A contract supervisor at the Millstone nuclear power plant in Connecticut violated the Dominion Nuclear Connecticut Fitness for Duty Policy on Thursday at noon. The licensee is reviewing the incident and assessing the supervisor. The supervisor’s access has been suspended pending the results of the review. Source: NRC Event Notifications
Tokyo Electric announced today that the “Warrior” robot, designed and engineered in the United States, tipped over during an inspection of the Unit 2 reactor building two weeks ago and could not be retrieved due a dead battery. On March 13th, the “Warrior” robot was one of several robots collecting samples of the concrete floor […]
Tokyo Electric, the utility decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, determined that human error is the most likely cause for the alarms which stopped work removing spent fuel assemblies from the Reactor 4 spent fuel pool. TEPCO officials believe that around 9:30 AM on Wednesday, a worker attempted to operate a crane […]
A licensed reactor operator supervisor at the Quad Cities nuclear power plant in Illinois failed a random fitness for duty test on Wednesday. The licensee has suspended the employee’s access to the facility. Source: NRC Event Notifications
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been forced to halt removal of spent fuel rods from the Reactor 4 spent fuel pool. The pool contains 1,533 fuel rods, 1,331 of which are highly radioactive spent fuel rods. As of Wednesday, 550 fuel rods have been retrieved from the spent fuel pool. Around […]
A employee supervisor at the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in New York failed a for-cause fitness for duty test on Monday. The licensee, Entergy Corporation, has terminated the employee’s access to the facility. Fitness for duty tests are administered either randomly, in a lottery-style system where “winners” get to report to the medical office […]
A licensed reactor operator supervisor at the Hatch nuclear power plant in Georgia has been suspended by Southern Nuclear Operating Company for violating the licensee’s fitness for duty policy. The Edwin I. Hatch Nuclear Power Plant hosts two General Electric Boiling Water Reactors which were granted a 20 year license extension in 2002 by the Nuclear […]
On Wednesday, a employee supervisor at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant failed a random fitness for duty test and confirmed positive for alcohol. The licensee terminated the employee’s access to the plant. Source: NRC Event Notifications
The world’s biggest operator of nuclear power plants, Electricite de France (EDF), found itself having to reduce energy production from its nuclear reactors in order to avoid overloading the grid this week. EDF found itself having to reduce its nuclear output because the grid was receiving higher wind and solar output from Europe than expected. […]
South African President Jacob Zuma and Energy Minister Ben Martins have continuously committed the nation to build up a nuclear industry. The government has adopted a 20-year Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) which says that coal, nuclear, hydro, shale gas, and renewable energy are all included in potential generation methods of increasing the nation’s power supply. […]
On Wednesday, workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were forced to halt the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) water treatment system used to decontaminate radioactive water at the crippled nuclear facility. The ALPS system is a critical part of the water decontamination and storage process, but has had a series of problems during […]
According to labor officials in Fukushima Prefecture, nearly 70% of the companies hired to conduct decontamination work after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster have been found to be in violation of multiple labor laws. In July 2013, the Fukushima Labor Bureau found that between January and June 2013, 68% of companies and firms engaged in […]
Members of the Liberal Democratic Party, the ruling party in Japan, are discussing the establishment of new credentials for workers who clean up radioactive debris or decommission nuclear power plants. The discussions revolve around the establishment of three levels of national certifications which focus on three areas, decontamination, reactor maintenance, and radiation monitoring. Officials say […]
Almost a month after 13 workers were internally exposed to radiation, Farok Sharif, the former president and general manager of Nuclear Waste Patnership, the company contracted by the Department of Energy to oversee the operations of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has been demoted. Sharif will be replaced by a former DOE […]
The Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan said that it will prioritize the safety screening process at the Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture. The announcement came on Thursday and implies that the Sendai reactors will likely be the first to pass the screening process and be allowed to restart. On Wednesday night, NRA chairman, […]
New data released from Japan may help researchers to determine exactly how radioactive materials were released into the atmosphere from the Unit 1 reactor during the early days of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and determine the effectiveness of venting operations. After the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11th, 2011, 14 monitoring posts […]
Quantum mechanics imply that something can be both simultaneously one thing and another until it is observed. Erwin Shrodinger explained it using a box and a cat. If you seal the cat in a box, you don’t know what condition the cat is in – dead or alive, until the box is reopened. The concerns […]
A construction supervisor at the Virgil C. Summer nuclear generating station in South Carolina failed a random fitness for duty test. The licensee revoked the worker’s access to the plant. The facility has one PWR reactor and is constructing two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors. Source: NRC Event Notifications
In Japan, nuclear reactors found to meet new post-Fukushima safety standards set by the Nuclear Regulation Authority, can be restarted. The problem is that no reactor has met the new safety standards, which has kept all of the nation’s nuclear reactors offline. This week, officials from the NRA confirmed that they will resume safety screenings […]
The United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), the executive agent in the Megatons to Megawatts program – the highly enriched uranium purchase agreement between the United States and Russia, filed for bankruptcy, as its shares plummeted by another 46% in premarket trading on Wednesday. The company, based in Bethesda, Maryland, has 505 employees, but will be […]