TVA plan update

MarketWatch is now reporting the same thing we noticed and reported here a short while back - namely, that the Tennessee Valley Authority is...

Some Calvert Cliffs comments

By now, many of you have read the letter that Constellation Energy has sent to Electricite de France, both of whom are partners in UniStar, ...

B&W does get a Bellefonte contract after all

Just in here is the news that Babcock & Wilcox, original reactor vendor for the cancelled Bellefonte 1 & 2 reactor plants in Alabama...

Breaking 5:45 PM EDT Weds - EDF to go it alone?

Bloomberg is presently reporting that Electricite de France, or EDA, has responded to Constellation's having backed off plans to add a n...

TVA brief update

Nuclear Engineering International is reporting that the Tennessee Valley Authority's long term plan includes an increased focus on nucle...

Pilgrim: Tritium >limits again

We note briefly now that the groundwater sampling at Entergy's Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station (General Electric BWR plant) near Plymouth,...

NRC Special Inspection: Robinson 2

No surprise to anyone with any smidgen of knowledge of the industry is the arrival of an NRC inspection team at Robinson-2 yesterday. This a...

Back to Bataan!

By following this link you'll see a very fascinating web page. As it happens, the Philippines began construction of a Westinghouse pres...

Funding issues for new plants...

Two recent announcements have put a little hitch in the nuclear renaissance. First, Constellation has halted further plans to add another nu...

Robinson problems...

We noted early today, and have now seen a Business Week report on, an incident at Robinson 2. It appears that for whatever unknown reason, ...

Bellefonte moving forward

On August 24th we noted here that TVA was moving toward finishing one or both B&W plants at the Bellefonte site; today we have reports t...

Vermont Yankee debate continues

The matter of whether or not Vermont Yankee is allowed to extend its state-issued license (if you don't recall our post on this a while ...

Surry 1 & 2 uprate approved by NRC

The NRC has approved an uprate of the two Westinghouse PWR plants at Virginia Power & Light's Surry Nuclear Power Station. These pl...

Dominion will build, even if it isn't nuclear

This article in Business Week describes the indication by Dominion Resources that it needs to increase its base load generating capacity - ...

State of the Renaissance

I can't put it any better than this article , just published in Industry Week and which is worth reading in whole. I've given the li...

FitzPatrick plant operation US record

Entergy's James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant (GE BWR-I, 2536 MWt / 852 MWe, online July 28, 1975) just set a US record with 702 da...

Awaiting shakeout of Piketon hearing

This article explained the meeting that was to be held the 13th for public discussion of construction of a new nuclear plant in Ohio. We...

Small RX plant at Savannah River?

World Nuclear News reported on the 10th that Hyperion has a fresh agreement with the DoE to construct one of its proprietary small, fast rea...

Looking back: Vallecitos

As I continue to follow the progress of the various projects here and abroad to advance nuclear energy, I can't help but wonder if we...

A good day for Westinghouse?

Another hurdle for Vogtle cleared; click here to read a brief AP piece reporting that a draft report issued by the NRC has vacated any envi...

FPL / Turkey Point 6 & 7 project funding

Rate increases have been approved for customers of Florida Power & Light, which is on track to acquire funds to construct two more gener...

Icebreaker LENIN

Our atomic showpiece vessel was, and remains, the N.S. Savannah; you can find links to see a great deal about this ship on this blog's h...

AP reports on standardized plants

This article comes to us today from the Associated Press. In it, author Ray Henry appears to try to get us to think that standardized plant...

Sherwood be nice

If you ask most people on the street, you'll find that there's a general opinion that fusion power is possible if we throw enough mo...

Comanche 3 & 4 .. ?

I've just finished reading this article , which seems to me to be a very well-balanced piece on the future plans for additional units at...

TVA to dust off Bellefonte?

Two unfinished BW-205 plants are located at TVA's Bellefonte Nuclear Station in Alabama, and every once in a while the idea of restartin...

Zion to be dismantled

ILLINOIS: The Zion generating station decommissioning and dismantling took a major step as ownership of the license for the site will be tr...

We kind of knew this

The Christian Science Monitor recently ran this article that is a fair summing up of the growing public and industry viewpoints on nuclear ...

