Department of Energy officials announced Thursday that the Pretreatment Facility at the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant is more than 30 percent complete with the construction of concrete walls for a fourth elevation for the building.

The building now reaches 77 feet tall, with two elevations remaining to be built.

"Once we finish concrete and steel construction, we can fully transition our focus to bulk commodity installations, such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment; piping and electrical components," said Ty Troutman, area project manager for the facility, in a written statement. "All of this will enable us to finish construction in 2015 and reach operations in 2019."

VIENNA (AP) -- Tensions between Israel and Islamic nations have scuttled plans by the U.N. atomic watchdog agency to convene talks this year on a Mideast free of nuclear weapons, according to a document shared with The Associated Press.

The latest failure to bring the opposing sides to the table casts further doubt on plans to hold more substantive talks in two years on such a zone, as proposed by the U.N.'s 189-nation Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty conference four months ago.

That proposal was billed by the NPT conference as a potential breakthrough and -- despite Israeli objections -- was backed by the U.S. and other nuclear powers for the first time since Arab nations began pushing for such a gathering 15 years ago.

ATLANTA (AP) - Power utilities are trying to buy the next wave of nuclear reactors much like a consumer buys a light bulb: right off the shelf.

Of the nation's 104 commercial reactors, no two are exactly the same, a fact that experts blame for causing construction and regulatory delays and leading to bigger bills for power customers. The longer it took to approve and build a reactor a generation ago, the more electric customers ended up paying in the end.

"That system just wasn't workable," said Richard Lester, head of the nuclear science and engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.