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North Korea's Atomic Energy Institute confirmed Tuesday that the Yongbyon nuclear facility's five-megawatt reactor had returned to normal operations after being mothballed in 2007 to comply with a six-nation aid-for-disarmament agreement. The reactor is said to be capable of producing 13 pounds...(read more)

Nuclear power endorsed research and consulting firm The Brattle Group has come up with some numbers that attest to the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear power in New York State. In total, the group said, the four nuclear facilities in the state, which includes six operating reactors, contributes...(read more)

McLean, Va.-based Lightbridge Corporation said Tuesday that it has signed a Comprehensive Nuclear Services Agreement with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories for fabrication of the company's next generation metallic nuclear fuel test samples at the CNL facilities at Chalk River, Ontario, Canada. The...(read more)

The China General Nuclear Power Group and the Kenya Nuclear Electricity Board – a branch of the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum of Kenya – announced they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would pave the way for the African nation to join the nuclear power parade that is...(read more)

The Tokyo Electric Power Company, which is attempting a massive decommissioning project at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, said heavy rains from Typhoon Etau caused drainage overflows at the facility on Sept. 9, but monitoring of water showed “negligible” environmental...(read more)

World Nuclear Association Director General Agneta Rising challenged the nuclear power industry to kick electricity generation up a notch, saying at the organization's symposium in London Thursday that the goal should be to increase capacity by 1000 GW by 2050. “ We are ready to do more,”...(read more)

The Kyushu Electric Power Company said that its Sendai No. 1 reactor had returned to a fully commercial operations on Thursday, one year and 11 months after Japan closed down the last of its once thriving nuclear power sector on fears generated by the Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant accident of March...(read more)

Exelon Corporation, owners of the largest fleet of nuclear power plants in the country, said Thursday it would defer its decision on whether or not to continue operating the Quad Cities and Byron nuclear power plants for one year. The company said “all of its nuclear plants in the PJM market...(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday it would cease working on a National Academy of Sciences pilot study of cancer risks in populations near U.S. nuclear power facilities, saying that releases of radiation are “too small to cause observable increases in cancer risk.” “...(read more)

GE was informed Tuesday that the European and U.S. regulators had granted permission for it to acquire French power service company Alstom, which last year was awarded a contract in China to upgrade power transmission for the China Nuclear Power Engineering Company's Yangjiang nuclear power station...(read more)

Four and a half years after being told to leave their homes, residents of the town of Naraha in Fukushima prefecture in Japan have been told that radiation levels are now low enough for them to permanently return to their homes. The evacuation order was issued on March 12, 2011, a day after the Great...(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company said Tuesday it had been awarded a contract to dismantle the reactor pressure vessel and its internals at the Philippsburg Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1. Philippsburg Unit 1 is operated by EnBW Kernkraft GmbH (EnKK) and was commercially shut down in 2011. The contract’s...(read more)

California-based hazardous material specialist Kurion Inc. said Tuesday that it would use a grant of one billion yen from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to build and evaluate a prototype modular detritiation system that would be 10 times larger than the company's current system...(read more)

The Public Service Commission of South Carolina (SCPSC) voted unanimously to approve South Carolina Electric & Gas Company’s (SCE&G), principal subsidiary of SCANA Corporation petition to update the construction milestone schedule as well as the capital cost schedule for the two new nuclear...(read more)

Unions in Britain are urging the government to speed up the process for financing decisions required to green-light the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant construction project in Somerset in southwest England, but the build under discussions has taken a decidedly international flavor, as Chinese investors...(read more)

Jean-Bernard Levy, the chief executive officer of Electricite de France (EDF) said Thursday that the expected completion date for the Flamannville reactor construction project had been pushed back from 2017 to the end of 2018. Costs for the third 1650 MW European Pressurized Reactor at the facility have...(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said that 96 of the nation's 99 nuclear power plants are operating within the two highest performance categories after safety reviews performed during the agency's mid-cycle assessment period that ended on 30 June. Out of the 96 plants in the top two categories...(read more)

