Japan's tsunami-battered Fukushima nuclear complex has suffered another radioactive water leak, its operator said Friday, the latest in a series of incidents at the crippled plant. About 360 litres (95 gallons) of tainted water leaked from a desalination unit although it did not escape from the complex, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said. The desalination unit removes salt from tainted seawater used to cool ...

A small Canadian energy company may soon be about to install thorium-fuelled nuclear reactors in Indonesia and Chile, in order to generate energy for the grid, or for desalination plants. The world currently has 435 commercial nuclear power plants, all of which run off uranium, but thorium is gathering support to replace uranium as a nuclear fuel, for several reasons. Thorium is much safer than uranium, bei ...

High levels of a toxic substance called strontium-90 have been found in groundwater at the devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, announced TEPCO today. Strontium-90 is a by-product of the fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear reactors as well as nuclear weapons, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says on its website. The discovery of rising levels of such radioactive material is lik ...

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a push on Sunday for his country's nuclear technologies at a summit in Warsaw with leaders of four ex-Communist European Union countries, as part of his bid to boost the Asian powerhouse's exports. Abe recently unveiled plans to treble Japan's infrastructure exports to 30 trillion yen ($300 billion) a year, a target that could not be reached without nuclear reactors. ...

South Korea on Thursday fired the head of the state-run company that oversees the country's 23 nuclear reactors over a forged documentation scandal that has shut a host of those reactors down. Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power president Kim Kyun-Seop was dismissed from his post for the scandal involving parts provided with fake safety certificates, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a statement. ...

Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and visiting French President Francois Hollande agreed at a meeting on Friday to enhance their nuclear and security cooperation. During the summit meeting hosted by Abe at the Prime Minister's Office, the two leaders concluded a written agreement on comprehensive nuclear cooperation between the two countries that includes joint development of technology for a fast reactor, nu ...

South Korea's nuclear safety regulator has approved the restart of Hanbit (formerly Yonggwang) unit 3, which has been offline for almost eight months for repairs. The move will ease concerns of power shortages over the coming months. Plant operator Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) shut down the 1000 MWe Hanbit 3 for scheduled maintenance and refuelling in October 2012. It was kept offline for the repair ...

Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, Ltd. (Hitachi-GE) and AREVA today announced that they have reached an agreement aimed at improving the safety of nuclear power plants through the delivery of filtered containment venting systems (FCVS). The two companies intend to work together, including the adoption by Hitachi-GE of AREVA technology for the design, fabrication, and installation of these components. They will be ...

The four steam generators for Taishan 1 - measuring 25 meters long and weighing 550 tonnes each - were manufactured at Areva's plant at Chalon-St Marcel, France. However, those for subsequent Chinese EPR units are to be produced domestically. China General Nuclear Power Group (CGNPC) has announced that the first domestically-produced steam generators for Taishan 2 is now finished, while the second is nearin ...

Westinghouse and China's State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation (SNPTC) will work together to develop a small modular reactor (SMR) design licensable in both the USA and China. A MOU signed by the two companies, which have a long history of working together for the deployment of AP1000 pressurised water reactors (PWRs) in China, will see them establish a partnership to develop an SMR based on Westinghou ...