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"The Shaw Power Group has won a contract to study the feasibility of upgrading a 2,155-megwatt nuclear plant in Michigan to a capacity of more than 2,450 megawatts. Such nuclear upgrades are called "uprates" in the industry. Last week, executives of the power group's parent, The Shaw Group, told analysts that they were aggressively pursuing uprate business. CEO Jim Bernhard Jr. said about 37 of the 104 commercial nuclear reactors in the United States have been uprated. Shaw performd about half of those, and he said the remaining 67 units represented a potential market of $25 billion in contracts."

"Areva (CEPFi.PA) has won U.S. approval to upgrade a nuclear safety system at a plant in the country, a move that could help ease concerns over the security systems of a new generation of French nuclear power reactors. Stocks Nuclear safety bodies in France, Britain and Finland last year had asked Areva to make the controls and safety systems within the reactor more independent of each other to avoid both systems failing at the same time. [ID:nL2386389] Areva, the world's largest nuclear plant builder, said on Tuesday that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission had cleared the upgrading of the digital instrumentation and controls (I&C) system included in the design of new nuclear plants."

"The Dept. of Energy this week annonced two funding opportunities for universities and colleges to start or expand basic research programs associated with nuclear science and engineering. As part of the Nuclear Energy University Programs, DOE is providing about $14.5 million to "upgrade university-level research reactors and purchase general scientific equipment and instrumentation." DOE is providing up to $7 million for university reactor upgrades and equipment and $7.5 million for general scientific equipment and instrumentation."

Increase would make power station's reactor largest in United States The power to make electricity at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station could rise for the first time in its 24-year history by 2012 - though not from a second reactor. A public hearing is set for Oct. 29 before the Mississippi Public Service Commission to increase the Claiborne County plant's capacity to 1,443 megawatts, which would make it the nation's largest single reactor. In a petition filed in May, shortages in long-term baseload generation for Entergy customers in three states who receive power from the plant are cited as reasons for the upgrade. If you go A public hearing to consider output increase at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station will be at 10 a.m. Oct. 29 at the Mississippi Public Service Commission located on the first floor of the Woolfolk State Office Building at 501 N. West St. in Jackson. Separately, applications remain alive, at least on paper, for new reactors at Grand Gulf and at Entergy's River Bend Station in St. Francisville, La., though issues with component costs and design prompted Entergy Nuclear to suspend both efforts in January, Vicksburg-based spokesman Don Arnold said.

Increase would make power station's reactor largest in United States The power to make electricity at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station could rise for the first time in its 24-year history by 2012 - though not from a second reactor. A public hearing is set for Oct. 29 before the Mississippi Public Service Commission to increase the Claiborne County plant's capacity to 1,443 megawatts, which would make it the nation's largest single reactor. In a petition filed in May, shortages in long-term baseload generation for Entergy customers in three states who receive power from the plant are cited as reasons for the upgrade. If you go A public hearing to consider output increase at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station will be at 10 a.m. Oct. 29 at the Mississippi Public Service Commission located on the first floor of the Woolfolk State Office Building at 501 N. West St. in Jackson. Separately, applications remain alive, at least on paper, for new reactors at Grand Gulf and at Entergy's River Bend Station in St. Francisville, La., though issues with component costs and design prompted Entergy Nuclear to suspend both efforts in January, Vicksburg-based spokesman Don Arnold said.

The U.S. Department of Energy today delivered the Bratislava Nuclear Security report to the White House, which detailed the status of work agreed to by Presidents Bush and Putin in Bratislava in 2005. U.S. and Russian officials from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the U.S. Department of Defense, the Russian Ministry of Defense and State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom" reviewed work to complete nuclear security upgrades in Russia at meetings in Moscow last week. Building on this success, both countries will continue to actively pursue additional Presidential objectives.

President Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday that Russia must upgrade its nuclear deterrent and fully supply the Armed Forces with modern weaponry by 2020. He said Russia would make the modernization of its nuclear deterrent and Armed Forces a priority in light of the recent military conflict with Georgia. Moscow launched a five-day military operation "to force Georgia to peace" in response to an attack by Georgian forces on South Ossetia on August 8.

