The UK Government has launched a new long-term plan to permanently dispose of the radioactive waste in the country.

The plan follows a consultation on improving the process of finding a site to host a geological disposal facility (GDF), which will safely isolate radioactive waste deep underground and inside multiple barriers in order to protect it for hundreds of thousands of years.

The new GDF will support the development of new, low-carbon, nuclear electricity generation in the UK while helping to permanently deal with waste from decades of generating low-carbon electricity from nuclear power.

A new and improved plan has been created by the government based on feedback and consultation for working with communities to identify a site for a GDF.

The government and experts will work jointly over the next two years for greater clarity on issues such as national geological screening, the planning process and the environmental impacts.

Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey said: “Geological disposal provides the secure, long-term solution we need to deal with the radioactive waste we have been creating for more than 60 years, and we can learn from the experiences of other countries who are also doing this.

“Building and running a GDF will be a multi-billion pound infrastructure project, which will bring significant economic benefits to a community.

“Today we’re setting out our plan to find a suitable site, based on a fundamental principle of listening to people, to make sure we have the right process in place. The area that eventually hosts a geological disposal facility will benefit from significant investment in the community and hundreds of skilled jobs for decades to come.”

Currently, the radioactive waste is temporarily being stored at secure nuclear sites across the country; a GDF will allow to dispose the waste permanently.

Plant operator Asociacion Nuclear Asco-Vandellos (ANAV) has awarded a contract to Areva to supply filtered containment venting systems (FCVS) for the Asco 1&2 and Vandellos 2 nuclear reactors in Spain.

The systems are designed to maintain the integrity of the reactor containment building and protect the environment by ensuring the confinement of radioactive materials in the event of a serious accident generating a rise in internal pressure.

The FCVS technology was developed by Areva and meets the requirements of prominent safety authorities.

The technology is compatible with the various reactor types. Areva has installed more than 70 FCVS systems in 12 countries to date.

The technology is part of Areva’s Safety Alliance program, which offers nuclear operators the most advanced products and services to guarantee the safety of their plants.

More than 150 Areva Safety Alliance projects have been launched for 53 nuclear utilities in 19 countries, representing a total value of nearly €400m.

Areva’s Reactors & Services Business Group executive vice-president Philippe Samama said, “This new contract confirms our position as a world leader for this technology and demonstrates the confidence of our utility customers. It opens up new prospects for development worldwide.”

ANAV, which is a joint venture between Endesa and Iberdrola, covers the 40% of the country’s nuclear capacity, in Catalonia.

Amended safety regulations could mean a 10-year operational life extension for a nuclear power plant in the UK.
The 1040 MW Dungeness B power station (pictured) in Kent, England came online in 1983 and is currently scheduled for decommissioning in 2018. It consists of two advanced gas-cooled reactors.

The plant’s owner, EDF Energy, announced in 2012 that it hopes to extend the power station’s operating life by up to 10 years. A decision will be made by the end of this year, the company said.
That goal may be closer since the national Office for Nuclear Regulation has approved raising the amount of weight the plant’s graphite core can lose to 8 per cent, from its previous safety limit of 6.2 per cent, per EDF’s request.
The graphite bricks in the plant’s core degrade over time due to radiation exposure, losing weight and developing cracks. According to reports, the plant would have breached the 6.2 per cent safety limit this year. EDF applied to have the limit extended when the weight loss stood at 5.7 per cent.
The new safety limit will allow the plant to run until 2020, less than the full 10-year life extension EDF would like to see.
Juliette Sanders, an EDF media officer, said: “EDF Energy remains focused on achieving a 10-year life extension for Dungeness B which we hope to confirm by the end of the year. To ensure that safety margins continue to be sufficient, we have developed a programme of modifications which will feed in to the plant lifetime extension proposals and enable safe operation to 2028.”
Martin Pearson, station director at Dungeness B, said: “The increase in weight loss limits has been based on an extensive programme of modelling and sampling. The limits are set at conservative levels and still include wide safety margins. This gives us the knowledge and confidence that the reactors are well within safe limits of operation.”
Professor Paul Mummery of Manchester University said in a BBC interview that while the original limits were “conservative”, it may prove uneconomic for EDF to keep the reactors online in the long term as the regulator could require additional safety inspections.

Caverion has signed an agreement to perform installation work at Fortum’s Loviisa nuclear plant in Finland.

Under the agreement, Caverion will conduct installation work on the steel structures, pipelines and also electrical and automation systems in the cooling towers of the power plant.

Caverion, which will be responsible for the €2m project execution, will also provide the installation work for the four cooling towers of the Loviisa nuclear power plant in one total delivery, connecting the towers with the operational plant.

The work mainly includes the installation of steel frame structures, wall and roof insulations together with pipelines in the cooling towers, and carrying out the electrical and automation installations of the project.

Caverion and Fortum have also agreed on valve maintenance and mechanical installations for the next three years to the Loviisa nuclear power plant.

Caverion Industria project services vice president Ahti Nurkkala said, “We are very happy to have the opportunity to continue our long and successful cooperation with Fortum.”

