Nuclear News

President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) into law in November 2021. Commonly known as the “bipartisan infrastructure bill,” this legislation included significant investments in civilian nuclear energy in the U.S. along with a range of other spending initiatives. The law directs funding to preserve the operation of nuclear plants facing the prospect of early closure, demonstrate new advanced reactors, and explore the ability of nuclear energy to produce hydrogen for other energy applications. Additional incentives to retain and expand the use of nuclear energy are still being considered in Congress, but the IIJA is law, and the Department of Energy is beginning the process of implementing its key provisions.

The Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) has awarded grants to Rockville, Md.–based X-energy—developer of the Xe-100 small modular reactor—and Frostburg State University for a collaborative study to determine the potential for siting an SMR at a state coal site. A joint analysis of the study’s findings is to be delivered to MEA later this year.

ANS and the Breakthrough Institute yesterday submitted a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding the agency’s ongoing efforts to create a regulatory infrastructure for the development and commercialization of advanced reactors, a mandate of the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, signed into law in January 2019.

June 15, 2022

Commissioners
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555

Subject: Joint NGO Concerns Regarding the NRC’s Regulatory Engagement in Developing a “Risk- Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors” [Regulation Identifier Number RIN-3150-AK31; Docket ID NRC-2019-0062]

Dear Chairman Hanson and Commissioners Baran and Wright,

The vision for 10 CFR Part 53 began in 1999 after the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) established foundational policy for developing risk-informed, performance-based regulations.¹ Twenty years later, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) of 2019 mandated these early aspirations be codified into a rule “to allow innovation and the commercialization of advanced nuclear reactors”² as defined in the Act.³

We write in the interest of ensuring that Part 53 provides an efficient and effective regulatory framework for licensing safe, advanced reactors. Specifically, we urgently request the Commission to direct the NRC staff to engage stakeholders in an open and collaborative approach to developing a riskinformed, technology-inclusive framework for advanced reactors⁴ (the Part 53 rule) by sponsoring a multi-day workshop or series of workshops, beginning as soon as practicable. This urgency of an open, collaborative development process is growing as a window of opportunity to shape Framework B into a useful pathway for new and advanced reactor licensing will close in September 2022.

We note that the NRC staff requested (and the Commission approved) a nine-month extension “to address… significant areas of disagreement… identified by… stakeholders who are investing time and money to develop new reactor designs.”⁵ The NRC staff proposed a “novel, iterative process” to resolve those disagreements.⁶ The Congress supported this extension to achieve alignment, writing “We agree that reaching alignment with external stakeholders on the scope and details of the proposed rule is essential to ensure a better product.”⁷ However, a recent survey of industry stakeholders revealed a perception of limited utility of the NRC staff’s initial proposal for 10 CFR Part 53 (now Framework A).⁸ We believe a different, more collaborative approach is needed for Framework B.

The NRC staff is currently developing Framework B in a similar manner to Framework A. It appears to offer only an opportunity for stakeholders to comment, and not to participate substantively in comment resolution. We are concerned that simply commenting on iterative NRC staff proposals will not afford sufficient opportunity to “meaningfully engage with stakeholders [and] achieve the shared goal to establish a useable rule” or allow “industry stakeholders [to] constructively contribute to the process”⁹ of implementing NEIMA.

Stakeholders and the NRC staff have several months to work together on a regulation that offers a viable pathway for licensing diverse reactor technologies. A substantive workshop or workshops on Framework B can be accommodated during this time if the Commission acts swiftly to make room at the table for all stakeholders to explore and formulate approaches in a collectively informed fashion with the goal of enabling deployment of safe advanced nuclear reactors in this decade. Successful workshops will require appropriate preparatory work and a willingness among all parties to consider and discuss alternative approaches and proposals. We note that industry and the NRC held three workshops during the month of May 2021 on the Technology Inclusive Content of Application Project, and those workshops were successful in developing mutual understanding in areas of disagreement and achieving alignment on many of them.

We greatly appreciate your consideration of this earnest request for collaborative participation in the development of Framework B through NRC-sponsored workshops. This level of involvement at the front end of the rule development process is vital to establishing clear licensing pathways for new reactor developers as envisioned by Congress in enacting NEIMA. We look forward to working together with the NRC staff, the nuclear industry, and other stakeholders to achieve NEIMA’s important goals.

Sincerely,

Rani L. Franovich Senior Policy Advisor, Nuclear Energy Innovation The Breakthrough Institute	Steven P. Nesbit President, 2021-2022 American Nuclear Society

A “bold decadal plan” to accelerate fusion research, development, and demonstration in partnership with the private sector emerged from a March 2022 White House Fusion Summit and inspired the June 14 ANS Annual Meeting executive session titled “The New Fusion Outlook.” Moderator Scott Hsu, who is leaving a role as a program director for the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) to become a senior adviser to the DOE’s undersecretary for science and innovation as well as lead fusion coordinator for the DOE, ably led a panel of fusion stakeholders representing universities, national laboratories, private fusion companies, and public policy and communication. The discussion intended to bring attendees with fission experience up to speed on the rapidly accelerating area of fusion energy and explore how the fusion energy community can work toward a unique path for fusion energy regulation and public engagement.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

In April, I had the honor of speaking at the “Networking Dinner” held during the 2022 ANS Student Conference at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There’s something uniquely wonderful about 450 nuclear science and engineering students assembled in one place, seeing each other in person after two years on Zoom, trying to figure out where they are going in life. However, combine that enthusiasm with a long, narrow, A/V-challenged ballroom, and what you get is a genuine acoustical nightmare.

