nuclear

A widespread misconception persists that nuclear plants can only function as inflexible baseload sources of power—and it’s hurting prospects for the nuclear sector’s role in the world’s future power

A wide-ranging bill introduced by a large group of bipartisan U.S. senators on March 27 seeks to cement the role advanced nuclear reactors will play in the nation’s future power mix.  The “Nuclear Energy Leadership Act” (NELA), aims to “reestablish U.S. leadership in nuclear energy,” which has been lost to state-sponsored development in Russia and […]

Several power-sector CEOs—appearing at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Summit in New York this week—suggested that existing nuclear power plants should not be allowed to slowly vanish from the U.S. electricity grid under market pressure caused by cheap natural gas and the growth of renewable energy. The leaders submitted that nuclear power provides important […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry on March 22 said his department will guarantee up to $3.7 billion in additional loans to finance continued construction of two new nuclear reactors at the Vogtle plant in Georgia. While Perry and other government officials stressed the importance of the project to the U.S. nuclear industry, critics called it a […]

A report from an independent market monitor for PJM Interconnection shows that natural gas-fired power generation topped coal-fired output in PJM in 2018, the first time that gas has topped coal in the history of the largest U.S. grid operator. The “2018 State of the Market” report from Monitoring Analytics LLC, which includes Volume 1 […]

Dominion Energy has reached an agreement with utilities in Connecticut to keep the Millstone Power Station, the state’s only nuclear power plant, in service for at least another decade. Dominion announced the deal March 15, the deadline the company had to tell ISO New England, the regional grid operator, whether it would retire the two […]

The U.S. has agreed to build six nuclear power plants in India, according to a joint statement from the two countries issued March 13 in Washington, D.C. The countries held two days of talks this week, discussing international security and nuclear cooperation. The talks involved Andrea Thompson, the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control […]

Nathan Myhrvold, the long-time polymath idea man for Bill Gates, his former boss at Microsoft, on March 12 told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) annual regulatory information conference, “Energy is the fulcrum that gives leverage to human ingenuity.” Nuclear, he said, must be a large part of providing that leverage to the world. Myhrvold, speaking […]

A Wyoming bill designed to keep coal-fired power plants operating in the state was signed into law by the state’s governor last week, one of several developments worldwide that impacted the power generation landscape in early March. Also in the U.S., the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) defended its hiring of a contractor that led the […]

The Distribution System Is Newest Energy Transition Frontier in Europe. The European power sector is urging member states and regulators within the European Union (EU) to speed up development of

Eight years after Germany decided it would halt nuclear power production by 2022, the country that relied on lignite and hard coal for 38% of its generated power in 2018 will phase out coal by 2038 or earlier

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on February 28 said nuclear power and the use of clean coal technology are the way to combat climate change and reduce emissions from the energy sector. Perry, speaking at a joint press conference in Washington, D.C., with Fatih Birol, director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said, “We believe […]

Arizona’s largest utility wants to support its renewable power portfolio by adding as much as 850 MW of battery storage capacity to its solar power plants by 2025. Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) made the announcement February 21. Don Brandt, the utility’s chairman and CEO, in a statement said, “Arizona is already a national leader […]

Southern Company CEO Thomas Fanning on February 20 said construction of two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle is on track and could possibly beat the current regulatory approved startup dates for the AP1000 units. Fanning spoke Wednesday on the company’s fourth-quarter 2018 earnings call. He said Georgia Power, a Southern Company subsidiary and the […]

Georgia regulators on February 19 approved another $526.4 million in expenditures by Georgia Power related to the long-delayed Vogtle nuclear power plant expansion near Waynesboro, Georgia. Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) members voted 4-1 to approve a settlement agreement for the 19th Vogtle Construction Monitoring (VCM) Report, which covers the first six months of 2018. The […]

Pennsylvania, the nation’s second-largest nuclear power-producing state, is now definitively a battleground for nuclear power subsidies.  Last week, in two memos that were circulated in the state House and Senate, seven lawmakers signaled they would soon introduce legislation that would update a 2004 state law—the Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards (AEPS)—to include nuclear power. The law […]