The Limerick nuclear power plant in Montgomery County is about to undergo a major facelift. Improvements the company says are designed to increase the amount of electricity the plant puts out. The first phase of the upgrade or in industry terms "uprate" involves installing equipment to get better readings and allow the plant to operate closer to its legal capacity. Exelon officials say that could yield an improvement of up to two percent. Limerick communications manager Joe Szafran says the industry is focused on getting as much electricity as it can from the reactors that are out there and doing it more efficiently:

The Limerick nuclear power plant in Montgomery County is about to undergo a major facelift. Improvements the company says are designed to increase the amount of electricity the plant puts out. The first phase of the upgrade or in industry terms "uprate" involves installing equipment to get better readings and allow the plant to operate closer to its legal capacity. Exelon officials say that could yield an improvement of up to two percent. Limerick communications manager Joe Szafran says the industry is focused on getting as much electricity as it can from the reactors that are out there and doing it more efficiently:

"The Obama administration, seeking to bolster congressional support for the new strategic arms treaty with Russia, plans to spend $180 billion over the next decade to upgrade the nation's nuclear weapons complex, keep warheads capable and modernize strategic delivery systems, according to documents delivered Thursday to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates scheduled to testify in support of the treaty next week, the administration sent lawmakers the treaty package, including a classified report that lays out in detail its program to sustain "a strong nuclear deterrent for the duration of the new START treaty and beyond." "

The 4th AtomTrans-2009 international nuclear forum has opened in St. Petersburg. BaltInfo.ru news agency reported Tuesday that AtomTrans-2009 Press Secretary Vadim Titov said that a key topic of forum discussions will be "efforts to ensure safety in the transportation and use of radioactive materials, as well as safety in the handling of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste." Addressing Atomtrans-2009 participants Atomspetstrans JSC Director Vladimir Naschokin said that upgrading Russia's containers for transporting spent nuclear fuel will require investment of $79 million to $93 million. Otherwise, according to Naschokin, while the need for transport will continue until 2028, in the absence of investment a shortage of containers for transporting spent nuclear fuel from Russia's 19 VVER-440 440-megawatt reactors will occur beginning in 2016. Besides radioactive material transport issues, the forum will also cover matters concerning intermediate storage and final isolation of radioactive waste. Scientists and specialists attending the forum will also tour nuclear power industry facilities in northwestern Russia.

The 4th AtomTrans-2009 international nuclear forum has opened in St. Petersburg. BaltInfo.ru news agency reported Tuesday that AtomTrans-2009 Press Secretary Vadim Titov said that a key topic of forum discussions will be "efforts to ensure safety in the transportation and use of radioactive materials, as well as safety in the handling of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste." Addressing Atomtrans-2009 participants Atomspetstrans JSC Director Vladimir Naschokin said that upgrading Russia's containers for transporting spent nuclear fuel will require investment of $79 million to $93 million. Otherwise, according to Naschokin, while the need for transport will continue until 2028, in the absence of investment a shortage of containers for transporting spent nuclear fuel from Russia's 19 VVER-440 440-megawatt reactors will occur beginning in 2016. Besides radioactive material transport issues, the forum will also cover matters concerning intermediate storage and final isolation of radioactive waste. Scientists and specialists attending the forum will also tour nuclear power industry facilities in northwestern Russia.

A Minnesota Indian community with a nuclear power plant as its neighbor is holding a rally to voice opposition to a utility's expansion plans there. Friday's rally by the Prairie Island Indian Community is the latest step it has taken to sound off against Xcel Energy Inc.'s plans for the Red Wing plant. The utility plans to spend $600 million to upgrade the plant so it can handle higher pressure and temperatures that could add 164 megawatts to its output. Regulators have also signed off on expanded waste storage. Tribal members say they are concerned about health and safety risks from the plant.

A Minnesota Indian community with a nuclear power plant as its neighbor is holding a rally to voice opposition to a utility's expansion plans there. Friday's rally by the Prairie Island Indian Community is the latest step it has taken to sound off against Xcel Energy Inc.'s plans for the Red Wing plant. The utility plans to spend $600 million to upgrade the plant so it can handle higher pressure and temperatures that could add 164 megawatts to its output. Regulators have also signed off on expanded waste storage. Tribal members say they are concerned about health and safety risks from the plant.

