News

An audit in Japan found that more than a third of the $1.6 billion of taxpayer funds spend on cleanup efforts at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station has been wasted, much of it because of the inability to control and contain contaminated water that has been the bane of the cleanup efforts...(read more)

A senior official in Turkey's energy ministry said that a seven-year build for the country's first nuclear power reactor would mean that the official schedule calling for an operational start in 2019-2020 was already infeasible. The projected start date for the country's first Russian...(read more)

Media in Jordan have reported that the country's government will soon sign a deal with Russia's state-owned nuclear power giant Rosatom that stresses the commitment to build two nuclear reactors at a cost of $10 billion. Jordan's Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Khaled Toukan revealed...(read more)

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) confirmed Friday that all or nearly all of the fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station's Unit 1 reactor melted during the catastrophic events of March 2011, when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami event crippled the six-reactor facility...(read more)

A prolonged lock-out of United Steelworkers Local 669 workers at the Honeywell International Inc. uranium conversion plant in Metropolis, Ill, may be coming to a close, according to the union, the company and federal mediators. Workers have been locked out since August 2, 2014, which is when a three...(read more)

Japan's nuclear power regulator on Wednesday said it had approved the construction plans for a Kyushu Electric Power Company reactor that would put it in compliance with ramped up safety standards, the news followed up by sources saying the government had set its sights on a June restart. The...(read more)

President Barack Obama continued to use his executive authority to mitigate global warming Thursday with an executive order for federal agencies that was quickly endorsed by Honeywell, General Electric, Northrop Grumman and several other major U.S. companies. After the president signed an executive...(read more)

Areva Inc. North America said Wednesday that it had been awarded a multi-million dollar contract to fabricate and deliver a replacement reactor vessel head to a U.S. utility – but it did not name which utility had placed the order. The contract also includes supply of control rod drive mechanisms...(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company has announced that federal regulators have granted permission for the company to test its small modular reactor design, or SMR. Westinghouse called this a “significant step towards design certification,” which will reduce the time needed to license the company's...(read more)

The most recent crisis for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is one that has long been predicted: The project to contain the site of the most lethal nuclear power plant accident in history is running out of funds. To date about $1.6 billion has been spent on the disaster containment project that includes...(read more)

Global emissions of harmful carbon dioxide from the energy sector held to the previous year's level without an economic incentive for the first time in 40 years the International Energy Agency has said. In news that underscores one of the most critical selling points for the nuclear power industry...(read more)

Trade magazine Novus Light Technologies Today said Monday that a new gamma camera created by British company Createc makes use of a much lighter collimator than previously available, making it possible to attain a 3-D picture of radioactive sources in a manner that will greatly assist nuclear plant decommissioning...(read more)

South Korea said Tuesday that North Korea was behind the cyber-attacks and hacking attempts that included online postings of Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company Ltd. data and demands to shut down nuclear reactors. The attacks began in December. They included sending malicious codes to Hydro and...(read more)

China General Nuclear has reached two significant milestones with two new nuclear reactors, announcing it had connected the Unit 2 of the Yangjiang Nuclear power station to the grid and that another reactor, Ningde 3 had reach first criticality. The Yangjiang power station is in Guangdong province...(read more)

The Tokyo Electric Power Company announced Monday a revised schedule for decontaminating water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, claiming it would have 90 percent of the water treated by the end of May. "We are re-evaluating the risks of not just contaminated water, but all factors...(read more)

Sharply conflicting reports from Europe indicate that the European Commission has backed the region's nuclear fuel regulator Euratom Supply Agency's objection to a non-competitive nuclear fuel contract signed by Hungary and Russia. At various stages of the news cycle, Hungary has denied that...(read more)

SCANA Corporation said Thursday that its subsidiary Southern Carolina Electric & Gas Company had filed a petition with the Public Service Commission of South Carolina to allow it to revise the construction and capital cost schedules for the two new nuclear reactors at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Generating...(read more)

