nuclear

A focus on continuous improvement has helped the nuclear power industry shine in recent years. The U.S.'s fleet of nuclear reactors has achieved average capacity factors of more than 92% over the past five

UK Expands Offshore Wind Targets, Sets 1 GW Target for Floating Wind. The UK on Oct. 6 raised its target for offshore wind power capacity by 2030 from 30 GW to 40 GW. To help the nation meet its commitments

Coal-fired See our August 2020 issue for stories covering these plants: Caofeidian, Tangshan, China Cenal TES, Karabiga, Turkey GHECO-One, Rayong, Thailand NTPC Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, India Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, China Renewables See our September 2020 issue for stories covering these plants: Hydrostor Goderich A-CAES Facility, Goderich, Ontario, Canada Genale-Dawa III Hydropower Project, Ethiopia, Africa Kokomo […]

FirstEnergy Corp. President and CEO Charles “Chuck” Jones was fired late Thursday after an internal review found Jones and two other company executives violated company policies in connection with an alleged bribery scheme. The case is connected to a legislative bailout of the state’s nuclear power plants that occurred in 2019. The law, known as […]

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), a company commercializing fusion energy, recently announced a series of seven papers published and peer reviewed in a special edition of the Journal of Plasma Physics. The papers validate the company’s approach to commercial fusion energy. CFS said the papers, written in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Plasma […]

The growth of energy storage, along with deployment of new technologies, is at the heart of the future of distributed power generation. That’s according to industry executives participating in POWER’s Distributed Energy Experience. Woody Rubin, president of AES Distributed Energy, provided a keynote address on Oct. 20, talking about the rise of solar-plus-storage applications and […]

LOWER ALLOWAYS CREEK, N.J. (Oct. 15, 2020) – PSEG Nuclear’s Salem Unit 1 entered its planned refueling and maintenance outage on Oct. 3, 2020, when operators safely removed the unit from the regional power grid. Salem 1 is one of three nuclear units operated by PSEG in Salem County, New Jersey. Collectively, the three nuclear […]

Doubling down on its net-zero efforts, Duke Energy will retire all coal-only units in the Carolinas, multiply its renewable portfolio, and cease emitting methane in its natural gas business by 2030.  The company made the announcements on Oct. 12 at its first environmental, social and governance (ESG) day, a virtual event geared toward its investors. […]

OSTROVETS, Belarus (Oct. 11, 2020) — Unit No. 1 at the Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant, equipped with the VVER-1200 reactor has been brought to minimum control power (MCP). Minimum control power level is reached when neutron flux is recorded in a reactor working at a level sufficient to sustain a fission chain reaction. Reaching MCP […]

Howden has been awarded a contract with American based UT-Battelle (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) to supply the DYS Blowout Compressor and the Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) which will be an important part of the Tokamak Cooling Water System (TCWS). Tomkamak is a magnetic fusion device that has been designed to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion […]

It’s been nearly 35 years since the Philippines mothballed the country’s only nuclear power plant, declaring the 621-MW Bataan facility would not be commissioned despite the country spending $2.3 billion

Enel Ready to Close Italian Coal Plants. Enel, Italy’s largest power generator, said it wants to close three coal-fired units in the coming months as part of the company’s complete exit from coal. Enel

The U.S. power industry lacks forward-looking ways to measure grid resiliency and traditional reliability metrics could become irrelevant as more intermittent generation inundates the bulk power system. But rather than continually looking backward to learn from ever-increasing emergencies or close-shaves, power system operators must work to cultivate a balanced portfolio that considers all aspects of […]

Technological innovation has forever been part of the power generation sector, as electricity producers strive for more efficient and more economic ways to deliver power. The POWER magazine editorial staff, in a “State of the Industry” presentation on Sept. 28 to open the virtual 2020 Experience POWER conference, identified four trends in power generation that […]

September 22, 2020 – Framatome recently partnered with the EDF Group, French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and six additional organizations from academia and the French nuclear sector to pool research and development (R&D) related to nuclear reactor digital twins. As part of this four-year, digital reactor structuring project (le Projet Structurant Pour […]

A California company is gathering funding for development of a portable nuclear microreactor, designed for use in areas where other forms of power generation are not practical. Radiant, founded by former SpaceX engineers, on Sept. 22 said it has raised $1.2 million from angel investors as it designs what the company calls a “clean energy […]

Hitachi will formally end business operations on the Horizon Nuclear Power Plant in the UK, citing an “investment environment” that has become “increasingly severe due to the impact of COVID-19.”  The Tokyo, Japan–headquartered conglomerate’s move comes 20 months after it first suspended plans to build the plant in Wylfa Newydd in Wales as part of […]

South Korea’s president said the country will shutter 30 more coal-fired power plants by 2034, and bring additional solar and wind power resources online in the next five years in order to meet emissions reductions targets. President Moon Jae-in made the announcement Sept. 8 in a speech he delivered virtually for the United Nations’ International […]

The target in-service dates for two new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear power plant site in Georgia remain November 2021 and November 2022, respectively, Georgia Power said in a filing this week with the state’s Public Utility Commission. The utility on Aug. 31, in its “Twenty-third Semi-annual Vogtle Construction Monitoring Report,” said work on the […]

September 3, 2020 – Framatome signed an exclusive partnership agreement with ADAGOS to bring advanced, parsimonious artificial intelligence technology to the nuclear energy industry. ADAGOS’ NeurEco architecture introduces a third-generation neural network to solve large and complex problems using fewer computational and data resources compared to previous generations. “Artificial intelligence is a game changer for […]

Industry experts agree that deep geological repositories are needed for long-term storage of spent reactor fuel. They’re also digging for alternative methods. The U.S. Department of Energy earlier this year

Milestone for First 700-MW Domestically Built Indian Nuclear Reactor. Unit 3 of the Kakrapar nuclear power plant in the Indian state of Gujarat—an indigenously designed 700-MW pressurized heavy water reactor

AUGUST 26, 2020 — The Investment Committee of Rosatom has approved the project of modernization of the experimental shop-floor for nuclear fuel fabrication at the site of the Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC), an enterprise of TVEL Fuel Company of Rosatom in Seversk, Tomsk region (West Siberia). This will enable SCC to manufacture fuel assemblies with […]

Unit 1 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sent its first electricity to the UAE grid on August 19, according to a statement from the country’s ambassador to the U.S. The Barakah facility is the first nuclear power plant in the Arab world. The plant became operational about three […]

Russian energy officials said they have begun loading fuel into the first reactor at the new Belarusian Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), while at the same time confirming plans for the start-up of a second reactor at the site in Astravets. The plant is the first nuclear power facility to be built in Belarus. The project […]

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” […]

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

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 […]