News

French nuclear power services, construction and engineering firm AREVA said Wednesday that it had completed clean up and dismantling operations on the facilities belonging to the former MOX fuel fabrication plant in Cadarache, the nuclear research center about 40 miles northeast of Marseilles.(read more)

The European Commission's anti-trust authorities have cleared Hungry for the construction of the Paks II nuclear power plant expansion with some conditions intended to ensure that project does not distort single market dynamics within the countries that share the euro as currency.(read more)

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday that the transfer of the operating license for the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in upstate New York had been approved. As of March 31, the plant's license will be transferred from Entergy Nuclear Operations to Exelon Generation Company.(read more)

The Atlanta Business Chronicle is reporting that Georgia Power Co. has suspended plans for construction of a nuclear power plant in the southwestern portion of the state, south of Columbus, Ga.(read more)

An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission has concluded that the Russian-built nuclear power plant in Belarus – the country's first, which is being constructed by Atomstroyexport – has “factored in all possible external hazards,” in its design and construction, Rosatom announced in a newsletter.(read more)

The National Energy Administration (NEA) in China said that the country would complete construction of five nuclear power plants in 2017, while starting construction on eight more and planning another eight.(read more)

The President of Fukushima Dai-ichi Decommissioning Naohiro Masuda has put out the call for better robots which would be deployed for inspection and debris removal tasks at the three damaged reactors that suffered meltdowns in March 2011.(read more)

Southern Nuclear said Wednesday that the company had set a record for a refueling and maintenance outage at the Edwin Hatch Electric Generating Plant's Unit 2 near Baxley, Ga., completing the service work in just 21 days and two hours.(read more)

Highlights for 2016 for French-state controlled nuclear power engineering, construction and consultancy AREVA SA include trimming losses that have plagued the company for five years running, the company said Wednesday.(read more)

--Press Release--L3 MAPPS announced today that it has signed a contract with Eskom Holdings SOC Limited (Eskom) to perform a multi-phase project to prepare the two Koeberg Power Station operator training simulators for the steam generator replacement that is taking place on the actual plant units. (read more)

A top nuclear power industry lawyer in Britain said that international trade in nuclear fuel necessary to keep the country's nuclear power plants operating could come to a standstill if the country severs ties with the Euratom treaty.(read more)

Dry storage industrial Holtec International said Monday it had secured rights to a contract awarded in Slovenia for a storage facility after a lengthy review by the country's National Review Commission.(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company announced Monday that it has signed a nuclear fuel contract with OKG (Uniper), a major supplier of base load to the Nordic power supply system.(read more)

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday that it had issued an operating license to AUC LLC that allows for in-situ leach uranium mining at the Reno Creek property in Campbell County, Wyoming.(read more)

Officials from FirstEnergy, owner of three nuclear power plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania – the two-unit Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shppingport, PA, the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio – said the company was considering the sale or closure of the remainder of its generating plants by the middle of next year.(read more)

The Institute of Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleare in France (IRSN) has announced that trace amounts of the radionuclide iodoine-131 of anthropogenic origin has been detected in various locations in Europe in January 2017. The trace amounts were reportedly “in the ground-level atmosphere,” the agency said, noting that it was discovered in France, Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Spain and northern Norway.(read more)

China General Nuclear Power, a China General Nuclear subsidiary, informed investors this week that the start of two European Pressurized Rectors (EPR) at Taishan, China, would be delayed by six months with the starts of Taishan Units 1 and 2 not scheduled for the second half of 2017 and the first half of 2018, respectively.(read more)

Check out Chernobyl's Control Room of Reactor 4 and the New Safe Confinement Arch in these European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 360 degree videos. Don't forget to click and drag the video while it is playing to look in all directions.(read more)

French nuclear fuel spinoff New Areva said Wednesday that it had signed an agreement with China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) that establishes a framework for industrial and commercial cooperation focusing on nuclear fuel cycle activities. The company also said it remained in negotiation with CNNC concerning a capital investment that followed the example set by previously announced agreements with two investors.(read more)

BWX Technologies on Wednesday said that its subsidiary BWXT Canada, Ltd., had been awarded a four-year amendment to its existing service contract with Burce Power to provide continued feeder inspection services for the plant located near Kincardine, Ontario, Canada.(read more)

--Press Release--L3 MAPPS announced today that it has won a contract from Bruce Power to replace the existing Bruce B Unit 6 Digital Control Computer (DCC) system with all-new hardware. Three DCCs will be delivered to Bruce Power. The first unit (DCC-Z) will be used as a maintenance platform and is due to be installed in the first quarter of 2018. (read more)

Uranium mining faces an uncertain future due to price fluctuations with questions all the more pertinent given the current price of uranium near a 13-year low, says the so-called Red Book, a widely respected report published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency in conjunction with the International Atomic Energy Agency.(read more)

French nuclear power operator Electricity de France (EDF) said it would keep Unit 1 at the Flamanville nuclear plant off line until the end of March due to the damage caused by the explosion and fire that disrupted service on Feb. 9.(read more)

Researchers at Stanford University, led by former U.S. Secretary of Energy and Nobel Prize recipient Steven Chu, has made progress on three critical factors concerning the extraction of uranium from seawater. Is this a source of fuel for nuclear reactors? That's the question Chu is pursuing.(read more)

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) last week sent an exploratory robot into Unit 2 at the heavily damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Generating Station in northeastern Japan as a follow up to a debris-clearing robot that went along the same track previously, but failed two hours into its clean-up mission, which was supposed to last for 10 hours.(read more)

