News

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) announced on August 8 that it would renew Ontario Power Generation Inc.’s (OPG) Nuclear Power Reactor Operating Licence for the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station (PNGS) located in Pickering, Ontario.(read more)

Four Westinghouse AP1000 reactor construction projects in China nearing completion continue to pass operational milestones on their way towards commercial operating status, the latest represented by the Sanmen Unit 1 reactor in Zhejiang province that reached 100 percent power on Tuesday.(read more)

SNC-Lavalin said it had signed an engineering service contract and a licensing agreement with China’s Third Qinshan Nuclear Power Company Limited (TQNPC) to implement 37M Natural Uranium Equivalent (NUE) fuel, a mixture of depleted and recycled uranium, in Qinshan’s CANDU reactors Units 1 and 2.(read more)

A top official with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has said that the federal government is attempting to create a list of power plants that are considered too valuable to lose in the event of any natural or man-made crisis that could threaten the nation's security or the health of its citizens.(read more)

Slated to become the second operating VVER-1200 reactor after Novovononezh Unit 6, the Leningrad II Unit 1 reactors has begun the final testing phase for operations, which should be completed in the next two weeks, Rosatom said.(read more)

Georgia Power said Wednesday that the anticipated time line for construction at the Plant Vogtle expansion project in near Waynesboro, Ga., had not changed, but that costs of the projects had gone up since the company took over management of the construction site from once-bankrupt Westinghouse Electric Company.(read more)

The new turbine installation for Leningrad's Phase II nuclear power plant Unit 2 has been completed, Russia's state-owned nuclear construction company Rosatom said on Monday.(read more)

Orano TN, the Orano subsidiary providing used fuel management and transportation services, has been selected by Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Company (WCNOC) to design, build and implement dry fuel storage at the Wolf Creek Generating Station in Kansas, the company said on August 2.(read more)

A study commissioned by the British government on financial considerations of small modular reactors said Tuesday that SMR developers should be given subsidies to help the UK stay competitive and independent in energy resourcing.(read more)

Holtec International said that it had successfully completed in record time the largest defueling project of a BWR plant in the United States at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station in Vernon, Vermont.(read more)

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) said Monday that hot functional testing (HFT) for Unit 2 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant had been completed.(read more)

Underwater experts tasked with cutting up former fuel storage skips and other equipment at the Sizewell A plant in Britain have completed their work nearly two months ahead of schedule, Magnox Ltd. announced last week(read more)

The saga of Westinghouse Electric Company's disruptive bankruptcy is over with the sale of the company from Japanese owner Toshiba to the Brookfield Business Partners investment group completed earlier this week.(read more)

Entergy Corp. said Thursday that it had agreed to part with the subsidiaries that own the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts and the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan after their final shut downs and defuelings.(read more)

--Press Release--Valcor Engineering, a designer and manufacturer of solenoid valves and flow control components for liquids and gases, is proud to announce they have acquired the rights to manufacture and sell CU Services products.(read more)

Bradwell Site in Britain is a step closer to closure and full decommissioning, as work to remove the final remaining radioactive waste stream from the site has been completed, Magnox Ltd., said.(read more)

Rusatom Service, a division of state-owned nuclear power giant Rosatom, has cleared the Kozloduy Unit 6 reactor in northwestern Bulgaria for a 60-year operational life, the Bulgarian Energy Ministry has announced.(read more)

An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Tuesday that a team of experts has concluded a twelve-day mission to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to review its development of infrastructure for a nuclear power program.(read more)

Exelon Generation, owner of the largest fleet of nuclear power plants in the United States, said that it had reached an agreement to sell the Oyster Creek Generating Station to Holtec International, which will proceed to put the retiring plant through the decommissioning process.(read more)

On the heels of a $263 million Nuclear Sector Deal between the industry and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the British government said that nuclear power in Britain ticked slightly lower in 2017 from 2016, dropping from 21.1 percent of the country's electricity generation to 20.8 percent.(read more)

Sensing a weak uranium market, Canada- and Kazakhstan-based mining concern Cameco said in its second quarter statement that it would continue with a production halt at its McArthur River and Key Lake facilities “for an indeterminate duration.”(read more)

Canada's Bruce Power said that it had awarded contracts to Black & McDonald Limited for construction services for the company's Unit 6 Major Component Replacement (MCR) project.(read more)

Electricity generator NextEra Energy Resources, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Inc., said Friday that it had agreed to a buyout plan with Iowa-based buyer Alliant Energy that would shorten the operating lifespan of the Duane Arnold Energy Center by five years.(read more)

--Press Release--AVANTech, Inc., headquartered in Columbia, SC, is pleased to announce the acquisition of Mid Columbia Engineering, Inc. (MCE), a design-build firm headquartered in Richland, WA. (read more)

Barakah One Company, the joint venture that will operate the four-unit Barakah nuclear plant in the United Arab Emirates, has received its electricity generation license for Unit 1 from the Department of Energy.(read more)

Framatome said it had successfully completed a visual inspection of the tube bundle top structure of a steam generator in the Spanish nuclear power plant at Ascó Unit 2 using a "well-proven" underwater inspection submarine system called SUSI.(read more)

