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In this remember-when photograph, a big crowd gathered on Nov. 4, 1963 to witness the shutdown of the historic Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge. Note the relative dearth of women in the crowd. The Graphite Reactor, of course, was built during World War II as a prototype facilitiy for production of plutonium. It was the world's first continuously operated nuclear reactor and went critical for the first time in the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 4, 1943. The reactor operated for 20 years, contributing greatly to the nation's development of radioisotopes for medicine and other uses and for pioneering work with neutron-scattering experiments, etc.

Georgia Power recently got some good news and bad news as it continues its push for new nuclear reactors in the state. The good news: Neither the Georgia Public Service Commission's public interest staff nor the state's biggest industrial customers oppose the new reactors outright. The bad news: Both the PSC staff and the industrial customers slammed the company's proposal to begin charging for the new reactors five years before they're complete. In filings late last week, the staff said it was recommending approval of the reactors subject to adoption of a number of financial limits.

The focal point of most of the safety concerns at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant recently has been the drywell, a steel barrier surrounding the plant's reactor vessel that is supposed to contain radiation in the event of an accident. The fear is that the 40-year-old drywell is continuing to erode to the point it could buckle, creating a potentially cataclysmic accident. That concern is well-warranted. Thanks to the tenacity of citizen activists, approval of a 20-year license renewal is being held up pending further analysis of the drywell's structural integrity. If it receives a clean bill of health, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is all but certain to approve a 20-year license extension for the plant, the nation's oldest commercial reactor.

Ontario, Canada's economic hub, announced Monday the suspension of its plan to build two new nuclear reactors, citing concerns about vendor Atomic Energy Canada Limited's viability, and pricing. The provincial government said AECL's bid to build the two new nuclear power plants at its Darlington station, 43 miles (70 kilometers) east of Toronto, by 2018 was the only one to meet its terms and objectives. The project was to be the first step in the modernization of Ontario's aging nuclear fleet. France's Areva and Westinghouse Electric Company, a subsidiary of Japan's Toshiba, had also bid on the project in February.

The cost to build a new nuclear power plant in Texas has risen to $10 billion, up from early estimates, but much below price tags of other proposed U.S. nuclear projects, an executive with NRG Energy Inc's nuclear development arm said on Tuesday. The "all in" cost to build two 1,350-megawatt nuclear reactors in South Texas has risen 40 percent from 2006 estimates which did not include financing costs, Steve Winn, chief executive of Nuclear Innovation North America (NINA), told the Reuters Global Energy Summit. While higher, NINA's current estimate is more than $10 billion under estimates from other nuclear developers that operate in states where regulators determine how much money utilities can charge customers for new power plants.

The federal government said late Monday it had received a report it commissioned on the best way to break up and sell Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. - but refused to release the report's recommendations, citing "commercial confidentiality considerations." Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt announced last spring that the government was prepared to break up AECL, a Crown corporation, into two parts. One part would include the business responsible for selling and building CANDU reactors, the large powerful machines that provide electricity at plants in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. The government signalled its intention to a seek a private sector partner to buy all or part of the CANDU business.

The federal government said late Monday it had received a report it commissioned on the best way to break up and sell Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. - but refused to release the report's recommendations, citing "commercial confidentiality considerations." Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt announced last spring that the government was prepared to break up AECL, a Crown corporation, into two parts. One part would include the business responsible for selling and building CANDU reactors, the large powerful machines that provide electricity at plants in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario. The government signalled its intention to a seek a private sector partner to buy all or part of the CANDU business.

Constellation Energy: Nuclear Operators Although it is too dangerous, too expensive and too centralized to make sense as an energy source, nuclear power won't go away, thanks to equipment makers and utilities that find ways to make the public pay and pay. Case in point: Constellation Energy Group, the operator of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland. When Maryland deregulated its electricity market in 1999, Constellation - like other energy generators in other states - was able to cut a deal to recover its "stranded costs" and nuclear decommissioning fees. The idea was that competition would bring multiple suppliers into the market, and these new competitors would have an unfair advantage over old-time monopoly suppliers. Those former monopolists, the argument went, had built expensive nuclear reactors with the approval of state regulators, and it would be unfair if they could not charge consumers to recover their costs. It would also be unfair, according to this line of reasoning, if the former monopolists were unable to recover the costs of decommissioning nuclear facilities. In Maryland, the "stranded cost" deal gave Constellation (through its affiliate Baltimore Gas & Electric, BGE) the right to charge ratepayers $975 million in 1993 dollars (almost $1.5 billion in present dollars). Deregulation meant that Constellation's energy generating assets - including its nuclear facility at Calvert Cliffs - were free from price regulation. As a result, instead of costing Constellation, Calvert Cliffs' market value increased.

