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A U.N. agency has found the initial health impacts of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi accident to be minimal, while another international body recently gave its approval to the so-called stress tests for the country’s other reactors. At Fukushima itself, the news was less encouraging, as leaks continue to plague the complex system of pipes moving contaminated water between treatment facilities and the damaged units.

Developments at the nuclear plant damaged following the earthquake and tsunami last March include:

Early evacuations helped reduce health impact

At a meeting this week to discuss the health effects of the accident, researchers from the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation said screening of people near the plant turned up radiation doses that were very low. Some 80,000 residents evacuated following the plant blackout, which helped keep the health impacts observed to date small, the committee’s chairman told Reuters. The committee also found follow-up examinations of the handful of workers treated for elevated radiation exposure were also positive. The agency will issue a preliminary report in May, and a final draft will be sent to the U.N. General Assembly in 2013.

8.5 tons of water leaks at unit 4

On Tuesday afternoon, a plant worker found water leaking in the reactor building of unit 4. A pipe connected to the reactor may have frozen and burst, but TEPCO reported the 8.5 metric tons of water estimated to have escaped was confined to a drain within the building. The reactor was not loaded with fuel during the earthquake, and TEPCO said the leaked water’s radioactivity was low. Much smaller leaks at other points around the plant’s makeshift water treatment systems were also reported last week.

Stress tests meet IAEA approval

In an assessment Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said the stress tests of Japanese reactors conducted in response to the crisis met the agency’s safety standards. Only three of the country’s 54 reactors are currently operating, as plants taken offline following the accident have faced political opposition to restarting. The government has ordered computer modeling to test reactors’ preparedness for extreme accident scenarios. The U.N. gave its tentative endorsement of those tests, while also making recommendations that included more detailed study of risks from earthquakes and tsunamis.

Just two years after it was replaced, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has reported significant wear in a steam generator at California’s San Onofre Nuclear Plant.

Earlier in the week, San Onofre unit 3 was taken out of service because of a leaking steam generator tube that resulted in a small release of radioactive steam into an auxiliary building. On Thursday initial reports from NRC inspectors also outlined wear in similar equipment at neighboring unit 2. During a scheduled outage for maintenance and inspections, the NRC found the thickness of two tubes in one of unit 2's two steam generators had been worn away by a third. Of 9,700 tubes in the steam generator, 69 were found to be at least 20 percent worn, and 800 tubes were at least 10 percent worn.

An NRC spokesman told the Associated Press that accelerated wear in the early years of a steam generator’s life is not unprecedented, and inspectors will conduct further tests.

Southern California Edison replaced all four steam generators at SONGS for a reported cost of $671 million, with installation at unit 2 in 2009 followed by installation at unit 3 last year. They were supplied by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Both units are roughly 1,100 megawatt Combustion Engineering pressurized water reactors first licensed in 1982, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Approvals for new nuclear plants in China are likely to resume later this year, according to an expert from a group affiliated with the government.

With more than two dozen reactors under construction, China was by far the world leader in new nuclear build when it suspended licensing for new plants in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accidents. Construction was delayed on six new projects approved before the Japanese earthquake and plant blackouts, China Daily reported.

The newspaper, whose views closely reflect those of the ruling communist party, quoted Xiao Xinjian of the national Energy Research Institute as saying work on those projects is likely to resume in the second half of this year. Approvals for new plants will likely continue at a pace of three or four per year, which represents slower growth than before the government responded to Fukushima and began rewriting its regulations.

Despite recent delays, the world’s first Westinghouse AP1000 reactor at Sanmen remains on track to be operational in 2013, an official from the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation told China Daily.

Entergy filed a motion Tuesday asking state power regulators to approve continued operation of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant following a recent court decision favorable to its relicensing.