Brief Crystal River status report

The outage at Crystal River continues... Originally planned as a steam generator replacement but now into a partial rebuilding of the contai...

Vogtle - not the way to start

Although the previous post about the GOP candidate support for nuclear energy must be good news for Southern Company, this article shows th...

GOP support for Vogtle

This article reports that both of the Republican Party candidates in the running to become Governor of the state of Georgia are decidedly i...

PSEG Early Site Permit applied for

Five or six sources reported this afternoon (probably more now) that PSEG had filed with the NRC an application for an Early Site Permit to ...

GTS and SNPF

Perhaps one of the least remarked nuclear plants in the US was the plant of the Saxton Nuclear Experimental Corporation, labeled usually by ...

Babcock & Wilcox / mPower Test Facility

I note that while there was some buzz generated by the July 28 announcement that Babcock & Wilcox is going to construct a test facility ...

Other updates on previously down plants

For completeness, we report that today's NRC status shows Surry and North Anna plants back at 100% PRx. This should complete previous i...

Susquhanna 1 back up

PR Newswire is reporting today that the river water problem at Susquehanna 1 is corrected and that the plant is back on line. Today's N...

Surry update

NRC reports show Surry at 98% power on the 17th and 100% on the 18th and today; apparent then that the voltage regulator problem was fixed q...

Virginia at 50%

Apparently Surry 2 did not complete the restart after turbine generator voltage regulator problems surfaced, contradicting our earlier repor...

Susquehanna 1 shutdown

PR Newswire is reporting that Susquehanna 1 shut down today when a leak of river water began in the lower level of the turbine building. It...

NRC Chairman at Vermont Yankee

The Brattleboro Reformer has been doing a bang-up job of covering all angles of the Vermont Yankee stew that's brewing up in Vermont .. ...

Bechtel, B&W and small NSS

Bechtel, Babcock & Wilcox form a consortium to build small Nuclear Steam Supply systems; see this link . B&W was shopping a design ...

You've GOT to see this; Vt. Yankee

It appears by this article and others that the pro-nuclear Vermont Energy Partnership has been closed out of NRC meetings with concerned pa...

Surry 2 back up after brief shutdown

Surry 2 is back on line today after a brief outage that began Sunday night with discovery of a leak on the river side of one of the condense...

Vogtle 3 & 4 construction restart very soon

Bloomberg is reporting that the hiring paperwork omission that has held up construction work at the Vogtle site is cleared up and that cons...

Good news for once; an anniversary!

Catawba Nuclear Station just hit 25 years of operation, as reported by the Herald out of Rock Hill, S.C. The plant is owned and operated by...

Babcock & Wilcox to be independent

Today it was announced that McDermott Industries will indeed spin off B&W by issuance of new shares of B&W stock, one for each two s...

Temporary hitch at Vogtle

Apparently, a required screening form was omitted when new hires were made for work on what might become Vogtle 3 and 4; this resulted in th...

Duke Energy proposed Lee Nuclear Station

I happened upon this link while looking around at the great information that Duke has to offer online and I think it's a great thing th...

Oconee Visitor Center still operating!

Incredibly, the old Keowee-Toxaway Visitor Center built right by Oconee Nuclear Station is still open! Click on the photo and it should enl...

PNPF

Yes, I'm enjoying myself with BING maps. Here's a link showing the still in-place, SAFSTOR Piqua Nuclear Power Facility. This orga...

CVTR

Use of this link should give a view of the site of the old Carolinas-Virginia Tube Reactor which operated 1963-1967 and which has apparentl...

Northern States / NRC hearing

Some recent safety findings by NRC inspectors are to be discussed in public meeting on the 13th of July. This article details the meeting ...

India - nuclear energy expansion - Korea?

According to this very well written and concise article, India may be next in line for Korean nuclear plant construction. The article link...

Morocco wants in

The nation of Morocco expects that if all goes well it'll have nuclear energy on line in roughly 12 to 14 years, if this article is to ...

Saudi Arabia tosses in its hat

Reports are out today that Saudi Arabia will sign a deal with France for nuclear energy technology to both provide electricity and to provid...

