NRC-approved Framatome shipping container. (Photo: Framatome)
Framatome announced on February 22 that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a license amendment that would allow Framatome’s shipping containers to transport, in the United States, fresh nuclear fuel assemblies containing uranium enriched up to 8 percent uranium-235.
Light water reactor fuel with higher enrichments and burnup capabilities than currently used under low-enriched uranium regulation could improve electricity generation and fuel utilization, possibly improving plant economics and providing more flexible reactor performance through extended operating cycles and more efficient core configurations.
Fuel preparing to be unloaded outside of Vogtle-3 last month. (Photo: Georgia Power)
Commercial operation dates for the two new reactors under construction at the Vogtle nuclear plant have been pushed back yet again, adding to the project’s total cost, Southern Company announced last week. The Vogtle plant is near Waynesboro, Ga.
During its February 17 fourth-quarter earnings call, Southern reported that the projected start dates for both reactors were being extended by three to six months. Vogtle-3 is now expected to begin providing electricity to Georgians in the fourth quarter of 2022 or first quarter of 2023, with Vogtle-4 coming on line in the third or fourth quarter of 2023.
Instrumentation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Spallation Neutron Source, an accelerator-based facility that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development. (Photo: ORNL)
Researchers advancing particle accelerator technology for medical, security, energy, and industrial applications have a new funding opportunity announced on February 16 by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE-SC). The funding will support research to advance particle accelerator technology for medical, security, energy, and industrial applications. Grants will be awarded for work focused on innovation, technology transfer, and supply chain resiliency that falls under one of two DOE-SC programs: the Accelerator Stewardship program, which supports cross-disciplinary teams to solve high-impact problems, and the Accelerator Development program, which is aimed at strengthening domestic suppliers of accelerator technology.
An aerial view of Ontario’s Darlington Nuclear Generating Station. (Photo: OPG)
Ontario Power Generation has passed the midway point in its C$12.8 billion (about $10 billion) Darlington nuclear plant refurbishment project with the start of work on Unit 1, the company has announced. The unit is expected to be ready for grid reconnection in the second quarter of 2025.
Darlington houses four 878-MWe CANDU pressurized heavy water reactors, all of which entered commercial operation in the early 1990s. The plant is located in Clarington, Ontario, Canada.
The Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors earlier this week endorsed extending the life of Diablo Canyon—California’s last operating nuclear power facility—which owner and operator Pacific Gas and Electric Company has scheduled for permanent closure in 2025. The two-unit, 2,289-MWe plant is located in San Luis Obispo County, near Avila Beach.
Operators load a TRU waste drum into a real-time radiography unit for characterization at the Solid Waste Management Facility at the Savannah River Site. (Photos: DOE)
Operators at the Savannah River Site’s Solid Waste Management Facility can now characterize and certify newly generated TRU waste through the use of a real-time radiography unit that uses an X-ray system to examine the contents of waste containers. The equipment was recently installed to meet updated requirements set by the Department of Energy’s National TRU Program that involve evaluating the containers for chemical compatibility and oxidizing chemicals.
The shipments of TRU waste from SRS, in South Carolina, are sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), in New Mexico, for disposal.
John Hopkins (left), NuScale Power’s president and CEO, and Marcin Chludziński, president of KGHM’s management board, sign the agreement on February 14. (Photo: Business Wire)
At an event held on February 14 at the Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., small modular reactor developer NuScale Power inked an agreement with KGHM Polska Miedz S.A., to initiate deployment of NuScale’s SMR technology in Poland.
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. (Photo: DOE)
The Department of Energy has announced an $18 million funding opportunity for research and development in particle accelerator science and technology for nuclear physics research. Provided through the DOE’s Office of Science, the funding is intended to support “efforts essential to developing world-leading core competencies and transformative technologies that significantly advance the state-of-the-art accelerator capabilities.”