About 350 people attended a meeting on a proposed $2 billion uranium enrichment plant planned by French-owned Areva SA to make fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. The meeting was held by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to outline its licensing process for the plant, slated to be operating by 2014. In a community that's been home to the Idaho National Laboratory since 1949, many at Wednesday's event said they were eager for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to allow construction of the proposed plant to be located about 20 miles from Idaho Falls.

When the "Clean and Renewable Energy Construction Act" was introduced in the Missouri Senate, the bill's title evoked images of new wind turbines sprouting from the northwest Missouri plains and solar panels lining St. Louis rooftops. A more fitting image might be two more massive cooling towers rising in Callaway County. While the legislation proposed last month may one day aid the development of more renewable energy or a next-generation coal-fired power plant, there's little doubt that its primary purpose is helping AmerenUE build a second nuclear reactor. It would do so by removing a key barrier - a 1976 law that prohibits the utility from charging customers for the plant before it's complete.

Water is needed to generate energy. Energy is needed to deliver water. Both resources are limiting the other-and both may be running short. Is there a way out? In June the state of Florida made an unusual announcement: it would sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the corps's plan to reduce water flow from reservoirs in Georgia into the Apalachicola River, which runs through Florida from the Georgia-Alabama border. Florida was concerned that the restricted flow would threaten certain endangered species. Alabama also objected, worried about another species: nuclear power plants, which use enormous quantities of water, usually drawn from rivers and lakes, to cool their big reactors. The reduced flow raised the specter that the Farley Nuclear Plant near Dothan, Ala., would need to shut down.

Discussion of nuclear power regularly leads to the issue of what to do with the waste created during power generation. One course of action many experts and scientists support is building geologic repositories where the dangerous, long-lived waste can be stored--for instance, inside of a mountain. Throughout the next year, the Bulletin's web-edition will present a country-by-country analysis of how certain nations are proceeding with the disposal of the waste produced by their nuclear power plants and reactors.

"Zelenogorsk, a remote centre of nuclear technology, is a closed city with big ambitions. A French multinational has arrived with new technology and an eye toward renewable energy A Soviet-era nuclear plant in a closed city in Siberia is making a bid to become a player in the future of sustainable energy. Related Articles * Phenomenon of closed cities * Picture gallery: Russia's closed cities Since 1995, Zelenogorsk, a former closed city, has processed fuel for the nuclear reactors that supply many Americans with their electricity. Now it hopes that embracing a French company with new technology could lead to a more significant role. "

A basic problem for wind turbines is that the wind often dies down. As a result, they produce far less electricity than if the wind blew constantly, at full speed. A good wind machine, therefore, may harvest just 30 percent of its maximum potential energy. By contrast, a nuclear reactor with a similar energy rating might reach 90 percent of its maximum potential, because it is running virtually nonstop.

"This story is part of a special series that explores the global water crisis. For more clean water news, photos, and information, visit National Geographic's Freshwater Web site. As climate change throws Earth's water cycle off-kilter, the world's energy infrastructure may end up in hot water, experts say. From hydropower installations in the Himalaya to nuclear power plants in Western Europe, energy resources are already being impacted by flooding, heat waves, drought, and more. (Explore an interactive map of global warming effects.) Traditionally power plants and energy facilities have been built for the long haul-the circa-1936 Hoover Dam in Nevada is still a major hydroelectric generator."

Exelon has begun a series of nuclear power plant uprates that will add between 1,300 MW and 1,500 MW of generating capacity at its existing fleet of nuclear units over the next eight years, the company said Friday. The first of the uprates, totaling about 38 MW, was confirmed last week following upgrades at Exelon's Quad Cities plant near Cordova, Illinois. Uprate projects, some of which require US Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval, improve efficiency and increase electricity output of nuclear units through upgrades to plant equipment, Chicago-based Exelon said. The projects take advantage of new production and measurement technologies, new materials and experience from decades of nuclear power operations, the company said. Uprate efforts are underway at Exelon's Limerick and Peach Bottom nuclear plants in Pennsylvania, and the Dresden, LaSalle and Quad Cities plants in Illinois. Those are expected to produce nearly 25% of the added capacity. The remainder of capacity would come from uprates at nine other plants beginning in 2010 and ending in 2017.

"Remy Chevalier is a brilliant and eccentric eco-activist with a "bright plan": he believes a very achievable switchover to green lighting will save enough energy to shut down our aging nuclear power plants -- in particular Indian Point, one of the oldest and most controversial plants, and roughly 30 miles north of Manhattan. Seth Leitman and I found this out while working on our book about green lighting, to be published early this fall by the Green Guru Guide series. "