Japan responds to contract losses

Several Japanese corporations have grouped together with funding from the Japanese government to develop a consortium whose purpose is the e...

Ghosts of Project Plowshare

Plowshare was the overall name given to US projects during the 60's and 70's that used nuclear devices (that's weapons, folks) t...

A further $9B in loans

Calvert Cliffs, Summer and South Texas sites are on the list now for loans as noted in this article which I now link here for completeness. ...

Pay attention, because they mean it

Did everyone notice how the South Koreans made the decision some years back to enter the US automobile market? They did it; Hyundai is now ...

If I have to do it, well...

All right. Normally I don't pay attention to news reports about nuclear energy in foreign countries, but this one's worth looking a...

Well, get Babcock & Wilcox to do it then!

This article complains strenuously about foreign-made components being included in all of the presently planned new-construction nuclear pl...

LaSalle tritium in groundwater

It seems that tritium has been detected in samples of groundwater around LaSalle County Generating Station. Exelon, owner of the site (LaSa...

Calvert Cliffs 3?

The initial moves to get a third plant at the Calvert Cliffs site are underway. This article indicates that loan guarantees are being soug...

Utah nuclear / Green River site

It looks like another early but important step in Utah getting a nuclear plant built has been taken. This article describes the funding ar...

Anti-nuke without a clue

This article on an admittedly liberal "news" site is just irritating. However, this is just one brand of stupidity we face. The...

Yucca Mountain on again

At least two sources are now reporting that the NRC has effectively told the DoE that it isn't a policy-making entity and that it cannot...

Idaho: Second atomic plant

It looks like another nuclear plant may be built in Idaho, which until recently didn't have plans for even one (outside of the long hist...

Davis-Besse

Davis-Besse was back online this morning at 4:25 AM according to a number of local news sources. The Cleveland Plain Dealer is reporting th...

Yankee dirt to move West

Because Vermont Yankee is in the spotlight right now for two reasons (contaminated ground water, and the state legislature's decision no...

Vermont- are you reading this?

Considering the fact that the Vermont legislature thinks that extending Vermont Yankee's license would be a bad idea, and that it would ...

WPPSS and/or Trojan Phoenix

This article published today is an excellent summation of the Pacific Northwest's experience with and view toward nuclear energy over t...

Bechtel Corporation

I've added links on the blog page to represent both of Bechtel's general nuclear energy concerns; namely, its original design and co...

Our newest nuclear power plant

The United States has completed the latest of a very long line of almost totally successful* nuclear power plants; that aboard the USS New M...

Nuclear Journal - June 24th

I notice today on the wires that Vietnam has announced intent to place online a fleet of nuclear power plants by the year 2030; this follows...

Where'd the time go?

Well, vacation's over in 20 minutes. That was too fast. I think I need vacations more often than every nine or ten years.

Miscellaneous Nuclear News Items

DAVIS-BESSE has been given NRC permission to start up following CRDM nozzle repairs to alleviate stress corrosion cracking; the plant is ex...

Daya Bay 2; I told you so.

We just looked around enough to get confirmation of what we wrote on June 15th (see the entry if you'd like) -- the "radiation lea...

Osorb?

Yes, Osorb. Supposedly, ABS Materials of Wooster, Ohio has a material made from silicon polymer that can absorb eight times its own mass in...

Vogtle 3 and 4 funding moving along

Just a note here to confirm in this blog for completeness that Georgia Power accepted the loan guarantee made by the Federal Government thro...

Vermont Yankee tritium, Vermont legislature ignorance

Entergy has revealed that the tritium leak to groundwater was due to a very likely unforseeable combination of circumstances, related both t...

Lightbridge all-metal fuel

Lightbridge Corporation has announced a new all-metal fuel that it has been developing as of this morning. This article describes the savin...

Vacation time going by

My vacation is more than half over. I haven't taken a vacation, that is to say a trip of any sort in any serious way in about nine years...

Xenon, etc.

Last month, a six-times normal Xenon concentration in the air was monitored in South Korea. That spurred looking for evidence of a nuclear ...

Davis-Besse to install new Rx vessel head in 2011

Because of pressure from the NRC, Davis-Besse will get its new reactor vessel head in a 2011 shutdown, instead of waiting through until a pr...

