WNN Daily 9/30

30 September 2015 NEW NUCLEAR: Belarusian premier orders preparations for nuclear project Andrei Kobyakov, prime minister of Belarus, has signed a decree ordering government ministries and agencies to ensure the required number of construction workers are available for the country's first nuclear power plant project, at Ostrovets. URANIUM & FUEL: Alliance focuses on Chilean uranium Alliance Resources is to put funds from the sale of the Four Mile uranium project in Australia towards exploration in Chile, the company said in its annual report.   IN OTHER NEWS: Russian regulator Rostechnadzor has issued Rosenergoatom with a licence to operate Novovoronezh 5 for 10 years, until 2025. Rosenergoatom, which is the nuclear power plant operator subsidiary of state nuclear corporation Rosatom, said yesterday that the unit had been withdrawn from service in September 2010, after 30 years of operation, for upgrading work to be carried out. The regulator issued a five-year licence extension for the unit in 2011 and has been able to issue the new licence following checks to the reactor vessel and other systems and equipment, Rosenergoatom said. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission announced yesterday that it has decided to renew health science company Nordion (Canada) Inc's nuclear substance processing facility operating licence, following a public hearing held earlier this year. Ottawa-based Nordion, a subsidiary of Sterigenics, processes radioisotopes for medical and industrial applications and supplies the molybdenum-99 produced in Canada's NRU research reactor to the world market. The renewed licence will be valid from November 2015 until 31 October 2025. Energy Fuels has started construction of the elution circuit at its Nichols Ranch in situ recovery processing facility located in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. Since Nichols Ranch began operations in April 2014, loaded resins have been shipped to other nearby third party-owned facilities for final yellowcake stripping, drying and packaging. Energy Fuels said yesterday the elution circuit will give it entirely self-contained ISR processing capabilities at the facility. The company's president and CEO, Stephen Antony, said this will fix the operating costs associated with these activities and avoid future toll processing fee increases and "related uncertainties". GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Exelon Generation announced yesterday the joint development of two digital solutions based on GE’s Predix platform, which it called "the operating system of the industrial Internet". 'Watchtower' will utilize data to predict asset performance and enable Exelon to obtain real-time operational status of plant equipment while also receiving proactive notifications of possible machine issues. The other solution, 'Lighthouse', will use advanced analytics to examine historical organizational performance indicators to enhance decision-making capabilities, reduce costs and optimize operational performance, the companies said.