ANS Nuclear Cafe

From refugee in Bangladesh to top nuclear engineer at Idaho National Laboratory, ANS member Yasir Arafat has led quite an interesting life, as described in a recent online profile written by Donna Kemp Spangler for the INL website. Arafat is leading the development of the Department of Energy’s Microreactor Applications Research Validation and EvaLuation (MARVEL) project at INL. The profile notes that MARVEL, which Arafat envisioned soon after joining INL in 2019, is scheduled to be “built and demonstrated at INL’s Transient Reactor Test Facility and connected to the world’s first nuclear microgrid within two years.”

Edesess

In a recent opinion piece in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, mathematician and economist Michael Edesess writes that “The goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 [appears] unrealistic.” Edesess, a research associate of the EDHEC-Risk Institute, adds, “We must, in the final analysis, be realistic. Being real means that the renewable revolution requires nuclear power.”

Then: Edesess traces the history of interest in renewable energy sources to the 1970s when, he notes, climate change was not even part of the calculations. Back then, the thought was, “We only needed to reduce the oil we imported from the Middle East. Solar and wind could do that if only we could drive the cost down.” However, “For nuclear, driving the cost down was not the objective. The objective was to make nuclear power ever safer and safer. This drove nuclear power’s cost up.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Anya Litvak reported yesterday that Brookfield Business Partners, a subsidiary of Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management and an owner of Westinghouse Electric Company, is ready to sell the nuclear energy firm.

The administration of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis “appears uninterested in nuclear energy, bucking a growing consensus that nuclear power is an essential component in eliminating carbon emissions,” writes Scott Weiser in a recent Denver Gazette article. Weiser notes that nuclear power is not part of the governor’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Roadmap for 100 percent carbon-free energy by 2040.

“The momentum toward a new era of nuclear energy is predicated in part on government and industry claims that new technological solutions to nuclear waste are forthcoming. But challenges remain in their realization at the necessary scale,” writes freelance journalist Jenny Johnson in the article “Nuclear renaissance hinges on solving the waste issue."

The total bill for the reactor expansion project at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia is now expected to exceed $30 billion, according to the Associated Press. The original price tag for the two Westinghouse AP1000 units was $14 billion.

The Ohio State University Nuclear Reactor Laboratory and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry are presenting the first Neutron Depth Profiling (NDP) Workshop on June 10, 2022. The daylong event will be held on campus and can also be attended via Zoom.

Register now. Registration, which is open until June 1, is free. A Zoom link will be provided upon registration.

Bloomberg recently reported that nuclear power production in France declined to its lowest level in almost two years in April, with power output during that month falling to 21.7 TWh. The decline occurred as Électricité de France (EDF), one of the country’s major energy suppliers, dealt with long-term inspection-and maintenance-related halts to the operation of many of its 56 domestic nuclear reactors.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom told the Los Angeles Times editorial board last week that his administration would look into using the federal government’s Civil Nuclear Credit Program to keep Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in operation beyond its scheduled 2025 closure date.

“The requirement is by May 19 to submit an application, or you miss the opportunity to draw down any federal funds if you want to extend the life of that plant,” Newsom told the board, according to an April 29 LA Times piece. “We would be remiss not to put that on the table as an option.”

On the 36th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the American Nuclear Society held the webinar, “A Reactor Physicist’s Explanation of Chernobyl,” led by Christopher Perfetti, an assistant professor in the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of New Mexico. (Here we use the more common Russian spelling of Chernobyl, rather than the Ukrainian spelling, Chornobyl.)

“If the electorate through their elected leaders demand stable or lower electricity costs, and new coal is off the table, only nuclear power offers hope,” writes nuclear engineer Joseph Somsel in reference to the Philippines presidential election, scheduled for May 9. Somsel, who expressed his views on the Nuclear Engineering International website this month, notes that the leading ticket in the election consists of presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the former dictator, and vice presidential candidate Sara Duterte, daughter of the current president. The ticket has been running ads supporting nuclear power while condemning high electricity prices.

The American Nuclear Society hosted the webinar “Earth Day: Reflections on the Future of Clean Energy” on April 22. Expert panelists discussed the best options for achieving emissions-free objectives, including goals in energy production, industrial activities, and transportation.

Zeno Power announced on its LinkedIn page and on Twitter on April 26 that it has raised $20 million in Series A funding, led by Tribe Capital, with participation from DCVC, 1517 Fund, AIN Ventures, and Pallas Advisors.

An open online event titled “Challenges of Ukraine’s nuclear energy in wartime” will be held on April 27 and 28. The event is sponsored by the International Conference on Nuclear Decommissioning and Environmental Recovery (INUDECO). Organizers include the Slavutych (Ukraine) City Council, the Institute for Nuclear Power Plant Safety of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Nuclear Society.

Register now. There is no fee for registration. However, funds raised from participants will be donated for humanitarian purposes. Fundraising is open now.

“The war in Ukraine has intensified interest across Europe in building new nuclear energy plants or extending the lives of old ones to liberate the continent from its heavy reliance on Russian oil and natural gas,” Washington Post reporters Steven Mufson and Claire Parker write in their recent article, before describing what they view as the potential dangers of nuclear energy. They also quote the American Nuclear Society in regard to the Chernobyl nuclear site in Ukraine.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) is expanding its Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program (MSIPP). The program originally included internships, competitive research awards, a postdoctoral research program, and the Savannah River Environmental Sciences Field Station. It will now include a technology curriculum, a professional development program, a graduate fellowship program, and an EM/minority-serving institution shared interest research partnership, the DOE announced on April 14.

In an editorial published recently in the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper’s editorial board states, “As for the U.S., power generation from splitting atoms has declined in recent years, and more reactors are being retired than built. If you’re in Illinois, however, you’re all-in on nuclear energy—for better or worse. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has made sure of that.”

After nearly two years of challenging absence, ANS meetings in 2022 have returned to being fully in-person events.

The theme for this year’s in-person ANS Annual Meeting, to be held June 12–16 in Anaheim, Calif., is “The New Outlook.” The meeting will feature two new events that serve to expand networking opportunities for attendees:

• First, a career fair will be held on Monday, June 13, and Tuesday, June 14, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. local time. This live event comes on the heels of two successful virtual career fairs held during the pandemic. ANS hopes that student and young members will be able to take advantage of the opportunity to network and explore the many different career possibilities.
• Second, a dinner hosted by ANS President Steven Nesbit and Vice President/President-Elect Steven Arndt will be held the evening of Tuesday, June 14, and will be a celebration of ANS and the nuclear community.

In the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, the highest-paying jobs will continue to be in the nuclear power industry, which provides significant and sustainable employment that benefits local and regional economies. That observation was made during a recent webinar sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency titled “Investing in Low Carbon Technologies: Job Creation for Just Energy Transitions.”

Representatives from the clean energy industry discussed how rising living standards and job creation around the world can be ensured as energy investments align to meet climate goals.

Green pursuit of a low-carbon future absent the introduction of more nuclear power on existing grids is nothing but a fantasy, writes Tristan Justice, a correspondent for the online magazine The Federalist. In an article published on April 15, Justice calls out Apple Inc. for its 2022 Earth Day initiative to donate one dollar for every Apple Pay purchase to the antinuclear World Wildlife Fund, and he claims that Apple is "demonizing" nuclear power while promoting an antinuclear agenda.