Nuclear

The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) said on May 6 that the continuing shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) heightens reliability concerns for areas of Southern California this summer.

A bipartisan group of senators last week asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to vet just how feasible the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is, and how its costs could affect other U.S. fusion programs.

Dominion on Tuesday permanently shuttered its 556-MW Kewanee nuclear plant located about 40 miles southeast of Green Bay, Wis. The 40-year-old Westinghouse pressurized water reactor generated 148 million MWh over its lifetime.

The bad luck for Southern California Edison’s (SCE’s) crippled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) continued this week. The local ABC affiliate in San Diego reported on April 30 that it had been given a photo of a makeshift repair to the water box in Unit 3  by a plant employee.

A bipartisan group of senators have introduced legislation that would effectively shift responsibility for the disposition of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants from the Department of Energy (DOE) to a new agency created solely to deal with nuclear waste issues.

Dominion subsidiary Virginia Power may choose to use a GE-Hitachi Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) instead of a Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Services (MNES) Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor (APWR) for a third nuclear unit proposed at its North Anna site in Virginia, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on Friday.

An informational notice recently issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) cautions nuclear power plant operators to look out for moisture degradation of structures and components used to store spent nuclear fuel in dry casks.

Edison International said that without a restart of Unit 2 at its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), it could decide by the end of the year to retire both units at the California nuclear plant. The units with a combined generating capacity of 2,350 MW have been offline since early 2012, the result of unexpected erosion and tube leaks in their steam generators. Costs tied to the shutdown now total around $553 million, including $109 million spent on inspections and repairs and $444 million for replacement power.

Drought is a serious vulnerability for the power sector, witnesses testified at a full committee hearing held last week in the Senate to assess the impacts of drought on the power and water sectors. Members of the panel invited by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources offered a number of possible solutions for federal agencies and power companies that could mitigate adverse effects from drought.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ruled that a partnership between NRG Energy and Japan’s Toshiba Corp. to build two new ABWR reactors at the South Texas Project (STP) outside Bay City, Texas, through the holding company Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA) continues to be dominated by foreign control. Until NINA can come up with a different corporate ownership structure, the NRC said it could not approve the project’s combined construction and operation license (COL).