U.S.
The Energy Department has released a draft report for public comment concerning its consent-based siting process for nuclear waste storage.
From December 2015 to July, DOE garnered more than 11,000 public comments on its consent-based siting process, which is the Obama administration’s strategy for managing spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste.
The draft report, titled “Designing a Consent-Based Siting Process: Summary of Public Input,” is the department’s attempt to summarize those public comments. The public now has the chance to comment on the draft report through Oct. 30 at DOE’s consent-based siting website.
Acting DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy John Kotek, who is leading public outreach for the program, said last week that the department hopes to have a draft process in place by the end of 2016.
AREVA’s bondholders on Monday approved the partial transfer of assets and bond debt from AREVA SA to new spinoff entity NewCo, which will focus on nuclear fuel cycle services.
AREVA has valued the transfer of assets and liabilities at 1.4 billion euros, or 2 billion euros when accounting for tax consolidation. The fuel cycle operations include mining and front-end and back-end activities. The mass restructuring, which was announced in June, is expected to raise at least 5 billion euros for the two companies through government investment and asset sales.
As drawn up, the French state utility will control up to 67 percent of NewCo, directly and indirectly, while the rest of the company is available for private investment. The realignment involves capital increases of 5 billion euros for both AREVA SA and NewCo, with the French state expected to act as lead shareholder.
INTERNATIONAL
Japanese Ambassador to the United Kingdom Koji Tsuruoka and Consul General of Japan in Edinburgh Daisuke Matsunaga recently toured the Prototype Fast Reactor at Dounreay in Scotland.
The two-day trip also included a meeting with local supplier JGC Engineering and a meeting with Global Energy Group “to see work carried out by renewables companies Atlantis and Meygen which will bring forward energy production from the seas off the north of Scotland, the Pentland Firth,” the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said in a Sept. 16 press release.
“The development of renewable energy at Global Energy Group and the ongoing decommissioning work at Dounreay contributes to energy security around the world,” Tsuruoka said in a statement. “I applaud their hard work and commitment that demonstrates the spirit of Scotland.”
Cleanup crews at the U.K.’s shuttered Bradwell Power Station have now decontaminated more than 10,000 square meters of walls, floors, and ceiling, the nation’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced on Monday.
The cleanup covers an area roughly the size of a rugby field, according to NDA. Site manager Magnox Ltd. completed a four-year effort in 2012 draining and stabilizing the ponds that were used to temporarily store and cool used nuclear fuel. The U.K. fuel was subsequently sent to the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria.
“The Magnox Ltd team has worked well to reach this milestone that reduces hazard on the Bradwell site,” NDA Chief Operating Officer Pete Lutwyche said in a statement. “This achievement is another excellent example of a project delivering on time and to budget. We will be working with the team to ensure that the lessons learned from tackling this challenge are shared across our wider estate.”
Magnox also recently decontaminated the site’s underground waste vaults and installed weatherproof cladding for the reactor buildings. Among the next milestones will be the demolition of the redundant ponds building and other ancillary buildings, and then installation of weatherproof cladding over the remaining buildings, according to Monday’s announcement.
Located near the Essex coastline, Bradwell generated electricity from 1962 to 2002. It is now more than halfway through its decommissioning program.
