Group items tagged

The U.S. Department of Energy is collecting comments over the next few weeks on its new timeline for cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. At meetings in Washington and Oregon federal officials will outline the new proposed schedule. It sets a timeline for cleaning up underground tanks of radioactive sludge and building a massive factory called the "vitrification" or "vit plant" to treat that waste. Carrie Meyer is a spokeswoman for DOE. She says the original cleanup and construction schedule drafted in 1989 wasn't realistic.

The U.S. Department of Energy is collecting comments over the next few weeks on its new timeline for cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. At meetings in Washington and Oregon federal officials will outline the new proposed schedule. It sets a timeline for cleaning up underground tanks of radioactive sludge and building a massive factory called the "vitrification" or "vit plant" to treat that waste. Carrie Meyer is a spokeswoman for DOE. She says the original cleanup and construction schedule drafted in 1989 wasn't realistic.

This is a nicely organized timeline of the nuclear age.

In a move that could affect its plans for a third nuclear reactor at North Anna Power Station, Dominion power is exploring options for another design. Dominion has been unable to reach an agreement with GE Hitachi on an engineering, procurement and construction agreement allowing Dominion to move ahead with Unit 3 at its plant on Lake Anna. Dominion nuclear operations spokesman Richard Zuercher said yesterday that time is the issue. "Our timeline to move forward to have a new unit operating at North Anna is between 2016 and 2018, and we have no agreement that gets us to that point," Zuercher said. He said that Dominion will seek out other vendors for an advanced reactor that can be licensed and built under that timeline.

"In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several nuclear power plant construction projects experienced major problems related to design and construction quality. Long timelines in the project construction cycles made many utilities going broke. Even before the nuclear renaissance can really take off, one has to examine whether utilities , contractors and designers have gained from the knowledge from the mistakes of the past period with changes in the quality of design and construction methods. Analysis The Southern Co's Vogtle Project Timeline apparently shows a lack of appreciation of lessons learned during the last construction cycle in the United States and during recent international construction to understand the causal factors that have led to construction problems."

Entergy still plans to form a separate company for its merchant nuclear generating plants, but the timeline for spinning off those assets is now undefined because of the distressed credit markets. Company executives said Tuesday that they still intend to "maximize the value" of the non-utility nuclear business. But Entergy has not moved as quickly as it had anticipated when it announced its plans in fall 2007. It said it was in a state of "rolling readiness" to complete the transaction. "This strategy enables Entergy to execute the spin-off following receipt of regulatory approvals and once the timing is right to access the credit markets," the company said in the Tuesday financial filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The U.S. Congress on Wednesday approved a landmark deal ending the three-decade ban on U.S. nuclear trade with India, handing a victory to President George W. Bush on one of his top foreign policy priorities. Here is a timeline of some key developments over the past three years:

The application by SCE&G and Santee Cooper to build two reactors in Fairfield County will have to work its way through state and federal regulatory agencies before the reactors begin operation. A look at the timeline:

Extensive timeline of the battle over uranium mining

Start-up of Europe's first EPR nuclear power plant, the Olkiluoto 3 under construction in Finland, has been postponed beyond June 2012 because civil construction is taking longer than was previously estimated, according plant owner Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO). Finland's nuclear regulatory agency has, meanwhile, called attention to "deficiencies" in the welding of the plant's cooling system, potentially causing further delays. The Finnish utility said last week that the plant's supplier, an AREVA-Siemens Energy consortium, is responsible for the current schedule, and that it has requested a re-analysis of the anticipated start-up date. Work on the long-awaited nuclear power project began in 2005, and the plant was originally due to come online in 2009, but the project has been consistently plagued with faulty materials and planning problems. AREVA in September revealed that the total cost of the flagship third-generation reactor had risen to some €5.3 billion-up from the originally estimated cost of €3 billion. Costs could go up even more because of timeline uncertainties.

Start-up of Europe's first EPR nuclear power plant, the Olkiluoto 3 under construction in Finland, has been postponed beyond June 2012 because civil construction is taking longer than was previously estimated, according plant owner Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO). Finland's nuclear regulatory agency has, meanwhile, called attention to "deficiencies" in the welding of the plant's cooling system, potentially causing further delays. The Finnish utility said last week that the plant's supplier, an AREVA-Siemens Energy consortium, is responsible for the current schedule, and that it has requested a re-analysis of the anticipated start-up date. Work on the long-awaited nuclear power project began in 2005, and the plant was originally due to come online in 2009, but the project has been consistently plagued with faulty materials and planning problems. AREVA in September revealed that the total cost of the flagship third-generation reactor had risen to some €5.3 billion-up from the originally estimated cost of €3 billion. Costs could go up even more because of timeline uncertainties.

