News

Japanese conglomerate Toshiba Corp, which purchased nuclear power plant builder CB&I Stone & Webster in December 2015, said this week that it would likely book a loss of several billion dollars this fiscal year due to high cost overruns associated with U.S. power plant projects.(read more)

The Department of Energy said this week that it had selected four companies – AECOM, ENERCON, TerranearPMC and RE/SPEC to begin working on the possibility of conducting a deep borehole field test that would explore the use of boreholes for long term nuclear waste storage.(read more)

More than 40 academics, business leaders and prominent citizens have penned an open letter to president-elect Donald Trump and former Texas governor Rick Perry, Trump's pick for U.S. Secretary of Energy – urging the upcoming administration to support nuclear power and to help the U.S. industry grow in both domestic and foreign marketplaces.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday that it had issued two Combined Licenses for Duke Energy Carolinas' two-reactor project proposed for a site near Gaffney, South Carolina, but the fate of the project remains far from certain.(read more)

A top government official in Japan said Wednesday that the country would dismantle its non-functioning $8.5 billion fast-breeder reactor known as Monju – named for its location – with dismantling efforts that are expected to take 31 years and cost an additional $3.2 billion.(read more)

Southern California Edison (SCE) on Wednesday said that the primary contract for decommissioning the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) was awarded to a joint venture of AECOM and EnergySolutions after a 10-month competitive bid process. The company said the joint venture, called SONGS Decommissioning Solutions, would be the general contractor for the project.(read more)

Exelon Corporation, owners and operators of 23 nuclear reactors, including the Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear power plants in Illinois, said the Future Energy Jobs Bill signed into law by Gov. Bruce Rauner in early December is already delivering new jobs and economic benefits to the region. Exelon said it would "fast track multiple capital projects at the Quad Cities and Clinton nuclear plants to enhance long-term equipment reliability, improve safety and ensure regulatory compliance." (read more)

Industrial research team The Brattle Group said Tuesday that a recent study showed that premature closing of nuclear power plants posed a distinct threat to the country's attainment of carbon dioxide reductions.(read more)

With an extension granted to the Fermi 2 Nuclear Plant in Michigan, the number of U.S. nuclear power plants with 20-year extensions on their operating licenses has now reached 87, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced.(read more)

South Carolina Electric and Gas Company, a subsidiary of SCANA Corporation, announced a major construction milestone Monday, the placement of the 2.4 million pound CA01 module within the Unit 3 containment vessel at the V.C. Summer expansion project.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington said it had proposed a fine of $14,000 as a civil penalty to impose on a Virginia firm for performing work in the District of Columbia without first obtaining approval from the regulatory agency to do so.(read more)

While the Japanese nuclear power industry struggles to remain profitable through an extended post-Fukushima Daiichi industry slowdown and the subsequent safety mandates, the government is now considering financial assistance for companies that pursue nuclear construction projects in Britain.(read more)

The China Industrial and Commercial Bank has expressed an interest in financing construction of the Belene Nuclear Power Plant in Bulgaria.(read more)

International power company Vattenfall, owned by the Swedish government and with a substantial presence across Europe, said it had secured long term nuclear fuel supplies by signing contracts with French nuclear giant AREVA, Russia's TVEL and Westinghouse, which is based in Pennsylvania.(read more)

Russia's Institute of Space Research and Moscow State Technical University are developing a nuclear powered lunar rover that will enable the vehicle to explore the moon's polar regions, Pravda.ru reported Tuesday.(read more)

A second containment vessel ring has been set in place for Unit 3 at the Plant Vogtle expansion project near Waynesboro, Ga., Georgia Power announced on Tuesday.(read more)

The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said that its third exported nuclear power plant at the Chashma facility in Pakistan had passed its operational tests, completing a reliable demonstrative operation test that lasted 100 hours. The Chashma Unit 3 accomplished the provisional acceptance rating in the mid-afternoon of 6 Dec., the CNNC said.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said Monday that it had initiated a special inspection of the Columbia Generating Station near Richland, Washington, to investigate why a package sent to a U.S. Ecology disposal station 10 miles away was mislabeled with regards to the level of radioactivity.(read more)

