Nuclear

South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. (SCE&G) announced the completion of another major construction milestone at its V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in Fairfield County, S.C. Having completed the first new construction nuclear concrete pour just seven months earlier, SCE&G finished the nuclear island basemat for Unit 3 on Nov. 4. “This successful basemat placement is […]

After decades of developing indigenous nuclear reactor technology, South Korea in 2010 voiced ambitions that entail exporting 80 nuclear reactors by 2030. In 2009, the country saw its first major deal, winning a lucrative $20.4 billion contract to build four APR-1400 reactors in the United Arab Emirates. That technology is an advanced version of the […]

South Korea, the world’s eighth-largest trading nation, whose trade volume has surpassed $1 trillion for two straight years, barely avoided blackouts between June and August this summer after the country’s

Owner/operator: Bruce Power According to Duncan Hawthorne, president and CEO of Bruce Power, 2012 was one of the most successful years in the company’s history. The $7 billion investment to revitalize four

Owner/operator: FPL Florida Power & Light (FPL) announced the afternoon of April 17, 2013, that its Turkey Point Unit 4 had completed its planned outage and was resynchronized to the grid earlier in the

Owner/operator: Entergy Corp. Courtesy:Entergy Corp. The Waterford 3 Steam Electric Station has been providing power to the Gulf Coast since 1985, when Entergy—then Louisiana Power & Light—first

In June of this year, the global remote monitoring company Azima DLI and Luminant, the Dallas-based power generation division of Energy Future Holdings, announced the launch of a pilot program to evaluate a

On Mar. 30, 2012, South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. (SCE&G), principal subsidiary of SCANA Corp., and Santee Cooper, South Carolina’s state-owned electric and water utility, received approval for

Following the election of President Francois Hollande in 2012, France has engaged the public in a series of regional and web-based debates to pin down key tenets of its so-called “energy transition.” The

A revised technical guidance released by the U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday to bolster a key facet of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) declares an end to U.S. support for multilateral development bank (MDB) funding for new overseas coal projects except in “narrowly defined circumstances.” The updated guidance document is designed to be incorporated […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued orders on Oct. 28 prohibiting two former employees of the Dresden Nuclear Power Station in Morris, Ill., from participating in nuclear work under its jurisdiction. The two were implicated in an incident involving violations of the Behavioral Observation Program. Even without the order, the workers in question are unlikely […]

EDF Group and the UK Government have reached an agreement in principle on the key commercial terms for an investment contract for the planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Finalization of this agreement and construction of the plant are subject to a final investment decision. The government and EDF will work together to address […]

FirstEnergy Corp. announced that two new steam generators have arrived in Oak Harbor, Ohio, for the company’s 900-MW Davis-Besse nuclear plant. The new steam generators are scheduled for installation during the plant’s refueling outage next spring. Fabrication began in 2009 at Babcock and Wilcox’s nuclear equipment manufacturing facility in Cambridge, Ontario. The 74-foot-long, 12-foot-wide steam […]

South Korea in the past week indicted 100 people—including officials from the state-run nuclear power plant operator—of corruption in a scandal over forged nuclear safety certifications. It is now also considering freezing ambitions to maintain nuclear’s 29% share in its total power mix—which means scrapping a previous goal to increase it to 41% by 2035. The scandal […]

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) has gone cold for good, but the dispute between Southern California Edison (SCE) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) over who’s responsible for the ill-fated steam generator replacement that led to the plant’s retirement is starting to heat up. On October 7, SCE president Ron Litzinger “formally demanded” that […]

Courtesy: OKG At noon on Sunday, Sept. 29, 2013, Oskarshamn Unit 3 (O3) was manually shut down due to a large amount of jellyfish present at the cooling water intake. Operations management chose to disconnect the facility from the grid as a preventive safety measure rather than risk an automatic shutdown due to insufficient cooling […]

2. Reactor module. The light water reactor NuScale Power Module is cooled by natural circulation and is entirely self-contained. Courtesy: NuScale The global nuclear industry has endured a rough patch since

Joining the growing list of major small modular reactor (SMR) technology developers is California-based General Atomics, which says its patented Energy Multiplier Module, EM2, is one of the “most advanced

Pressures on competitive power markets have fueled substantial declines in plant valuations over the past five years, with coal plants taking the brunt of the damage. That’s the conclusion of a new report from financial services firm Fitch Ratings released on Wednesday. The report, which calculated the net present value of plants across the country […]

Republicans in the House and the Senate introduced a new bill on Wednesday that would place new restrictions on the power of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Reorganization Plan Codification and Complements Act (NRC Reorganization Act) would guide the NRC’s policy and rulemaking actions and “clarify” the role and scope of […]

Members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy on Tuesday pushed top officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Department of Energy (DOE) to act immediately to restart the Yucca Mountain repository licensing process. Only two witnesses testified at the hearing on how the Obama administration intends to […]

In response to a pivotal federal court decision in August, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) last week said it will seek comments on how to restart the licensing process for the Yucca Mountain permanent nuclear waste repository in Nevada. The request will help the NRC “ensure the most efficient and productive use of the approximately […]

Norwegian company Thor Energy began a five-year-long irradiation test of thorium fuel at the Institute for Energy Technology’s research reactor in Halden, Norway, marking the most recent investigation into

On Sept. 25, 2012, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a construction and operating license (COL) to General Electric-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment LLC (GLE) for its uranium enrichment plant

The Department of Energy (DOE) has fully allocated funds to support Babcock & Wilcox’s (B&W’s) initial project period for its mPower small modular reactor (SMR) technology. The North Carolina–based company was the only winner selected in November 2012 of the DOE’s competitively bid SMR Licensing Technical Support Program, an initiative designed to boost the accelerated […]

Two federally sponsored reports submitted to the Eastern Interconnection States’ Planning Council (EISPC) suggest that the rapid expansion of natural gas could force the closure of between 35 GW and 60 GW of U.S. coal power capacity over the next five years and weaken market forces that now bolster existing nuclear plants. An Energy Department–funded […]

The embattled Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station in Vernon, Vt., will be permanently shuttered in the fourth quarter of 2014 after its current fuel cycle, plant owner Entergy Corp. announced on Tuesday. The decision to close the 41-year-old boiling water reactor was based on a number of financial factors, including sustained low natural gas prices […]

Entergy Corp. can continue operating Unit 2 at its two-reactor Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, N.Y., until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) decides whether to renew the unit’s operating license—even after it expires on Sept. 28. The federal regulator notified Entergy on Monday that it is “clear” the NRC will not issue a […]

The state of Vermont cannot force Entergy to shutter the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled on Tuesday. The federal appeals court partially upheld a prior lower court decision stemming from a lawsuit filed by Entergy Corp., the owner of Vermont’s only reactor. In his January […]