UniStar Nuclear Energy, a joint venture between Electricite de France (EDF) and Constellation Energy Group Inc. (NYSE:CEG), and PPL Corporation (NYSE:PPL), a UniStar partner, have passed the first regulatory review on the road to building four new nuclear power plants. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission just added the fourth, a plant near Berwick, Pennsylvania, to its docket of combined license applications for new nukes. The NRC now has docketed 26 new nuclear units at 17 different sites for review and approval. It can take up to four years for a project to receive NRC approval, and that's without any public clamor against nukes. The timeline can go way out if lawsuits start getting filed.

The Government Accountability Office has dismissed a protest against the award of the $3 billion Mission Support Contract to a team led by Lockheed Martin. But the dismissal doesn't clear the way for Lockheed Martin to take over support services at Hanford now provided by outgoing contractor Fluor Hanford. Instead, the Department of Energy will address concerns raised by the GAO and a new decision will be made, according to the GAO. No timeline was given, but DOE released a statement Tuesday saying that it was "confident that the issues raised by the GAO can be addressed both thoroughly and expeditiously."

The author of a book that strikes down uranium exploration in Canada is applauding the New Brunswick government for its recent roadblocks to mining the element in the province. Jim Harding, a retired environmental and justice studies professor and author of Canada's Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System, made a stop in Moncton yesterday on a cross-country tour to chastise any move towards mining the radioactive rock. Harding argued the thesis of his book, which flatly states uranium creates more problems than solutions, backing his claim on a timeline of Saskatchewan's mining experience.

The owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant says it will have to wait almost 60 years before it has enough money to decommission the plant. Faced with that lengthy timeline, lawmakers are likely to try again to force Yankee to set aside funds for decommissioning. VPR's John Dillon reports: (Dillon) As the stock market has plummeted in recent months, so has the value of the Vermont Yankee decommissioning fund. It's worth around $397 million these days. But the expected cost of decommissioning is around $875 million.

This is NRC's official timeline chart for reactor licensing by design: AP1000 (Bellafonte, Lee Summer, Harris, Vogtle, Levy Cnty, Turkey Pt) ESBWR (N Anna, Grand Gulf, River Bend, Victoria Cnty, Fermi) EPR(Calvert Cliffs, Callaway, Amarillo Power, Bruneau, Nine Mile Pt) ABWR (South Texas) USAPWR (Commanche Peak)

Natural Resources Minister Donald Arseneault is vowing that uncovered uranium drill holes in the Moncton area will be filled soon or the company will face consequences. "If a company does not follow the rules or does it negligently, I will not tolerate that," he said. Arseneault didn't set a firm timeline for ensuring the holes are filled, but said he has the authority to revoke the company's claims if it's not done soon.

Construction costs for new nuclear plants have risen far faster than they have for the other competitive green options. The nuclear industry's shiniest new plant, built in Finland by France's most expert builder, Areva, has come in $2 billion over budget and more than two years behind schedule. The newest U.S. plant on the drawing boards is projected to cost between $12 billion and $24 billion dollars. The enormous costs, protracted timelines for build-out, and inevitable delays discourage private investors who want to see a rapid bang for their buck. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly clear that the key to solving the global warming crisis is speed. Nuclear power is now so expensive and so slow to build that a dollar spent on end-user conservation or on any of the other green alternatives saves between three and 10 times the carbon from entering the atmosphere as the same dollar spent on nuclear, and saves it now.

A timeline of events leading to the Energy Department submitting a license application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project in Nevada: _ 1982: Congress passes Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Requires federal government to find places to consolidate spent reactor fuel from commercial power plants and defense sites. Requires utilities generating electricity using nuclear power to pay one-tenth of one cent per kilowatt-hour into Nuclear Waste Fund. President Reagan signs bill January 1983

Plant will close its 40-acre secondary impoundment pond Cotter has committed to close its 40-acre secondary impoundment pond with its recent license amendment with the state, plant manager John Hamrick told the Lincoln Park/Cotter Superfund Community Advisory Group on Thursday. About 20 people gathered at Garden Park High School for the monthly CAG meeting. Hamrick said the agreement also calls for Cotter to establish a timeline for certain actions, including a March 31 deadline for a commitment letter. That document will detail Cotter's plans to either close its uranium plant south of Cañon City, the site of a Superfund cleanup, or retool it for continued production.

Washington state and federal officials announced a court-enforceable schedule Tuesday for cleaning up the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, ending more than two years of negotiations that followed dozens of missed deadlines. The sprawling Hanford Nuclear Reservation, created near the Tri-Cities as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb during World War II, has been a focus of extensive cleanup efforts for two decades. In that time, the pact that governs cleanup has been changed more than 400 times. Washington state sued the Energy Department last November over missed cleanup deadlines, though the two sides settled part of the lawsuit in February. That agreement accelerated cleanup of contaminated groundwater along the neighboring Columbia River, among other things, and both sides said it would shrink the 586-square-mile site to just 75 square miles by 2015.