International

The size of the United States’ strategic deployed nuclear stockpile increased by 24 warheads over the last six months according to the latest data released by the State Department. According to the Oct. 1 declaration, the U.S. had 1,688 strategic deployed warheads under the treaty’s counting rules as of Sept. 1, 2013, a small increase […]

The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority yesterday officially asked the four teams in the running for the Magnox contract to submit bids, which will be due in early November. The contract award, which is expected to be announced in March, will be for the management and cleanup of the U.K.’s 10 Magnox power plants, along with […]

Westinghouse Electric Company announced earlier this week that it has received a contract from ENRESA (Empresa Nacional de Residuos Radiactivos), Spain’s nuclear waste and decommissioning agency, to provide engineering services on the construction of an interim waste facility to host spent nuclear fuel and high level waste. The multi-million dollar contract calls for Westinghouse to revise […]

The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority doesn’t expect the contract for cleanup and management of its Magnox sites to face the same set of challenges that Sellafield has experienced in its first few years, NDA CEO John Clarke told WC Monitor Friday. Bids are due Nov. 1 for the NDA’s new contract to decommission and manage […]

Two new speakers from the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority addressing geologic disposal and decommissioning have been added to the agenda for the 25th Annual Decisionmakers’ Forum, set for Oct. 21-24 in Amelia Island, Fla. While the current government shut-down is preventing the Department of Energy from speaking, there will be a full agenda packed with […]

Two Michigan U.S. senators wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday, asking for his intervention to stop a proposed Canadian nuclear waste repository located near the Great Lakes. The senators, Debbie Stabenow (D- Mich.) and Carl Levin (D- Mich.), asked Kerry to talk with the International Joint Commission, a board set […]

Rolls-Royce has appointed Mark Lesinski as President of its Nuclear Services business, effective January 2014. Lesinski currently serves as Chief Operating Officer for the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and in his new role “will be responsible for the strategic direction and global expansion of Rolls-Royce nuclear services business,” according to a Rolls-Royce release issued late […]

Management at the U.K.’s Sellafield site is looking to break out big chunks of scope for top tier contractors, and will be holding a summit the week of Dec. 9 to discuss the idea. The concept would be for contractor Nuclear Management Partners to offer “tier one-and-a-half” work, U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Chief Operating Officer […]

The U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has missed its target for efficiency savings during Sellafield’s first contract period by £173 million, a U.K. government audit released yesterday found, but the NDA so far has provided “moderate assurance” of reported overall savings. The National Audit Office reviewed claimed savings at Sellafield since the contract with Nuclear Management […]

Secretary of State John Kerry said the case for the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty is “stronger than ever” during a speech in Washington earlier this week, but he stopped short of making any commitment for the Obama Administration to push the Senate to vote on the pact. Ratification of the CTBT has been among the Obama […]

After the recent signing of a new civil nuclear agreement with Vietnam, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) expressed “deep concerns” regarding provisions for enrichment and reprocessing in such agreements in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry this week. Corker, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is pushing for the so-called “gold […]

All of the highly enriched uranium in Hungary has been removed thanks to a joint effort between the United States, Russia, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Hungary, the Department of Energy said yesterday. The HEU cleanout—the 12th completed by the NNSA’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative—was completed in three shipments over the last six weeks […]

U.K. government officials faced a harsh grilling over cost overrruns at Sellafield from Margaret Hodge, chair of the U.K. Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, at a hearing Monday on the Sellafield site. “What is extraordinary is that you have an absolutely rotten performance,” Hodge said. “In Sellafield, you sign a contract that does not meet your […]

Officials from the Department of Energy reiterated their suggestion on Monday that Japan engage U.S. private sector decommissioning companies to aid in the cleanup of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station. Tokyo Electric Power Company, the company responsible for the cleanup, has suffered notorious set backs in completing the decommissioning—most notably, leaks of contaminated water […]

Better coordination of the nuclear forces of the United States, the United Kingdom, and perhaps even France, could generate cost savings and possibly shrink the number of submarines needed by each country while having little impact on the deterrence postures of the allies, according to a British arms control expert. Paul Ingram, the executive director […]

