Nuclear News

Published since 1959, Nuclear News is recognized worldwide as the flagship trade publication for the nuclear community. News reports cover plant operations, maintenance and security; policy and legislation; international developments; waste management and fuel; and business and contract award news.


NRC approves disposal plan for New Mexico mining waste

February 17, 2023, 7:02AMNuclear News
A map of the Church Rock uranium mill site location. (Image: NRC)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a plan by United Nuclear Corp. (UNC) to dispose of mine waste from the Northeast Church Rock mine site in New Mexico at the company’s nearby uranium mill and tailings disposal site.

SPARC fusion power demo construction is underway outside of Boston

February 16, 2023, 12:00PMNuclear News
CFS CEO Bob Mumgaard showing Sen. Warren (left) and Secretary Granholm (center) around the SPARC facility. (Photo: CFS)

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) hosted visiting officials for a tour and ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially open its new headquarters in Devens, Mass., on February 10. Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), and Sen. Edward Markey (D., Mass.) were among the national, state, and local leaders invited to celebrate what CFS heralded as a “fusion energy campus.”

Correction: Nuclear removed from Va. energy fund bill

February 16, 2023, 7:37AMNuclear News

O'Quinn

Nuclear Newswire erroneously reported this morning that the Virginia Senate’s Finance and Appropriations Committee on February 15 advanced legislation that included nuclear in a list of energy technologies that would receive research and development funding through a Virginia Power Innovation Fund. In fact, the bill, H.B. 2386, was approved after the committee had stripped nuclear from the list. NN regrets the error.

Following the finance panel’s vote, Del. Israel O’Quinn (R., 5th Dist.), the bill’s sponsor, expressed his disappointment. “The knee-jerk opposition to nuclear innovation is very short-sighted and puts Virginia behind the curve on energy diversification,” he said. “Nuclear energy is inevitably going to have to be a bigger part of Virginia’s energy portfolio. It produces zero carbon and is highly reliable.”

River Bend begins its 22nd refueling outage

February 15, 2023, 3:10PMNuclear News
The River Bend nuclear power plant. (Photo: Entergy)

Entergy’s River Bend nuclear power plant started its 22nd scheduled refueling and maintenance outage on February 11. The plant, located in St. Francisville, La., is a 967-MWe General Electric boiling water reactor.

Low water level at reservoir may pose threat to Zaporizhzhia

February 15, 2023, 12:00PMNuclear News
The Zaporizhzhia plant (Image: Energoatom)

As if being stuck in the middle of a combat zone isn’t sufficiently nerve-racking, workers at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant—under Russian occupation since last March—must now concern themselves with having access to enough water to keep the facility safe.

What skills are most needed in the advanced reactor workforce?

February 15, 2023, 7:05AMNuclear NewsNick Touran

Nick Touran

I got into nuclear engineering when I realized I could apply my passion for computers to the critical human challenge of energy. After training, I spent the past 13-plus years building automated and integrated engineering analysis tools for the efficient design/licensing of advanced nuclear reactors. Given what I’ve seen, I expect that modern high-level programming languages and data systems will continue to enable new efficiencies in analysis, configuration management, work planning, procurement, training, compliance, and execution in operations. The magnitude of potential impact laid out, for example, in Information Technology for Nuclear Power Plant Configuration Management (IAEA-TECDOC-1651) is well within reach. These impacts are identical to those promised by digital twins. Achieving these goals will require more information workers in the offices of nuclear vendors and operators to develop sophisticated skills in software engineering, database administration, statistics, and business analytics. Additionally, decision makers must be better trained to best understand and choose specialized IT systems and software.

The Hanford B Reactor

February 13, 2023, 11:49AMNuclear NewsJeremy Hampshire
Front face of the B Reactor at the Hanford Site. (Photo: DOE)

In remote southeastern Washington you will find the sprawling Hanford Site, which was constructed to produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project. Within this complex is the first plutonium production reactor, the Hanford B Reactor. The DuPont Corporation was responsible for construction and operation of the B Reactor. Due to the urgency of the Manhattan Project, construction was completed in just over a year, and The B Reactor went critical on September 26, 1944. After the needs of the Manhattan Project were satisfied, the reactor was briefly shut down and then restarted to produce plutonium for roughly another 20 years, supporting Cold War efforts. In addition to plutonium production, the B Reactor also pioneered the process to produce tritium for the first-ever thermonuclear test.

Vital component delivered to NSTX-U fusion facility

February 13, 2023, 7:00AMNuclear News
The center stack casing staged horizontally at Holtec’s manufacturing division in East Pittsburgh. (Photo: Holtec)

A key component needed for the National Spherical Torus Experiment–Upgrade (NSTX-U), the flagship fusion facility currently under repair at the Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), has been delivered to the lab’s New Jersey campus.

The need for sustainable nuclear/alpha skills in the U.K.: A Sellafield perspective

February 10, 2023, 3:01PMNuclear NewsHenry Hickling

The United Kingdom’s nuclear renaissance

The United Kingdom’s nuclear industry is expanding, with the U.K. government committed to supporting the build of more civil nuclear power plants (deployments up to 24 GW by 2050)1 while also undertaking large-scale decommissioning work in parallel.2 The defense sector is experiencing growth with the decommissioning, operation, and new build of submarines, plus managing the U.K.’s deterrent.3 Although the civil and defense programs are separate, they draw on the same group of skills and people.

