Kimberly Cook-Nelson

For Kimberly Cook-Nelson, the path to the nuclear industry started with a couple of refrigerator boxes and cellophane paper. Her sixth-grade science project was inspired by her father, who worked at Seabrook power station in New Hampshire as a nuclear operator.

“I had two big refrigerator boxes I taped together. I cut the ‘primary operating system’ and the ‘secondary system’ out of them. Then I used different colored cellophane paper to show the pressurized water system versus the steam versus the cold cooling water,” Cook-Nelson said. “My dad got me those little replica pellets that I could pass out to people as they were going by at my science fair.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is amending its regulations governing the licensing of nonpower production or utilization facilities (NPUF) to make license renewal criteria more consistent with the limited risk such facilities pose to public safety.

The Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) is seeking proposals from qualified candidates to construct a commercial nuclear reactor on the university’s RELLIS campus in Bryan, Texas.

Interested parties are welcome to attend a virtual preproposal conference today, September 6, at 11:00 a.m. (EDT). Information about this conference, including a link to participate, can be obtained via email to soprocurement@tamus.edu.

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation announced today a milestone for the United Arab Emirates with the fourth unit of the Barakah nuclear power plant entering commercial operation.

Kairos Power accomplished another step forward for its Hermes 2 reactor plans as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week published its final environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact.

On September 4, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced that Orano had selected Oak Ridge as its preferred site to build a “multibillion-dollar” uranium centrifuge enrichment facility. For Tennessee, the announcement underscores Oak Ridge’s draw for nuclear technology companies. For Orano and the nuclear power community, the announcement is another sign the nation is edging closer to adding front-end nuclear fuel cycle capacity.

The military conflict with Russia that began in February 2022 has left Ukraine with “dangerous instability” of its national grid, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

Following a meeting in Kyiv with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on September 3, Grossi promised to take a more proactive stance in protecting the country’s energy infrastructure—especially where nuclear safety is vulnerable. During recent months there have been numerous missile and drone attacks, with some directly causing the disconnection of several nuclear power plants.

The Department of Energy awarded $17 million on August 30 for 16 experiment and analysis projects expected to yield criticality data that will assist the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in licensing and regulating high-assay low-enriched uranium and the fuel infrastructure—including packaging and transportation containers—required to demonstrate and deploy HALEU-fueled advanced nuclear reactors. Project teams include six national laboratories taking lead roles in partnership with other labs, universities, and multiple industry partners.

China’s State Council has approved the construction of four new nuclear reactors based on Westinghouse's AP1000 technology at two Chinese power plants. China’s State Power Investment Corporation plans to build two of the reactors at its Bailong nuclear power project in Guangxi Province, where preparatory groundwork construction can now begin at the site. The other two units were approved for the Lufeng nuclear power plant, located in Guangdong Province and owned by China General Nuclear Power Corporation, where sitework has already begun.

In response to a petition filed by environmental groups earlier this year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will reinvestigate earthquake fault lines and the potential for seismic activity and ensuing damage at California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

U.S. and African officials announced from a nuclear energy summit last week a new partnership between Nuclear Power Ghana and Regnum Technology Group, an American small modular reactor developer using NuScale Power’s design.

BWX Technologies announced on August 26 that its Nuclear Fuel Services subsidiary had received a contract from the National Nuclear Security Administration for a yearlong engineering study of a pilot plant capable of testing a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment technology developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and producing domestic-origin enriched uranium the NNSA can use for multiple national security purposes. BWXT, which has a long history of providing fuel fabrication and downblending services for the federal government, has not—until now—included enrichment in its portfolio.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy is making $6 million available in scholarships and fellowships for students pursuing nuclear energy-related degrees across the United States. The funding is provided through the DOE’s University Nuclear Leadership Program (UNLP). 

Dominion Energy’s North Anna nuclear power plant received its second operating license renewal earlier this week, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced.

North Anna Units 1 and 2 are twin 973-MWe three-loop Westinghouse pressurized water reactors located about 40 miles northwest of Richmond, Va. Unit 1’s operating license will now expire April 1, 2058, and Unit 2’s will expire August 21, 2060.

Holston

Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC) and the charitable educational organization Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness (CNTA) have announced that Micah Holston, a student at Kennesaw State University, is the winner of the 2024 Robert Maher Memorial Scholarship.

The $5,000 scholarship is sponsored by SRMC, the liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy at the Savannah River Site.

The winner: Holston, a senior from Marietta, Ga., is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in physics and political science with minors in nuclear engineering, math, and international affairs. CNTA executive director Allison Hamilton Molnar said the organization is proud to award this scholarship to such a deserving student.

Kilindini Harbor in Mombasa, Kenya, is East Africa’s largest international seaport. But rapid development of the Kenyan coastal zone is changing sediment distribution and dispersal patterns in the region, and shifting sediment poses safety and efficiency risks to ships in the harbor. With help from the International Atomic Energy Agency, a team of researchers from Kenya and South Africa has deployed a unique system to measure natural radionuclides in beach and aquatic sediments and map sediment transportation in the region. The IAEA described the mission in a photo essay published August 21.

Here is a recap of industry happenings from the recent past:

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

Last Energy forms partnership with NATO center

The NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence (ENSEC COE), located in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Washington, D.C.–based Last Energy have formed a partnership to investigate military applications for microreactor technologies. The agreement was ENSEC COE’s first with a company in the nuclear energy sector. Last Energy, which is a spin-off of the research institute Energy Impact Center, will conduct research with ENSEC COE on microreactor applications for NATO military installations, explore opportunities for deploying microreactors on NATO bases, and serve as an industry advisor to ENSEC COE. Last Energy’s PWR-20 small modular reactor is a pressurized water reactor with a capacity of 20 MWe (60 MWt). It is designed to be built off-site and assembled in modules within a period of 24 months.

Funds earmarked for “integrated biological and computational low-dose radiation research” will go to 14 university research projects in a new approach to federally funded low-dose radiation research that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to find cellular markers of radiation health effects. The Department of Energy announced on August 21 that these 14 projects on cellular and molecular responses to low-dose radiation would collectively get $19.5 million in funding over three years.

Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, was the site of an advanced nuclear reactor workshop in late May that was hosted by the Fastest Path to Zero Initiative of the University of Michigan and Tohoku’s Center for Fundamental Research on Nuclear Decommissioning. The event was co-organized by the U.S. Consulate in Sapporo, Japan, and the Atlantic Council, which is associated with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The workshop, “The Potential Contribution of Advanced Nuclear Energy Technologies to the Decarbonization and Economic Development of Japan and the U.S.,” featured numerous American and Japanese academic authorities, government policymakers, executives of utilities and advanced reactor developers, and leaders of nongovernmental organizations. Also participating were students from both the University of Michigan and Tohoku University.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will discuss the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant safety performance last year in a public meeting this Thursday, August 29.