News

The China National Nuclear Corporation said this week that it had completed a 50 MWe net upgrade of the country's oldest domestic nuclear power plant to 350 MWe, calling the engineering work an "important reference ... for the power enhancement of subsequent power stations."(read more)

The company in charge of decommissioning at the fast breeder research and development site in Scotland, Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) said it had awarded six framework contracts that involve 28 companies and their supply chains.(read more)

Russia’s state-owned nuclear power corporation Rosatom said last week that that workers had poured the first concrete for the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant II unit 2.(read more)

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) said that the Shin Kori 4 reactor had reached first criticality and that the plant was on schedule to begin commercial operations by the end of August.(read more)

Japanese utility Tepco announced to local news media in Japan that the company had begun fuel rod removal from the damaged reactor building No. 3, as of Monday this week.(read more)

Slovakian utility Slovenske Elektrame said that unit 3 of the Machovce nuclear plant had completed all of the hot hydro testing and had moved to the next commissioning phase with the final major inspection of the unit.(read more)

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved of a licensing Orano USA's NUHOMS dry storage systems, that will permit "significantly shorter cooling times—as short as two years—and higher decay heat" the company announced.(read more)

Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) announced that fuel loading at the near-completed Olkiluoto 3 reactor, long delayed during construction, will be postponed for about two months.(read more)

Some of the evacuees from the town of Okuma, west of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power disaster site, have been invited to return to their homes, which have been declared safe for habitation, Japanese media reports.(read more)

Telent Technology Services Ltd in Britain announced this week it had been awarded a six-year contract to supply the communications and IT infrastructure at Hinkley Point C (HPC), slated to be the UK’s first nuclear plant to be built in 25 years.(read more)

Operators at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant returned Unit 2 to service April 3 complete with the world’s first full-length test assemblies, known as accident tolerant fuel, containing both pellets and claddings, Southern Nuclear said.(read more)

The reinforced frame of the core catcher, weighing 58 tons, and the embedded part for the core catcher, weighing 7.5 tons, have been installed for Unit 2 of the Rooppur NPP in Bangladesh, Rosatom Corporaton's Engineering Division ASE (AtomStroyExport) announced in early April.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission declared Monday there were no environmental impact issues that would prevent the agency from issuing permits for the small modular reactor project at the Clinch River Site in West Oak Ridge, Tennessee.(read more)

Global First Power (GFP) said this week it had submitted an application for a License to Prepare Site for a potential Micro Modular Reactor project slated for Chalk River Laboratories, a Canadian Nuclear Laboratories facility in Ontario.(read more)

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said on March 28 it had reached a water storage milestone at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear station disaster site, having completed the transfer of treated water from flange-type tanks to a new welded-style tank. (read more)

The U.S. Department of Energy said four projects involving three companies in two states – one in Pennsylvania, three in California – were to receive more than $19,000,000 in cost-sharing support as part of the fourth round of funding in the fiscal year to promote nuclear energy.(read more)

Bruce Power announced this week it had completed a harvest of medical-grade cobalt-60, which will be used to diagnose and treat brain and breast cancers.(read more)

Cavendish Nuclear has turned over the keys to the newly completed Silos Maintenance Facility on the Sellafield site in Britain, the Nuclear Industry Association reported.(read more)

ARC Nuclear Canada, Inc. (ARC Canada), based in Saint John, New Brunswick, said it had entered an agreement with U.S.-based AECOM, a global engineering and construction firm, to continue its development of the Advanced Reactor Concepts ARC-100 technology.(read more)

Novovoronezh - Unit No. 2 at the Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant II, equipped with the VVER-1200 reactor has been brought to minimum controlled power (MCP), Russian builder and designer Rosatom has said.(read more)

Dignitaries at the Plant Vogtle expansion project, including U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, celebrated the closing of approximately $1.67 billion in additional Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantees to be applied to the project and watched the top of the containment vessel for Unit 3 hoisted into place.(read more)

An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team of experts today completed a review of long term operational safety at the Laguna Verde Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Mexico on March 15.(read more)

French utility EDF said that the first of three replacement generators for the Gravelines nuclear plant had been delivered, arriving at the plant on March 13, designated for Unit 5 at the facility in northern France.(read more)

U.S. small nuclear plant developer NuScale Power said Tuesday it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica SA (SNN SA), a Romanian energy company, aimed at evaluating potential development of small nuclear reactor technology for Romania.(read more)