A federal panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that for practical reasons the construction cost dispute between Georgia Power and contractors Westinghouse Electric and Chicago Bridge Iron subsidiary Stone & Weber should be heard in a court in Georgia...(read more)

The number of possible nuclear reactor restarts in Japan is to drop by five, as four utility companies are opting out of bringing five reactors into compliance with new safety standards, say media reports from Japan. Asahi Shimbun reported that the five aging reactors that will be decommissioned are...(read more)

On the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the state-owned China General Nuclear Power Corp. announced that it had government approval to build to new reactors in the northeastern province of Liaoning. The expansion project involves a fifth and sixth reactor at the Hongyanhe...(read more)

The Tokyo Electric Power Company reported Tuesday that 750 tons of contaminated rainwater may have leached into the ground around a water tank holding area at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, but that the water was unlikely to reach the ocean. On the four-year anniversary of Tohoku or...(read more)

The British government is considering holding a trump card in the $25 billion Hinkley Point C construction project, that would be built by Electricite de France. Media reports say that British Energy and Business Minister Matthew Hancock in Parliament said that the government was considering taking...(read more)

The Nuclear Regulator Commission said Monday that Ameren's Callaway Plant Unit 1 in Fulton, Missouri, had been granted a 20-year license extension, which bumps its potential commercial life through October 2044. The pressurized water reactor became the 76 th to receive a renewed license from the...(read more)

The state of Vermont is attempting to dictate how Entergy Corp., the owner of the shuttered Vermont Yankee nuclear power station, spends its decommissioning trust fund. At stake is the timing of tearing down the plant, which would be delayed if Entergy spent decommissioning trust fund money on other...(read more)

Seventy-five percent of the nation's 100 commercial nuclear power reactors fully met all regulatory safety and security performance objectives in 2014, while 94 percent were in the top two highest performance categories, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday. With annual assessment letters...(read more)

For both 2013 and 2014, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission scored a zero on use of strong authentication to secure their computer networks and the sensitive data managed by the agency, an executive branch report said. By comparison, the office of Housing and Urban Development, the Labor Department...(read more)

Westinghouse Electric Company said 42 of its fuel assemblies will be loaded into Unit 3 at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant after inspections showed that the company's fuel assemblies had performed well through at least three fuel cycles at the plant. The company said Thursday that its VVER...(read more)

French nuclear powerhouse Areva on Wednesday said it would combine cost cutting with a sharper focus on nuclear power growth to overcome daunting financial difficulties that include losses of about $5.4 billion in 2014. The first dramatic move would be to trim $1.1 billion in operating costs over...(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday that it would begin a full certification review of the APR-1400 Advanced Power Reactor on behalf of the Korea Electric Power Corp. and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, which submitted an application for review in December 2014. The first step in the review...(read more)

It was a year of renewal and milestones at the Idaho National Laboratory, which celebrated 2014 with a video that runs through its many fields of research, including ongoing testing labs and major initiatives to develop fuel systems that make greater use of the power within the fission process. Renewal...(read more)

In 30 seconds, Georgia Power's Vogtle Unit 3 rises from the red soil of Waynesboro, Ga., near Augusta. The clip, released in February, shows the dramatic rise of a cooling tower that is to be the home of the latest Westinghouse designed AP1000 reactor. Construction officially began in March...(read more)

The Hungarian government passed a law on Tuesday that would make both business and technological information concerning an expansion of the Paksi Atomerömü Nuclear Power Station – known as Paks – confidential for 30 years. While some contend that keeping nuclear power financing...(read more)

GDF Suez said that financially-troubled French nuclear plant builder Areva has given it assurances that it would honor a commitment signed in May 2013 to deliver four nuclear reactors in Turkey. GDF Suez is part of a predominately Japanese consortium that signed the deal. But concerns over Areva's...(read more)

Duke Energy Florida on Monday filed for permission to drop most of a $54 million charge on electric bills that had been paying for a two-reactor project in Levy County that was canceled in August 2013 as construction costs soared. Florida's Public Service Commission ordered Duke to refund the...(read more)