In a conference call on the company’s fourth quarter earnings, Entergy CEO J. Wayne Leonard said the state’s next step is unknown, and it has until Feb. 21 to appeal the decision. In it, a judge ruled that Vermont laws compelling the closure of the plant after its original federal license expires this year infringed on the federal government’s authority to regulate nuclear safety. For its part, Leonard said Entergy is confident that the lower court’s ruling will stick. The company is looking at ways to recover attorney’s fees from the state, and Leonard highlighted language in the judge’s decision saying there was no evidence that Entergy acted in bad faith in its dealings in Vermont.

Leonard also anticipated a long legal process for the license extension at the Indian Point plant in New York. Legal challenges to the plant’s operations are working their way through state water quality authorities, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Litigation before the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation began in October, and hearings before the ASLB are expected to begin in the third quarter of this year. If litigation drags on past the end of the original licenses in 2013 and 2015, Leonard emphasized the plant can continue to operate under NRC rules until the matter is resolved, which might be well into the license extension period the company is seeking in the first place.

At the company’s other nuclear plants, executives noted Exelon’s fleet recorded a 93 percent capacity factor in 2011, including two scheduled refueling outages. A 178-megawatt uprate scheduled for this spring will make the currently 1,300 megawatt GE-6 reactor at Grand Gulf the largest single-unit plant in the country.

Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin announced that SNC-Lavalin Nuclear has signed a contract with Societatea Nationala "Nuclearelectrica" (SNN) to install reactor containment filtered venting systems (CFVS) at the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant in Romania. The value of the contract is approximately $48 million.

"The units at the Cernavoda plant are rated among the best in Europe and this project is part of an industry-wide upgrade strategy for nuclear plant safety in the event of serious accidents or natural disasters, such as those that occurred at Fukushima in Japan, " said Patrick Lamarre, Executive Vice-President, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. "This contract with SNN leverages SNC-Lavalin Nuclear's expertise in nuclear power plant retrofits and in executing projects with challenging logistics. It also provides a platform for SNC-Lavalin Nuclear to build on its 45 years of experience as opportunities grow in the European nuclear market."

Engineering and procurement activities are underway and construction is scheduled to begin immediately, with preparations for the work to be carried out in the next unit outages. The expected completion date is late 2013.

Southern California Edison (SCE), operator of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), took steps yesterday for a precautionary shutdown of Unit 3.  Sensors that detect possible leaks indicated a leak in one of the unit's steam generator tubes.

The potential issue poses no imminent danger to the public or plant workers. There has been no release to the atmosphere. San Onofre personnel will evaluate the cause of the leak and the steps required to repair it and resume operations.

Unit 2 is currently offline for a planned maintenance, refueling and technology upgrade outage. Southern California Edison said they have ample reserve power to meet customer needs while Unit 3 is offline.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was immediately informed of this development.

An electrical insulator in a switchyard may be to blame for a power outage and reactor trip at the Byron nuclear plant Monday.

Unit 2 at the Illinois plant shut down from full power just after 11 a.m. when external power to the reactor was cut. Smoke was seen coming from a faulted station auxiliary transformer but no fire was reported, according to an event report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Backup diesel power started, and natural circulation cooldown ensued, assisted by auxiliary feedwater pumps and atmospheric steam releases.

According to a statement from the company, the reactor is in stable condition, with neighboring unit 1 continuing to operate normally. Nonetheless, the power failure prompted plant owner Exelon to declared an unusual event, the lowest of the NRC’s emergency declarations. The steam vented into the atmosphere, while not from the primary coolant loop that passes through the core, contained tritium at levels Exelon said do not pose a risk to public health.

Company officials were quoted as saying they had traced the source of the external power failure to a specific insulator at a switchyard. Byron is located near Rockford, Ill., north of Chicago and uses two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors built in 1980s that produce more than 1,100 megawatts each.

The majority of American nuclear plants will draw from a new and extensively revised dataset detailing the earthquake risk across much of the U.S. And although the research began in 2008, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the Central and Eastern United States Seismic Source Characterization Project will inform decisions about plants’ seismic risks under safety changes ordered following the earthquake-triggered Fukushima Daiichi accidents in Japan.

