Workers at the nuclear reactor area under construction, are seen at Hinkley Point C nuclear power station site, near Bridgwater, Britain.(Source: REUTERS/Peter Nicholls)

Some leading British companies have joined forces with trade unions to develop a so-called Clean Energy Hub in Moorside, Cumbria, which include a package of nuclear projects such as a 3.2 GW EPR power station, small modular reactors (SMRs) and advanced modular reactors, EDF said in a statement on June 30. 

The Moorside Clean Energy Hub will link the nuclear plants to renewables and green hydrogen projects in the region to create a “Clean Energy Hub for the North West” of England. 

Many of the participating companies are already involved in the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset, in the South West of England. 

Companies, unions and individuals involved in the Moorside Hub include Altrad; Atkins; Balfour Beatty Bailey; Bilfinger; Cavendish Nuclear; Doosan Babcock; EDF; GMB; Jacobs; Laing O’Rourke; Mott MacDonald; Mace; Prospect; Quod; Unite the Union; and Professor John Fyfe CBE (economic development specialist). 

"Britain’s Energy Coast Business Cluster is where the energy sector meets local business in the North West and we welcome the engagement of EDF and its consortia with their ambitious proposal for Moorside,” said Ivan Baldwin, Chair, Britain’s Energy Coast Business Cluster.

US DOE awards multiple DD&R contracts

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (EM) has awarded a number of Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts to provide nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning and Removal (DD&R) services to help address excess facilities, the DOE said in a statement on July 7.

Those awarded the contracts include Aptim Federal Services, LLC, Atkins Nuclear Secured, LLC, BWXT Field Services, LLC, D2R Services, LLC, Fluor Federal, Inc., Jacobs Technology, Inc., Nationwide Remediation Partners, LLC, Orano Federal Services, LLC and Westinghouse Government Services, LLC.

The contracts will utilize Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) and Cost Reimbursement task orders to conduct DD&R of excess, legacy facilities across the Environmental Management complex, the ministry said.

Other DOE offices or Federal Agencies that may request EM assistance in meeting their DD&R requirements, such as the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Naval Reactors (NR) and the Office of Science (SC), will also be supported, it said.

The procurement, which was fully open to competition, has a 10-year ordering period and a maximum ordering value of $3 billion, the DOE said.

The EM is responsible for the cleaning up and managing the environmental legacy of five decades of U.S. nuclear weapons production and government-sponsored nuclear energy research and includes some of the world’s most dangerous radioactive sites. Of the 107 sites across the country under its mandate, it has completed a cleanup of 91 sites.  

Second Tier of internal containment installed at Akkuyu 

The second tier of one of the critical components of a power unit’s safety systems, the reactor building’s internal containment, has been completed at the Power Unit 1 of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, Akkuyu said in a statement at the beginning of July. 

“The containment's second tier is one of the largest structural components of the reactor building, and for that reason successful completion of its lifting and installation is a very important milestone for us. At the next stage the installed structure will be additionally reinforced, followed by formwork installation, and then we will proceed with concrete pouring,” said Sergei Butskikh, the first deputy CEO and director of the NPP construction. 

In 2010, the government of Russia and Turkey signed a Cooperation Agreement for the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, which will comprise of four units with VVER-1200 reactors with a total capacity of 4,800 MW, on the southern coast of Turkey in the Mersin province. 

The plant is the first nuclear power plant project implemented according to the Build-Own-Operate model whereby under the long-term contract, the company must provide the plant’s design, construction, maintenance, operation, and decommissioning. 

Russia’s Rosatom State Corporation will maintain a 99.2% stake in the project which is estimated to cost $20 billion. 

Russia plans the construction of 4 nuclear power plant units 

Russia is planning to build four new power plant units in the Leningrad and Smolensk regions using the VVER-1200 and VVER-TOI nuclear power plants, Rosenergoatom said in a statement at the end of June. 

JSC Rosenergoatom, part of the Rosatom State Corporation, will be both the developer and the technical coordinator of the projects. 

“The new power units will replace the units with RBMK-1000 reactors, whose service life will end in the next decade,” said Andrei Petrov, Director General of JSC Rosenergoatom. 

A preliminary work implementation project will be carried out by the end of this year at the construction site of the new power units 3 and 4 with VVER-1200 reactors at the Leningrad II plant. Public hearings on license justification and an environmental impact assessment will be carried out over the 2020-2022 period and construction project evaluation through until 2022. 

The new power units for the Smolensk II nuclear power plant will be VVER-TOI reactors with a total capacity of 2,510 MW and will be built 6 kilometers away from the plant. The plan for Units 1 and 2 of the Smolensk 2 plant should be approved by the end of this year, the company said. 

Nuclear Energy Insider