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The POWER Interview: Cleaning Up a Radiologically Contaminated Site

October 3, 2020

The post The POWER Interview: Cleaning Up a Radiologically Contaminated Site appeared first on POWER Magazine.

In the 1940s, the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant was built in unprecedented secrecy as part of the Manhattan Project. Its purpose was to provide enriched uranium for the world’s first atomic bomb, and it expanded operations during the Cold War, producing enriched uranium for defense and commercial purposes.

Uranium enrichment operations were halted at the site in 1985, and the plant was officially closed in 1987. UCOR, an Amentum-led partnership with Jacobs, has been the prime cleanup contractor at the site since 2011. POWER interviewed Kenneth Rueter, president and CEO of UCOR, to learn more about the work that has taken place at the site and how lessons learned could apply to nuclear power plant decommissioning projects.

POWER: The project was obviously extensive. Did the cleanup effort begin immediately and continue nonstop? If so, what were the most time-consuming aspects of the job?…

Pennsylvania Site Latest Gas Plant Online in Building Surge

June 26, 2020

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The post Pennsylvania Site Latest Gas Plant Online in Building Surge appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Gas-fired power generation in the U.S. remains the top source of electricity production, even as renewable energy continues to take market share. A POWER analysis of projects shows nearly 180 gas-fired units are either under construction or in development nationwide, with more than 2,000 gas-fired plants currently in operation.

One of the most-recent plants to come online is the $ 863 million, 1,000-MW Hickory Run Energy Center (Figure 1) near New Castle, Pennsylvania, northwest of Pittsburgh. The project’s developers, including Kansas-based Tyr Energy, a subsidiary of Japan’s ITOCHU Corp.; Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO); and Siemens Financial Services, in mid-June publicly announced that the plant began commercial operations in mid-May.

“We’ve been going pretty steadily. It’s in the market and producing electricity much of the time. This is an efficient unit. So we expect it to stay operational most of the time,” Brock Shealy, vice president of Hickory Run LLC and chief administrative officer of Tyr Energy, said in a statement.…

Another Court Challenge for Nuclear Waste Storage Site

June 10, 2020

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The post Another Court Challenge for Nuclear Waste Storage Site appeared first on POWER Magazine.

Another legal challenge has been filed against the ongoing effort to build a storage site for U.S. nuclear waste in the New Mexico desert.

Beyond Nuclear, among the environmental and other groups opposed to the project that would be built by Holtec International, on June 4 filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The group has asked the court to review the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) rejection of their earlier petitions against the project.

Holtec International, a private company that specializes in spent nuclear fuel storage and management, wants to build what it calls its HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) in southeastern New Mexico. The site in the desert near Carlsbad has been the subject of opposition from several groups, including state lawmakers and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Supporters of the storage site have said it would bring an estimated $ 3 billion in capital investments to the region, and create about 100 jobs.…

17 U.S. Nuclear Units Have Components Forged at Site Under Investigation

January 12, 2017

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Although AREVA recently disclosed that 17 U.S. nuclear power plant units have installed components that were forged at the Le Creusot facility in France—a forge that has been under scrutiny due to questionable quality assurance documentation and carbon segregation irregularities in some parts manufactured at the site—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) does not consider the situation an immediate safety concern.

“We are confident at this time that there are no safety concerns for U.S. nuclear power plants raised by the investigations in France,” David McIntyre, public affairs officer for the NRC, wrote in a blog post about the revelation.

“Our confidence is based on the U.S. material qualification process, preliminary structural evaluations of reactor components under scrutiny in France, U.S. material aging-management programs, our participation in a multinational inspection of Creusot Forge, and information supplied by AREVA about the documentation anomalies. Also, the components supplied to U.S. plants have performed well and inspections during their operating life have revealed no safety issues,” he continued.…