December seen as earliest date for OL3 restart world-nuclear-news.org

Africa’s Top Roof, Mount Kilimanjaro to Play Vital Role in Advocating Nuclear Energy allafrica.com

Nuclear blackmail should have no place in international politics news.am

UK, France and Germany condemn Iran’s decision to further expand its nuclear gov.uk

Ambient office = 05 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Acorn squash from Central Market = 109 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 83 nanosieverts per hour

Dover Sole from Central = 109 nanosieverts per hour

     Colorado-based Energy Fuels Incorporated has agreed to sell three wholly owned subsidiaries that together make up the Alta Mesa in-situ leaching (ISL) project to Texas-based enCore Energy Corporation for a total of one hundred and twenty million dollars. When the deal closes, Energy Fuels will receive sixty million dollars. They will also receive a secured convertible note for sixty million dollars which will be payable in two years. EnCore will also assume all reclamation liabilities associated with the Alta Mesa project. Energy Fuels acquired the Alta Mesa project from Mesteña Uranium for about thirteen and a half million dollars in 2016.
     The fully licensed and constructed Alta Mesa ISL project and central processing facility has an operating capacity of one and a half million pounds of U3O8 per year. The project has inferred resources of sixteen and three quarter million pounds of U3O8.
     EnCore’s portfolio includes the licensed and past-producing Rosita and Kingsville Come ISL operations in South Texas as well as the development-stage Dewey-Burdock in South Dakota and Gas Hills in Wyoming projects. EnCore says that the Alta Mesa project can reach commercial production levels with limited required capital in ten months of a production decision. The addition of the Alta Mesa project will boost EnCore’s total uranium processing capacity to three and a half million pounds of U3O8 per year.
     William Sheriff is the Executive Chairman of enCore. He said that it will “further cement enCore’s commitment to near-term US-based uranium production with our initial focus on South Texas.  Alta Mesa will immediately become a flagship asset amongst our large project portfolios.”
     Paul Goranson is the CEO of enCore. He said, “Combined with our South Texas operations that are anchored around our Rosita project, this acquisition puts us in an exceptionally strong position to advance towards being a long-term sustainable source of uranium production to fuel clean nuclear energy that will benefit our local communities, the state of Texas, and the United States.”
     In addition to uranium, Energy Fuels produces vanadium and is also developing commercial production of rare-earth carbonate as well as looking to develop the separation of radioisotopes from its mineral processing streams. Its assets include the White Mesas Mill in Utah which is the only currently operating conventional uranium mill in the U.S. They also own the Nichols Ranch ISL project in Wyoming which is currently on standby.
      Mark Chalmers is the CEO of Energy Fuels. He said that the money from the Alta Mesa project will allow the company to focus on and accelerate its higher priority uranium and vanadium projects. He added that the company is carrying out work towards restarting production at one of more of its projects with production expected to start as soon as 2023. The cash from the Alta Mesa deal will help further fund this ramp-up. The company will also retains some exposure to short-term market upside and optionality at Alta Mesa and enCore through the convertible note.
      Energy Fuels also plans to establish an ore purchasing program from future uranium mining from other to maximize currently underutilized capacity at White Mesa according to Chalmers. He said that it will “help to both finance and focus our plans in this regard without dilution associated with equity financings.”

Russia offers new nuclear fuel solutions for India’s atomic reactors hindustantimes.com

Feasibility study agreed for new nuclear in Kyrgyz Republic world-nuclear-news.org

NRC to review research reactor license application world-nuclear-news.org

Finland refutes nuclear weapons ‘siting’ and reinforces border defensenews.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ambient office = 112 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 115 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 124 nanosieverts per hour

Tomato from Central Market = 133 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 80 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 67 nanosieverts per hour

