Isotope producers under repair

Status updates from NRG and AECL explained the difficulties in conducting major repairs on the world's two biggest medical isotope production reactors...
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ESP application for new Texan plant

Exelon has submitted an application to the US nuclear regulator for an early site permit (ESP) for the construction of a new nuclear power plant in Victoria County, Texas. It has also formally withdrawn its application for a combined construction and operating licence (COL) for the proposed plant...
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South Korea Seeks Right to Reprocess Nuclear Material

Arguing that it is running out of space to store spent nuclear fuel rods, South Korea has called for the right to reprocess used material in spite of U.S. concerns about the effect of such work on the security situation on the Korean Peninsula, the Christian Science Monitor reported yesterday...
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New U.S.-Russian Arms Control Deal Set for Signing

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev today approved the terms of a new nuclear arms control agreement, paving the way for the leaders to sign the deal in the Czech capital of Prague next month, the Wall Street Journal reported...
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Texas Nuclear Expansion on Track

The South Texas Project nuclear expansion made another big step forward last week.And that is good news for San Antonio. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff revealed that it intends to recommend that the commission give the project a positive finding on environmental impact, the Houston Chronicle reported...
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USEC reaches American Centrifuge milestone

USEC is operating a cascade of AC100 centrifuge machines in a commercial-plant configuration at its Piketon, Ohio, plant. The company hopes that reaching the milestone will improve its chances of receiving a loan guarantee for its American Centrifuge Plant...
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Utility Regulators Want Yucca Open

An organization of state utility regulators on Tuesday joined a number of states in challenging the Department of Energy's plan to drop a site at Yucca Mountain, Nev., from consideration as a repository for high-level radioactive waste...
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EnergySolutions: N-power revival is right policy

Energy development and energy independence are enormous issues our nation must continue to address aggressively. The economy will recover, growth will resume and energy deficiencies will, once again, be front and center as topics of major concern...
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US hopeful of future N-deals with the UAE

Richard Olson, the US Ambassador to the UAE, said his country was optimistic that American companies would be able to get more opportunities in the future nuclear programmes of the UAE, which awarded the construction contracts for its first batch of reactors to a Korean 
consortium...
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Illinois Senate votes to overturn nuclear ban

The Illinois state Senate has voted overwhelmingly to remove a 23-year-old moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants in the state. However, the bill stills need to be approved by the House....
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Nuclear 'roadmap' in latest Russia-India accords

New agreements between Russia and India cover cooperation in nuclear power and a roadmap for this year's work by the two countries. Meanwhile, the Indian government has deferred a bill that could be vital to opening nuclear trade with the USA....
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High-level waste returned to Japan

The first consignment of solid high-level waste belonging to Sellafield's Japanese customers has safely arrived in Japan from the UK following a journey by ship of over six weeks. The waste arose from the reprocessing of those customers' used nuclear fuel at Sellafield....
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U.S. Carefully Considers Future of Nukes in Europe

The Obama administration is proceeding with caution as it considers pulling all U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe, the Associated Press reported today. While certain officials from Germany and other European nations are calling for removal of an estimated 200 Cold War-era nuclear arms from the continent, an imminent decision is not expected from Washington...
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Head of Nuclear Regulatory Commission calls Obama's action 'unfortunate'

A departing leader of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week criticized President Barack Obama's handling of the Yucca Mountain shutdown, saying it has damaged the government's credibility on nuclear matters...
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Next loan guarantee could go to Bay City nuke plant

The head of the group planning to add two nuclear reactors to the South Texas Project power plant near Bay City said Friday he believes it could be next to receive a federal loan guarantee...
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State support key to U.S. nuclear revival

Full support from state regulators is viewed as critical to keep the U.S. nuclear revival moving forward, utility executives said this week at the IHS CERA energy conference in Houston...
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Gulf Nations Urged to Press China on Iran Penalties

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates must exert greater pressure on China to back a fourth U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution against Iran over its disputed nuclear activities, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday...
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Nuclear Smugglers Still at Work, Expert Says

Iran admits building a secret uranium enrichment facility in the religious hub of Qum. Pakistan's High Court releases nuclear black marketer Abdul Qadeer Khan from house arrest. Spy satellites reveal North Korea boring another tunnel in a remote mountainside. Israeli warplanes bomb a suspicious facility in the Syrian desert...
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Nat Gas To Change US Supply, But Nuclear Also Needed