The U.S. International Trade Commission yesterday voted three to one to maintain an antidumping order on low enriched uranium from France. The ITC initiated a regular five-year review on the order last December, and in yesterday’s vote “determined that revoking the existing antidumping duty order on low-enriched uranium from France would be likely to lead […]

Sellafield Limited announced yesterday that it expects to save £1 million by reusing fuel skips from another site to ship waste out of the Pile Fuel Storage Pond. Sellafield plans to reuse 42 Magnox skips from the Chapelcross Magnox reactor site that otherwise would have been disposed of. Sellafield believes it will save £580,000 by […]

A bill that would extend the current civil nuclear agreement with South Korea for two years until March 2016 was reported out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday. The Obama Administration has said that it is seeking the two-year extension to the agreement to give it time to work out technical issues before the […]

While there is confidence in the U.S. extended deterrent in Europe, some “ambiguity and doubts” still remain, a European nuclear deterrence expert said Friday. “Nobody in Europe doubts that would the U.S. really be threatened in the field of nuclear deterrence that the U.S. has the weight and the will to use their weapons,” François […]

As the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority considers whether or not to extend URS-led Nuclear Management Partners’ contract at Sellafield, URS Chief Executive Officer and President Martin Koffel earlier this week defended URS’ performance at the site. The NDA is currently expected to make a decision by September as to whether it will recompete the Sellafield […]

The International Symposium on the Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Material kicks off today in San Francisco and lasts through the week. Speakers at the conference include Department of Energy cleanup chief Dave Huizenga, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Commissioner George Apostolakis, DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Pete Lyons and Denis Flory, head of the Department […]

While some activists are opposing a potential shipment of highly enriched uranium from the Dounreay research reactor site  in Scotland to the Savannah River Site, officials say they have no concrete plans yet for shipping the material. Some of the material from the Republic of Georgia being stored at Dounreay has already been sent to […]

U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority Chief Operating Officer Mark Lesinski announced Friday that he would be leaving his post at the NDA and returning to the United States for family reasons. Lesinski joined the NDA in 2010 from Magnox South Limited, owned and operated by EnergySolutions, and before that he worked on U.S. nuclear decommissioning projects.  […]

The United States and Russia signed an agreement yesterday to expand cooperation between the countries’ nuclear weapons laboratories on areas including nonproliferation, nuclear technology, science, energy, and environmental issues. The “Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Russian Federation on Cooperation in Nuclear- and Energy-Related Scientific Research […]

EnergySolutions is moving to make changes to its longstanding team in the competition to run Canada’s national nuclear laboratory system, RW Monitor has learned. In response to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s plans to find a private contractor to manage its national labs, four years ago EnergySolutions formed CRNL Partners, which also includes SNC Lavalin. […]

The House passed legislation this week that would extend the current U.S. civil nuclear agreement with South Korea until March 2016, two years beyond its current expiration date in March 2014. The bill passed late Tuesday by voice vote. The Obama Administration has sought the simple two-year extension to the agreement to give it time […]

The future of the Sellafield contract will likely be decided at the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s Board of Directors meeting this week. The NDA is currently completing its review of the initial five-year period of URS-led Nuclear Management Partners’ contract to run the site, which will will inform its decision to extend the contract or […]

With the Fiscal Year 2014 Defense Authorization Act slated to be considered on the House floor later this week, House lawmakers sifted through hundreds of proposed amendments to the bill, including a measure drafted by Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) that would force NATO to pay for 50 percent of the cost of the B61 refurbishment […]

The United States and Russia have extended the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Umbrella Agreement, agreeing to continue to cooperate on threat reduction activities in Russia. The existing agreement, first signed in 1992, expired Sunday, and the signing of the new agreement puts to rest fears that Russia would not want to agree to continue the […]

st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } Following an international meeting this spring on the Nonproliferation Treaty, a State Department official yesterday said he was disappointed by the focus by nonweapons states on the pace of U.S. and Russian disarmament. The preparatory committee meeting was held in April and May in Geneva to prepare for the next five-year review of […]