The seismic data project took nearly four years to complete and updated studies used for earthquake preparedness since the late 1980s. The peer-reviewed research draws from historical earthquake and geological data dating as far back as 1568. It cost about $7 million to complete, with funding from the Electric Power Research Institute, the Department of Energy and the NRC.

Seismic studies have long been part of the licensing process for nuclear facilities, although the new and more extensive data may confront some plant owners with earthquake risks higher than previously thought. According to an NRC release announcing the study Tuesday, “Calculations with the new model are expected to result in a higher likelihood of a given ground motion compared to calculations done using previous models.”

Plant owners will still weigh other factors like plant design and safety features in assessing the overall risk specific to their sites as they begin to implement the NRC’s post-Fukushima task force recommendations. Five DOE nuclear facilities and 96 commercial power reactors reside in the region studied. The research reported the largest predicted ground motions could occur in the vicinity of “repeated large magnitude earthquake sources, such as New Madrid, Mo., and Charleston, S.C. Other RLME sources are Charlevoix (lower St. Lawrence), Cheraw Fault (High Plains in southeastern Colorado), Meers Fault (southwestern Oklahoma), Reelfoot Rift – Marianna (Marianna, Ark., 75 km southwest of Memphis, Tenn.), Reelfoot Rift – Commerce Fault Zone (Tamms, Ill. to Qulin, Mo.,) and Wabash Valley (Indiana and Illinois).”

In its efforts to build new reactors in the Czech Republic, Westinghouse has announced a memorandum of understanding with Metrostav a.s. to help construct two AP1000 units at the Temelin nuclear plant.

Metrostav—a Czech construction firm that counts power plants and Prague subway projects among its portfolio—would assume key construction and project management responsibilities for Temelin units 3 and 4 under the exclusive deal. The firm also will work with Westinghouse on its Temelin bid to Czech utility CEZ.

“As we prepare to submit a formal proposal to CEZ this year for completion of the Temelin Nuclear Power Plant, it can clearly be seen that we are taking a series of important steps to make sure we have key elements of our delivery team and our supply chain in place to ensure that the project will be a success,” Westinghouse regional president Yves Brachet said in a release.

Westinghouse has previously won contracts to provide digital instrumentation and control, as well as fuel, to the existing two units at Temelin, according to the World Nuclear Association. In 2008 CEZ decided to add units at the plant, with a formal bid solicitation for two complete reactors and a nine-year fuel supply announced in October. In addition to the AP1000 reactor by Westinghouse and its partners, CEZ has discussed designs from Areva and a consortium made up of Skoda JS, Atomstroyexport and OKB Gidropress.

After it stalled in the Senate last year, Iowa legislators are giving a second look to a bill that would help MidAmerican Energy build a new nuclear plant in the state.

In recent years, MidAmerican Energy has studied the feasibility of building a new plant, potentially including small modular reactors. MidAmerican is one of 11 utilities on the customer advisory board of NuScale Power, which is in the process of submitting a 45 megawatt reactor design to federal regulators.

Last year the Iowa House approved a bill that would allow MidAmerican to collect money from ratepayers for a nuclear plant in advance of its completion. Following cost overruns and abandoned reactor projects in the late 1970s and 1980s, many states prohibited utilities from raising capital from ratepayers for nuclear plants before they come online. In its latest iteration, the Iowa bill would give the state’s utilities board more oversight of a proposed nuclear plant’s costs and feasibility.

The legislation has been moving through the Senate committee process, and the Sioux City Journal reported the Senate Commerce Committee was scheduled to vote on it today.

At a hearing to address a challenge to the environmental impact statement for a proposed third unit at Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant, staff from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said renewable power sources would likely be unable to substitute the reactor’s power generation.

At the hearing before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board last week, Platts quoted NRC project director Andy Kugler as saying an agency analysis concluded only 300 megawatts of wind and solar power generation was likely to be installed in Maryland by mid-decade. Even if 1,600 megawatts of renewable generation were built – equivalent to the proposed reactor’s power – its intermittent nature would result in an average of 400 megawatts of production, necessitating 1,200 megawatts of new gas-fired generation to ensure grid stability.

