The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced a final rule addressing nuclear plant safety to incorporate lessons learned from the 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant, according to a Jan. 24 news release. The rule removes the requirement in the final draft presented by the commission staff in 2016 requiring nuclear plants to take additional…...
The Electric Power Suppliers Association on Jan. 7 filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review appellate court rulings that upheld zero-emission credit programs designed to support financially struggling nuclear plants in New York and Illinois. The organization argues that the subsidy programs infringe on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s jurisdiction over wholesale…...
The U.S. Energy Department selected 11 projects located across six states for cost-shared research and development of advanced nuclear technologies, according to a Nov. 13 press release. The projects, valued at about $25 million, make the third batch of recipients under the department’s advanced nuclear technology funding opportunity. The first round provided $60 million and…
Under current and planned policies, global energy demand is expected to grow by over 25 percent to 2040, requiring an annual investment of more than $2 trillion in new energy supply, according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook published on Nov. 13. The agency said that over 70 percent of global energy investments…
Electric generation capacity losses resulting from nuclear plant outages spiked in early September as a result of earlier than expected maintenance, adverse weather conditions and early retirement, according to the EIA’s latest data. Hurricane Florence caused a nine-day unscheduled outage at the 1,870-megawatt Brunswick Nuclear Plant in North Carolina, which was forced to safely shut…
President Donald Trump nominated Bernard L. McNamee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the term ending June 30, 2020, to fill the vacancy resulting from Commissioner Robert Powelson’s resignation in August, according to an Oct. 9 release from the agency. McNamee currently serves as the Executive Director of the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of…
Uranium purchases by U.S. commercial nuclear power plants totaled 43 million pounds of triuranium octoxide last year, 15 percent lower than 2016 and the lowest since 1998, according to an Oct. 3 report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Triuranium octoxide, called yellow cake, represents the first step in nuclear fuel production. The agency attributed…
U.S. President Donald Trump signed legislation that will eliminate financial and technological barriers to nuclear innovation, according to a Sept. 28 press release from the U.S. Energy Department. The department said the legislation builds on the success of its Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear or GAIN initiative, which seeks to enable the industrial community…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Sept. 27 upheld New York’s zero emission credit program adopted in August 2016 to support the state’s financially struggling nuclear plants. The ruling rejects complaints that the program depresses energy and capacity prices in the wholesale power auction overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.…
The owners of the Vogtle nuclear plant on Sept. 26 agreed to continue with the project expansion after resolving issues over budget overruns. The deal follows majority owner Southern Company’s announcement in August to raise project costs by $2.3 billion, prompting a vote on the future of the project under provisions of the joint ownership…
More than a dozen members of the Georgia General Assembly, in a Sept. 19 letter to the owners of the Vogtle nuclear plant, expressed concerns over the “ever-escalating cost” of the project and urged them to establish a cost cap to protect electric ratepayers from cost overruns. The lawmakers noted that, last month Georgia Power,…
California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed legislation on Sept. 19 that directs the state public utilities commission to authorize full funding for the community mitigation settlement and employee retention programs that Pacific Gas and Electric Company proposed in its initial application seeking approval to retire the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. In January, the…
