The opportunity to provide carbon-free power to pair with renewables, combined with promises of increased safety over traditional nuclear plants, appear to be opening the door to the use of small modular reactors (SMRs) as a source of baseload power. “The world isn’t getting smaller,” said Chris Colbert, chief strategy officer for SMR designer NuScale Power. “Not …
Unit 5 of the Tianwan nuclear power plant in China’s Jiangsu province has been connected to the grid for the first time. The 1080 MWe domestically-designed ACPR1000 pressurised water reactor achieved the milestone at 19:52 local time on 8 August, China National Nuclear Corporation announced today. The unit, which achieved first criticality on 27 July, …
Using nuclear energy to produce hydrogen, desalinate seawater and heat buildings can further enhance nuclear power’s contribution to climate action while also boosting its economic viability, speakers at a recent IAEA webinar said. Nuclear power accounts for around one-third of global low carbon electricity production. But in addition to powering millions of homes and businesses, …
The world’s largest oil-exporter Saudi Arabia, with the help of China, has built a facility for the extraction of uranium yellowcake – a potential precursor to fuel for a nuclear reactor. The facility has been built in a remote desert location near the small city of Al Ula. The uranium yellowcake extraction facility has not …
Hot stuff The covid-19 pandemic has heavily impacted global uranium production, taking around 20% of global capacity offline. This has exacerbated the supply deficit, leading to users running down inventories at an even faster rate. The net effect has been a rising uranium price (up 32% so far in 2020), but the managers of Geiger …
Kazakhstan’s JSC National Atomic Company Kazatomprom plans to return staffing levels at its uranium mines to normal by around the end of this month. The number of employees at the mine sites was reduced between April and July in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a trading update yesterday, the company said: “Thanks in part …
Kenya’s nuclear agency submitted impact studies for a $5 billion power plant, and said it’s on course to build and start operating the facility in about seven years. The government looks to expand its nuclear-power capacity fourfold from a planned initial 1,000 megawatts by 2035, the Nuclear Power and Energy Agency said in a report …
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with help from China, has built a facility for the extraction of uranium yellowcake, a potential precursor to fuel for a nuclear reactor, in a remote desert location near the small city of Al Ula, the Wall Street Journal newspaper reported citing Western officials with knowledge of the site. The facility, …
Kazakhstan-based Kazatomprom is mobilising employees and expects to have its sites back to normal staff levels within two to three weeks. The world’s largest uranium producer said on Monday it believed it could safely begin to bring staff back to its mine sites, after a four-month Covid-19-related shutdown. Production in the second half of the …
AFTER almost four years of building, the UK’s biggest nuclear plant is nearly 40 per cent complete. The project is Electricite de France’s (EDF) Hinkley Point C, the UK’s first new nuclear power plant in more than 20 years. It is now facing delays as the coronavirus pandemic hampered work on-site and hit supply chains. …
