RW Monitor
10/3/2014
IN DOE
The Department of Energy this week issued a draft solicitation for up to $12.6 billion in loan guarantees for advanced nuclear energy projects. The four key areas of interest include advanced nuclear reactors, small modular reactors, upgrades at existing facilities, and $2 billion for front-end nuclear projects such as uranium enrichment and conversion plants. “For the first time in more than 30 years, new nuclear power plants are under construction in the United States,” DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a statement. “This solicitation would build on that investment and help support the construction of the next generation of safe and secure nuclear energy projects. Expanding on the Administration’s commitment to an all-of-the-above energy strategy, these projects will provide clean energy to American families and businesses.”
IN THE INDUSTRY
Perma-Fix Environmental Services this week was awarded a $4.5 million contract for treatment of a tritium waste stream at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Department of Energy awarded the work as a Firm Fixed-Price task order under the Mixed Low-Level Waste (MLLW) Treatment Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract.. According to DOE, the scope of work includes “conducting a complete characterization of waste from the Flanged Tritium Waste Container waste streams and packaging and transportation of the FTWCs from LANL to an approved and authorized Treatment Storage and Disposal Facility; treatment of the FTWC waste stream at the contractor’s waste treatment facility; and shipment of the treated FTWC daughter waste streams to the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) or other appropriate TSDF for disposal.”
ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT
The Tokyo Electric Power Company and the United Kingdom’s Sellafield Ltd. officially signed an agreement to share knowledge and lessons-learned on long-term decommissioning work, TEPCO announced this week. The two sides announced the agreement in principle earlier this year, but now the agreement is official. Sellafield will help TEPCO at its Fukushima Daii-chi Power Station in four areas: Site management, environmental monitoring, radiation protection, and project delivery and design engineering. TEPCO will also contribute its experience to the Sellafield site. “There are a lot of things we can learn from each other,” the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority CEO John Clarke said in a statement. “There are some clever technologies used in Sellafield, some of which I think are potentially useful at Fukushima, and equally clever technology at Fukushima that might be useful for Sellafield. But I think more than that, it’s the ways of using technology and sometimes using quite simple technology in a different way to make the progress that is needed. I think the real benefit of the cooperation agreement is sharing experiences.”