His testimony contradicted a contention by environmental groups that UniStar Nuclear Operating Services didn’t adequately consider the potential of alternative energy sources when preparing its EIS for unit 3. The company, a subsidiary of EDF, has proposed building a 1,600 megawatt Areva EPR at the plant south of Annapolis, Md. Constellation Energy Nuclear Group, a partnership between Constellation and EDF, owns the other two reactors at the site.

Although unit 3 received a favorable final environmental impact statement from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last May, the project also faces legal challenges surrounding its ownership. Because EDF is a French company, the plant would need a yet-to-be-determined U.S. partner to comply with laws regarding foreign ownership of U.S. nuclear plants. Later this year the ASLB is expected to rule on a challenge related to the project’s ownership in addition to the alternative energy contention. 

Westinghouse Electric Company announced last week that it has formed a new corporate entity to help expand its business in Canada.

Headquartered in Toronto, Westinghouse Electric Canada will liaise with more than 150 Canadian Westinghouse suppliers, in addition to marketing the AP1000 reactor design in the country.

"The formation of an official Canadian entity is consistent with our strategy to increase business in the country," Westinghouse Americas President Jim Ferland said in a release Thursday. "Our Canadian customers have increasingly turned to us for nuclear power plant services and upgrades to automation and controls. ... With the creation of Westinghouse Canada, we will better provide our worldwide capabilities and experience in a fashion that will meet the specific needs and aspirations of Canada's viable nuclear energy industry."

Moreover, the release said Canadian utilities have expressed interest in the AP1000, which completed a preliminary design review by that country’s nuclear regulators in 2010.

Westinghouse pitched the design for a project in Ontario before its bid deadline in February of 2009, but the project later stalled and the bid was found to be non-compliant with price-escalation rules, according to the World Nuclear Association. In 2009 Bruce Power also considered the AP1000 for the Peace Region Nuclear Power Plant Project, but it too was suspended last year.

L-3 MAPPS announced today that it has delivered a research simulator to the Center for Advanced Engineering and Research (CAER) in the New London Business and Technology Center in Bedford, Va. The Advanced Configurable Main Control Room Simulator (ACMCRS) will be used for human-machine interface (HMI) and human factors (HF) studies, investigation of digital instrumentation and control systems for nuclear power plants, and cybersecurity issues. This unique facility was made possible in part by generous support from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission (TICRC), which provided more than $10 million in grants to support construction of the facility and the purchase of specialized equipment for the control room.  

The Center for Safe and Secure Nuclear Energy, one of the four research areas at the CAER, features the fully configurable ACMCRS, which will provide invaluable technical input for regulatory guidance in a range of applications, including control room design, digital technologies and human performance measures. 

“To date, the United States has not had a configurable control room simulator for research use like the one at the Halden Man-Machine Lab in Norway,” said Bob Bailey, executive director for the CAER. “The simulator provided by L-3 MAPPS, with AREVA’s cooperation, will now enable us to perform critical experiments in the U.S. in areas such as alarm systems, control room design, display navigation and development of human performance measures.” 

“We are pleased to support the CAER and proud that the detailed modeling methods and robust simulation technology used by L-3 MAPPS are being leveraged by prestigious research facilities like CAER’s Center for Safe and Secure Nuclear Energy,” said Michael Chatlani, vice president of L-3 MAPPS Power Systems and Simulation. 

The ACMCRS is a high-fidelity simulation of AREVA’s EPR™ plant running on L-3 MAPPS’ cutting-edge Orchid® simulation environment. The simulator consists of four operator stations, each able to accommodate up to 10 monitors. CAER will be able to easily configure the number of monitors and HMI displays on each monitor for various HF experiments. The four operator stations can be used as part of an integrated control room environment or separately for individual studies.  

