News

The Department of Energy (DOE) said Friday it had agreed to sell depleted uranium to GE-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment, LLC (GLE) over a 40-year period which would be enriched at a proposed GLE state-of-the-art facility.(read more)

Adi Paterson, Chief Executive of the Australian Nuclear Science Technology Organization (ANSTO), said the research and production-oriented 20-megawatt Open Pool Australian Lightwater reactor (OPAL) would increase production of radioactive isotopes for medical purposes, aiming to create 10 million doses a year to make up for potential shortages worldwide.(read more)

Citing the high cost of construction and slower than expected demand growth for electricity, officials in Vietnam are saying that the government has plans to back out of contracts with Russian and Japanese companies to build two nuclear power plants that were approved in 2009.(read more)

Nuclear power supply and service company AREVA NP said it has been awarded a contract to modernize parts of the instrumentation and control (I&C) system of the Doel 1 and 2 nuclear reactors operated by the Belgian utility Electrabel.(read more)

As world leaders and climate change specialists representing close to 200 countries meet in Marrakesh, Morocco, for talks targeting implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement, China has outlined plans for complying with the Paris pact including a renewed focus on nuclear power.(read more)

Leaders from Japan and India are poised to sign agreements this week that would allow Japan to export nuclear technology to India, making it the first non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to be granted permission from Japan to do so.(read more)

Entergy Corp. announced Tuesday that it would sell the shuttered Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to subsidiaries of NorthStar Group Services Inc., in a move that will accelerate decommissioning and...(read more)

A federal judge has ruled that a case against the federal government concerning worker safety at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation will go to trial, rejecting the Department of Energy's attempt to have the case dismissed.(read more)

Phase One in construction of the Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Plant in the autonomous region of Guangxi in southern China has been complete, China General Nuclear (CGN) announced at a press conference late last week.(read more)

Power Machines has performed shipment of the turbogenerator stator with a capacity of 1200 MW manufactured for the first nuclear plant constructed in the Republic of Belarus, the industrial manufacturing company said.(read more)

What if you could take nuclear waste and turn it into a stable substance that would render it far less troublesome? At Rutgers University, researcher Ashutosh Goel has discovered ways to “immobilize such waste … in glass and ceramics,” the college's press corps has announced.(read more)

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said Thursday that it had approved of the environmental impact conditions presented by Florida Power and Light's two-unit proposed Turkey Point expansion project in Florida. Staff had concluded there were no environmental issued that prevented the agency from issuing a Combined Licenses to build the plant at a site 20 miles south of Miami, the agency said.(read more)

A new video released by SCE&G and co-owner Santee Cooper highlights third quarter progress at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant expansion project in Fairfield County, S.C., where contractor Westinghouse and construction manager Fluor are building two 1,117-megawatt AP1000 nuclear reactors with the industry of 4,000 construction workers and management staff who are on site daily.(read more)

U.S. nuclear fuel developer Lightbridge Corporation and French component and reactor services company AREVA NP, which has wide-spread presence in the nuclear industry, have agreed to create a new joint venture that will focus on development, manufacture and commericalization of fuel assemblies based on Lightbridge's metallic nuclear fuel technology, the companies said Wednesday.(read more)

Commercial drone creator FlyCam UAV, which specializes in drones for work in television and feature films, has teamed up with US Nuclear Corp to create drones that detect particles that contain alpha, beta, gamma and neutron radiation. (read more)

Power Magazine in Tuesday named its top power plants for nuclear generation, naming the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania, the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant in Fujian Province, China and the recently commissioned Beloyarsk Nulear Power Plant Unit 4 in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, as the best of the year 2016.(read more)

Rosatom has announced that the Unit 4 reactor at the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant in Zarechny in central Russia, has entered into commercial status, after attaining 100 percent power in mid-August. The unit is a BN-800 fast neutron reactor. Outranking its sister-reactor, Beloyarsk Unit 3, it is now the most powerful such reactor in service.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has begun a special inspection at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station to review circumstances surrounding several recent operational events.(read more)

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) and Southern Nuclear announced an agreement Monday to collaborate in studying the development and licensing of advanced reactors, including GEH's PRISM sodium-cooled fast reactor design.(read more)

The Department of Energy has moved forward on a permit modification request for the Waste Isolation Pilot Program (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico, that outlines an above ground storage facility for transuranic waste that would be used for one year, while it works on returning the underground unit to service.(read more)

The French government has balked on the mandate to name nuclear power plants that would be tagged for premature decommissioning to comply with the country's mandate of reducing its dependence on nuclear power from 75 percent to 50 percent.(read more)

Magnox Ltd. said it was employing divers to clean up the former cooling ponds at the Dungeness A site in Britain, which was a first for the nuclear power industry.(read more)

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued its seventh National Report for the Convention on Nuclear Safety, claiming the United States “implements a high level of nuclear safety,” through domestic and international awareness and cooperation “and by meeting the obligations of all the articles established by the convention.”(read more)

The third unit at the Fuqing nuclear power plant in the Fujian province of China has completed ascension testing and has entered commercial operations status, the China Nuclear Corporation said Tuesday.(read more)

