Nuclear News

The European Commission released a plan for rejuvenating Europe’s pandemic-damaged economy, including a green energy program that calls for “rolling out renewable energy projects, especially wind [and] solar, and kick-starting a clean hydrogen economy.” No mention was made of nuclear energy, however, an omission for which the commission was taken to task that same day by Foratom, the Brussels-based trade association for the European nuclear energy industry.

Concrete pour at the Hinkley Point C2 reactor. Photo: EDF Energy

Workers at the Hinkley Point C nuclear construction project in the United Kingdom have completed the 49,000-ton base for the station’s second reactor, Unit C2, hitting a target date set more than four years ago, according to EDF Energy.

Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy (GCNP), launched in November 2018, has released a report on the progress made during its inaugural year toward its goal of achieving gender equity in the nuclear policy field. According to a May 28 announcement, the group has had “mostly positive results.”

To get a job done, you need the right tool. Researchers now have one that will make their job easier—the Radioactivity and Damage (RAD) Calculator from the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Science User Facilities.

Most experiments conducted through the NSUF have the same underlying goal: quantifying irradiation effects on nuclear fuels and materials. Rather than doing a back-of-the-envelope calculation or a costly in-depth analysis with a nuclear engineer, users now have the flexibility to rapidly change experimental design parameters—such as selecting the reactor to be used, the sample location within the reactor, displacements per atom desired, and the time frame—and see which NSUF reactor can produce the desired result, all within seconds.

Artist’s rendering of the Sizewell site, with Sizewell C at right. Image: EDF Energy

Électricité de France subsidiary EDF Energy has submitted an application to the United Kingdom government’s Planning Inspectorate for a development consent order (DCO) to build a new power station, Sizewell C, at the Sizewell nuclear site in Suffolk. The agency received the application on May 27, after it had been deferred for two months because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Robert J. Feitel was sworn in on May 28 by Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki as the agency’s new inspector general. Feitel replaces Hubert T. Bell, who retired in 2019.

The Akademik Lomonosov, the world’s only floating nuclear power plant, has been fully commissioned, reports Rosatom, Russia’s state atomic energy corporation.

In the early years of the Nuclear News capacity factors survey, any factor over 70 was deemed excellent; any factor under 50 was considered poor. By that standard, all but two operating U.S. power reactors chalked up excellent performance during 2017–2019. A record 809.4 TWh of electricity was generated in the United States from nuclear energy in 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), besting the record of 807.1 TWh set in 2018.

Nuclear News staff developed the capacity factors survey in the early 1980s as a way to identify the most productive reactors in an expanding fleet. Fleet improvement was the industry’s self-identified goal, but no one could anticipate the startlingly rapid pace of improvement, spurred by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), which boosted fleetwide performance to highs that continue today.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently issued its Enforcement Program Annual Report for calendar year 2019, showing that 57 escalated enforcement actions were taken against NRC licensees last year. These actions included notices of violation (NOV ) of Severity Level III or higher, NOVs associated with findings of low-to-moderate, substantial, or high safety significance (color coded as white, yellow, or red findings, respectively), civil penalties, and orders, including confirmatory orders.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on May 18 sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence in response to a coalition of critics who had written to the vice president in April, taking issue with the agency’s COVID-19–related actions.

The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL), a North Carolina–based antinuclear organization, is claiming that Vogtle-3—one of two 1,100-MWe AP1000 pressurized water reactors currently under construction at the Vogtle nuclear plant near Waynesboro, Ga.—is sinking.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is taking comments on its “Proposed Rule for Emergency Preparedness for Small Modular Reactors and Other New Technologies,” published in the Federal Register on May 12. The proposed rule and associated draft regulatory guide apply to non–light-water reactors and certain nonpower facilities.

The CB-20 module being installed at Vogtle-3. Photo: Georgia Power

A massive water tank has been placed atop the containment vessel and shield building roof at Vogtle-3, one of two AP1000 reactors currently under construction at Southern Company’s nuclear expansion project near Waynesboro, Ga. The installation represents the final module placement for the unit and marks the latest significant milestone to be reached at the Vogtle site.

The Nuclear Alternative Project (NAP), a nonprofit group supporting the use of advanced reactors in Puerto Rico, has released the findings of a preliminary feasibility study undertaken to explore in detail the potential for these devices on the Caribbean island. The 288-page study, Preliminary Feasibility Study for Small Modular Reactors and Microreactors for Puerto Rico, was sponsored by the Department of Energy. The study concludes that small modular reactors and microreactors could be part of Puerto Rico’s energy portfolio and potentially supply a substantial part of a strong and diverse zero-emission energy mix.

View of the top of the TREAT reactor.

The Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility at Idaho National Laboratory was restarted in 2018 after being in safe standby mode since 1994. The June 2020 issue of the American Nuclear Society's Nuclear Technology (NT) journal features seven technical papers related to the benchmarking of the facility. Wade Marcum, a lead researcher on the project and guest editor of June’s NT issue, explained, “The goal of this effort was to understand, to the best of our ability, the expected response of the TREAT reactor upon its restart.”

A collaborating center agreement was signed by Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste and the International Atomic Energy Agency in May. The agreement focuses on advanced light sources and will support countries in research, development, and capacity building in the application of advanced and innovative radiation technologies.

Theresa Knickerbocker, the mayor of the village of Buchanan, N.Y., where the Indian Point nuclear power plant is located, is not happy. What has gotten Ms. Knickerbocker’s ire up is the fact that Indian Point’s Unit 2 was closed on April 30, and Unit 3 is scheduled to close in 2021. The village, population 2,300, is about 1.3 square miles total, with the Indian Point site comprising 240 acres along the Hudson River, 30 miles upstream of Manhattan. Unit 2 was a 1,028-MWe pressurized water reactor; Unit 3 is a 1,041-MWe PWR.

The nuclear plant provides the revenue for half of Buchanan’s annual $6-million budget, Knickerbocker told Nuclear News. That’s $3 million in tax revenues each year that eventually will go away. How will that revenue be replaced? Where will the replacement power come from?

The UAE's Barakah nuclear power plant in 2019. Photo: ENEC

Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) has completed cold hydrostatic testing at Unit 4 of the Barakah nuclear power plant, the Arab world’s first such facility, located in Abu Dhabi. According to a May 19 ENEC press release, the testing incorporated lessons learned from the plant’s three other units and is a crucial step toward Unit 4’s completion. All four units are 1,345-MWe APR1400 pressurized water reactors. Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the United Arab Emirates.

Brouillette

In remarks addressed to a meeting of the National Space Council on May 19, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette said that the development and deployment of small modular reactors could provide sustainable power sources for space applications.

The Department of Energy is awarding $27 million in funding for nine projects through the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy’s (ARPA-E) Generating Electricity Managed by Intelligent Nuclear Assets (GEMINA) program. These projects will work to develop digital twin technology to reduce operations and maintenance (O&M) costs in the next generation of nuclear power plants in order to make them more economical, flexible, and efficient, according to the DOE.