Horizon has completed the purchase of land which is key to the development of its proposed new nuclear power station near Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire. The land is being purchased by Horizon Nuclear Power Oldbury Limited from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), under terms agreed in the 2009 land auction. Read it all..

Babcock Dounreay Partnership is the preferred bidder in the competition to take ownership of Dounreay Site Restoration Limited, after a two-year public procurement process.  Read it all..

Magnox Press Release

Magnox has awarded a framework contract worth £304 million for de-planting, demolition and bulk asbestos removal across 10 nuclear reactor sites in the UK. Read it all..

Decommissioning progress on one of Sellafield’s oldest nuclear plants has taken a giant step forward with three significant new contracts, totaling over £160m, put in place to enable radioactive waste retrievals.

The Pile Fuel Cladding Silo (PFCS) is almost 60 years old and contains over 4000m3 of historic radioactive waste which has to be retrieved from the facility as part of the decommissioning work. Read it all..

Lambert Smith Hampton (LSH) has been appointed as outsourced advisors to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) on its national portfolio which combined with its subsidiary property company, comprises a 2,900 hectare (7,150 acre) estate valued at c£500m. Read it all..

University of Cambirdge work with industry to educate nuclear leaders of tomorrow

Some of the biggest companies and organisations in the nuclear industry are lending their support to a new course which will prepare the engineers and scientists of tomorrow for incidents such as those recently witnessed in Japan.

Despite the recent, unprecedented events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, global nuclear investment appears likely to continue after a period of careful consideration of the lessons that need to be learned. In the UK, the Government has commissioned a review.

  Read it all..

The UK Government and the Scottish Ministers have approved our new Strategy. This statutory document sets the direction for delivering the nuclear clean-up programme. Read it all..

The latest United Kingdom Radioactive Waste Inventory was published yesterday.  

The UK Radioactive Waste Inventory, currently updated every three years, is provided by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) The information, like that from previous Inventories, is being made publicly available.   Read it all..

HSE Nuclear Directorate (ND) has completed a re-licensing assessment in order to facilitate the reunification of Magnox North and Magnox South into one entity, Magnox Limited.

The Magnox companies, owned by Energy Solutions, are contracted by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) to decommission eight Magnox nuclear power stations and operate Wylfa and Oldbury nuclear power stations, both in their final few months of generating electricity.

Energy Solutions asked ND for regulatory permission and for re-licensing of each of the five Magnox South sites, to facilitate the merger of the Magnox companies, which when combined, would be renamed Magnox Limited. 

As part of re-licensing, ND carried out an assessment of the applicant’s organisational capability, to ensure that it remains adequate for it to manage nuclear safety effectively, and to discharge its obligations as a nuclear site licence holder.

Consulting with and working closely with its nuclear co-regulator, the Environment Agency, ND worked with the Magnox companies and the NDA, to ensure that all safety, legal, environmental issues and permits were fully addressed before considering their application to reintegrate into one licensed company.

The assessment did not identify any issues which would prevent a decision to relicense the Magnox South sites into Magnox North, so in December, permission was granted for the re-integration. This took affect with the new site licences coming into force on 5 January 2011, allowing Magnox North to proceed with the management of change supporting the integration and the creation of a new Magnox North Limited board and executive.

Summary report of the assessment

Babcock Dounreay Partnership bids for Dounreay nuclear decommissioning contract
Babcock Dounreay Partnership, a consortium of Babcock International Group, CH2M HILL and URS, has been short-listed by the UK Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to bid for the management and operations contract at Dounreay, originally the UK’s centre of fast reactor research and development and now Scotland’s largest nuclear clean-up and demolition project.  Dounreay is currently managed by a Site Licence Company (SLC) called DSRL (Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd). Read it all..