Nuclear Plant Journal, September-October 2016 NuclearPlantJournal.com
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nuclear safety and specialty engineering.
Supported by the broader Atkins group,
Atkins’ Energy Americas business has
the expertise and ability to undertake
major nuclear infrastructure projects
worldwide.
The event also highlighted a
celebration of a very important milestone
for Atkins - two full years without
an OSHA recordable injury and over
two and a half million hours without
a recordable injury. By putting safety
as our primary core value, Atkins has
created an environment where employees
and management have the knowledge and
tools to engage in a proactive approach to
a safe working environment.
Contact: Paul Childs, Atkins,
Purchase Agreement
BWX Technologies, Inc.
announced
that its subsidiary BWXT Canada Ltd.
(BWXT Canada) has entered into a share
purchase agreement to acquire all of the
shares of the GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy
Canada Inc. (GEH-C) joint venture.
The transaction is expected to be
completed, subject to required Canadian
regulatory reviews and other closing
conditions, during the fourth quarter of
2016. This acquisition roughly doubles
BWXT’s footprint in Canada and signals
a long-term strategic commitment to the
attractive CANDU
®
nuclear power segment
and the attendant growth opportunities
related to plant life extensions. The
transaction is expected to be accretive
within the first year and to favorably impact
margins in the Nuclear Energy Segment.
GEH-C, a Canadian company,
is a leading supplier of fuel, fuel
handling systems, delivery systems and
replacement components for CANDU®
reactors. GEH-C employs approximately
350 employees and operates three sites
in the Province of Ontario, including
Peterborough, Toronto and Arnprior.
Following the completion of the
transaction, GEH-C would maintain its
headquarters in Peterborough, Ontario
and its activities would be operated as part
of BWXT Canada’s overall commercial
nuclear business. John MacQuarrie,
BWXT Canada’s President, will lead the
combined organization and Mark Ward,
GEH-C’s current President, is expected to
remain a member of the leadership team.
Contact: Jud Simmons, BWXT,
telephone: (434) 522-6462, email:
.
Radiation Monitoring
Systems
General Atomics Electromagnetic
Systems
(GA-EMS) announced that
its radiation monitoring systems have
been successfully installed throughout
the first new U.S. nuclear power plant
scheduled to be put into operation since
1996. Tennessee Valley Authority
(TVA) selected GA-EMS to provide
full plant radiation monitoring systems
for the new Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear
power plant. Watts Bar Unit 2 recently
achieved criticality and is scheduled to be
commercially operable by the summer of
2016.
“We are proud to be an integral part
of the operational launch of the first new
U.S. nuclear power plant in over two
decades,” stated Scott Forney, president of
GA-EMS. “Since 1965, we’ve maintained
a solid reputation for designing and
manufacturing the highest quality, most
reliable safety-related products, and
for continually supporting our products
and our customers throughout a plant’s
lifecycle. We now look forward to
working with TVA and supporting our
products and the new Watts Bar Unit 2
plant for the decades to come.”
GA-EMS designed, manufactured
and delivered full plant radiation
monitoring systems to meet a variety
of safety and non-safety requirements,
including area and process monitors,
and control room indicators. Each
system fully complies with the highest
nuclear industry standards including
10CFR50 Appendix B, NQA-1 and
Regulatory Guide 1.97, “Criteria for
Accident Monitoring Instrumentation for
Nuclear Power Plants”. Watts Bar Unit 2
is currently undergoing comprehensive
testing to validate plant systems and
controls at various power levels to ensure
the entire system safely operates as
designed before becoming commercially
operable.
Contact: Meghan Ehlke, General
Atomics, telephone: (858) 964-7058,
email:
.
Interim Storage Facility
The State of New Mexico has
approved the land sale option allowing
Holtec International
to purchase 1,000
acres of land from the Eddy Lea Energy
Alliance (ELEA). The land acquisition
option paves the way for Holtec to build
a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility
(CISF) in Southeast New Mexico, which
has been named HI-STORE. The New
Mexico State Board of Finance (SBoF),
led by Governor Susana Martinez,
overwhelmingly supported the CISF
project by approving the land purchase
option. The land deal is a major milestone
for the Holtec International-ELEA Team
and a huge step in assuring Holtec that
the Company’s agreement with ELEA to
purchase the property is secure.
The HI-STORE CISF will deploy
Holtec’s
HI-STORM
UMAX,
a
subterranean storage system sized to
accommodate all currently licensed
storage systems making it possible to store
all U.S. commercial fuel at our planned
Eddy-Lea alliance-sponsored storage
facility in a common storage system. An
amendment request to the HI-STORM
UMAX CoC to store the NUHOMS
24PT1-DSC canister was recently
submitted to the USNRC (HH 31.12). The
site specific license application for the HI-
STORE CISF is scheduled for submission
to the USNRC in March 2017.
Contact:
Caitlin
Marmion,
telephone: (856) 797-0900, email:
.
Joint Venture
SNC-Lavalin
announced it signed
an agreement in principle for a new Joint
Venture with China National Nuclear
Corporation (CNNC) and Shanghai
Electric Group Company Ltd. The
new company would develop, market
and build the Advanced Fuel CANDU
Reactor (AFCR™). The creation of the
joint venture in principle follows the
signing of a framework agreement in
2014, and is subject to all government
and regulatory approvals.
The new company is expected to
be registered in mid-2017, and would
be followed by the formation of two
design centres — one in Canada and
another in China — to complete the
AFCR™ technology. This could lead
