Nuclear Energy Industry Transitions

PPL Corp. has hired William Spence as its executive vice president and chief operating officer, effective June 26. Spence joins PPL from Pepco Holdings Inc., where he served as senior vice president.

Battelle has promoted Russ Austin to senior vice president, general counsel and board secretary, effective Aug. 1. Austin has been Battelle’s associate general counsel for almost five years. He will succeed Jerry Bahlmann, who is retiring after 30 years of service.

Lloyd Hollingsworth has joined CPS Energy as vice president and chief risk officer.

Cecil House has been elected vice president of operations support and chief procurement officer for Edison International and Southern California Edison. Previously, House served as vice president of customer operations at Public Service Electric & Gas Co.

Total Resource Management Inc. has appointed Vince Gilbert director of nuclear operations. Gilbert is a former special adviser of operations within NEI’s nuclear generation division.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has named Heather Astwood as the agency’s new nuclear safety attaché at the U.S. Mission to International Organizations in Vienna, effective in October. She will replace James Linville, who will return to the NRC’s Office of International Programs. Astwood currently serves as executive assistant and chief of staff for Commissioner Edward McGaffigan.

Dipesh Shah, will step down as chief executive of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority at the end of his three-year term in November.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Power, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics

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Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin...

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap...

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

NEI Nuclear Notes

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