Russia's Titan-2 - the main contractor for Fennovoima's Hanhikivi 1 nuclear power plant project in Finland - has awarded a contract to the Framatome-Siemens consortium for the plant's main instrumentation and control (I&C) systems.

In-service steam generators affected by non-compliance in a stress-relieving heat-treatment process are safe to continue in use, French utility EDF said today. Investigations into the deviation at Framatome's Saint-Marcel site are ongoing.

Framatome is carrying out further studies at its Saint-Marcel site in France after discovering temperature ranges in some stress-relieving heat treatments carried out on steam generator welds and pressuriser seals had deviated from technical standards, the company said today.

Rapid growth in uranium demand will lead to a need for additional mined uranium in the period to 2040 in all scenarios given in the latest edition of World Nuclear Association's fuel report. Projections for nuclear generating capacity growth have been revised upwards for the first time in eight years, following the introduction of more favourable policies in a number of countries.

GE Steam Power expects "stable demand" for nuclear power generation over the next 10 years as "the only powerful source of electricity without carbon dioxide emissions", its CEO, Michael Keroullé, said in an interview this week with Strana Rosatom, the newspaper of the Russian state nuclear corporation.

Owners and operators of US civilian nuclear power reactors purchased a total of 40 million pounds U3O8 equivalent (15,386 tU) of deliveries during 2018, according to the latest uranium marketing report from the US Energy Information Administration. Nearly 10% of that was US-origin uranium.
 

US small modular reactor developer NuScale Power has signed a memorandum of understanding with Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction - part of South Korea's Doosan Group - for strategic cooperation to support deployment of the NuScale Power Module worldwide.

Finnish power companies are looking for ways to streamline licensing and qualification processes through a new project started last year called KELPO. The first part of the project has been completed and it is moving ahead to the pilot phase, writes Tuomo Huttunen, senior advisor on nuclear power at industry group Finnish Energy.

Bruce Power has completed its first harvest of medical-grade cobalt-60 produced inside the Bruce 7 nuclear power reactor.

The uranium market started to show recovery in 2018 but prices and the long-term contracting market are still not sufficient to restart idled production capacity, Cameco CEO Tim Gitzel said yesterday.

The world's supply of uranium is more than adequate to meet projected requirements for the foreseeable future, but investment and technical expertise will be needed to make sure resources can be brought into production in a timely manner, including from mines currently under care and maintenance, according to the latest 'Red Book'.

The South African government has replaced the entire board of the South Africa Nuclear Energy Corporation following alleged failures in its statutory duties including legislative non-compliance, non-adherence to shareholder instructions, financial mismanagement and delays in returning the country's radioisotope manufacturing facility to full functionality.