Nuclear power in Europe

Today, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) in the United Kingdom announced that the competition for the new contract for the cleanup of the Magnox reactor sites will commence in 2011. Award of the contract is expected by the end of 2012. EnergySolutions will continue to lead this important cleanup project during this time period and it will bid on the new contract.
The NDA stated that it would select a single operator for Magnox North Limited, Magnox South Limited and Research Sites Restoration Limited. (more…)

EnergySolutions Inc. celebrated its first year Friday as a publicly traded company.

But the party couldn’t have been very festive. The nuclear-waste company’s stock price traded close to its 52-week low at $3.96, a drop of less than 1 percent. (more…)

The UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has formally advised the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate - the country’s nuclear safety regulator - that it plans to extend the operating life at Oldbury nuclear power station, the NDA said Wednesday. (more…)

Remember that “The Simpsons” episode where Homer gains so much weight he plugs the cooling tower? Hilarious stuff. Laugh out loud funny.

This joke EnergySolutions is playing on all of us - nuclear regulators, the governor and Utah residents? Not so funny. (more…)

Nuclear waste from Italy won’t be rolling into Utah anytime soon.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday it is postponing a decision on whether low-level radioactive waste from Italy can be buried in Tooele County. In order to grant a license, federal regulators must be sure that the waste has somewhere suitable to go, and they won’t have that assurance unless a federal court ruling clears the way, the NRC said. (more…)

MAGNOX North’s Chapelcross site has begun the next phase in its life with the start of final de-fuelling of Reactor 1.

The first fuel element was removed from the reactor core on August 18, beginning the active commissioning of the newly upgraded fuel route. (more…)

America’s landfills for low-level nuclear waste should be conserved for America’s waste, according to a new, bipartisan bill to be introduced next week in the U.S. Senate.

The bill targets efforts by Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions to use its Tooele County landfill for contaminated cleanup waste from Italy’s defunct nuclear reactors and maybe other foreign waste in the future. And it echoes a bill proposed in the House of Representatives by U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and two colleagues. (more…)

Energysolutions and its partner Toshiba have offered to kick start the UK’s stalled nuclear clean-up programme - in return for being given the sites to build a new fleet of reactors.

At present French utility company EDF is leading the race to buy nuclear generator British Energy and start the new-build programme. But the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns the public sector’s old nuclear sites, has also put these on the block for firms interested in building new reactors. (more…)

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has wisely waded into the fray, and from all indications, dealt a knock-out blow to EnergySolutions’ plan to import low-level radioactive waste from Italy’s nuclear power industry.

Huntsman said he will instruct his representative on the board of the Northwest Interstate Compact on Low-level Radioactive Waste, state Department of Environmental Quality Deputy Director Bill Sinclair, to vote against the plan on May 8. And Sinclair says he will comply with the governor’s request. (more…)

SALT LAKE CITY: Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman says he is reversing his stance and will block the shipment of Italian nuclear waste to a desert dump site in his state.

Huntsman initially said the federal government should decide where to dispose such foreign waste. (more…)