Workers at the Cooper Nuclear Station in Brownville, Nebraska made it to work just fine over the weekend. But they had to ride a helicopter to get to the plant.(read more)

Rosatom engineering division Atomstroyexport and the China National Nuclear Corporation signed contracts for construction of two nuclear power plants and for engineering/design work on two others.(read more)

The concrete pouring of the foundation slab of Unit 1 of Akkuyu NPP, first Turkish nuclear power plant completed on March 08, 2019, Russian nuclear project manager Rostatom said this week.(read more)

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) said Tuesday it had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Enusa Industrias Avanzadas, S.A., S.M.E. (ENUSA), defining a framework for collaboration and the exchange of information and expertise in the field of nuclear fuel services.(read more)

French nuclear power plant operator EDF has released inspection footage of cracks developing in the graphite bricks of the reactor cores at the two-unit Hunterston B plant in Scotland, explaining the cracks, although growing faster than anticipated, were well within safety standards.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted operators of the Seabrook Station nuclear plant in New Hampshire an extended 20 year operating license.(read more)

British industrial giant Rolls Royce is preparing to offload its civic nuclear division, various media sources indicate.(read more)

The Tennessee Valley Authority announced a $467 million upgrade project at the Browns Ferry Unit 2 in Athens, Alabama, had begun on March 2.(read more)

Russia’s nuclear power giant Rosatom signed two cooperation memoranda with Rwandan officials last week spelling out preliminary steps for the advancement of a domestic nuclear energy program.(read more)

U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry has announced the launch of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Versatile Fast Neutron Source, which the DOE calls one of the key projects under the Innovation Capabilities Act of 2017.(read more)

Five power companies in Japan with support from various banks are expected to loan the Japan Atomic Power Company $2.6 billion for safety upgrades at the Tokai NPP in advance of a tentative 2023 restart of the No. 2 reactor there.(read more)

Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Ltd. (MHPS) said Feb. 28 that the new steam turbine generation systems supplied for the Sanmen and Haiyang nuclear power plants in China had been cleared for operations.(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company said its first Triton 11 fuel assemblies had been delivered to the Olkiluoto NPP in Finland, where they will be loaded into Unit 2 at the plant during the current maintenance and refueling outage.(read more)

The first batch of equipment for the upper block level system has been delivered for the second VVER-type power block automated control system at the Leningrad II project, Rosatom subsidiary operating Rosenergoatom said.(read more)

Framatome announced this week it had signed a contract to provide fuel fabrication and related services to Unit 2 at Palo Verde Generating Station near Phoenix, Arizona.(read more)

The long-delayed Unit 3 at the Olkiluoto NPP in Finland can be granted a permit for operations, although a few technical issues need to be addressed, the country’s nuclear power regulator said. The...(read more)

With $10,000 (or less) of his parent’s money, a 14-year-old boy from Memphis, Tenn., is now being heralded as the youngest person to ever build a fusion reactor.(read more)

A House of Representatives oversight committee report from a Democrat-party led Congress, released Tuesday, outlines the Trump administration’s efforts to export nuclear power technology to Saudi Arabia, drawing attention to the potential illegality of such an effort, given the plan appears to circumvent Congressional approval.(read more)

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French nuclear power utility EDF, majority owned by the French government, said that end-of-year results for 2018 exceeded market forecasts for the company with a gross operating surplus of 11 percent.(read more)

Leaders from India and Argentina on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that outlines continued cooperation on domestic nuclear power projects, including the willingness to assist each other on building plants in another country.(read more)

Britain’s Radioactive Waste Management (RWM), a division of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, is resurrecting a search for a host community for an underground repository for radioactive materials.(read more)

Cavendish Nuclear said Friday it had struck a 10-year deal with EDF Energy to sustain critical infrastructure at two of the French utility’s nuclear power plants in Britain, Heysham Unit 2 and Torness.(read more)

The Tokyo Electric Power Company, owners of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power disaster site, said it had reached and lifted some of the spent fuel debris at the bottom of the plant’s Unit 2 primary containment vessel (PVC), a critical step towards eventual removal of the highly hazardous material.(read more)

Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power technicians are loading the first batch of fuel into the Unit 4 reactor core at the Shin Kori nuclear power plant in South Korea in a process that began on Feb. 7, the company said.(read more)

The Kyushu Electric Power Company said Wednesday that it would not restart Genkai Nuclear Power United No. 2, based on the difficulties associated with bringing the unit up to post-Fukushima Dai-ichi accident safety standards.(read more)