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) said Monday that their consultation with the Environment Agency (EA) on the assessment of Hitachi-GE's UK Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (UK ABWR) design had begun under protocols setup by the Generic Design Assessment process administered by the Office for Nuclear Regulation.(read more)

A government panel in Japan late last week said that the cleanup costs at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant that experienced a triple-unit meltdown in March 2011 had escalated to an estimated 22 million yen or $188 billion in U.S. currency. The estimated cost of decommissioning, separate from the total cost, has grown from $20 billion to $70 billion, the panel said.(read more)

A document reviewed by business news agency Bloomberg reportedly includes several key questions concerning nuclear power asked by President-elect Donald Trump advisers of the U.S. Energy Department.(read more)

Japanese utility Kyushu Electric said it had restarted the Sendai Unit 1 reactor in southern Kagoshima after a two month scheduled outage that was prolonged to appease the region's top administrator, Satoshi Mitazono, who had initially requested the company permanently shutter the facility's two reactors.(read more)

Naming a potential for consumer savings and the avoidance of business risks, Entergy announced Thursday that it would shutter the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Covert, Michigan on October 1, 2018, thirteen years before its operating license is set to expire.(read more)

Construction has been completed for a 5 MW research reactor in Jordan, the government said Wednesday. It is the first reactor in the country that also has ambitions to build a commercial power reactor for domestic electricity supply.(read more)

Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris Laszlo Varro said Tuesday in Hungary that meeting carbon emissions goals to thwart climate change would be “very difficult to achieve without an increase in nuclear capacity.”(read more)

A three-nation enterprise involving investment from Kazakhstan, France and China is underway, as AREVA of France announced the construction start of a uranium processing plant in Kazakhstan that is scheduled to begin production in 2020.(read more)

Germany's highest court, the Federal Constitutional Court, ruled Tuesday that utilities that were ordered to close their nuclear power plants in a political reaction to the Fukushima Daiichi power plant disaster in Japan were entitled to some compensation for the premature closures.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is holding back approval of a 20-year extension for the Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in Michigan at the request of group called Citizens' Resistance At Fermi 2, which has registered complains about the plant operator's plans to distribute potassium iodide in the event of an emergency scenario at the plant.(read more)

An international team of regulation and safety experts praised Italy's commitment to nuclear regulatory oversight, but urged the country to develop policies related to safety, decommissioning and radioactive waste management.(read more)

Lawmakers in Illinois passed the Future Energy Jobs Bill on Thursday that would provide as much as $235 million a year for Exelon, which operates all 11 nuclear power plants in the state, including the Clinton and Quad Cities facilities that the company said would be closed prematurely without economic intervention.(read more)

Another U.S. nuclear power plant, the Grand Gulf plant 20 miles southwest of Vicksburg, Mississippi, has been granted a 20 year extension on its operating license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said Thursday.(read more)

Georgia Power announced Wednesday that it had achieved an historic milestone at the Plant Vogtle expansion project near Augusta, Ga., with the placement of a 306-ton reactor vessel in its permanent location inside the Unit 3 nuclear island.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday approved the indirect transfer of control of the operating licenses for both units of the Susquehanna nuclear power plant near Berwick, Pennsylvania to accommodate a merger deal between Riverstone Holdings LLC and Talen Energy Corporation.(read more)

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) said Tuesday it had completed replacement work on a pressurized water reactor (PWR) pressurizer nozzle spool piece for Unit 3 at the Ringhals Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden. The work completed involved over 100 engineers working in shifts day and night for 45 days, said MHI in a statement.(read more)

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has announced the successful enclosure of the heavily damaged Unit 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine that is the site of the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history.(read more)

