Decommissioning

EnergySolutions said Wednesday it has reached an agreement with the Japan Atomic Power Co. (JAPC) under which the two companies will collaborate on decommissioning of light-water nuclear power facilities in Japan. The company declined to disclose terms of the deal, including the length of contract and monetary amount. EnergySolutions will share its decommissioning and decontamination […]

EnergySolutions said Wednesday it has reached an agreement with the Japan Atomic Power Co. (JAPC) under which the two companies will collaborate on decommissioning of light-water nuclear power facilities in Japan. EnergySolutions will share its decommissioning and decontamination know-how and capabilities with JAPC for work on Tsuruga Unit 1, according to a press release. Toward this, JAPC […]

British design and engineering consultant Atkins has acquired EnergySolutions’ projects, products, and technology (PP&T) segment for $318 million, the company announced Monday after securing regulatory authorization in North America. In a press a release, Atkins said the acquisition will improve its access to Tier 1 government contracts for management and decommissioning of nuclear sites in […]

British design and engineering consultant Atkins has acquired EnergySolutions’ projects, products, and technology (PP&T) segment for $318 million, the company announced Monday after securing regulatory authorization in North America. In a press a release, Atkins said the acquisition will improve its access to Tier 1 government contracts for management and decommissioning of nuclear sites in North America; improve opportunities for […]

The Oswego County Legislature is nearing a settlement with the owner of the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant that would halve the company’s tax obligations within the country in coming years. Under the proposed settlement, if FitzPatrick closes and begins decommissioning in 2017 as scheduled, operator Entergy would fork over $27.5 million in declining tax […]

Sellafield Ltd., the firm leading decommissioning of England’s Sellafield nuclear site, became a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on Friday. As the U.K. nuclear regulator, NDA owns 17 sites across England, Wales, and Scotland. Sellafield Ltd. was previously owned by private consortium Nuclear Management Partners. The U.K. government announced the move […]

U.S. In a significant decommissioning milestone, EnergySolutions subsidiary ZionSolutions announced Tuesday that it had removed the last remaining large components from the Zion Nuclear Power Station in Illinois. The large components – which include the steam generators, pressurizers, piping components, reactor coolant pumps, and motors – also have been prepared for shipment and final disposition. Tuesday’s […]

The Energy Department announced Tuesday that Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth will stay on the job decontaminating and decommissioning the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant for another two-and-a-half years, under a $750 million contract option. Together with the roughly $1.6 billion, five-year base contract awarded in 2011, the Portsmouth demolition work is now worth up to $$2.35 billion to […]

PHOENIX — Heavy equipment left over from a successful liquid-waste disposal operation at the West Valley Demonstration Project should be entombed in concrete in Texas by October, a DOE contractor said here Wednesday at the 2016 Waste Management Conference. Some 600,000 gallons of high-level liquid waste leftover from West Valley, the only U.S. site ever […]

Heavy equipment left over from a successful liquid-waste disposal operation at the West Valley Demonstration Project should be entombed in concrete in Texas by October, a DOE contractor said Wednesday at the 2016 Waste Management Conference. Some 600,000 gallons of high-level liquid waste leftover from West Valley, the only U.S. site ever to reprocess spent […]

Decommissioning work for the STURGIS barge could be on hold another two months, as project coordinators said Monday that they are continuing to experience delays in implementing a solution to a potential equipment mismatch. Following a holiday break, crews had planned to return to work in February for the estimated $34.6 million decommissioning project in […]

The Plutonium Finishing Plant is another step closer to being torn down after decades of work to clean out the heavily contaminated facility at the Hanford Site in Washington state. This week the Department of Energy announced that both of the 12-foot-tall glove boxes in the plant’s main processing building had been cut up, removed, […]

New management has been assigned to the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant and work is being rescheduled after continuing safety problems. “Over the past few months, we’ve experienced a number of safety-related events that, while they didn’t cause any serious injury, are unacceptable,” said John Ciucci, president of CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., in a […]

A story in the Feb. 5 edition of RadWaste Monitor misidentified the weight of a crane involved in the STURGIS decommissioning. The crane weighs 440 tons.

