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round up
RADWASTE CANADA’S NUCLEAR WASTE Management Organisation (NWMO) has announced the five companies selected to design and plan a deep geological repository (DGR) for used nuclear fuel in northwestern Ontario. In 2024, two potential sites were identified for the DGR after 15 years of investigation – one in the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation-Ignace area in northwestern Ontario and the other in the Saugeen Ojibway Nation- South Bruce area in southern Ontario.
D&D
CLEANUP CREWS HAVE removed the first transite panel from the X-333 facility to prepare for the demolition of the second of three former uranium enrichment process buildings at the US Department of Energy Portsmouth Site. Crews finished demolishing X-326 in 2022. X-330 will be the third process building to be knocked down.
ORANO HAS REPORTED that demolition work has started at the two cooling towers of France’s Georges Besse I gaseous diffusion enrichment plant in Tricastin. George Besse-I was constructed in the early 1970s adjacent to the Tricastin NPP and was shut down in 2012. The two towers - 123 metres high and 90 metres in diameter at their base - cooled the uranium enrichment plant operated by Eurodif Production for 33 years.
THE FIRST STAGE of decommissioning of the building of the former fuel tablet manufacturing plant has been completed at Rosatom’s Machine-building plant in Elektrostal. The project is being implemented within the framework of the Federal Target Programme “Ensuring Nuclear & Radiation Safety for 2016-2020 and for the period up to 2030”. The contractor under the state contract is the Siberian Chemical Combine.
ADVANCED REACTORS THE US DEPARTMENT of Energy (DOE) has released a final environmental assessment for the operation of the Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) test bed at Idaho National Laboratory. DOE said DOME would provide private industry with a safe, reliable, and affordable location to test their microreactor technologies.
THE US NUCLEAR Regulatory Commission (NRC) has accepted for review a construction permit application for the Long Mott Generating Station - a multi- unit advanced reactor facility at Dow Chemical’s Seadrift site in Calhoun County, Texas. The four-unit facility plans to use X-energy’s Xe-100 reactor design.
proving grounds to test the drilled pier
installation process and refine Kairos Power’s nuclear quality assurance programme. In February, Kairos Power completed design,
construction, and installation of the reactor vessel for its second non-nuclear Engineering Test Unit (ETU 2.0). It is building the ETU to advance the iterative development of its Fluoride Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactor (KP-FHR) technology. ETU 2.0 will demonstrate KP-FHR system integration in an optimised, fully modular design, building on lessons learned from ETU 1.0. The ETU programme is intended to mature Kairos Power’s internal manufacturing capabilities, mitigating supply chain risk for the Hermes demonstration reactor series. The construction team, led by Barnard
Construction Company, completed a full-scale test pier in November (Pier 52) to demonstrate the process before drilling 70 piers for ETU 3.0 over four months. The Hermes reactor will leverage proven
technologies that originated in Oak Ridge – a combination of TRISO coated particle fuel and FLiBe (a eutectic mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride) molten fluoride salt coolant. Hermes is supported by risk reduction funding from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program.
Vietnam NPP agreement signed Vietnam and Russia are to sign and negotiate agreements on the construction of NPPs in Vietnam. The statement followed a visit to Moscow by a Vietnamese delegation. In April, the Vietnamese Government
approved a revised National Electricity Development Plan for 2021-2030, with a vision to 2050 (PDP8), which now integrates the development of nuclear energy. Under the $136bn plan, Vietnam plans to increase total installed capacity to between 183 GWe and 236 GWe by 2030, up from just over 89 GWe at the end of 2023. The first nuclear stations are planned to be
commissioned from 2030 to 2035. The installed nuclear power is expected to reach from 4-6.4 GWe, equivalent to approximately 4-6 large nuclear plants. By 2050 a further 8 GWe of nuclear power would be added. The government previously said its nuclear programme will include two NPPs with a total capacity of 4 GWe in the central province of Nin Thuan. Vietnam had planned the construction of
two stations in the province 2009, but the National Assembly cancelled the plans in 2016 for economic reasons. The proposed plants were to be built by Rosatom and Japan Atomic Power Company. In December 2024, parliament asked the government to resume nuclear energy following approval by the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The joint Russian-Vietnamese statement said the two sides “agreed to promptly negotiate and sign intergovernmental agreements on the construction of nuclear power plants in
10 | June 2025 |
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Vietnam, ensuring the application of advanced technology and strict compliance with regulations on nuclear and radiation safety serving socio-economic development.” Rosatom also agreed an inter-departmental
roadmap with Vietnam for the period to 2030 covering the construction of a nuclear science and technology centre; the supply of fuel for Vietnam’s research reactor in Dalat; Vietnam’s participation in the International Research Centre based on Russia’s MBIR (Mnogotselevoi Bistrii Issledovatelskii Reaktor) research reactor under construction at the Scientific Research Institute of Atomic Reactors, as well as training for the Vietnamese nuclear industry. In January, Rosatom Energy Projects and the
Electric Power Corporation of Vietnam (EVN) signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of nuclear energy.
The Netherlands PALLAS pit and foundation completed The construction pit and the foundation have been completed on the site of the PALLAS reactor project in the Netherlands, near the town of Petten. Peter Dijk, Programme Director and member of the Executive Board at NRG PALLAS said: “This has laid the foundation for the next phase of construction. The PALLAS- reactor is crucial for the production of medical isotopes. Patients with life-threatening illnesses, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases, depend on these isotopes for diagnosis or therapy.” The 55 MWt tank-in-pool PALLAS research
reactor will replace the existing 45 MWt High Flux Reactor (HFR), which began operating in September 1960. It was originally used for materials testing but is currently used for fundamental research and the production of medical radioisotopes. The reactor is operated by NRG on behalf of the European Union’s Joint Research Centre. It supplies some 60% of Europe’s and 30% of the world’s medical radioactive sources. PALLAS will able to deploy its neutron flux more efficiently and effectively than the HFR. In 2023, Belgian construction firm BESIX
began preparations for the construction pit and the foundation and first concrete was poured in May 2023. Since then, the construction site at the Energy & Health Campus in Petten has been transformed with completion of the pit. This phase included: 30 deep walls; 162 drilled grout anchors equipped with 15 pre-stressing strands per anchor; 380 foundation piles drilled; an underwater concrete floor 1.5 metres thick; and above this, a reinforced foundation slab measuring 50 by 50 metres and 1.5 metres thick. NRG PALLAS, together with main contractor
FCC and designer ICHOS, is now preparing the next phase. The construction site is being restructured so that work on the lower section of the reactor can begin later this year. Additionally, preparations are underway for installation of the cooling water pipeline which will take water from the North Holland Canal.
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