The Japanese government released a study Tuesday that said the costs of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi generating station was likely to reach as high as $24 billion, an estimate that is $5 billion higher than that of TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company that owns the devastated plant.(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company announced Monday that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Company, Ltd. (KHNP) that outlines steps for both companies to form a technological exchange committee. The concept, Westinghouse said, was to promote a discussion and exchange of engineering technology between the two organizations.(read more)

A spill of radioactive iodine at the Institute of Energy Technology's 25 MW research reactor in Norway has been contained and has been unofficially categorized as a level one incident, the lowest of the 1 through 7 event scale that rates the most dangerous radioactive accident at seven and the least dangerous at one.(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that had cleared the way for agency's Office of New Reactors to issue two combined Licenses for Duke Energy's Levy County site in Florida.(read more)

[UPDATED] Although licensed to operate through August 2033, the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Washington County, Nebraska, is scheduled for its final shut down Monday, the victim of economic headwinds...(read more)

The Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear reactor, the first new nuclear plant in 20 years to achieve initial criticality in the United States, has taken the final step in its construction and start up phase, achieving commercial operation status this week, the Tennessee Valley Authority announced.(read more)

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week that the agency would allow Units 1 and 2 at the LaSalle County Station nuclear power plant an additional 20 years of operating life, extending their licenses to April 17, 2042 and Dec. 16, 2043, respectively.(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company said Thursday that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted the company approval to restart the Conversion Area operations at the Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility in Columbia, S.C.(read more)

Georgia Power is in a celebratory mood. The company announced Wednesday that workers at the Plant Vogtle expansion project, including Units 3 and 4, had logged in more than 25 million safe work hours – work hours without a lost time accident – in a record that involves more than 6,000 construction workers on site since December 2014.(read more)

French nuclear power regulator Autorite de Surete Nucleaire (ASN) said Wednesday that it had requested inspections of steam generators at five Electricite de France (EDF) reactors in which high concentrations of carbon had been found. The inspections will require shutting down the reactors and are expected to occur within the next three months.(read more)

Exelon Corporation said Wednesday that it had signed a five-year cooperative research and development agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory that will advance clean energy and contribute to the development of a next-generation energy grid.(read more)

French nuclear construction leader AREVA said that the Okiluoto Unit 3 build in western Finland was on track for Cold Functional Tests for the early summer of 2017 with two recent milestones achieved that help pave the way for reactor start up.(read more)

Russia's nuclear power export ambitions have made gained a new potential customer as ROSATOM announced Tuesday that the company had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of Paraguay concerning the peaceful uses of atomic energy.(read more)

Georgia Power said Monday that the first training class of operators for Plant Vogtle's Units 3 and 4 had passed the initial licensing exam, marking a significant milestone – even a preliminary one – for the operations of the plant where approximately 75 highly trained technicians will be on staff when the units go online.(read more)

A $12.8 billion refurbishment program at the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario, Canada, will create as many as 11,800 jobs and contribute nearly $89.9 billion in economic benefits through the life of the power plant, according to the Conference Board of Canada.(read more)

The Tennessee Valley Authority announced Friday that Concentric Energy Advisors Inc., on the company's behalf, had scheduled a live auction for the sale of the unfinished Bellefonte nuclear power plant in Hollywood, Alabama.(read more)

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have agreed on contract details that set up construction of Units 5 and 6 at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant, according to the Deccan Chronicle.(read more)

Underground nuclear waste repositories could benefit from a porous layer of material that would be located between clay and rock in order to metabolize the hydrogen gas that is created by the corrosion of steel containers, scientists from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne are claiming.(read more)

South Africa's Energy Minister told members of Parliament on Tuesday that the government would consider a proposal to make utility Eskom to be the official procurer for upcoming nuclear power projects and that the utility would finance the build without government assistance.(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company said Wednesday that it would engage with Britain's Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Center (AMRC) to study various aspects of manufacturing efficiency that would help with the development of small modular reactors (SMR) for Britain and beyond.(read more)

China is developing the world’s smallest nuclear power plant which could be installed in one of the islands in the disputed South China Sea to supply power to households and is capable of running for up to decades without refueling, a media report said on Tuesday.(read more)

Closing Switzerland's operating nuclear power plants by way of a referendum that will come to a vote in November would be premature, leaving the country with an energy gap, Swiss Energy Minister Doris Leuthard said on Tuesday, according to media reports.(read more)

International Atomic Energy Agency Director Yukiya Amano disclosed Monday that a cyber-attack did disrupt a nuclear power plant, saying that the threat of future cyber disruptions was very serious.(read more)

The Department of Energy's Task Force on the Future of Nuclear Power, commissioned by Secretary Ernest Moniz in December 2015, has concluded that deployment of new technology “at a significant rate” in the period of 2030 to 2050 requires a competitive cost based on lower construction costs and a monetary recognition of nuclear power as a benefit to the country's goal of reducing carbon emissions.(read more)

AREVA NP said Thursday that it had recently completed the nuclear industry’s first non-destructive examination (NDE) of reactor vessel nozzles using a new phased array ultrasonic (UT) technique with...(read more)

Are you a nuclear industry expert, technician, manager or analyst of any kind? Then you might consider working for the other side. That is, for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).(read more)