Blogs

Power companies in Japan now know the regulations they are required to meet in order to restart nuclear reactors idled as a result of the 2011 Fukushima accident. The first units could potentially come back online before the end of this year. ...read more

19 Jun (NucNet): Higher concentrations of the radioactive isotopes tritium and strontium-90 have been found in the groundwater below units 1 to 4 of the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) has confirmed...

Political turmoil could impact the tender process for the planned construction of two new reactors at the Czech Republic's Temelin plant. The winning bid was due to be decided in September. ...read more

Opening Reviews? Mixed, with a tilt to the positive. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times grabbed a little harder than I did at the drubbing of Dr. Helen Calidicott got in the picture and said it showed the movie’s one-sided view of nuclear energy. This comic divide — the strident old lady environmentalist...

Joe Romm, the lead thinker at Climate Progress, has once again exposed the fact that he is not terribly serious about fighting climate change. In fact, he is so casual about the effort that he wants everyone to dismiss nuclear energy out of hand as being too expensive to matter, without even thinking...

19 Jun (NucNet): Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) today approved safety guidelines for nuclear power plants that reflect the lessons learned from the March 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi accident, the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF) has confirmed...

Dr. James Conca has published another important post about the aftermath of Fukushima and the efforts of the people opposed to the use of nuclear energy to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about imaginary health effects of low dose radiation. The article is titled Fukushima 2.25 — The Humanitarian...

Ever since last week's announcement of the closure of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station , we've been seeing a spate of stories in the press questioning whether or not nuclear energy has a future as part of the nation's energy mix. Here at NEI, the answer is a resounding yes, and part...

A lease agreement has been signed for land on which the pilot heavy metal-cooled SVBR-100 reactor will be built in Dimitrovgrad in Russia's Ulyanovsk region. ...read more

The reactor pressure vessel for unit 3 of Russia's Rostov nuclear power plant is in the process of installation. The component has been put in place ready for circulation pipes to be connected. ...read more

Work has begun on two collaborative research programs to develop new forging and casting techniques for nuclear components, while UK manufacturers are invited to apply for funding to help them compete in the nuclear industry. ...read more

18 Jun (NucNet): With wind and solar power still contributing only three to four percent of total electricity generation in Austria, the country is still a long way from self-sufficiency without nuclear energy, Austrian Nuclear Society president Helmuth...

18 Jun (NucNet): A Russian-led consortium bidding to construct two new nuclear reactor units at the Temelín nuclear plant in the Czech Republic has established a new company which would be responsible for preparing and carrying out the project. ...read...

Scott Burnell Public Affairs Officer   The NRC’s first few Chats have focused on the present or past, but this week we’re going to look ahead a couple years by talking about Small Modular Reactors, or SMRs. These reactor concepts are much smaller than...

Twenty-seven months after the reactors withstood one of the largest earthquakes in history, only to fall to the largest tsunami in history, over 50,000 people are still being held captive by fear, and their lives are slowly being destroyed by the bogeyman...

Prema Chandrathil Region III Public Affairs Officer   After intense NRC scrutiny that confirmed the plant is safe to operate, the Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan restarted yesterday after more than a month shutdown. In total 10 NRC inspectors...

Sellafield Ltd has been fined £700,000 ($1.1 million) for mistakenly sending four bags of low-level waste to a conventional landfill instead of the correct facility. ...read more

• No appeals against Wiluna • Resources up at Eco Ridge • US production up in 2012 • Etango licence renewal ...read more

A summit meeting of the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Japan has concluded with the prime ministers promising ongoing cooperation in fields including nuclear energy. ...read more

17 Jun (NucNet): The nuclear industry is in favour of any legislation that can contribute to improving nuclear safety, but proposed revisions to the European nuclear safety directive are too technically detailed and risk undermining the authority of national...

17 Jun (NucNet): Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe has agreed with leaders of four central European nations to increase cooperation in the energy sector in an attempt to boost exports of nuclear reactors. ...read more

I had an experience this weekend that reinforced my growing understanding that pronuclear advocates have been distracted by the wrong target. Instead of focusing our fire against the people — both outside and inside the industry — who have successfully driven up the cost of nuclear energy...

In his review of Pandora’s Promise (which is opening this weekend in about 20 cities in the United States), Ed Lyman picked a nit by extracting a single line and attempting to show how wrong it was. My hand got tired trying to jot down all the less-than-half truths put forth by the talking heads...

Note: Be sure to look at all of Nuclear Notes’ coverage of this important movie, most notably Eric’s review below. Should you trust a “review” of Pandora’s Promise , Robert Stone’s new movie on nuclear energy, from this particular site? Well, that’s up to you to decide. If I thought the movie terrible...

Sec. John Kerry One of the big ideas pushed by Pandora's Promise concerns the potential of breeder reactors to provide a technological fix to the political question of what to do with used nuclear fuel. A considerable segment of the film tells the story of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR...