Nuclear

Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG), New Jersey’s giant utility, has become the latest major U.S. power company to seek an exit from the competitive generation business.  In a statement attached to the company’s second-quarter 2020 earnings results released on July 31, Ralph Izzo, PSEG chairman, president, and CEO, said the company is “exploring strategic alternatives” […]

Unit 5 at the Tianwan nuclear power plant, an ACPR-1000 under construction in China’s Jiangsu province, achieved first criticality on July 27, said Jiangsu Nuclear Power Corp., the plant’s owner and operator. According to China National Nuclear Power Corporation (CNNC), China’s giant state-owned nuclear generator and fuel manufacturer which is building the reactor, first fuel […]

The Utah Taxpayers Association has urged cities and towns that have subscribed to the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) small modular reactor (SMR) project to withdraw from the venture before a Sept. 14 deadline that would lock them into a share of billions of dollars in costs associated with the undertaking. Rusty Cannon, vice […]

Building a new nuclear power plant is challenging. Nuclear construction projects always seem to be behind schedule and over budget. Even in the late 1960s and early 1970s—arguably nuclear power’s

Utility Expects New Schedule for Olkiluoto 3 Reactor. Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) said it expects to soon receive the revised schedule from the Areva-Siemens consortium for the commissioning of the Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) EPR. Fuel loading of the reactor, which was planned for June, has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic and other […]

Nuclear power plants approaching license expiration are faced with three options: obtain initial license renewal to continue operations (nine U.S. units have not yet received an extension of their initial

Unit 1 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, the first nuclear power facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), achieved successful startup August 1. It’s another milestone in the process to deliver power from the project to the UAE grid, with commercial operation of Barakah expected later this year. The startup of Unit 1 marks […]

Southern Co. says it remains on schedule to complete Units 3 and 4 of the Vogtle nuclear expansion project by November 2021 and November 2022, respectively, despite the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company in its 2020 second-quarter earnings report on July 30 said issues associated with the coronavirus have increased subsidiary Georgia Power’s […]

What will it realistically take to ready a fission surface power system (FSP)—a small (maybe modular) nuclear reactor—for deployment on the moon by 2027? That’s essentially what Battelle Energy Alliance LLC (BEA), the Department of Energy (DOE), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are asking the private sector in an interesting request for […]

Officials with the ITER project in France said work has started on the assembly of giant components needed for construction of an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, a project designed to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy for peaceful use. The ITER group, in a ceremony July 28 that was broadcast online (see […]

Rosatom, the Russian state-owned nuclear energy company, said it is ready to receive a shipment of the first full reload batch of fresh uranium-plutonium mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for the BN-800 fast reactor at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Station, the nation’s oldest operating  nuclear energy facility. The company on July 23 announced the Mining and Chemical […]

New Multi-Year Agreement (MYA) includes generator maintenance services over the next three years at the Khmelnitskiy and Rivne nuclear power plants Supports Ukraine’s energy strategy and greenhouse gas emissions reduction objectives by helping to deliver 5.5 gigawatts of reliable, CO2-free power for six million residents Builds on GE’s proven services capabilities across more than 130 […]

MONTREAL: July 23, 2020 – SNC-Lavalin (TSX:SNC) has been awarded a contract for detailed design, fabrication/manufacturing and first commercial deployment of the newly developed PRECISE (Pressure Tube Circumferential Sampling Equipment) tool at OPG’s Darlington Nuclear Generating Station starting early 2021. This contract win is aligned with the Company’s new strategy moving forward towards engineering services […]

July 23, 2020 – Framatome and Lockheed Martin recently signed a teaming agreement that will integrate Lockheed Martin’s Discrete Logic Solving System (DLSS) into proven Framatome instrumentation and control (I&C) nuclear plant modernization solutions. This additional analog solution combines the companies’ technologies and supports the safety and reliability of nuclear power plants. The I&C system […]

