RW Monitor
7/10/2015
IN THE INDUSTRY
Cabrera Services named Rob Flowers President and Chief Operating Officer, the company announced last week. Flowers has served as COO for the company since last year, but this marks an additional responsibility. “Rob has done a tremendous job firming up our corporate infrastructure and I look forward to utilizing his management skills to continue our growth pattern and oversee the company’s day to day operations,” Cabrera CEO Lorenzo Cabrera said in a statement.
AREVA plans to sell off its subsidiary Canberra as part of its restructuring plan, the company announced last week. AREVA suffered heavy losses last year, and in an attempt to right the ship, the company plans to refocus on nuclear fuel cycle activities, which would leave Canberra as disposable. “The transformation plan underway at AREVA has led the group to refocus on nuclear fuel cycle activities,” the company said in a release. “In this context, AREVA has launched the disposal of its subsidiary Canberra, specialized in nuclear measurement systems and instrumentation. Canberra’s employees have been informed of this approach.” According to AREVA, Canberra achieved sales revenue of approximately $201 million in 2014 and includes over a thousand employees throughout the world, a quarter of whom are in France.
AREVA announced last week the successful delivery of its new generation of robots to the French Atomic Energy Commission. The robot, named RIANA (Robot for Investigations and Assessments of Nuclear Areas) has the ability to operate in radioactive areas to map, take samples or to measure radioactivity, the company said. It features 3D and thermal cameras to reconstitute its environment in real time as well as on-board laser detectors to negotiate its way around obstacles and position itself precisely within a confined space.“AREVA has extensive experience in the development of this type of technology and offers a broad catalog of complementary robotic devices that are designed to work together,” Thierry Varet, Technical Director of AREVA’s Dismantling & Services, said in a statement. “RIANA provides a new range of services for interventions in sensitive nuclear areas, within confined spaces or those affected by accidents, both in day-to-day and emergency situations.”
IN NRC
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a briefing for later this summer to discuss the disposal of Greater-Than-Class C Waste. The hearing is tentatively set for Aug. 10, which should give enough time for the NRC Staff to complete its SECY paper currently underway on the NRC’s role in regulating near surface disposal of the waste stream. Waste Control Specialists filed a rulemaking application with the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality last year to enable GTTC disposal, and Texas has been in talks back and forth with the NRC over the logistics of an Agreement State regulating the material, should it deem the site capable of disposing the material.