New management has been assigned to the Hanford Site Plutonium Finishing Plant and work is being rescheduled after continuing safety problems in ongoing cleanup of the facility. “Over the past few months, we’ve experienced a number of safety-related events that, while they didn’t cause any serious injury, are unacceptable,” said John Ciucci, president of CH2M […]

Amid some hoopla and a few dozen VIP onlookers, workers on Monday began tearing down the historic K-27 Building at the East Tennessee Technology Park. K-27 is the last of five gaseous diffusion plants in the East Tennessee valley that once housed the world’s largest uranium-enrichment complex and provided fuel for early generations of nuclear […]

Demolition began Monday on the last of five gaseous diffusion plants at the former Department of Energy uranium enrichment site that is now the East Tennessee Technology Park.   “We’re excited with the milestone of starting demolition today,” Sue Cange, manager of the DOE Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, said in a video posted […]

Karl Herchenroeder RW Monitor 2/5/2016 A potential equipment mismatch is likely to mean increased cost and an extended deadline for the estimated $34.6 million decommissioning of the STURGIS barge, a project that was suspended in January. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District project manager Brenda Barber said Monday that an 80-ton crane might not […]

A potential equipment mismatch is likely to mean increased cost and an extended deadline for the estimated $34.6 million decommissioning of the STURGIS barge, where work has been suspended. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Baltimore District project manager Brenda Barber said Monday that an 80-ton crane might not be compatible with the surrounding dock at […]

WC Monitor 1/29/2016 Fluor Marks First Paducah Demolition of 2016 Department of Energy contractor Fluor Paducah Deactivation Project already in 2016 has demolished the first of 12 inactive facilities to be razed soon at the former gaseous diffusion plant near Paducah, Ky., the DOE Office of Environmental Management Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office announced Tuesday. The C-746-B […]

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, prime contractor on the decontamination and decommissioning project at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio, said on Tuesday that it had marked 2 million safe work hours.   The safety run began in August 2015, according to a press release. Safe work hours are “hours without a lost-time accident,” Fluor-BWXT said. There […]

Department of Energy contractor Fluor Paducah Deactivation Project already in 2016 has demolished the first of 12 inactive facilities to be razed soon at the former gaseous diffusion plant near Paducah, Ky., the DOE Office of Environmental Management Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office announced Tuesday.    The C-746-B warehouse Fluor Paducah just knocked down is one of […]

More than 23 percent of decommissioning-related equipment and structures have been dismantled at Lithuania’s shuttered Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, according to the state enterprise managing the decommissioning project. Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant reported on Jan. 15 that 30,358 tons of equipment and related structures have been dismantled at the facility, where decommissioning is expected to […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 1/22/2016 Eight million tons of uranium mill tailings have been extracted from the Moab site in Utah through the Department of Energy’s Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project as of this week. That is half of the roughly 16 million tons of tailings from the former uranium ore processing site that […]

Staff Reports WC Monitor 1/8/2016 Unlike many of the Department of Energy’s big cleanup projects, radioactivity is not the concern during preparations for demolition of the K-1037 building in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The challenge is to do the cleanup while protecting the classification issues at the 380,000-square-foot facility, where the so-called “barrier” – a key […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 1/8/2016 The company carrying out the decontamination and decommissioning of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) in Ohio is largely meeting Department of Energy rules for management of radioactive waste, according to the DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA). The office also found that the department’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office provides “generally […]

The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has released its 2016 draft strategy for formal consultation through Feb. 15. The strategy sets out direction and long-term objectives for the decommissioning of the U.K. nuclear legacy sites. The NDA manages cleanup of 17 sites: 14 in England and Wales and three in Scotland. The Energy Act […]

Final preparations are being made for demolition of the former K-27 uranium enrichment plant at Oak Ridge, Tenn., the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced. The building is the last of five structures that once enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and commercial nuclear fuel at what is now the East Tennessee Technology Park […]

The site director for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant decontamination and decommissioning project in Ohio confirmed on Sunday that massive layoffs should not be necessary in the current fiscal year. Project contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth had prepared to lay off up to 500 workers this fall due to reduced funding from the Department of Energy and […]

The Department of Energy’s cleanup contractor at its Idaho site, CH2M-WG, Idaho, LLC, continues to make progress in the demolition of the site’s Experimental Breeder Reactor-II. Decontamination and decommissioning crews recently sliced a 48-foot-long, 103,000-pound steam drum tank into three portions, which were dropped in the basement of the boiler building for permanent disposal, according […]