WILMINGTON, North Carolina—February 5, 2019—Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF) announced today the signing of an agreement with ENUSA Industrias Avanzadas S.A. S.M.E (ENUSA) to extend the GNF ENUSA Nuclear Fuel S.A. (GENUSA) joint venture. Incorporated in 1996, GENUSA markets and sells nuclear fuel to boiling water reactor (BWR) operators across Europe. The agreement will extend the […]

India’s 220-MW Kaiga 1 nuclear power plant, an indigenously designed pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR), on Dec. 31 became a world record holder for running 962 unbroken days. The previous record for

Small modular reactors (SMRs) are becoming a technology of choice among those who continue to push nuclear power as a zero-emissions source of generation. The collapse of plans to build new large reactors in the UK has meant companies there are looking at SMRs in an effort to keep that country’s nuclear power program viable. […]

Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) has again told New Jersey officials it needs subsidies to continue operating its three nuclear power units in the state, reiterating that without financial help it will begin closing its Hope Creek Generating Station and Salem Nuclear Power Plant as early as 2022. The three reactors are the only remaining […]

Power companies worldwide are struggling to balance talent shortages with changing skills needed for an increasingly digitalized business, the newly released Global Energy Talent Index (GETI) suggests.  The Jan. 22–released annual energy recruitment and employment trends report by Airswift, a global energy workforce provider, and Energy Jobline, an online jobsite dedicated to the energy and […]

WILMINGTON, North Carolina—January 22, 2019—GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) announced today that it has completed the segmentation of reactor internals at Oskarshamn Nuclear Power Plant (OKG) Unit 2 in Oskarshamn Municipality in Sweden. Employing cutting edge technology, GEH dismantled, segmented and packed reactor internals of OKG Unit 2, a boiling water reactor that began operating […]

PORTLAND, Ore. (Jan. 15, 2019) — NuScale Power announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC), to evaluate NuScale’s small module reactor (SMR) nuclear power plant for use in Jordan. The agreement continues to showcase the immense international interest in NuScale’s innovative nuclear technology. JAEC is […]

Operators of the Columbia Generating Station have set a new generation record at the nuclear plant 12 miles north of Richland, Wash., sending more than 9.7 million MWh to the Pacific Northwest power grid during 2018.  The single 1,207-MW single GE-built Mark-2 boiling water reactor that is owned and operated by Energy Northwest—which comprises 26 […]

Renewable energy sources increased their share of the UK’s electricity supply in 2018, with new wind farms and biomass plants helping renewables contribute a record 33% of the country’s power in the past year. Coal-fired units, meanwhile, saw a 25% drop in their output, with coal providing about 5% of the country’s total generation. The […]

According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the nation’s 99 operating nuclear reactors operated at an average capacity factor of 88% in 2017—the same as in 2016—despite market forces that have rendered several units uneconomical. Figures for 2018 are expected in 2019 and may look different. Oyster Creek Nuclear Station, for example, was permanently closed […]

EDF Inks Agreement for O&M Services at UAE Nuclear Plant. French nuclear power plant operator EDF will operate and maintain the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) under a

COVERT, Mich. (December 28, 2018) – Palisades Power Plant returned to service this morning, following the completion of its successful scheduled refueling and maintenance outage. Control room personnel returned the plant to operation, sending electricity to the grid after a planned shutdown that began October 28. This was the 26th refueling in the plant’s history. […]

A bipartisan bill to modernize regulation of the nation’s nuclear power fleet passed in the U.S. Senate on Dec. 20 and the House on Dec. 21 without much opposition. It now heads to President Trump.   S.512, better known as the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA), seeks to provide a program to develop […]

Another nuclear power project has been delayed, as the Fennovoima consortium and Russia’s state-run nuclear company Rosatom said the Hanhikivi 1 power plant’s projected start-up date has been pushed to 2028, four years behind the original schedule and eight years later than the proposed start when Finland’s government supported the project in 2010. The announcement […]