March, 2010

South Africa has run out of money. Will Westinghouse come to the rescue? The plot line for the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor ( PBMR ) project looks very much like one right out of an early silent movie. A dastardly villain has tied our heroine to the railroad tracks, and demands a ransom to free her. Time...

TechCrunch speculates on visions of mass distraction No friends, Google is not building a nuclear reactor. TechCrunch, a technology blog with enormous readership, has an April Fools joke on its site today. In it the blog offers readers a scenario where Google plans to acquire a secret uranium enrichment...

Horizon confirms plans for first new UK plant at Wylfa ( NucNet ) A joint venture company established by E.ON UK and RWE Npower plans to build its first UK nuclear plant near an existing nuclear site at Wylfa on the Isle of Anglesey, north Wales. Horizon Nuclear Power announced its plans March 30, saying...

How a billionaire and a Nobel Prize winner can come up with better ideas by putting their heads together Billionaire Bill Gates and DOE Energy Secretary Steven Chu have something in common. Both are getting ink in the Wall Street Journal for their support of small reactors.  Gates is supporting...

Partnership with Westinghouse highlights practice of “we buy where we build.” The U.K. government will loan Sheffield Forgemasters {L}80 million (US 122 million) to build a 15,000 tonne press and manufacturing center to supply very-large forgings needed to build nuclear reactors. The U.K. government...

DOE runs concept up flagpole with House Appropriations Committee The Chillicothe Gazette, a southern Ohio newspaper, reports March 27 that Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu told the House Appropriations Committee this week he wants to give $2 billion loan guarantees to both USEC and Areva for...

The agency will have all five commissioners on board The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ( NRC ) is the gatekeeper for new reactor design, construction, and licensing for this country.  Its safety and environmental requirements for light water reactors are so thorough that they are considered...

Outgoing NRC Commissioner says Yucca license was withdrawn for all the wrong reasons Guest Column by: Tamar Cerfici* I spoke with Dale Klein (left) at the NRC’s Regulatory Information Conference, or RIC, last week just before he left for IAEA meetings in Europe and the Middle East. The Senate approved...

Environmental groups win if Exelon makes good on its threat to close the reactor Environmental groups in New Jersey are trying to force Excelon ( NYSE:EXC ), the owner and operator of the Oyster Creek nuclear reactor , into a corner. They’ve convinced the State of New Jersey to issue a draft water quality...

Vermont politician's remarks on solar energy get attention Readers may wish to take a look at the story in the March 18 edition of the Brattleboro Redformer a Vermont newspaper. about mis-statements of fact by Vermont State Senate Leader Peter Shumlin . In a TV interview , Shumlin asserted that Germany...

John Holdren writes Obama approved $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees and supports funding for Generation IV advanced nuclear energy R&D Readers of this blog will recall that John Shanahan, a Denver-based civil engineer who has worked on numerous nuclear power plant projects, wrote a letter...

President Obama’s home state looks to join the nuclear renaissance The Chicago Tribune reports that the Illinois State Senate voted March 16 to drop the ban on building nuclear power plants in Illinois. The measure was sent to the House on a bipartisan 40-1 vote. According to the newspaper, Sen. Mike...

On business travel next ten days I’ll be away on business travel until 3/25 so postings will be light during this time.  If you want to keep up with the nuclear news, check out the listings in my blog roll and nuclear news sections.  I hope to be able to hit Twitter once in a while during this...

India 'Roadmap' includes four more Russian reactors at Kudankulam . . . but r uling coalition withdraws bill to cap liability for U.S. firms after protests from left-wing parties 15 March ( NucNet ): India has agreed a ‘roadmap’ for the construction of further nuclear power plants in the country...

The profit potential of the global nuclear industry is closely tracked by several financial services The growth of nuclear energy over the next two-and-half decades will vastly shift energy use from carbon-based to carbon-free uses. The key elements of this shift include significant change from fossil...

Environmental groups file multiple legal challenges The Sheep Mountain Alliance ( SMA ), a Telluride, Colo ., environmental group, and its legal counsel, the Energy Minerals Law Center ( EMLC ), located in Durango, Colo , have taken a two-pronged approach to try to stop the developing of the Pinion Ridge...

Coles Hill site has an estimated 119 million pounds of uranium worth over $5 billion at current prices This blog post is an edited version of an article published in Fuel Cycle Week , V9:N366, March 3, 2010, by International Nuclear Associates, Washington, DC. The long-awaited study on the environmental...

NRC Commissioners talk about Yucca Mountain The New York Times has excellent coverage this week of two speeches by NRC Commissioners Gregory Jazcko (right) and Dale Klein.  What’s significant about them is that both proceed from the point of view of the chairman’s role.  Jazcko is the current...

It will produce Lead-212 for anti-cancer treatments AREVA Med LLC, a subsidiary of the AREVA group, announced March 10 the future construction of a facility on its Bessines site in France (Limousin region) which will produce medical-grade Lead-212* for anticancer treatments. Relying on its experience...

Start-Up Of first commercial nuclear plant by 2025 ( NucNet ) Israel is proposing that its first commercial nuclear power plant  start operations within the next 10 to 15 years, the country’s infrastructure minister told NucNet March 5th. Uzi Landau , Israsel’s Infrastructure Minister, (right) who...

Idaho National Laboratory played a key role in bringing them back to life Nuclear Engineering International magazine is republishing the 105 reactor cutaway diagrams that it has produced over its 54-year history. Most of the diagrams, covering every major type of technology, including PWRs, BWRs, PHWRs...

What happens next after DOE gets conceptual designs from its $40 million investment? On March 8, 2010, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $40 million to two firms (General Atomics, Westinghouse) for conceptual designs of a high temperature gas cooled reactor (HTGR). The designs are expected...

The money will be used for conceptual designs U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced Mar 8 selections for the award of $40 million to two teams led by Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co. and San Diego-based General Atomics for conceptual design and planning work for the Next Generation...

Google and Amazon changes may require you to re-subscribe As some readers may know, Google acquired Feedburner a while back and has been slowly implementing changes for Blogger.  The RSS feed for this blog has changed, but re-directs should make the change seamless for most users.  In the event...

Monju FBR ready to resume trial operations ( NucNet ) The Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) submitted a plan Mar 2 to the country's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) and the central Fukui prefecture for the resumption of trial operations at its prototype Monju fast breeder reactor...