"New nuclear reactor designs on the horizon have won the favor of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but don't expect to see them in Southern California anytime soon. Nuclear scientists and engineers gathered for a conference in San Diego earlier this month to talk about advances in the field. Although the new designs are billed as safer and more efficient, it is unlikely that Southern California Edison will spend the billions necessary to upgrade the two aging reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which sits on the coast about 18 miles north of Oceanside, observers and officials said last week. Those reactors started operating in 1982 and are licensed to continue until 2022."

Ratepayers will pay most of bill for nuclear plant upgrades FREDERICTON - If they weren't stuck with the bill, ratepayers might be able to sympathize with surprise costs that face NB Power's refurbishment project at Point Lepreau. The refurbishment project is currently running three to four months behind schedule, at a cost of about $20 million per month to ratepayers. Each extra day will cost an extra $1 million in replacement fuel, and CEO David Hay says NB Power is on track to pay between $70 million to $90 million in unexpected replacement fuel costs to replace power normally generated by the reactor during the period it is down.

The head of Israeli Defense Ministry's Security-Diplomatic Bureau visited the Kremlin this week, intent upon convincing the Russians that equipping Iran, and perhaps Syria, with an upgraded version of their S-300 air defense system "would disturb the balance of power in the Middle East." What balance? The Russians had earlier supplied both Iran and Syria with the Tor-M1 short-range air defense system. Iran had positioned dozens of the units around its nuclear facilities, all of which - including the Russian-built about-to-be-fueled nuclear power plant at Bushehr - have long been subject to a Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The leader of the U.S. Strategic Command said yesterday that "time is not on our side" to modernize the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, particularly as China and Russia upgrade their nuclear warheads and delivery systems.

ONE of the government advisers on the selection of sites for new nuclear reactors has branded Sellafield as "a poor location for a modern nuclear power station". In an extract from his book Nukenomics: The commercialisation of Britain's nuclear industry, Ian Jackson, writes: "For example, despite its substantial nuclear workforce, the remote Sellafield complex in North West England is a poor location for a modern nuclear power station because its electricity transmission infrastructure cannot carry the energy output of a large nuclear station. Securing planning permissions from Cumbria County Council and capital investment from the National Grid for major transmission upgrade stretching across the Lake District are key logistical and economic barriers at Sellafield."

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates called Tuesday for the modernization of the US nuclear arsenal to strengthen deterrence at a time when Russia and China are upgrading their nuclear weapons. "Currently, the United States is the only declared nuclear power that is neither modernizing its nuclear arsenal nor has the capability to produce a new nuclear weapon," he said in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.

If you thought the Cold War was over-that long nuclear standoff that shaped the last five decades of the 20th century-think again. Following his American counterpart, and perhaps prompted by new tensions over the war in Georgia and the agreement between the U.S. and Poland to deploy a missile defense system there, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has announced plans to upgrade that country's "nuclear deterrent" by 2020.

A new nuclear arms race has been entirely predictable. The Russian announcement (The Herald, September 27) that they plan to upgrade their nuclear space defence and build new nuclear submarines armed with cruise missiles is what was expected in response to the US decision to install new "missile shield" bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. And part of this scenario is the Blair/Brown decision to initiate a Trident renewal programme, committing us to a nuclear weapons programme for another 50 years.

nergySolutions and Union Pacific Railroad struck an agreement Monday for rail services and upgrades to an existing line that will support moving about 16 million tons of uranium-mill tailings over the next 20 years away from their current location near the Colorado River and Moab. The Department of Energy announced Tuesday that the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding to ready a rail line between the tailings pile and the new 250-acre disposal site at Crescent Junction 30 miles away in time to start moving the waste next spring.

The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) has given formal consent for a three-and-a-half year programme to remove all fuel from the Scottish plant to commence. Chapelcross ceased generation in 2004 and preparations for de-fuelling the reactors including design, manufacturing, installation and the commissioning of a £30m upgrade to the de-fuelling route have now been completed.