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"Stimulus funding has moved the Department of Energy one step closer to closing the book on the Cold War-era P-Reactor facility at the Savannah River Site. With the installation, testing and startup of six evaporator units, SRS can begin removing about 4.6 million gallons of water from the 105-P Reactor Disassembly Basin - a phase of in-situ decommissioning. "The safe startup of the disassembly basin evaporators marks another milestone for this history-making Recovery Act project," said Ray Hannah, DOE federal project director of the P-Reactor Project. "Removing the water from the disassembly basin and readying it to be filled with grout are important steps in decommissioning this Cold-War relic." Six fuel oil-fired evaporators were installed in the Disassembly Basin's Transfer Bay and started up on April 7 to remove the basin water. An additional four evaporators will be installed in the Monitor Pin Room area of the basin and should be online in mid-May. "

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authorized startup of a $3 billion uranium enrichment plant in New Mexico, the first major nuclear facility to be licensed in the US in the past three decades. NRC officials said in a news release Thursday they are satisfied the facility can begin operations. The Louisiana Energy Services facility near Eunice will use an enrichment process that employs centrifuges to separate uranium isotopes. The enriched uranium will supply fuel for nuclear power plants in the US and overseas. LES president and chief executive Gregory Smith calls the NRC approval "a turning point" for the nation's nuclear industry. The technology used at the New Mexico plant has been in place in Europe for more than 30 years."

Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko has approved the programme of a gradual dismantle of the Chernobyl atomic power plant. According to the plan it will take over 50 years to make the Chernobyl an ecologically safe place, clean of radioactive contamination. Starting from January 1 next year, Ukraine will begin pulling the plant down, a process divided into four phases. Ukraine plans to spend 4.075 billon grivna (over $US 620 million) of its budget and about $US 48 million of international financing just for the startup of the project, which involves certain urgent technical and ecological measures.

If it hasn't been clear that the cost of building a nuclear waste dump 90 miles from Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain far outweighs any benefit, a congressional hearing Tuesday made it crystal clear. Ward Sproat, the Energy Department official overseeing the project, told members of Congress that the startup cost of building and initially operating it will be about $90 billion. That's a significant increase over the last estimate, which put the cost at $58 billion.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a schedule for the Combined License (COL) review of the South Texas Project (STP 3&4) expansion today. Based on the NRC's schedule, Nuclear Innovation North America LLC (NINA) - the nuclear development company jointly owned by NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NRG) and Toshiba Corporation, anticipates receiving the COL for the new units in 2012. With this permitting schedule established, we can now move to complete the detailed design and construction schedules from pouring first concrete to fuel load and startup. Issuing the schedule marks the continuation of NRC's review based on a revision to the STP expansion application filed in September 2008. The revision incorporated a limited number of changes to enhance safety and increase the ability to complete the units on time and on budget using the proven NRC-certified Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) design.

Duke Energy Carolinas is likely to delay construction of its proposed Lee Nuclear Station for up to three years. Duke's latest long-term plan, filed this week with N.C. regulators, says the startup date for generating power at the Gaffney, S.C., plant could be put off to 2021. The delay is particularly likely if Duke can't find a construction partner for the $11 billion plant. The utility is moving its target date as concerns mount regarding the project's cost. Also, demand for power appears to be growing more slowly than in recent years. Duke's updated plans also call for delays in building the utility's proposed Buck Steam Station and Dan River combined-cycle gas plants. Janice Hager, head of Duke's resource planning, says it appears that demand for electricity - not adjusted for the weather - has been flat the last four years. Duke's new projections call for demand growth to return to an average 1.5% per year in the long term. But the company isn't projecting a spurt in demand once the recession ends.

It is clear that we need to address our dependence on coal and foreign oil and all the ills - from lung disease to global warming - they cause. But the question begs, does nuclear power offer a safe, affordable domestic solution? Advertisement Unfortunately, the facts suggest otherwise. The industry is dependent on subsidies and is not economically viable. Nuclear waste is problematic at best. The technology is not safe despite billions of tax dollars spent on research to try to make it safe. The claims from nuclear energy's proponents have always been too good to be true. "Too cheap to meter" was the first. Inaccurate power projections led to TVA's first nuclear plant construction program in the 1970s and '80s, leaving more than $25 billion in debt, which Tennessee Valley residents are still paying. Current estimated cost for one new 1,200-megawatt reactor is $7.5 billion. From 1950 to 1999, federal subsidies totaled around $145 billion. Cleanups of radioactive federal Superfund' sites are expensive, difficult and proceeding slowly. The fact is that they may never be cleaned up.

According to the latest info from the National Nuclear Security Administration's office in Oak Ridge, the initial loading of highly enriched uranium into Y-12's new high-security storage facility is planned for March 2010. Federal spokesman Steven Wyatt said that work would begin "following authorization to startup." But there's a lot of work that remains to be done before the new Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility is ready -- even though construction of the $549 million fortress was essentially completed in September 2008.

A former partner of a tiny startup trying to build a nuclear power plant in southern Idaho is shuttering its business just a year after the two outfits boasted of plans to erect facilities around the world. In July 2008, Alternate Energy Holdings, Inc. said it was going together with Houston-based Powered Corp. "to jointly develop nuclear reactors worldwide." But Rafic Koussa, a Powered director, told the Securities and Exchange Commission this week he's "in the process of winding up."

"Authorities have an environmental mystery on their hands after about 50 fish died near the discharge canal of Oyster Creek Generating Station. The nuclear plant went offline Wednesday for planned maintenance and restarted Saturday night. But the 47 floating fish were found Saturday morning, days after the shutdown and before the startup began. "It is puzzling that there could be a thermal shock this time of year. Usually it happens in the winter," said Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. Plant spokesman David Benson said Monday, "Our reactor was offline for four days. The discharge canal was at environmental-level temperatures. We found 47 fish over the weekend, mainly bluefish.""

"Energy Fuels Inc.'s $150 million uranium mill could be operating in early 2012, perhaps as prices for uranium begin to rise again, Energy Fuels President George Glasier said Saturday. "Uranium is back in favor," Glasier told the Colorado Plateau Section of the Society of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration Inc. Energy Fuels' Piñon Ridge mill in the west end of Montrose County is being evaluated by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Energy Fuels also is looking to establish long-term contracts that will help it to establish the revenue stream needed to gain financing for the mill, Glasier said."