The University of Bristol in England has a novel idea for nuclear waste that involves use of the isotope carbon 14 to create long lasting batteries encased in man-made diamonds. A video clip explains how.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulator Commission (NRC) said Monday it was sending a team of 20 inspectors with expertise in a variety of disciplines to begin a three-week “top-to-bottom review” of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth, Mass.(read more)

French nuclear power conglomerate AREVA said Monday it had signed a multimillion-dollar contract to supply and replace 12 low-pressure feedwater heaters at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Tonopah, Arizona.(read more)

A Brattle Group study sponsored by business groups in Illinois found that keeping the Quad Cities and Clinton nuclear power plants operating in Illinois would save residential and business consumers $3.1 billion over the next 10 years in electricity costs. The study's sponsors, including the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, the Illinois Hispanic Chamber or Commerce and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, are using the results of the study to rally around the Future Energy Jobs Bill, which also has support from plant operator Exelon Nuclear Operations. (read more)

US Nuclear Corp. said Monday it had been awarded $638,675 net total in a contract to build semi-portable particulate, iodine, and noble gas continuous air monitors for nuclear power plants in S. Korea.(read more)

Georgia Power on Friday released its latest Vogle Time Line video report marking third quarter progress on the expansion project for the third quarter of 2016. August through September progress at the site includes assembly of critical squib valves for both of the new units, the placement of the 2 million-pound Unit 4 CA20 module – a five story unit that will house spent fuel storage, among other functions – and the setting of roof trusses for the Unit 3 turbine building, which puts that structure near its final height of 254 feet.(read more)

The European Commission has backed away from one of its objections to contract procurement processes involving the Paks nuclear power plant expansion project in Hungary, saying that only Rosatom could have handled every stipulation Hungary had spelled out for the project.(read more)

The New York State Public Services Commission (PSC) on Thursday approved of the sale of the James A. FitzPatrick nuclear power plant in Scriba, N.Y. To Exelon Corporation. The $110 million sale from Entergy Corporation “will facilitate the continued operation of the carbon-neutral plant as a bridge to a renewable energy future without the need for imported fossil fuels such as fracked gas and oil from out of state or the restarting of coal plants,” the Commission said, putting its reasoning up front in a press statement.(read more)

When Arizona Public Services Company crews at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the nation's most productive power plant, reconnected Unit 3 to the grid on Saturday last at 5:37 p.m. Nov. 5, they set a new plant record for the shortest outage servicing ever at the facility, the third time for the plant an outage was completed in under 30 days.(read more)

Japan's nuclear regulator, the Nuclear Regulation Authority, has granted a license extension to the Mihama Unit 3 reactor run by Kansai Electric, which allows it to operate for a 60-year span, which would end in 2036. It is the third Japanese reactor to be given a license extension. The first two were granted to two Takahama facility reactors.(read more)

A long-expected re-shuffling of the French nuclear power industry became formal on Wednesday, as state-owned utility Electricite de France (EDF) and nuclear service, component and construction giant AREVA signed a binding agreement valued at $2.67 billion for the sale of AREVA NP's activities.(read more)

The 36,000 metric ton New Safe Confinement arch at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's No. 4 reactor, which cost $1.6 billion to build, is on the move this week as the construction consortium that built it is pushing the arch into its permanent spot, where it will shield the environment from the site of the world's worst nuclear power plant accident.(read more)

With the ink barely dry on last week's stunning election victory for Donald Trump, reports from Washington indicate that members of the president elect's transition team are stirring up renewed consideration for long-term nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.(read more)

The Tennessee Valley Authority said the unfinished Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Hollywood, Ala., has been sold at auction for over three times the price of the opening to Nuclear Holdings LLC, which plans to invest $13 billion in the site and complete the aborted nuclear power project.(read more)

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation's nuclear power regulator, said it had conducted the agency's first seismic safety review assessing a new nuclear power design in October, starting the initiative with a mid-sized pressurized water reactor ATMEA1 in Japan.(read more)