Part 3 of 3 Parts (Please read Parts 1 and 2 first)
     France finds itself in the difficult position this winter of leaning more heavily on its coal fired power plants, importing electricity from Germany and relying on natural gas reserves stored in a warren of underground caves to make it through the winter.
     In order to conserve power, President Macron’s government is moving ahead with France’s biggest energy conservation measures undertaken in decades. This is part of a broader conservation effort in Europe. The plan calls on citizens and businesses to make major lifestyle changes. These include lowering thermostats, car pooling and turning off lights after hours.
     Analysts say that there will likely be a recession in Europe next year. Though undesirable, such a recession could help lower energy demand by leading energy-intensive businesses to cut production. The drop in available power has already forced steel, chemical and glass makers to cut output and furlough workers in France and elsewhere in Europe.
     Regardless of economic conditions, France will still need to repair its reactors. Most of them were built in the 1980s and have been neglected for decades by a lack of investment. Experts say that France has lost valuable engineering expertise over the year. This trend has had serious repercussions for EDF’s ability to maintain existing nuclear power stations.
     As part of its broader repair and maintenance effort, it has brough on hundreds of skilled engineers to make up for a serious lack of hands in France’s nuclear work force. The experts hired include welders and pipe fitters from Westinghouse, as well as from French and Canadian contractors.
     However, event critical repairs must be carefully monitored. EDF said that a radioactive leak occurred this month during a hydraulic test on the main cooling circuit of the Civaux 1 nuclear power plant. EDF has spent months working to repair the cooling pipes. They are using new advanced technologies including ultrasound and welding robots that don’t have any radiation exposure limits.
     EDF claimed that there was not safety risk from the Civaux 1 leak, and that no radioactivity was detected outside of the plant. However, the episode will probably delay the reopening of the plant. It was originally scheduled to open on January 8th of 2023.
     Le Creuset is a huge foundry in France. For many years, they were the only foundry capable of forging the huge containment vessels needed for nuclear reactors. Besides providing vessels for French nuclear reactors, they also exported many vessels to other countries. A few years ago, they had forged a vessel for the Hinkley Point C plant being constructed in England. When a duplicate vessel was tested in France, it turned out that the steel in the vessel was about half as strong as it was purported to be because only half the required carbon was added to the alloy. These substandard reactor vessels had been shipped to other countries with over twenty to the U.S. alone. All the tainted reactors had to be shut down so the vessels could be checked. A number of reactors had been previously shut down in France to repair substandard welding.
     The maintenance being undertaken by EDF is certainly important if long overdue. France may have a huge nuclear fleet which provided three quarters of their electricity before many plants were shut down recently, but their problems far predate the current energy crisis.

U.N. Supplied Qatar With Tech to ‘Prevent Nuclear Security Incident’ at 2022 World Cup freebeacon.com

Netanyahu repeats pledge to prevent a nuclear Iran tv7israelnews.com

Putin handed dire warning against nuclear use as Xi Jinping turns his back on Russia express.co.uk

Nuclearelectrica signs MOU to support Romanian SMR development neimagazine.com

Ambient office = 100 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 108 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 103 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 139 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 97 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 71 nanosieverts per hour

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     EDF is over forty-five billion dollars in debt. It has fallen further into financial difficulty and announced that its 2022 profit would drop by thirty billion dollars because of the problems with its reactors. In addition, there is a government effort to force EDF to provide artificially cheap electricity for business and households.
      Even as EDF is working hard to comply with the demand for accelerated repairs to its reactor fleet, the company cut its 2022 nuclear power production estimate last week. The announcement caused the cost of French and European electricity to jump.
      Efforts to repair corrosion in pipes that cool the cores of four reactors are taking longer that expected. Those reactors will not start until January or February.
      A strike late last month by French nuclear plant workers demanding higher wages to keep up with inflation caused more disruptions to power generation. EDF said it  was already behind in performing required maintenance on several aging reactors because of lockdowns related to the coronavirus. The labor strikes put it even further behind schedule.
     The company’s recent problems began late last year as it starting working through the backlog of needed repairs. The inspections unearthed alarming safety issues at an older-generation nuclear reactor in southwest France called Civaux 1. This involved corrosion and micro-cracks in the systems that cool a reactor’s radioactive core. As EDF investigated its nuclear facilities, it discovered sixteen reactors that faced similar risks and closed them down. This is especially concerning because most of the sixteen reactors are newer generation model.
     Officials suspected that the corrosion resulted from design changes that EDF had made to reactors designed by Westinghouse Electric that EDF had used in its older generation nuclear power plants. Bernard Doroszczuk is the head of France’s Nuclear Safety Authority. He testified to French lawmakers this summer that the modifications, used in later generation reactors, appeared to have caused abnormal corrosion and stress on critical cooling pipes.
     The crisis has caused French nuclear power production to drop to a thirty year low. France is generating less than half of the sixty-one gigawatts that the reactors should be able to produce. (EDF also uses gas, coal and renewable sources to generate electricity.) Even when more reactors are restarted in the coming months, French nuclear output will only be about forty-five gigawatts. This is lower than usual for winter months and will compound the impact of Russian gas cutoff.
     Fabian Ronningen is a senior analyst at Rystad Energy which is an independent consultancy. He said that the situation “increases the risk of supply shortages for the coming winter, with availability standing at record-low levels for this time of the year.” 
     The energy shortfall has turn France into a net importer of electricity instead of the continent’s biggest exporter of electricity. One fourth of Europe’s electricity comes from nuclear power plants in about a dozen countries. France used to produce more than half of the total.
Please read Part 3 next

Finnish nuclear plant full start-up delayed to January argusmedia.com

China’s Moon Base To Be Powered By New Nuclear System: Report ndtv.com

PNRI exec welcomes nuke talks with US, says others can offer tech too gmanetwork.com

Putin launches massive nuclear-powered icebreaker in race to control the Arctic telegraph.co.uk