The Loviisa nuclear power plant comprises two plant units, Loviisa 1 and Loviisa 2, and are capable of generating a combined eight terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity annually    for the national grid.

The power plant was designed to meet the most developed Western safety standards while continuously improving safety and operability through major modification projects.

The installation work is scheduled to be completed by February 2015.

Caverion.com

Toshiba, in conjunction with Ibiden, has produced a new manufacturing technology for reactor core applications in nuclear power plants.

The technology reactor core material using silicon carbide (SiC) has been used by Toshiba and Ibiden to create a prototype fuel assembly cover.

The two companies have been working together with Nuclear Fuel Industries and Professor Yutaka Kagawa of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) of the University of Tokyo, and Professor Takashi Goto of the Institute for Materials Research of Tohoku University in Japan.

In addition to being applied to the production of fuel cladding tubes, the new manufacturing technology can also be used to create specially shaped items such as thin-wall, long cylinders.

Toshiba and Ibiden will test the new fuel assembly cover, for data collection and verification purposes, in 2016 in a research reactor.

The firms aim to put the cover to practical use by around 2025 as a replacement part for operating nuclear power plants, Toshiba said.

Toshiba and GDF Suez completed a deal that will give Toshiba a majority stake in a consortium and help to push new builds at the Moorside nuclear power plant in England.

Toshiba completed the purchase of an additional 10 percent share in NuGeneration Ltd. (NuGen) from GDF Suez, bringing its total ownership stake to 60 percent. GDF Suez will retain a 40 percent stake in NuGen, the company that is building three Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at the nuclear plant in West Cumbria. Each reactor is expected to take four years to build and the plant is scheduled for completion by 2024 with a generating capacity of 3.4-GW. A deal has also been completed with the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority for the extension of a land option agreement for Moorside.

NuGen will begin taking a range of preparatory works, including regulatory, permitting and commercial activities before the final investment decision sometime around 2018.

Westinghouse said it will use its Springfields facility in the UK to manufacture the fuel for the AP1000 reactors. The facility currently manufactures fuel for the entire UK fleet of advanced gas-cooled reactors, and pressurized water reactor fuel for export.

The need to bring online a new fleet of nuclear power stations in the UK was stressed yesterday at an energy conference in London.

Speaking at UK Energy 2014, organised by The Economist, power company bosses and climate change campaigners backed Britain’s drive to build eight new reactors, starting with EDF’s Hinkley Point C.

EDF is poised to make a final investment decision on Hinkley, which will be the first new nuclear power station built in Britain in 20 years. The final – and biggest hurdle – for the scheme to clear is an EU investigation into whether the government’s contracts-for-difference agreement with EDF complies with state aid rules.

Vincent De Rivaz (pictured right), chief executive of EDF Energy, once again stressed that he believed this would be the case, and added that “it is the right of any Member State to decide their energy mix”.

He also said the need for Hinkley Point C – and the security of supply he believes it would bring – was underlined by events in Russia and Ukraine.

“We need in the UK to not be over-dependent on gas coming from some countries.”

Talking about the role that power companies have to play in shaping Britain’s energy future, De Rivaz said: “The UK cannot do without investment by the big operators.” He added that the major players “have a role to play in energy research and development to make sure that the UK stays competitive in the global market”.

On shale gas, he said that “we have a duty to know” the potential shale market in the UK and added that at EDF “our policy is diversity” and he hoped that shale gas would be part of the company’s future portfolio.

The need for nuclear was backed-up by Stephen Tindale, associate fellow at the Centre for European Reform and also co-founder of Climate Answers.

“I spent 20 years campaigning against nuclear and then realised I was wrong: it’s low carbon. It’s a price worth paying to have a new generation of nuclear in the UK.”

And Lord Deben (pictured right), chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, said: “If you think that there is no place for nuclear power [in the energy mix], then you don’t understand how important the climate change situation is.”

He said the UK needed to have a portfolio of power generation that includedonshore and offshore wind, gas, nuclear “and no coal”.

Steve Holliday, chief executive of National Grid, used his speech to back the UK government’s overhaul of its energy system under its Electricity Market Reform (EMR) process.

“EMR is the right intervention at the right time,” he said, but warned that the current global energy market had lost sight of key goals.

“The energy market does not value low carbon,” he said. We need to create a mechanism where gas plants can compete with hydro.”

But he predicted: “There will not be a level playing field for all types of energy generation for a long time. When will we reach the panacea of letting technology grow without subsidy? A long time after I’ve retired I think.”

Basil Scarsella, chief executive of UK Power Networks, said that 20 years ago “the UK led the world in reforming the energy industry… and the UK is again leading the world on energy policy”.

He said the industry was going through “transformative change: how electricity is used, generated and traded is going to change in the future” and the UK – with the package of EMR introduced by the government – was well placed to adapt to these changes.

“Political stability and regulatory certainty are attracting investors – there is no fear of the lights going out to deter investors.”

John Lynch, head of EMEA power, utilities and renewables at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said that the UK “is still one of the best places to invest in energy”.

But Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust, disagreed: “The UK is going backwards in terms of its attractiveness to investors.”

He said: “We are ignoring some inconvenient truths: the reality is that energy technologies take 30 years to mature and energy efficiency technology takes a lot of upfront capital.”

