Researchers achieve 10x production cost savings for reduced activation steel

NEURONE project billet leaving the caster and entering the product straightener - Image Credit: Materials Processing Institute

A United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) working group has successfully demonstrated the industrial scale production of fusion-grade steel.

This achievement has the potential to reduce production costs by an order of magnitude and improve the efficiency of future fusion powerplants.

Works begin on the next phase of operations to close historic trenches and vaults at the Low Level Waste Repository (LLWR) site in Cumbria.

Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), which manages the disposal of the UK’s low level radioactive waste, is carrying out important work on the final capping of legacy disposal trenches and vaults which are now full and ready for permanent closure.

Over 700kg of explosives have been used in the first stage demolition of four gigantic concrete plinths as part of work to decommission the turbine hall.

This significant achievement sets a new record for the largest use of explosives on a nuclear site for conventional demolition purposes in decades.

A decision taken (3 December) by EDF will see the lifetimes of all four generating Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor stations extended.

Heysham 2 (Lancashire) and Torness (East Lothian) will keep producing zero-carbon electricity for an additional two years to March 2030 while Heysham 1 (Lancashire) and Hartlepool (Teesside) will produce power until March 2027, an extension of one year.

Workers building the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station have installed Britain’s first new nuclear reactor for more than 30 years. The first of two 13m long “reactor pressure vessels” will produce enough energy alone to generate reliable low carbon electricity for 3m homes. With two units, the power station will provide Britain with 7% of its electricity. 

This major milestone comes less than 12 months after the huge steel dome was lifted in place to close the reactor building. The reactor is the first to be installed at a British power station since Sizewell B’s in 1991. 

UK spearheads global efforts to combat climate change with a funding package to help developing countries transition to clean energy.

The UK will be leading support for countries on the front line of the climate crisis to make their transition to clean energy, in a new package of support unveiled by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband at COP29.  

To tackle climate change at home and abroad, countries that are already suffering from its worst impacts need support to accelerate their transition to clean power, cut emissions and increase economic growth.  

Great British Nuclear (GBN) has started detailed negotiations with the final four shortlisted bidders into the UK’s Small Modular Reactor (SMR) programme.

The four companies, GE Hitachi, Holtec, Rolls Royce SMR and Westinghouse, have been shortlisted following two rounds of assessment by GBN, the government’s expert nuclear delivery body.

GBN will negotiate with all four before final tenders are submitted, with final decisions to be taken in the spring.

East Coast College in Suffolk has launched a brand-new employability hub, Nucleus, in partnership with Sizewell C.

Nucleus aims to provide employment search assistance and application and interview support to those looking to secure employment in the region.

New figures show that the nuclear industry now supports 3,500 jobs in Bristol, as the sector expands to support new nuclear construction. Businesses that have grown to support Hinkley Point C in Somerset are now poised to benefit from developments proposed at Berkeley and Oldbury in Gloucestershire. The projects are needed to give Britain energy security with reliable low carbon electricity, working with wind and solar, to help Britain move away from imported fossil fuels.

The third and final liner ring has been lifted into place by giant crane, Big Carl, at Hinkley Point C’s second reactor building.

Engineering teams were able to lift the 423-tonne steel liner ring into place this afternoon, Monday 14 October.

It is the third and final ring to be installed on the building, which will be home to one of Hinkley Point C’s two nuclear reactors. The steel ring, which is 11.6-metres in height and 47-metres in diameter, forms part of the inner containment wall of the reactor building and will now be encased in two layers of concrete.

Sizewell Creative and First Light Festival CIC have launched a unique 3-year programme of creative residencies across visual art, writing and poetry at Sizewell.   

This initiative, which begins in November 2024, invites creative practitioners from across the East of England to engage with the Sizewell C project. 

Technical engineer Natalie Parker has been shortlisted for the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards 2024.

Natalie Parker, a technical specialist and manager for Operational Technology Group at Sellafield Ltd.

Natalie is a technical specialist and manager for Operational Technology Group at Sellafield Ltd.