The Center for Advanced Engineering and Research (CAER) is a non-profit organization within Virginia’s Region 2000 Partnership that creates working relationships between high-tech industries, major R&D centers and university researchers, and facilitates professional development opportunities for scientists and engineers in the region. Its 30,000-square-foot research and education facility, located in the New London Business and Technology Center in Bedford County, will serve as the region’s source for industry innovation in nuclear and wireless technologies. For more information about CAER, please visit www.caer.us. 

The Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission is a 31-member body created by the 1999 General Assembly to promote economic growth and development in tobacco-dependent communities using proceeds of the national tobacco settlement. To date, the Commission has awarded 1,475 grants totaling more than $834 million across the tobacco region of the Commonwealth, and has made available nearly $288 million in indemnification payments to tobacco growers and quota holders. For information on the Commission’s history, mission, funding programs and recent grant awards, please visit its website at www.tic.virginia.gov. 

L-3 MAPPS, a division of L-3 Marine & Power Systems, has nearly 30 years of experience in pioneering technological advances in the marine automation field and nearly 40 years of experience in delivering high-fidelity power plant simulation to leading utilities worldwide. In addition, the company has more than three decades of expertise in supplying plant computer systems for Canadian heavy water reactors. L-3 MAPPS also provides targeted controls and simulation solutions to the space sector. To learn more about L-3 MAPPS, please visit the company’s website at www.L-3com.com/MAPPS. 

Comprised of 25 operating companies, L-3 Marine & Power Systems (L-3 M&PS) is a worldwide leader in maritime automation and control, navigation, communications, dynamic positioning, and power distribution and conditioning for the U.S. Navy, allied foreign navies and commercial customers worldwide. With over 80 locations in 20 countries, L-3 M&PS is a cohesive, global partner with extensive capabilities and a proven track record in delivering the highest level of technology, service and integration. To learn more about L-3 Marine & Power Systems, please visit the company’s website at www.L-3com.com/MPS. 

Headquartered in New York City, L-3 Communications employs approximately 61,000 people worldwide and is a prime contractor in C3ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) systems, aircraft modernization and maintenance, and government services. L-3 is also a leading provider of a broad range of electronic systems used on military and commercial platforms. The company reported 2010 sales of $15.7 billion. To learn more about L-3, please visit the company’s website at www.L-3com.com. 

Safe Harbor Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995

Except for historical information contained herein, the matters set forth in this news release are forward-looking statements. Statements that are predictive in nature, that depend upon or refer to events or conditions or that include words such as “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” “will,” “could” and similar expressions are forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements set forth above involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any such statement, including the risks and uncertainties discussed in the company’s Safe Harbor Compliance Statement for Forward-Looking Statements included in the company’s recent filings, including Forms 10-K and 10-Q, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. 

# # #

EPR is a trademark of AREVA group.

Orchid is a trademark of L-3 Communications MAPPS Inc. All other products are trademarks of their respective companies.

Japan is now using only 8 percent of its nuclear generation capacity, as Tokyo Electric Power Co. shut down another reactor for scheduled maintenance Tuesday. Other news from the last week related to the accident at TEPCO’s tsunami-drenched Fukushima Daiichi plant includes:

Cash Injection Could Result in TEPCO Nationalization

The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper and other sources reported Thursday that the Japanese government is planning a $12.8 billion capital injection that could effectively nationalize the struggling utility. Reports indicate the funding would be underwritten by the country’s Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund. That would be followed by another $12.8 billion loan package from a group of banks – an amount equal to what TEPCO has said it will need to pay compensation to victims of the accident while continuing to provide electricity to its massive customer base. The liability fund is negotiating to take control of the company by acquiring two thirds of TEPCO’s shareholder voting rights, which TEPCO’s management opposes. Before that happens, TEPCO shareholders would need to approve an increase in share capital at their annual meeting in June. Reuters quoted an unnamed source as saying the plan aims to keep TEPCO under state control for 10 years, paying back the government by raising equity after issuing bonds in four or five years.