Candu Energy Inc., a member of the SNC-Lavalin Group, has been selected to provide decommissioning services for the Saskatchewan Research Council’s (SRC) Safe Low-Power Kritical Experiment (SLOWPOKE-2) research reactor. (read more)

Indian news outlets have reported a major shipment from Russia that includes eight moisture separator reheaters and high-pressure heaters that is destined for the Kudandulam 3 nuclear build.(read more)

China's first ACPR-1000 reactor, Unit 5 at the Yangjiang Nuclear Power Plant, has completed its initial trial run and moved into commercial operations status, an event that occurred July 12, CGN Power announced.(read more)

French nuclear industry supplier Framatome said it had reached a major milestone in its review of documentation at the Le Creusot forge and that it was ramping up production at the facility where the company believes trust in its reliability is on the upswing.(read more)

Workers at the Leningrad NPP II Unit 2 construction project have completed welding of the perlite section and heat treatment of butts of the main circulation pipeline (MCP), Rosatom said on July 17.(read more)

The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate has granted a 20-year license extension to Unit 3 at the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant in northwest Ukraine VVER-1000 reactor, reports indicate.(read more)

U.S. and Ukrainian officials attended a ceremony marking the fuel loading of Westinghouse fuel assemblies into the core of Unit 3 at the South Ukraine nuclear plant on July 18, marking the first time a Ukrainian nuclear plant would operate without some Russian fuel assemblies in the mix.(read more)

---Press Release ---L3 MAPPS and Terrestrial Energy announced Thursday that they have signed an agreement to develop real-time simulation for Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR), a Generation IV advanced nuclear power plant.(read more)

Sandia National Laboratories said this week that its researchers had built a scaled test assembly that mimics a dry cask storage container for spent nuclear fuel to study how fuel temperatures change during storage and how the fuel’s peak temperatures affect the integrity of the metal cladding surrounding the spent fuel.(read more)

SNC-Lavalin and Holtec International group on Friday announced a new US-based joint venture company named Comprehensive Decommissioning International, LLC (CDI) that will focus on decommissioning shuttered nuclear power plants.(read more)

Britain's Motex Energy said it had been selected by New Brunswick Energy Solutions Corporation and New Brunswick Power to develop its Stable Salt Reactor Wasteburner (SSR-W) technology for deployment...(read more)

With high ranking government officials on hand, a ceremony was held in Bangladesh this week marking the ‘First Concrete” that is symbolically the start of construction for the Unit 2 of Rooppur Nuclear Power Project.(read more)

Orano has signed with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) a ‘Roadmap of Collaboration’ which will set out the way it will work together in advancing civil nuclear decommissioning, clean-up and hazard reduction.Orano(read more)

Nuclear solutions company Framatome, owned by EDF (75 percent), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (19.5 percent) and Assystem (5 percent), said it had completed refurbishment of 31 reactor coolant pumps in three southeastern U.S. nuclear energy facilities. The announcement said the work began in 2002 and was completed by June of this year.(read more)

Fluor Corporation announced Tuesday that the U.S. Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have jointly awarded contracts to Fluor Marine Propulsion, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fluor, to manage the Naval Nuclear Laboratory.(read more)

U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry today announced the selection of nine domestic projects to receive nearly $20 million in funding for cost-shared research and development for advanced nuclear technologies.(read more)

Engineering and construction giant Becthel announced it will join forces with GE Hitachi, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Exelon Power Generation Company to investigate efficient ways to develop and build a nuclear power plant using GE Hitachi's BWRX-300 reactors.(read more)

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy announced that Russian engineering and construction giant Rosatom had been shortlisted for the next stage of bidding for the country's first nuclear power plants.(read more)

Czechoslovakian company SKODA JS said this week that it had finalized negotiations with French company Framatome with a contract to supply two sets of EPR 1600 reactor pressure vessels internals that are slated for the Hinkley Point C. nuclear plant in Somerset, Great Britain.(read more)

A report from the Sunday Times in London said that China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) has expressed interest in buying a 49 percent stake in Britain's 15 operating nuclear power reactors.(read more)

Advanced Reactor Concepts and ARC Nuclear Canada Inc., collectively ARC Nuclear, and New Brunswick Power (NP) said Tuesday they had agreed to work cooperatively to explore the development, licensing and construction of an advanced small modular reactor (SMR) based on ARC Nuclear’s mature Generation IV sodium-cooled fast reactor technology.(read more)

The nuclear power regulator in Bangladesh has granted a license for design and construction of a second reactor at the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant that will be constructed by Russia, the state-owned nuclear power company Rosatom said Monday.(read more)

Canada's ATS Automation Tooling Systems said it reached a contract extension agreement with Bruce Power valued at CAD $60 million (US $43 million) involving design and delivery of robotic systems for removing and replacing 480 fuel channels and calandria tubes as part of a Bruce Power's Life Extension Program, announced December 2016.(read more)

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), owner of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Generating Station, said it remained committed to construction of the Higashidori Nuclear Power Plant in Aomori Prefecture, a site where construction of an advanced boiling water began in January 2011.(read more)