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 […]

MONTREAL: June 9, 2020 – SNC-Lavalin (TSX:SNC) is pleased to announce its wholly-owned subsidiary Candu Energy Inc., was awarded two contracts by Societatea Nationala Nuclearelectrica S.A. (SNN). The contracts are for fuel channel and feeder assembly inspections on the Cernavoda Unit 1 CANDU® nuclear reactor during the 2020 outage. These contract wins are aligned with […]

The man considered second-in-command at the former SCANA Corp. has agreed to plead guilty to criminal conspiracy fraud charges stemming from his role in the failed V.C. Summer nuclear power plant construction project. Stephen A. Byrne, SCANA’s former chief operating officer, will plead guilty for his alleged criminal actions, according to a document filed June […]

An official monitoring the progress of the Vogtle nuclear expansion project in Georgia said in testimony filed June 5 with the state’s Public Service Commission that the two new reactors are “highly unlikely” to meet state-approved deadlines, and also will probably have additional cost overruns. The expansion project involves construction of two, 1,100-MW AP1000 reactors […]

SOUTH HOLLAND, Ill., June 3, 2020 — Steel Guard Safety Corp., a leading manufacturer of Industrial Curtain & Specialty Barrier Products announced the release of Lead Wool Blanket Manufacturing with QQ-C-40 Wool. The business clients in Nuclear Power have expanded machinery with heavy duty presses and CNC quilting machine to accommodate the exact manufacturing for the […]

The joke about fusion energy is that it’s 30 years away and always will be. But significant recent advances in fusion science and technology could potentially put the first fusion power on the grid as soon

Efforts to explore whether it is feasible to permanently dispose of high-level nuclear waste in deep horizontal boreholes under next-generation nuclear reactor sites got a boost in late April as nuclear waste

Fresh off the announcement that the final module for Vogtle Unit 3 was placed at the nuclear expansion project in Georgia, Southern Company said on May 27 that it was setting “a long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.” The announcement was made during Southern Company’s annual stockholders meeting, which […]

In the first installment of POWER’s brand new video interview series, POWER Insights, Kurt Terrani, technical director of the Transformational Challenge Reactor (TCR) program, talks to POWER Senior Associate Editor Sonal Patel about the innovative microreactor program spearheaded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and project partners, including Idaho National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and […]

ATLANTA – May 22, 2020 – The final module for Georgia Power’s Vogtle Unit 3, a massive water tank, has been placed atop the containment vessel and shield building roof at the company’s Vogtle 3 & 4 nuclear expansion project near Waynesboro, Georgia. The installation represents the final module placement for Unit 3, marking another […]

Bolstered by $230 million in Congressionally appropriated funding, the Department of Energy (DOE) has officially launched the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) to help U.S.-based private developers of advanced nuclear reactors demonstrate their technology in the U.S. Much anticipated by industry, the program formally established under the Office of Nuclear Energy program on May 14 […]

Nine projects will get $27 million in federal funding to develop digital twin technology for promising advanced nuclear reactor designs—including Kairos, Xe-100, BWRX-300, and the SSR-W—and help achieve a ten-fold reduction in their operations and maintenance (O&M) costs. The funding announced by the Department of Energy (DOE) on May 13 will be furnished under the […]

Engineer, attorney, author, and former head of some of the largest public power utilities in the U.S., S. David Freeman passed away on May 12 outside of Washington, D.C., following a heart attack at the age of 94. Freeman was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and received a degree in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute […]

A first-of-its-kind nuclear reactor that will use a 3D-printed core, advanced materials, and integrated sensors and controls is on track for completion by 2023. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, work is ramping up to demonstrate the Transformational Challenge Reactor (TCR), an innovative micro-reactor program spearheaded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and project partners, to include […]

It’s spring outage season in the power industry. A time when plants of all types typically shut down and perform scheduled maintenance to ensure all essential equipment is as ready as possible to run reliably at full load for days on end during the peak summer season. This year, outages have been complicated by the […]

May 4, 2020 – Framatome and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) recently began the commercial development of uranium-molybdenum fuel (UMo) for nuclear research reactors. Framatome and TUM will design and install the fuel manufacturing production line, and develop, produce and irradiate new fuel prototypes. The project will take place at the CERCA Research and Innovation […]

“We still expect to meet the November regulatory-approved in-service dates for both Units 3 and 4,” Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning said during the company’s first quarter earnings call on April 30. The in-service dates he was referring to are November 2021 and November 2022 for Units 3 and 4, respectively, at the Vogtle nuclear […]

Earlier this year, nuclear technology giant Framatome and power sector lifecycle management service company Kinectrics launched an Ontario-based joint venture, Isogen, whose mission is to enable the use of

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) in February 2020 published capital costs and performance characteristic estimates for 25 new electric power generating technologies. These estimates come from global engineering and design firm Sargent & Lundy (S&L), which the EIA commissioned to help accurately reflect the changing cost of new power generation technologies for the Annual Energy […]

OPG Reaches First Criticality at Darlington 2, Delays Work at Unit 3. Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG’s) Darlington Unit 2 reactor, the first of four reactors the company is overhauling at the Darlington