This isn't commitment. It's lip service.

I found an article at the Jacksonville (Fla.) Times that really details how a utility should NOT position itself for the nuclear resurgence...

Typewriter Convention Travelogue; Finale

No update was made for Saturday nite; I was too tired! The meeting that Richard held was, due mainly to Richard but also due to the input of...

Changing the assumptions

This article , by Rod Adams, is a reprint of a 1996 article he wrote wherein he challenges the assumption that in order for nuclear energy t...

Typewriter Convention Travelogue 7: FRIDAY

What a great day! After a truly event-free drive, and a quick clean-up, it was off to Richard's place to meet with some long-time frien...

Typewriter Convention Travelogue 6

Arrived safe; checked in and getting settled at my hotel. Didn't see anyone else with any typewriters....

Typewriter Convention Travelogue 5

About to depart here within 20 minutes, just a bit "ahead of the advertised," to borrow a railroading term. That means that the n...

Typewriter Convention Travelogue 4

About T minus 2 hr 50 min until launch here; expecting to arrive at my hotel around 3 or probably 4 PM down there in Cincinnati. Full tank ...

Sweden to allow new nuclear plants

Very new news as of this post; Sweden has decided to scrap its 1980 plan that called for phasing out all 10 of its nuclear reactors by this ...

Typewriter Convention Travelogue 3

Repairs to the Alpina are complete; the last consisted of gluing back in some loose soundproofing pads inside the ribbon cover. Now it'...

Poll: Do you favor the expanded use of nuclear power to meet the world's growing energy needs?

Poll: Do you favor the expanded use of nuclear power to meet the world's growing energy needs? This link goes to a poll at the MARKETWAT...

MarketWatch - broad nuclear coverage

This article and related features, linked conveniently, give a good idea of the level field that nuclear energy finds itself on now. I'...

Typewriter Convention Travelogue 2

Dave and I just finished making the mechanical repairs and tweaks to an ALPINA that I'll be bringing down with me to the meeting. It...

Surry-1 update (see June 13 entry)

More details are now out on the incident at Surry 1. It seems that a vital bus was dropped during maintenance, leading to loss of power to ...

Fuel Element Failures - see previous post...

Let's take a moment to look more closely at something I mentioned in my previous post - failed fuel elements in nuclear reactors. As I w...

Chinese Nuclear Plant "Radiation Leak" (Oh, my!)

There are some rather exaggerated reports that DAYA BAY 2 experienced some sort of "radiation leak" (whatever that's supposed ...

Typewriter Convention Travelogue 1

Here I am in northern Ohio at about T minus 72 hours and counting until I launch off to the convention for typewriter enthusiasts that's...

TerraPower, Gates, Toshiba / Westinghouse

It looks like the waste-burning reactor concept is getting a little closer to reality. Bill Gates' TerraPower has $35 million to put to...

Surry-1 N.I. fire, shutdown

Surry 1 experienced a partial loss of electrical power and a brief nuclear instrumentation fire leading to a scram on June 8th. This articl...

Minor leak at Vermont Yankee

A minor leak, at least in terms of flow rate, was found and fixed the same day at Vermont Yankee, according to this report . It would seem ...

Further $36 Billion in nuclear energy loans proposed

Republican senators are proposing a new "Practical Energy and Climate Plan" which will, in part, increase by $36 Billion dollars t...

Nuclear Power in Parade Magazine, Sunday June 6

Perhaps not particularly detailed when compared with other reports, but significant nonetheless was the appearance in the syndicated PARADE ...

AEHI Inc; Idaho plant project, nuclear desalinization

Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. is touting two interesting plans; first, one for a plant in Idaho for commercial power production (Idaho is s...

Davis-Besse closer to startup

The reactor vessel closure head repairs and modifications are complete, according to FirstEnergy Nuclear. According to MarketWatch , a town...

APRA library addition

We've just added a new volume to the APRA library here, which is a part of our historical research for the study on the early history of...

Tornado damage; Fermi-2 shutdown

According to this article , severe weather damage led to a shutdown of Fermi-2 near Detroit and an outage affecting 35,000 people yesterday ...