French-based nuclear power giant AREVA said it had delivered a new vessel head, weighing more than 60 tons, to the Doel nuclear power plant Belgium. The steel vessel head will be installed in the plant's Unit 4 as part of the reactor's outage maintenance operations. AREVA said several areas...(read more)

Early closure of nuclear power plants, which were shunned by the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan, would dramatically undermine the plan's central goal of reducing the country's carbon footprint, a report from think-tank Third Way concludes. The study, done with help from Massachusetts...(read more)

Nuclear power remains the cheapest form of electricity generation when the discount rates are low, the combined OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and International Energy Agency's annual cost comparison report for 2015 said. The report, Projected Costs of Generating Electricity: 2015 Edition , calculates...(read more)

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear power watchdog, said that Kenya had made the appropriate “consideration” regarding its infrastructure needs to move forward with development of a nuclear power program. Kenya had requested the IAEA do an infrastructure...(read more)

Vadim Mikerin, 56, a former director of the Pan American Department of JSC Techsnabexport, a subsidiary of Rosatom's State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with his role arranging over $2 million in corrupt payoffs meant...(read more)

Kyushu Electric Power Company said Monday that the No. 1 reactor at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant in Japan was expected to go commercial as of Tuesday, September 1. The reactor is the first to return to service after a country-wide moratorium shut down all 48 of Japan's reactors, which represented...(read more)

While the Tokyo Electric Power Company continues the massive task of decommissioning the Fukushim Daiichi nuclear power plant, the company says that working conditions at the plant had improved significantly. Members of the company's Nuclear Reform Monitoring Committee took note of recent progress...(read more)

Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power said Friday that Plant Vogtle construction expenses in the first half of 2015 had gone down compared to the last half of 2014. The company said it had spent $148 million from January through June this year, compared with $169 million from July through December...(read more)

The Nuclear Regulator Commission said it had reached a settlement with Dominion Resources Inc., owners and operators of the Millstone Power Station in Waterford, Conn., that implements “a broad range of corrective actions at its Millstone Unit 2,” in response to improper changes at the plant...(read more)

French nuclear power giant AREVA has launched at its Creusot site in France a new testing system that reproduces on a smaller scale all the components of the reactor coolant system of an EPR-type nuclear reactor. Known as BEATRICE ( Boucle pour l'Etude et l'Analyse du TRansport de produIts...(read more)

R ussian nuclear power conglomerate Rosatom said its TVEL Fuel Company was ready to deliver fresh nuclear fuel to the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran. The fuel, prepared at Russia's Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant, is expected to be ready for a maintenance and refueling outage at the...(read more)

Two fisheries associations in Japan this week gave permission for the Tokyo Electric Power Company to dump treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster site into the ocean with the stipulations that contamination levels be within legal limits and that the utility company and...(read more)

The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, told the agency's governing board Tuesday that it would need more than $10 million per year to monitor nuclear activity in Iran. The IAEA is charged with monitoring the international accord...(read more)

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy said it has orders from Japan for submersible, steam-powered pumps that operate during a power station power blackout. The Turbine Water Lubricated pumps are made by SPX manufacturing unit ClydeUnion Pumps, PowerEngineering reported The pumps are steam powered and are...(read more)

The global nuclear reactor construction market is expected to rise by 5.22 percent during the 2014-2019 period, announced analytic firm Research and Markets on Tuesday. The global value of the market rose by nearly $1.5 billion in from 2013 to 2014, climbing from $32.64 billion in 2013 to $34.13 billion...(read more)

The country's largest nuclear fleet operator Exelon said Monday that three of its nuclear plants, Oyster Creek, Quad Cities and Three Mile Island, did not clear in the PJM capacity auction for the 2018-19 planning year. The auction is held annually by grid operator PJM to ensure enough power generation...(read more)

[UPDATED]The MOX plutonium conversion program at the unfinished federal facility at Savannah River, S.C., would cost about twice as much to complete and put into operation as diluting and disposing of the material at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, says a leaked government report. The...(read more)