Japan Down to Four Operating Reactors

Only four of Japan’s 54 power reactors are now online after TEPCO idled unit 5 at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant on Tuesday for five months of maintenance and inspections. Of TEPCO’s 17 reactors, Kyodo reported that only one is in service, and all will be shut down once Kashiwazaki-Kariwa unit 6 begins a maintenance outage in March. In addition to the four severely damaged units at Fukushima, unit 1 at Japan Atomic Power Co.’s Tokai Daini plant also was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami last March. Japan is tightening its safety requirements, and some of the idled reactors have undergone “stress tests” to evaluate their readiness for severe accidents. Additionally, as Japanese reactors have gone down for maintenance in the last year, many have had trouble acquiring the local approvals needed to restart, which economists have warned could provoke electricity shortages and damage to the Japanese economy.

A much-anticipated report on the future of nuclear waste disposal in the United States was made public Thursday. It offered a broad outline of how the country might approach the disposal of 67,500 tons of spent fuel in light of the government’s failure to construct a repository for it in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.

The report from The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future recommended a “consent-based approach” to siting waste storage facilities, noting that trying to site them in states and regions that oppose their construction hasn’t worked in the past. The commission also recommended that the nuclear waste management program be placed under the authority of a dedicated organization independent of the Department of Energy. The report urged the immediate development of at least one geologic repository and at least one consolidated storage facility, as well as preparations for transporting spent fuel to them. Nonetheless, the commission was not asked to make recommendations about Yucca Mountain or any other specific site, according to a press release announcing the report.

Yucca Mountain, on a former nuclear weapons testing site in Nevada, was selected as the best site for a national high-level waste repository by Congress in 1987. It was supposed to be operational in 1998, and utilities have successfully sued the government for costs related to storing spent fuel since then. In a move contested in the courts, the Yucca Mountain project has been defunded in the federal budget, and the DOE under President Barack Obama withdrew its application to operate the repository in 2010. The same year, the DOE appointed the commission to study the government’s approach to waste storage.

Utility customers pay a tax on electricity generated by reactors into the Nuclear Waste Fund, which was set up to pay for the repository. The commission also recommended that money, roughly $750 million per year, be set aside within the federal budget so Congress can only use it for projects related to waste disposal.

AREVA was awarded a contract by the Canadian group SNC-Lavalin Nuclear to provide filtered containment venting systems (FCVS) for Units 1 and 2 at CNE Cernavoda nuclear power plant in Romania.

The contract is part of a wider cooperation agreement between AREVA and SNC-Lavalin for CANDU-specific reactor designs. The project is planned for completion over the next 27 months.

The AREVA filtered containment venting system is a passive system with a compact design that prevents the buildup of excessive pressure, while safely releasing hydrogen and capturing fission products under accident conditions. Installed on more than 50 reactors worldwide, this is a proven technology and turnkey solution for utilities that can be easily retrofitted into existing plants in the U.S. and around the world.

According to AREVA, their FCVS can be used in all types of reactors: Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR), Boiling Water Reactors (BWR), and CANDU plants.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) continues to expand its presence in Finland. Today the company announced it has signed a new project development memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Finnish software and systems engineering firm Space Systems Finland Ltd. (SSF), which specializes in the validation and verification of safety critical software for various industrial sectors, including the aerospace and utility industries.

Under the agreement, the companies will explore potential opportunities to collaborate on future nuclear power plant projects globally as well as in Finland as the utility Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) is looking to build a fourth reactor at its Olkiluoto nuclear power station.

The signing of the MOU coincided with a meeting between John Krenicki, vice chairman of GE and president/CEO of GE Energy, and Finnish energy industry leaders at the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki to discuss how GE can support Finland’s efforts to expand the production of lower-carbon, alternative energy supplies, including the construction of new nuclear power plants.

“The ESBWR is an excellent example of how GE is providing its customers around the world with the most diverse portfolio of technology and services to help meet their unique energy and environmental priorities,” said Krenicki, who also presented the embassy with a scale model of the ESBWR that will be on display there. As part of the League of Green Embassies, the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki is a world leader in promoting energy efficiency and the embassy itself is being renovated to incorporate the latest green technologies.