Social media “takeover” helps OSU cover IAEA Nuclear Power Ministerial

February 10, 2023, 11:59AMNuclear News
The student social media ambassadors at the IAEA Nuclear Power Ministerial in October 2022 (left to right): Sam Dotson from the University of Illinois, Madison Gitzen from Pennsylvania State University, Peter Hotvedt from the University of Michigan, Jillian Newmyer from Oregon State University, Brienna Johnson from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Pearle Lipinski from Ohio State University.

Pearle Lipinski is a nuclear engineering Ph.D. student in Ohio State University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE). In October 2022, at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s fifth International Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Power in the 21st Century (also known as the Nuclear Power Ministerial, or NPM), she acted as a student social media ambassador, where she was a “huge success in getting the word out,” according to Lei Raymond Cao, director of the OSU nuclear engineering program.

Centrus completes HALEU enrichment cascade construction

February 10, 2023, 9:34AMNuclear News
A view of the completed demo cascade. (Photo: Centrus)

Centrus Energy announced February 9 that it has finished assembling a cascade of uranium enrichment centrifuges and most of the associated support systems ahead of its contracted demonstration of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) production by the end of 2023. When the 16-machine cascade begins operating inside the Piketon, Ohio, American Centrifuge Plant, which has room for 11,520 machines, it will be the first new U.S.-technology based enrichment plant to begin production in 70 years.

NRC begins public engagement for TRISO-X fuel facility license application

February 9, 2023, 12:01PMNuclear News
A rendering of the TRISO-X fuel fabrication facility. (Image: DOE)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently presented its proposed 30-month licensing review timeline of TRISO-X’s planned fuel fabrication facility at the project’s first-ever public meeting in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

TRISO-X, a subsidiary of X-energy, has requested a 40-year license to possess and use special nuclear material to manufacture advanced fuel. The facility would be the first-ever commercial-scale fuel fabrication plant focused on using high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).

Belgium mulls life extension for more reactors

February 8, 2023, 12:00PMNuclear News
Belgium's Doel nuclear power plant. (Photo: N. Hippert/IAEA)

The Belgian government is exploring the idea of extending the operational life of its three oldest reactors by two years, a variety of news outlets are reporting.

Those reactors—Units 1 and 2 at the Doel facility and Unit 1 at Tihange, sporting a combined capacity of 1,852 MWe—were slated to be permanently shuttered in 2025 in keeping with the country’s nuclear phase-out policy.

SHINE receives final EIS to operate its Mo-99 production facility

February 8, 2023, 9:30AMNuclear News
SHINE’s Chrysalis production building, under construction in October 2022. (Photo: SHINE)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued the final supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) for SHINE Technology’s application for a license to operate a medical isotope production facility in Janesville, Wis.

Building the workforce of tomorrow

February 8, 2023, 7:04AMNuclear NewsSteven Arndt

Steven Arndt
president@ans.org

One of the duties of the ANS president is to visit with American Nuclear Society student sections. As some of you know, I have been doing this both in person and virtually. Although meeting via Zoom and other platforms is easier in terms of scheduling and travel, there is nothing like being able to interact face to face. Visiting student sections in person has been the highlight of my time as president. As I have stated on several occasions, the enthusiasm and excitement I have seen among the nuclear engineering students in the U.S. is nothing short of exhilarating!

When we think of workforce planning, those of us who have had long associations with universities naturally think first of undergraduate and graduate nuclear engineering programs at our universities, but this is of course only a part of the overall solution. The first—and in many ways the most important—part of workforce development is getting our nation’s youth excited about nuclear science and technology.

Savannah River facility prepped for NNSA project

February 7, 2023, 3:00PMNuclear News
A crane is used to remove equipment during a project to repurpose Building 226-F for an NNSA mission at the Savannah River Site. (Photo: DOE)

Work has begun to prepare the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF) at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina for its future national security mission: the manufacturing of plutonium pits for the National Nuclear Security Administration.

X-energy, Alberta explore opportunities to support SMR projects

February 7, 2023, 12:00PMNuclear News

X-energy Canada, a subsidiary of U.S. mall modular reactor and fuel technology company X-energy, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Invest Alberta Corporation (IAC) to develop economic opportunities in support of the potential deployment of the Xe-100 SMR in the western Canadian province. (Alberta is one of four provinces behind last year’s A Strategic Plan for the Deployment of SMRs—a document that maps the path to capitalizing on the benefits of advanced reactor deployment.)

Tokamak Energy builds super magnets for fusion plant testing

February 7, 2023, 9:55AMNuclear News
Tokamak Energy's high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tape is used in its HTS magnets. (Photo: Tokamak Energy)

Tokamak Energy announced on February 6 that it has built a world-first set of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets, to be assembled and tested in fusion power plant–relevant scenarios.

Enriching nuclear’s human element

February 7, 2023, 7:02AMNuclear NewsCraig Piercy

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

This month’s Nuclear News focuses on the challenges of building and maintaining a strong, productive nuclear technology workforce. While my sense is that U.S. nuclear is in significant growth mode, I’ve made a habit of asking our Utility Working Conference and Winter Meeting exhibitors, “What is the most significant challenge you face today?” The answer is almost always some form of “finding good talent.” Conversely, ask any nuclear engineering student about their career prospects, and you will likely get a confident response, so it seems that multiple offers are becoming the norm in the nuclear tech employment market.

Of course, empirical data is harder to come by. A 2019 study by the National Association of State Energy Officials and the Energy Futures Initiative found 60,916 workers employed in U.S. nuclear power generation, with another 9,406 employed in the nuclear fuels sector. But we still lack good, publicly available numbers for national labs, universities, and suppliers, as well as any job focused on nonnuclear applications of nuclear technology.