The Kyushu Electric Power Company said that it discovered problems with the cooling system at the Sendai No. 1 reactor that was restarted last week, creating more potential controversy for the first nuclear reactor to power up following a prolonged nationwide nuclear power moratorium. Until last week...(read more)

The Office of Nuclear Regulation in Britain said work at the Hinkley Point C construction site was on hold. “ONR is monitoring the impact of the budget constraint upon Nuclear New Build GenCo Ltd's competency and capability. Furthermore, ONR inspectors continue to engage with the program...(read more)

Southern California Edison (SCE) on Thursday responded to a early August ruling by a California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge regarding SCE’s communication with commission officials concerning closing costs for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. SCE claimed it did...(read more)

Tokyo Electric Power Company in Japan said it was restructuring the company, creating three businesses that continue with its 2014 separation of its nuclear businesses from its non-nuclear concerns. As from 1 April 2016, Tepco said, the company will spin off its fuel and thermal power generation business...(read more)

What swims, takes underwater pictures and doesn't mind a splash in highly radioactive water at a nuclear power plant? That would be GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy's new underwater, camera-outfitted bot, which is able to inspect containment vessels without human inspectors maneuvering cameras with...(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company said it had developed a new Compound D – Extended Life O-ring for Westinghouse-designed reactor coolant pump (RCP) seals that effectively doubles the operating life of the O-rings. "The Compound D O-ring uses breakthrough material technology that has been tested...(read more)

The Georgia Public Service Commission had verified and approved of $169 million in capital and construction costs that were submitted for review as part of the 12 th Vogtle Construction Monitoring Report that covered the second half of 2014, said Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power. The Georgia...(read more)

Here is a time-lapse video from Georgia Power of yet another milestone for the Vogtle 3 and 4 project: placement of the first shield building panels. The first panel, weighing about 28,000 pounds, was placed in the Unit 3 Nuclear Island on Friday, as seen here. Two additional panels were placed on Saturday...(read more)

The U.S. nuclear power industry's 99 operating power generation facilities operated with a capacity factor of 96.4 percent in June, according to a Nuclear Energy Institute report. The capacity factor was one percentage point higher than June 2014 and topped the 2013 June figure of 93.1 percent...(read more)

BWX Technologies, Inc. said Monday that its subsidiary BWXT Canada Ltd. has been awarded major contracts for steam generator design and component manufacturing for the HPR1000 nuclear plant in Guangxi, China. The steam generator design contract for Guangxi Fangchenggang Nuclear Power Co., Ltd.’s...(read more)

The third of six planned reactors at the Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Station in Liaoning province, China, has been put through a successful 168-hour model operation and will soon start its life as a commercial reactor, Chinese media have reported. The first two reactors at the facility began commercial...(read more)

[UPDATED]The Tennessee Valley Authority has declared the new Watts Bar Unit 2 reactor to be “substantially complete” and sent a request to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an operating license for the unit that would be the first U.S. reactor put into commercial operation in this century...(read more)

Eleven power companies in Japan are expected to spend $24 billion on safety upgrades at their Japanese nuclear power plants, according to a report published by The Japan Times. The figures, which come from various sources in the nuclear power industry, includes an expected spending of $60.1 million...(read more)

South African utility company Eskom has signed a $15.6 million contract with U.S.-based Holtec International for the first phase of a new nuclear fuel storage program. The first step is for Holtec to supply Eskom with seven nuclear waste dry-storage casks that will be put to use at the two-unit, 1,800...(read more)

The Tennessee Valley Authority said this week that hot functional testing of the new Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear reactor in Spring City, Tenn., had been completed, demonstrating the unit performed as designed. “The latest rounds of tests, called hot functional testing, marks the first time nearly...(read more)

Government officials in Egypt said by the end of the month contracts would be signed with Russia's state-owned nuclear power giant Rosatom for the construction of an eight-reactor nuclear power plant in the country. The contract will be signed by Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi and Russian...(read more)