For the twenty-third year in a row, it's the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station at the top of the list in electrical generation in the United States. Furthermore, the country's only desert-located plant, which is operated by APS, set a record for power generation for the 10 th time, producing...(read more)

Georgia Power Co. filed documents with the state on Friday that said overrun costs for Plant Vogtle expansion would push the project price tag above $7.5 billion in a filing that could prompt the Georgia Public Services Commission to decided on who pays for the overruns sooner than was expected. The...(read more)

The Nuclear Energy Institute this week commended the U.S. Department of Energy for its efforts to revamp nuclear technology exporting laws for the first time in 25 years. But, as the DOE has issued the final changes to the regulations that have gone through substantial agency and public review, the NEI...(read more)

Legislation introduced in both the House and Senate in Springfield, Ill., on Thursday would give Exelon's six nuclear power plants in the state economic viability for up to six years, the company said in a news release. Exelon has said its nuclear fleet in the state was struggling due to economic...(read more)

Six mayors in Illinois have joined forces in the effort to prevent Exelon nuclear power plants in their communities from closing due to economic reasons. Similar to the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Station in New York, which reached a support services agreement with Rochester Gas & Electric, possibly...(read more)

Westinghouse applauded the European Commission's Energy Union initiative on Wednesday, calling it a significant step for policy integration that faces stiff challenges. The European Commission, which is under new leadership under President Jean-Claude Juncker, said that a key goal was to integrate...(read more)

A state senator in Washington, Sharon Brown, R-Kennewick, is promoting nuclear energy with a focus on technology that has yet to be put into operation. Bills that Brown have sponsored nudge the state towards acceptance of modular, factory-built nuclear reactors, The Olympian reported Tuesday. Brown...(read more)

Electricite de France said it would delay a decision, which had been expected in March, on when it would proceed with construction of a new nuclear power reactor at the Hinkley Point facility in Somerset, England. A final go-ahead was expected in the middle of 2014, but the company said last year...(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has begun an investigation into an accident at the V.C. Summer nuclear plant construction site that the agency says may have inadvertently done minor damage to the bottom head of the Unit 2 containment vessel. The NRC confirmed the inspection of the construction site...(read more)

A spokesperson for the European Commission confirmed that authorities were reviewing Paks nuclear power plant expansion contracts between Hungary and Russia concerning possible violation of antitrust laws. “The award of the Paks nuclear power plant expansion project without a tender procedure...(read more)

Plant operators at the Watts Bar Nuclear Power Generating Station shut down reactor one after an unexpected problem with the condenser in a non-nuclear portion of the plant over the weekend. But the more significant news at the TVA facility involved Unit 2, which is over 90 percent completed and received...(read more)

French nuclear power and technology giant Areva said Monday that it could post a net loss of $5.6 billion in 2014, up from $566 million in 2013. The losses look to be substantially more than Areva's market capitalization, which stands at about $4.19 billion, The New York Times reported Monday...(read more)

United Nations inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency released preliminary findings from its latest inspection of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant this week, the same week, near the anniversary of the March 2011 disaster, that Japan was hit with a significant earthquake...(read more)

Portland, Ore., based NuScale Power said it had signed a deal with French nuclear industry supplier Areva for help designing and testing fuel for factory-built, small-scale nuclear reactors. The contract is a sure sign of continued interest in a new direction for reactors. NuScale, which was launched...(read more)

Nuclear regulators in Belgium have called for a worldwide inspection of nuclear power plants based on concerns that cracks found in two reactors in Belgium could be problematic elsewhere. There are 435 commercial reactors operating around the globe. The average age of these plants is 29 years and...(read more)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission envisions itself as leaner and more focused within five years, according to a new outlook report. In the coming weeks, the NRC said it would consider recommendations of what is called “Project Aim,” which was initiated in June 2014, and that it would begin...(read more)