Energy Fuels Inc., said Friday that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had issued the company an aquifer exemption for the Jane Dough wellfield in the Nichols Ranch ISR Project , a necessary regulatory step for the company to sustain long term production at the in situ recovery facility in northeast central Wyoming.(read more)

British nuclear power concern Horizon Nuclear Power said Wednesday that it would team up with Exelon Generation to assist the UK Company in “becoming a world class nuclear operator.”(read more)

--Press Release--L3 MAPPS announced today that it has been awarded a contract from Ling Ao Nuclear Power Co., Ltd. (LANPC), a division of China General Nuclear (CGN), to upgrade the Ling Ao Phase II full scope simulator with L3’s latest Orchid® simulation software. (read more)

“The decarbonisation of the European economy is well under way,” said the second State of the Energy Union report from the European Commission's Energy Union and Climate initiative, launched in 2015.(read more)

The landmark law in Illinois that provides support for the Quad Cities and Clinton nuclear power plants –both of them owned by Exelon Corporation – may be decided in a court battle, as fossil-fuel based power generators have filed a lawsuit claiming the law skews the purpose of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's energy market auctions.(read more)

Chinese manufacturer Dongfang Heavy Machinery has shipped a low-pressure heater to French utility EDF, working under contract for Dongfang Electricity Corporation, according to a Chinese media report.(read more)

Despite continued shake ups at Japanese conglomerate Toshiba, owner of Westinghouse Electric Company, the UK company NuGeneration said this week that it remained committed to the three-reactor project in northwest England known as the Moorside project, which is slated for West Cumbria.(read more)

BWX Technologies, Inc. said Tuesday that the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program has exercised contract options with BWXT’s subsidiary, BWXT Nuclear Operations Group, Inc., totaling approximately $784 million for the manufacture of naval nuclear reactor components. New contracts valued at approximately $11 million were also awarded, the company said.(read more)

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has issued a white paper extolling the advances of Transatomic Power's (TAP) molten salt reactor, which burns uranium dissolved in molten fluoride salt and uses passive safety features that makes a melt down impossible.(read more)

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), sent a cleaner robot into the Primary Containment Vessel of the damaged Unit 2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station on Thursday, which was meant clear deposits from a rail that would later be used to insert a Scorpion inspection robot. The robot, the company said, did its job for about two hours before failing due to the effect of high radiation.(read more)

BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada Inc. said Friday it will ship the multi-purpose Bruce Reactor Inspection Maintenance System – the second of its kind – to Bruce Power on February 24, 2017, meeting its delivery date for the highly engineered robotic reactor inspection tool.(read more)

A fire and explosion at the Flammanville Nuclear Power Plant on France's northwest coast is being described as a serious incident that has no threat of radioactive dispersal into the environment.(read more)

What's the use of going through all the legal and political disputes, detours and protests -- not to mention expense -- to create an underground repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, when much of the spent fuel waste from nuclear power plants no longer fits the definition of high level waste, an expert geochemist is asking.(read more)

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) has announced the installation of the fourth and final Korean-built condensers for the Barakah nuclear power plant that is under construction in western Abu Dhabi.(read more)

The uranium market is poised for a “breakout year,” due to growing demand, a 10 percent cut in mining production announced by Kazakhstan – due, said KazAtomProm Chairman Askar Zhumagaliyev in January, to an oversupplied market – and because of probable shift in U.S. policies, said Uranium Energy Corporation founder and Chief Executive Officer Amir Adnani.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said they have sent a special team of investigators to the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station 50 miles west of Phoenix, Az, to study why a back up diesel generator failed in December during a routine monthly equipment test.(read more)

Mid-American Conversion Services, a joint venture melding the talents of Westinghouse Electric, Atkins and Fluor, has been given the green light to take over operations of the U.S. Department of Energy's depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion facilities in Kentucky and Ohio.(read more)

She had homes in Norfolk, Va., and Alamede, Calif., was the first of her kind to make it through the Suez Canal and attended every U.S. conflict from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the war in Iraq. She had a storied military career during the Vietnam War, was the ipso facto mother to 100,000. On Friday, the U.S. Navy held a formal ceremony for the USS Enterprise, marking her decommissioning after 55 years of service, (read more)

Closing a nuclear power plant has obvious repercussions to well-paid workers, supply industry revenue, power generation and corporate cash flow. But it can be looked at through a wide-angled lens or a lens that focuses on local matters, spelling out devastation for the communities affected by decisions made by officials who work many miles away from those communities.(read more)

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday in Budapest that Russia was now willing to finance “100 percent” of the Paks II nuclear power plant expansion project in Hungary.(read more)

AREVA Nuclear Materials and New York-based NorthStar, a nuclear services company that focuses on decommissioning and demolition, said they had formed a new joint venture named Accelerated Decommissioning...(read more)

Jobs, prestige, access to research, climate change goals and the time table for new nuclear plant projects are under threat from Britain's exit from the European Union, members of Parliament are arguing, although Brexit Secretary of State David Davis has now confirmed that the British government does plan to exit nuclear research and trade group Euratom with its EU departure.(read more)

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) President and Chief Operating Officer Shunichi Miyanaga said Thursday that the company expected a settlement ruling concerning the San Onofre nuclear plant in California before the end of the fiscal year – before March 31.(read more)

South African utility Eskom said Wednesday that 27 companies had sent notice that they would respond to a Request for Information regarding its initiative to build new nuclear power plants in the country.(read more)

The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) said Tuesday that it planned to replace the coolant channels of the two reactors at the Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS) in Gujarat on the west coast of the subcontinent, tucked underneath the peninsula near Surat.(read more)