422 million - or 50 cents a share - in the first quarter of 2011. The company also has been negotiating with the Department of Energy for final approval of loan guarantees to finance the Vogtle project. "We're very hopeful we'll be able to reach a successful...

Six years after it received Entergy’s application to renew the operating license of the Pilgrim nuclear plant in Massachusetts, the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recommended that the reactor be allowed to operate for an additional two decades.

A fire was discovered and quickly extinguished at France’s Fessenheim nuclear plant Wednesday. According to a release from EDF, unit 2 at the plant on the German border was working normally when a fire started at about 8:30 a.m. in a machine hall on the non-nuclear side of the plant.

After beginning negotiations to sell a 2-7 percent stake to South Mississippi Electric Power last week , Santee Cooper has signed a letter of intent with Ohio-based American Municipal Power (AMP) to possibly sell another 2-5 percent of its stake in the V.C. Summer expansion. The letter was non-binding and no financial terms were disclosed.

The Canada Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOA) with the Republic of Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (KSSC) Tuesday in order to strengthen safety standards through technical cooperation and information exchange in nuclear regulatory matters. The CNSC also signed a similar MOU with the U.S. NRC on April 17 in Ottawa.

In the last week, House and Senate committees have acted on separate spending bills that both address some of the nuclear waste measures advocated by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future.

An investigation begun in 2010 of concrete at the Seabrook nuclear plant continues to move slowly forward, with NextEra Energy telling regulators that testing won’t be complete until 2014.

According to a Tuesday release, Gen4 Energy (previously Hyperion Power) will not pursue the DOE's Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), designed to establish cost-shared agreements with private industry to support the design and licensing of SMRs . Gen4 will continue to work under the Memorandum of Agreement with the DOE on their advanced reactor at the Savannah River site .

Worldwide support for nuclear power has waxed and waned since its introduction half a century ago, but even governments swayed by anti-nuclear sentiment in the past have been reluctant to discover what negative consequences might result from pulling the plug on an entire sector of electrical generation. Now Germany and Japan are about to find out.

Kurion – a small U.S. company known for its technology’s ongoing role in helping to decontaminate water at Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant – has announced a deal with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory that will enable testing of its systems at Hanford.

The first unit of the Kudankulam nuclear power project in India is expected to start generating electricity in the next 40 days, Minister of State V Narayanasamy said Monday. "We are fast moving into the direction of generating electricity from Kundankulam Nuclear Power Project," he said.

Southern California Edison has completed additional inspections on its Unit 2 steam generators at San Onofre, according to a SCE release Friday. On April 11, SCE identified wear in two of the 19,454 tubes in the Unit 2 generators that was similar to the type of wear that was previously seen in Unit 3 .

Later this year, URS Energy and Construction, Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Group and Areva Federal Services will take over management of the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) under a $1.3 billion contract announced Friday.

A British newspaper has reported decommissioning of the Pacific Pintail, a 341-foot cargo ship used to carry nuclear material around the world, will be postponed for at least three years. A document obtained by the Guardian indicated the ship, renamed the Oceanic Pintail, is back in service and will continue to make deliveries until at least 2015.

During a ceremony at World Energy Council's World Energy Leadership Summit today in Istanbul, Canadian nuclear firm Candu Energy and Turkish state power generator EUAS signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding the construction of a new nuclear plant at the Black Sea port of Sinop. "Today's deal underlines Turkey's strong commitment on nuclear power plants," Turkish...

NextEra Energy conducted a graded tsunami drill Tuesday at Seabrook Nucelar Power Plant to identify strengths and weaknesses of the plant in case of such a disaster. With representatives from FEMA and the NRC in attendance, NextEra officials ran drills from 8:30 until 2:30 that tested the readiness of 23 surrounding communities.