TEPCO workers have 'satisfactorily' completed a drill setting up alternative cooling arrangements for a Fukushima Daiichi spent fuel pool, performing tasks such as laying pipes and starting up portable pumps.

Fukushima Daiichi spent fuel pool cooling drill

An International Atomic Energy Agency expert mission has completed a review of Japan's process for assessing safety at its nuclear power plants. The team found a number of good practices in Japan's two-stage review procedure but also identified a number of improvements.

The Department of Energy (DOE) today awarded two small-business contracts to CAST Specialty Transportation, Inc. and Visionary Solutions, LLC, to provide trucking services to transport transuranic (TRU) waste, from DOE and other defense-related TRU waste generator sites to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) site, near Carlsbad, New Mexico. The contracts are firm fixed-price with cost-reimbursable expenses over five years.

Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) has received replacement instrumentation and control systems—the process distributed control system (DCS) and the console display system (CDS), which included a replacement annunciator subsystem. The new systems offer the latest software and technology advancements, ensuring the availability of the reactor for future energy research. By Craig Wise, Gary Bergeson and Kurt Fielding

Of the 65 reactors currently under construction, over half are located in east Asia, predominantly in South Korea and China. This region is also likely to become an important centre of exports of nuclear technology, following the Korean success in winning an order for four large rectors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). By Steve Kidd

Sometimes objects engineered to perform a particular function can end up—almost by accident—being very beautiful. I have noticed this seems to happen particularly often with equipment that deals with water, and must have something to do with efficient flow. Last month I saw my first reactor coolant pump impellor, whose smooth twists looked more like melted ice in a stream than a forged and burnished ingot of steel.