The DIII-D National Fusion Facility, operated by General Atomics for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is the largest magnetic fusion research facility in the U.S. The mission of the DIII-D research program is to establish the scientific basis for the optimization of the tokamak approach to fusion energy production. The DIII-D program is a […]

July 20, 2020 – Framatome delivered its first nuclear fuel reload to the largest power producer in the U.S. The 100 fuel assemblies were manufactured at Framatome’s fuel fabrication facility in Richland, Washington, and inserted into the reactor at the nuclear energy facility as part of the spring refueling outage completed in May. Framatome delivered […]

NuScale Power has completed its second submittal to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) for pre-licensing Vendor Design Review (VDR) of its small modular reactor (SMR). A pre-licensing VDR is an optional service provided by the CNSC when requested by a supplier. It provides a mechanism that enables CNSC staff to provide feedback early in […]

A government-run development bank is expected to end its ban on investment in nuclear energy, a move that could allow U.S. companies to take a greater role in foreign nuclear power projects. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) as early as this week could lift its prohibition on supporting nuclear power. The DFC on […]

Officials in South Africa and across the African continent continue to explore new nuclear power generation projects, and the region provides an opportunity for other countries to export their advanced nuclear

Germany Adopts National Strategies for Energy, Climate, Hydrogen. Twenty days before Germany commandeers the European Union Council presidency, Germany on June 12 adopted two national strategies that could

The last operating reactor at France’s oldest nuclear power plant is scheduled to shut down June 30, some 43 years after the plant entered commercial operation. The French government, though, on June 27 ruled out further full closures of nuclear plants, according to Reuters, which cited sources in the country’s energy ministry. France had said […]

Moscow (June 26, 2020) – Preparations are now underway in Russia to build new power units in the Leningrad and Smolensk regions. The corresponding decision was signed by Alexey Likhachev, Rosatom State Atomic Corporation Director General. Сommenting on this decision, Likhachev said: “The Russian nuclear power industry has approached this stage with newly developed types […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on June 23 accepted for formal review Centrus Energy Corp.’s application to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) at its Piketon, Ohio, facility. The move marks a third major regulatory milestone for advanced nuclear over the past month. The NRC’s acceptance of Centrus’ application follows a 4-0 vote by the commission on […]

Russian state atomic energy corporation Rosatom is working with Paris-based Framatome and GE Steam Power, which is headquartered in the U.S., to secure contracts to construct the Belene nuclear power plant in northern Bulgaria near the Danube River, which forms the country’s border with Romania. An On-Again Off-Again History The Belene project has a long […]

Marking the first time a utility has taken an ownership stake in a small modular reactor (SMR) project, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) formed a joint venture with Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp. (USNC) to build, own, and operate a proposed Micro Modular Reactor (MMR) demonstration at the Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) site in Ontario, Canada.  […]

Four U.S. nuclear generators—Energy Harbor, Xcel Energy, Exelon, and Arizona Public Service (APS)—are making headway on projects to demonstrate hydrogen production at nuclear plants, but scaling those efforts up to net new end-users and sources of revenue is still ridden with hurdles, company officials said in a panel discussion at the American Nuclear Society’s (ANS’s) […]

NORTHBROOK, Ill., June 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — PPL Group, a premier buyer and seller of industrial machinery and equipment, is selling surplus assets from the Savannah River Site that are currently located at a property storage location in Barnwell, South Carolina. In partnership with AW Properties Global and Liquidity Services, Inc., PPL will sell approximately 450,000 […]

WILMINGTON, NC—June 10, 2020—Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) has awarded a contract to GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) to provide outage services for the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant in Eurajoki, Finland. GEH will provide control rod drive mechanism exchange services for Olkiluoto units 1 and 2 for the remainder of the plant’s operating license. The first […]

Another legal challenge has been filed against the ongoing effort to build a storage site for U.S. nuclear waste in the New Mexico desert. Beyond Nuclear, among the environmental and other groups opposed to the project that would be built by Holtec International, on June 4 filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court […]