North America's bounty of unconventional gas will likely transform the continent's energy supply picture, but it won't radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a report released Wednesday by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates said. Replacing coal-fired generation units with relatively cleaner-burning natural gas power plants alone won't cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% in 2050, an oft-discussed target. The deployment of nuclear and renewable energy facilities as well as carbon capture and storage will be needed to meet that goal, IHS CERA says...
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NRC Commissioner Takes a Stand on Obama’s Yucca Decision

Dale Klein, Commissioner and former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) challenged the premise on which President Obama based his move to withdraw the application to permit the geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. At a conference in Bethesda, Maryland yesterday Commissioner Klein emphasized that it was politics, not science, which led to this decision...
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Science, Technology Crucial to Nuclear Disarmament, Report Says

A new report from the American Physical Society urges the Obama administration to take steps that would enable science and technology to better support the U.S. goals of nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament...
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Obama Presses Senators to Revive Climate Bill

President Barack Obama renewed his push to get a climate and energy bill through Congress in the coming weeks, meeting at the White House Tuesday with cabinet officials and senior Democratic and Republican senators working on the issue...
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EDF, Rosatom may extend nuclear partnership

French power group EDF (EDF.PA) and Russian rival Rosatom are looking at extending a nuclear partnership to offer new reactors outside their domestic base, Les Echos newspaper said on Tuesday...
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It Will Take Years For US to Get off Fossil Fuels: Chu

It will take the US years to get away from using fossil fuels, Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu told CNBC Tuesday.As for nuclear energy, Chu said the US is working on a long term plan over several decades to develop safe nuclear technologies...
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Teams Compete for NGNP Design

The USA has asked for more reactor design work from two technology teams led by General Atomics and Westinghouse. One of the designs could be picked for construction as the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP)...
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Syria, Israel Unveil Plans For Nuclear Energy

Syria and Israel both announced their intentions today to pursue atomic energy capabilities, which for Jerusalem could lead to more international scrutiny on its widely assumed but always undeclared nuclear weapons program, the Associated Press reported...
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Virginia Researchers Prepare Helicopter for Assessing Nuke Damage

Researchers at Virginia Tech University are working on a self-operating helicopter that could be used to assess the effects of a nuclear strike on an urban area in the United States, Asian News International reported today...
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Senators Expect Rough Battle on Ratifying New START Pact

It remained unclear this week whether U.S. senators would ultimately vote to ratify a new nuclear arms control treaty the Obama administration is negotiating with Russia, Foreign Policy magazine's The Cable reported Tuesday...
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YUCCA MOUNTAIN: DOE asks to halt Yucca Mountain Agency submits paperwork to put repository down

The Department of Energy moved Wednesday to end almost 30 years of trying to bury nuclear waste in Nevada.DOE attorneys filed paperwork to withdraw a license application to build a repository at Yucca Mountain and to make it difficult if not impossible for the project to be resurrected. "The Secretary of Energy has decided that a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain is not a workable option for long-term disposition of these materials," the department said in a 10-page motion submitted to an arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Town Finds Good Neighbor in Nuclear Plant

Vermont would lose the source of one-third of its electricity, but residents say the move would forever change Vernon, the small town on the Connecticut River that has been the reactor’s home for 38 years...
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End of the line for Yucca Mountain

The withdrawal of its licence application yesterday marked the official end of the Yucca Mountain repository project...
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Computing boost for Japanese research

The fastest supercomputer in Japan has been put to use for nuclear energy research by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA). The new system has a performance over 12 times greater than its previous systems...
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Homeland Security Scales Back Development of New Radiation Monitors

The U.S. Homeland Security Department is curtailing its efforts on a new generation of radiation monitors that were at one point intended to replace the current line of sensors that screen cargo containers coming into the United States for material that could be used in a nuclear attack, a Senate committee announced yesterday...
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Lieberman: ‘detailed narrative’ of climate bill en route

The Senate trio trying to salvage climate legislation this year plans to begin circulating details of their long-awaited proposal very soon, said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of the architects of the measure...
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Support, worries over nuclear plants

Many Americans are in favor of increasing the nation's nuclear power capabilities, but large numbers worry about the potential consequences, a poll indicates...
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India moves on U.S. nuclear deal with new law

India's parliament will debate over the next month a new law to limit nuclear firms' liability in the case of industrial accidents, a move crucial for U.S. firms to tap into India's estimated $150 billion nuclear market...
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