And he stated that “deregulated markets do not deliver what is politically desirable”.

Katja Hall, deputy director general of the CBI (Confederation of British Industry), was concerned that “just as policy was beginning to solidify, it is being shaken by political rhetoric”.

In the afternoon, delegates heard from both Energy Secretary Ed Davey and his Shadow Cabinet counterpart Caroline Flint (pictured). Davey said that the government had “designed EMR to encourage foreign investment” and Flint stressed that is Labour was to win next year’s general election it would continue the programme of contracts for difference and capacity auctions – and also set a 2030 decarbonisation target, something not yet done by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

Flint also said that the UK energy market was “neither as competitive nor as transparent as it could be” and said that a price freeze on energy tariffs promised by Labour if it did win the election would “draw a line in the sand” to make energy costs transparent.

But Tim Yeo, chairman of the UK government’s Energy and Climate Change Committee, said that “it is misleading for any politician to say that they can control energy prices – because they can’t”.

On the dominance of the ‘big six’, he said that “trust will never be restored while we have vertically-integrated businesses”.

And he added that building new power stations was “a 20^th century solution”, adding that the real answer the the UK’s energy issues in the 21^st century was demand side response.

WATERFORD, Conn. (AP) – Nuclear power plants across the United States are building or expanding storage facilities to hold their spent fuel – radioactive waste that by now was supposed to be on its way to a national dump.

The steel and concrete containers used to store the waste on-site were envisioned as only a short-term solution when introduced in the 1980s. Now they are the subject of reviews by industry and government to determine how they might hold up – if needed – for decades or longer.

With nowhere else to put its nuclear waste, the Millstone Power Station overlooking Long Island Sound is sealing it up in massive steel canisters on what used to be a parking lot. The storage pad, first built in 2005, was recently expanded to make room for seven times as many canisters filled with spent fuel.

Dan Steward, the first selectman in Waterford, which hosts Millstone, said he raises the issue every chance he can with Connecticut’s congressional members.

“We do not want to become a nuclear waste site as a community,” Steward said.

The government is pursuing a new plan for nuclear waste storage, hoping to break an impasse left by the collapse of a proposal for Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The Energy Department says it expects other states will compete for a repository, and the accompanying economic benefits, and it’s already heard from potential hosts in New Mexico, Texas and Mississippi. But the plan faces hurdles including a need for new legislation that has stalled in Congress.

So plants are preparing to keep the high-level nuclear waste in their backyards indefinitely. Most of it remains in pools, which cool the spent fuel for several years once it comes out of the reactors. But with the pools at or nearing capacity, the majority is expected within a decade to be held in dry casks, or canisters, which are used in 34 states. Only three of the 62 commercial nuclear sites in the U.S. have yet to announce plans to build their own.

In the past few years since the Yucca Mountain plan was abandoned, the government and industry have opened studies to address unanswered questions about the long-term performance of dry cask storage. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2011 began offering 40-year license renewals for casks, up from 20-year intervals. The tests are focusing on how to monitor degradation inside the canisters, environmental requirements for storage sites, and how well the canisters hold up with “high burnup,” or longer-burning fuels that are now widely used by American plants.

“Now that we’ve shown that the national policy is shifting, we’re having to relook at these systems to make sure they still meet the regulations for longer and longer periods of time,” said Eric Benner, an NRC official who has served as the inspections branch chief with its spent fuel storage division.

At Millstone, 19 canisters loaded with spent fuel are arrayed on a concrete pad, which was expanded in October to make room for as many as 135 canisters by 2045. The canisters, which are cooled by air circulation, seal the waste with inert gas inside an inner chamber and are themselves loaded into concrete modules. Workers regularly inspect temperature gauges and, during the winter, shovel snow off the vents.

Millstone’s low-level nuclear waste is shipped to a disposal facility in Barnwell, South Carolina.

The spent fuel is piling up at a rate of about 2,200 tons a year at U.S. power-plant sites. The industry and government decline to say how much waste is currently stored at individual plants. The U.S. nuclear industry had 69,720 tons of uranium waste as of May 2013, with 49,620 tons in pools and 20,100 in dry storage, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute industry group.

Spent nuclear fuel is about 95 percent uranium. About 1 percent is other heavy elements such as curium, americium and plutonium-239. Each has an extremely long half-life – some take hundreds of thousands of years to lose all of their radioactive potency.

Watchdog groups say the dry storage poses fewer safety concerns than the reactors themselves, and many have pushed for spent fuel to be transferred more quickly from the pools. Heavy security is in place to deter sabotage by terrorists.

The administration’s strategy calls for an interim storage facility by 2025 and a geologic repository by 2048.

Peter Lyons, an assistant secretary for nuclear energy at the U.S. Energy Department, said it cannot make plans for individual sites until the passage of legislation creating a new framework for waste policy. But he said the groups in southeastern New Mexico, western Texas and Mississippi are only the most public of potential hosts to express interest in taking in high-level waste.

The idea for the interim facility is to take spent fuel left behind from reactors that have already shut down, as is the case at sites in California, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Colorado and Oregon.