In particular, many people in the room couldn’t hear my “New Rules” for nuclear S&E students, modeled after the segment on Real Time with Bill Maher, and they came up to me afterward asking for a written version of the “rules.” Well, here they are, reconstructed from my notes, slightly polished, and offered with no guarantee of accuracy. It helps to start each by saying “New Rule!”

Two leading committees of the European Parliament have objected to adding nuclear and natural gas to the list of “green” technologies covered by the EU taxonomy—the classification system used by the European Union to guide private investment toward environmentally sustainable economic projects.

The President’s Special Session of the 2022 American Nuclear Society Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., offered members a chance to revisit the Society’s Grand Nuclear Challenges. Introduced in 2017 and put forth by the members and the ANS professional divisions, the nine challenges identify cross-cutting technical issues to be resolved by 2030 to help address the economic, sociological, or political concerns facing nuclear energy.

Engineering, construction, and project management firm Bechtel Corporation last week announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Toshiba America Energy Systems and Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions to pursue a civil nuclear power plant project in Poland.

If nuclear innovators are in a race to decarbonize, it is a race with one finish line—affordable, clean, and reliable power—and many ways to get there. Over 40 fission developers and 20 fusion developers are in the running, and while attendees of the June 13 ANS Annual Meeting executive session on Breaking Through: Assessing the Current State and Prospects of Nuclear Innovation in the Race to Decarbonize heard from representatives of just three of those companies, they presented very different designs and deployment approaches, aptly reflecting the broader diversity of nuclear power innovation.

Session chair Adam Stein, director of nuclear energy innovation at the Breakthrough Institute, welcomed representatives from an advanced non–light water reactor developer (Mike Laufer, Kairos Power), a small modular light water reactor developer (Jon Ball, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy), and a fusion power developer (Michl Binderbauer, TAE Technologies). Together they explored the challenge of engineering a significant commercial scale-up of advanced nuclear technology by the end of the decade, tackling questions of cost, schedule, supply chain, regulation, and more.

Extending the operational life of California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant beyond 2025—its scheduled year of retirement—would help the state meet its climate goals more quickly, more reliably, and more cheaply than allowing the facility to close, a new study has found.

According to Retaining Diablo Canyon: Economic, Carbon, and Reliability Implications, keeping the plant on line could not only substantially reduce California’s emissions, natural gas use, and electric power costs, but also help avoid blackouts.

Speaking on June 13 at the opening plenary of the 2022 American Nuclear Society Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Ted Nordhaus, founder and executive director of The Breakthrough Institute, said that the nuclear community has a “generational opportunity to reset both public opinion and policy with regard to nuclear energy.”

Driving the change in the discussion, Nordhaus said, are three items: the growing concern over climate change, a broader recognition that renewable energy sources are insufficient, and a “post-pandemic price shock” over rising energy prices.

On June 2, Nuclear Newswire published a letter from Jose Reyes, chief technology officer at small modular reactor developer NuScale Power, to May R. Berenbaum, editor-in-chief of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, regarding a research article published by PNAS two days previous. The article, “Nuclear waste from small modular reactors,” has grabbed more than a few headlines for its claim that SMRs will actually generate more nuclear waste than a standard large pressurized water reactor.

Ammonia is a carbon-free energy carrier that could be produced using thermal energy from nuclear power plants. Terrestrial Energy announced June 9 that it has signed an agreement with engineering firm KBR to explore the use of its Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) for both hydrogen and ammonia production.

The International Atomic Energy Agency convened a workshop last week to explore how nuclear techniques backed by the IAEA’s Zoonotic Disease Integrated Action (ZODIAC) initiative could be used to avoid outbreaks of monkeypox and Lassa fever. The meeting, held in Vienna, Austria, on the sidelines of the IAEA Board of Governors meeting, was organized to assist countries in using nuclear and related techniques to detect, mitigate, and understand the behavior of the viruses.

“It is important that we are reacting quickly, as things happen. I am happy that concrete work is being carried out on something before it becomes a very difficult problem,” said IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi as he opened the one-day summit.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are helping scientists, engineers, regulators, and plant decision makers in their research and development of clean energy production to achieve a net-zero carbon footprint. While this science is new in terms of actual applications, it is fostering innovation in a variety of domains, from material discovery and qualification to advanced reactor design to supporting efficiencies in current power plants and transforming the usability of nuclear power plant control rooms.

Steven P. Nesbit
president@ans.org

Years ago, my then boss was trying to convince me to accept an undesirable (to me) assignment, and he asked me, “Aren’t you a professional?” I wasn’t quite sure how to answer. By the textbook definition, a nuclear professional is someone who gets paid to do a job in the nuclear field. True as far as it goes, but the term means much more to me.

French utility giant EDF has announced that its NUWARD small modular reactor design will be the case study for a European early joint regulatory review led by the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN). Also participating in the review process will be the Czech Republic’s State Office for Nuclear Safety (SUJB) and Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK).

BWX Technologies, Inc., will deliver the first microreactor in the United States under a contract awarded by the U.S. Department of Defense Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), the company announced today. BWXT will have two years to build a transportable microreactor prototype to the SCO’s Project Pele specifications and deliver it to Idaho National Laboratory for testing under a cost-type contract valued at about $300 million.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission have completed a first joint technical review of Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor, the company announced earlier this week.

The IMSR was selected in December 2019 to be the first advanced non–light water nuclear reactor technology to be studied under an August 2019 NRC/CNSC memorandum of cooperation aimed at enhancing regulatory effectiveness through collaborative work on technical reviews of advanced reactor and small modular reactor technologies.