Related Links: Groundwater Treatment Plant Sets Milestones at Hanford Nuclear Site Discovery of Cracks at Seabrook Nuclear Powerplant Generates Series of Tests The U.S. Dept. of Energy says that the transfer of 2,400 metric tons per year, or MTU, of natural uranium to the joint venture of Fluor Corp. and Babcock & Wilcox as payment for cleanup of a Cold War-era nuclear fuel plant in the Midwest would not adversely affect the domestic uranium industry. DOE's "bartering" approach has come under scrutiny by congressional appropriators; the U.S. Government Accountability Office has called for eliminating the companies as "sales agents" in

Related Links: ENR cover story on BE&K-1993 Theodore C. "Ted" Kennedy, who pushed non-union contracting to new arenas as CEO of BE&K Inc., but worked with organized labor and owners to boost construction safety, productivity, ethics and image, died May 8 in Birmingham, Ala. He was 81.The cause of death was post-surgery complications, says a spokesman for Kennedy.Kennedy was the son of a union ironworker and accompanied him to jobsites as the teenage "water boy," later earning an engineering degree from Duke University.He then espoused the open or "merit shop" labor approach in co-founding BE&K in 1972. After his co-founders

The Tennessee Valley Authority has added three years and $2 billion to its estimate to complete a partially built nuclear unit at its Watts Bar plant in Tennessee.

The Maryland Public Service Commission is moving ahead with a request for proposals for 1,500 MW of new gas-fired generation, despite concerns raised by its regional grid operator about power pricing impacts.

Photo courtesy of TVA Watts Bar plant unit 2, idle since 1988, is set for 2013 completion. In what it says is an effort to improve efficiency and eliminate confusing lines of authority and duplication of effort, the Tennessee Valley Authority has relieved Bechtel Corp., based in San Francisco, of construction-management duties at the $2.5-billion restart of unit 2 at TVA's Watts Bar nuclear powerplant.The federal power producer renegotiated its engineering, procurement and construction contract with Bechtel Power after the project's schedule slipped during the summer, says Terry Johnson, a TVA spokesman. “Fundamentally, we established a level of productivity, and

Photo courtesy ORNL TVA relieved Bechtel from construction management at Watts Bar nuclear plant, after construction schedule slipped from 2012 to 2013 completion date. Related Links: Florida Utility: No Way To Predict Nuke Plant Cracking The Tennessee Valley Authority is taking over the management of the construction of the second unit at the Watts Bar nuclear plant after the construction schedule slipped under the current contractor, the federal power producer said Wednesday.TVA renegotiated its engineering, procurement and construction contract with Bechtel Power, Terry Johnson, a TVA spokesman, said. TVA will take over as project manager while Bechtel retains the technical

On March 24, the grand jury indicted Matthew D. Correll, who was on the staff of a subcontractor of Bechtel Group Inc. at the $2.5-billion Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear powerplant expansion site in Rhea County, Tenn. Correll was charged with falsely indicating last August that he had measured and inspected cables that were to supply energy to safety systems in the unit’s nuclear reactor containment structure. In a March 25 statement, the subcontractor, Williams Specialty Services LLC, Tucker, Ga., said Correll’s employment ended last September. The firm is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Williams Industrial Services Group LLC, which ranks

Maryland and New Jersey officials, worried about the high cost of electricity and predictions of limited supplies, are giving up on the established system and seeking to construct their own powerplants. The Maryland Public Service Commission on Dec. 29 issued a draft request for proposals for up to 1,800 MW of new generation in or around Maryland. The final RFP is expected in March. A week earlier New Jersey Board of Public Utilities President Lee Solomon said the board had started seeking new base-load generation in that state. The New Jersey Legislature was poised to pass a bill that would

The construction of a new $10-billion nuclear reactor in Maryland seem to be dead after Constellation Energy told the Dept. of Energy that it is no longer interested in negotiating a federal loan guarantee to support the project.

The construction of a new $10-billion nuclear reactor in Maryland seem to be dead after Constellation Energy told the Dept. of Energy that it is no longer interested in negotiating a federal loan guarantee to support the project. In a letter to DOE, Constellation said it was unable to continue negotiations after it was presented with a “shockingly high estimate” of the fee the company and its joint-venture partner, Electricite de France, would have to pay to obtain the loan—$880 million. “Such a sum would clearly destroy the project’s economics (or the economics of any nuclear project for that matter),