Nuclear News

Since the 1980s, the nuclear power industry in the United States has worked to enhance the regulatory framework for nuclear facilities by making it more risk-informed and performance-based (RIPB). This has had some success in improving safety and reducing regulatory burden by focusing resources on the most risk--significant areas and allowing greater flexibility in choosing ways to achieve desired safety outcomes. However, there are further opportunities for the use of RIPB approaches in addressing current regulations and applying implementation tools, and in developing new RIPB regulations and advanced tools to further sharpen the focus on risk and performance outcomes.

Murkowski

Booker

A bipartisan group of 20 senators sent a letter last week to Sens. James Inhofe (R., Okla.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Jack Reed (D., R.I.), the committee’s ranking member, urging the inclusion of S. 903, the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act (NELA), in S. 4049, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. The letter was spearheaded by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Cory Booker, (D., N.J.). Murkowski and Booker introduced NELA on September 6, 2018 (NN, Oct. 2018, p. 39).

The Nuclear Energy Institute on June 24 hosted The State of the Nuclear Energy Industry 2020, a three-segment webinar featuring remarks from Maria Korsnick, president and chief executive officer of NEI; an interview with Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), conducted by Jason Grumet, founder and president of the Bipartisan Policy Center; and a panel discussion moderated by Rich Powell, executive director of ClearPath.

On the heels of a report from Energy Systems Catapult making the case for more nuclear energy to help the United Kingdom fulfill its net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 comes a new assessment from the Nuclear Industry Association to further buttress the argument. The 12-page assessment, Forty by ’50: A Nuclear Roadmap, was published on June 24.

From left: Vogtle-3 and -4. Photo: Georgia Power

Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power, primary owner of the Vogtle nuclear power plant, announced on June 23 that it is resequencing certain planned activities at Vogtle-3 and -4, the two Westinghouse AP1000 units under construction at the site near Waynesboro, Ga.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted for review Centrus Energy Corporation’s application to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium at its facility in Piketon, Ohio, the company announced on June 23. HALEU-based fuels will be required for most of the advanced reactor designs currently under development and may also be utilized in next-generation fuels for the existing fleet of reactors in the United States and around the world.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is amending its regulations for the licensing, inspection, special projects, and annual fees that it will charge applicants and licensees for fiscal year 2020. The FY 2020 final fee rule, published in the June 19 Federal Register, includes fees required by law to recover approximately 90 percent of the NRC’s annual budget authority. A proposed rule was published for public comment on February 18 of this year, with a March 19 due date. The final rule goes into effect on August 18.

A report published last week by Energy Systems Catapult, a U.K.-based clean energy nonprofit, concludes that adding double-digit gigawatts of new nuclear is a “low-regrets option” for the United Kingdom as it strives to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. (Legislation establishing the 2050 target date was signed in June of last year, making the United Kingdom the first of the world’s major economic powers to take that step.) The report also stresses, however, that costs for new nuclear must decrease significantly for the technology to meet its potential.

The ANS Young Members Group and the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) on June 18 presented a webinar on the rapidly developing prospects for advanced nuclear in Puerto Rico. Behind those bright prospects is the Nuclear Alternative Project (NAP), which led a Department of Energy–funded study on the feasibility of using small advanced reactors to meet the island’s power needs.

Duda

Energy, including nuclear energy, will be among the topics discussed at a June 24 meeting in Washington between President Donald Trump and Polish President Andrzej Duda, according to remarks by Duda at a June 18 news conference. “We will definitely talk about cooperation between Polish companies and Polish authorities, and companies and authorities from the United States, over conventional nuclear energy and its use,” he said. The meeting will take place just days before Poland’s June 28 presidential election.

Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned atomic energy corporation, announced on June 18 that it has teamed up with France’s Framatome and General Electric’s GE Steam Power to participate in a tender to construct the Belene nuclear plant in northern Bulgaria. The Belene project would involve the construction of two AES-92 units, similar to the reactors that Rosatom supplied to India.

While there has been some good news recently regarding the historically troubled nuclear new-build project at the Vogtle site in Waynesboro, Ga. (see here and here), the latest news on the subject does not fall into that category.

The Utilities Service Alliance’s organizational banners.

The Utilities Service Alliance (USA) was founded in 1996. Current membership stretches from coast-to-coast and includes eight utilities and nine nuclear stations: Energy Northwest, Columbia; Luminant, Comanche Peak; Indiana Michigan Power Company, Cook; Nebraska Public Power District, Cooper; DTE Energy, Fermi; Xcel Energy, Monticello and Prairie Island; STP Nuclear Operating Company, South Texas Project; and Talen Energy, Susquehanna. These plants represent 14 reactors (six boiling water reactors and eight pressurized water reactors) and more than 15,000 MWe of generation.

The USA Material Cost Reduction (MCR) project kicked off in January 2017. The Nuclear Energy Institute’s Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative was in full swing as the utilities’ chief nuclear officers created multiple focus areas for cost reductions at the plants.

Artist’s conception of Oklo’s Aurora. (Image: Gensler)

Oklo's 1.5-MWe fast spectrum design known as Aurora is the first advanced non–light-water reactor to be accepted for a licensing review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Both the reactor’s design and the anticipated licensing process mark a major departure from large light-water reactor design and licensing.

The United Kingdom’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) issued an improvement notice to EDF Energy Nuclear Generation Ltd. earlier this month for a problem involving the pressure systems safety regulations (PSSR) at the two-unit Heysham 1 nuclear power station. The notice was served following an inspection of the Unit 1 pressure vessel at the Lancashire site.

Citing reports that China has recently threatened to pull its support for new nuclear build in the United Kingdom, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on June 9 offered assistance from the United States and vehement criticism of Beijing.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published its annual report to Congress on “abnormal occurrences” for the previous fiscal year, identifying a total of nine incidents in FY 2019.

An abnormal occurrence is defined by the NRC as an unscheduled incident or event that it determines to be significant from a public health or safety standpoint. The NRC uses specific criteria, updated in October 2017, for determining which events qualify.

Framatome’s digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems at the Doel nuclear power plant in Belgium have passed the final site acceptance test, the company announced on June 11. The news marks the completion of the project to modernize the control and emergency systems of Units 1 and 2, both of which entered commercial operation in 1975.

Fig. 1. Geographical spread of U.K. organizations engaged in the U.K. AFCP, including a number of the world leading U.K. universities. Image: NNL

Called “the first significant public investment in a generation,” the U.K. Advanced Fuel Cycle Program (AFCP) is driving innovation to underpin future nuclear deployment in the United Kingdom. Led jointly by the U.K. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), the program involves more than 40 U.K. organizations, including a number of world-­leading U.K. universities (Fig. 1), and is working with international organizations across more than 10 countries, leveraging U.K. investment into more than £100 million in international programs.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has initiated a 30-day public notice and comment period on a proposed change to the agency’s Environmental and Social Policy and Procedures that would allow it to consider support for nuclear power projects, according to a June 10 press release. Currently, DFC is specifically prohibited from offering support for such projects.