Platts - Tuesday, August 01, 2006 http://www.platts.com ------------ Three companies form partnership to build nuclear plants in US Washington (Platts)--1Aug2006 Three companies on Tuesday said they had formed a partnership to build nuclear plants in the US. Constellation Energy, Areva and BWX Technologies announced the alliance at a news conference in Washington. Constellation and Areva had joined last year to form UniStar Nuclear to deploy power reactors in the US. Under Tuesday's announcement, BWXT is to manufacture components and equipment at its facilities in Ohio and Indiana. ------------ Changes to be made to Forsmark's continuous power supply system London (Platts)--1Aug2006 The continuous power supply system for emergency diesel generators at Forsmark will be modified to make it less sensitive to power surges, Forsmark Safety and Environment Director Ingvar Berglund told Platts July 31. The change is being made in order to prevent a repeat of an incident in which two of four generators failed to start, Berglund said. The incident occurred July 25 when work on a 400-kilovolt switchyard caused an electrical arc and short that, in turn, caused Forsmark-1 to scram. Berglund said the protection against surges for the diesels has been modified by AEG on other units to make it less sensitive, but that the German company never told Forsmark management there was a problem. ------------ Exelon says study shows no active tritium leaks at plants Washington (Platts)--31Jul2006 There are "no active leaks of tritium" at Exelon's 11 nuclear plants, the company said July 31. Aside from the "known historical releases" at Braidwood, there is also "no detectable tritium beyond plant boundaries other than from permitted discharges," the company said. Exelon's statement cited "preliminary results of an environmental study of tritium," with final results are expected in six to eight weeks. "No radioactive substances other than tritium and those that occur naturally" were detected above background levels in any of the more than 1,800 ground water samples assessed, Exelon said. ------------ IAEA-led team recovers two abandoned cesium resources in Georgia London (Platts)--31Jul2006 An IAEA-led team recovered two abandoned cesium sources in Georgia, the IAEA said July 28. The agency said that in a new campaign to trace lost radioactive sources in the former Soviet republic, a Georgian Ministry of Environment and IAEA team searching with sophisticated equipment in the mountains northwest of Tbilisi found a "powerful" cesium-137 source on the floor of an abandoned factory. A smaller source was found in a private residence, in a can with nuts and bolts. The IAEA didn't give the size of the sources. Some 300 radioactive sources have been recovered in Georgia since the mid-1990s, and such sources have caused at least one death and many injuries, the agency said. The current search mission, begun in 1997, is funded by the US under the IAEA's Technical Cooperation Program. The mission earlier found powerful, unshielded strontium-90 sources that had powered radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) used by the Soviet army. The IAEA said some RTGs have not yet been found. The US and others are afraid they could fall into the hands of terrorists who could use them in radiological dispersal devices. ------------ TVA board to fund study on Watts Bar-2 completion Washington (Platts)--28Jul2006 Tennessee Valley Authority's board agreed to fund a study on completing Watts Bar-2 and approved nuclear-related contracts totaling $402 million during its meeting July 28. TVA's board of directors included $20 million in the fiscal 2007 budget for funding the detailed scoping, estimating and planning study. TVA will have a management team to oversee one or more contractors that will develop the study, Jack Bailey, TVA's vice president of nuclear generation development, told Platts July 28. The board also approved four nuclear contracts -- three for nuclear fuel-related services and one for security services at TVA's nuclear plants. ------------