TVO is evaluating several different reactor technologies for its “Olkiluoto-4” project, including GEH’s Generation III+ Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) design. GEH’s ESBWR utilizes natural circulation and passive safety technology. In 2011, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued its final design approval for the ESBWR, clearing the reactor design to be built by utilities around the world.

As part of the new MOU, SSF will support GEH in making sure that the ESBWR’s advanced digital instrumentation and controls (I&C) systems can be licensed in Finland. SSF will review the design, and identify and recommend any system architectural modifications necessary, if any, for the ESBWR design to comply with Finland’s special regulatory requirements.

“Space Systems Finland is excited to work with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy by using our extensive expertise in safety-critical systems to help ensure the ESBWR meets Finland’s nuclear industry requirements and standards,” said SSF Managing Director Veera Sylvius.

Previously, in November 2011, GEH also signed an MOU with Fluor Corp., a leading international engineering and construction company, to jointly bid for the potential ESBWR project in Finland.

Finland has four nuclear reactors that supplied more than 28 percent of the country’s electricity in 2010. In July 2010, Finland’s parliament ratified "Decisions in Principle" for the construction of two additional reactors, including TVO’s “Olkiluoto-4” project.

Exelon’s 2011 earnings met the company's expectations, executives said, thanks in part to strong performance from its fleet of 17 reactors.

In a conference call Wednesday, chairman John W. Rowe said the firm’s nuclear operations achieved a capacity factor of 93.3 percent for the year – the ninth in a row that factor has been above 93 percent. The company reported it completed five scheduled refueling outages in the last quarter of 2011, with 11 non-refueling outage days during that period at Exelon-operated plants.

Exelon is in the process of merging with Constellation Energy, and Rowe said the deal remains on track to be completed in the first quarter. The company expects the merger to close soon after it rounds up final approvals from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and state agencies.

Exelon has been working to increase the power at a number of its reactors. In a question and answer session, an analyst asked how lower natural gas prices would affect the economics of uprate projects in the next few years. Rowe said that, through this year and into the next, the company will reassess capital programs including uprates scheduled for 2015 and beyond. CEO Christopher M. Crane said the company will closely watch the most expensive extended power uprates, considered for the LaSalle, Peach Bottom and Limerick plants. Electricity prices are still at levels needed to make those uprates economical, he said, but the company retains the option to stop one or more of the projects if market conditions compel it.

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The daughter of a nuclear engineer, Suzanne Hobbs Baker was initially afraid of radiation when she first learned about in biology class at 15 years old. So she and her dad spent the day at the Oconee nuclear plant in South Carolina, learning about safety systems, taking dose readings and discovering more about how nuclear power works. Today, Hobbs Baker is a visual artist who leads PopAtomic Studios and uses her medium to address fears and misconceptions about nuclear energy. In this TEDx Talk, she elaborates on her work and the organization’s outreach, as well as the ways visual art can illustrate concepts in physics that can be difficult for non-scientists to grasp using equations alone.

PopAtomic often works with college students, and it is currently fundraising for a project to connect students online to demonstrations at a research reactor at the University of Wisconsin.

Southern Co. and its partners have much to show for their work at Plant Vogtle in 2011, with progress evident both at the site and in the regulatory process necessary to complete the $14 billion project.

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Southern recently released this video outlining the work completed in the fourth quarter and throughout the year. Highlights include progress on containment vessel fabrication, the completion of massive piping from the Westinghouse AP1000 units to a cooling tower, the construction of a wide range of support infrastructure and the issuance of a Final Safety Evaluation Report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Between the units, crews have completed the track for a heavy-lift derrick crane that will install sections of each reactor, and they’re presently assembling the crane itself.

To see more of what the 1,800 workers on-site have built so far, you can view a number of high-quality construction photographs released earlier this month.