Nuclear News

The Department of Energy released two draft requests for proposals to acquire high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)—one covering enrichment services that could include the production of between 5 and 145 metric tons of HALEU during a 10-year performance period, and another for deconverting that HALEU from uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) gas to metal or oxide forms in preparation for fuel fabrication. The DOE also issued a notice of intent to fulfill its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) obligations for the HALEU Availability Program by launching the scoping process for an environmental impact statement; that notice was published in the Federal Register on June 5.

A Soviet-era dam downstream from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine collapsed last evening, causing the water level of the Kakhovka Reservoir north of the dam to drop and raising new concerns over the already jeopardized safety of the Russian-occupied nuclear facility, Europe’s largest. The reservoir supplies water for, among other things, Zaporizhzhia’s cooling systems.

Here is a recap of industry happenings over the past month:

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

Partnership formed to study X-energy’s SMR in commercial conditions

X-energy and Kinectrics have launched a partnership to design, build, and operate a commercial-scale test facility to study the performance of the Xe-100 advanced small modular reactor in helium--based high-temperature, high--pressure operating conditions. The test facility, the site for which is to be announced sometime this summer, may be completed and operational by 2025.

Slovakia’s Slovenské Elektrárne—operator of the nation’s two nuclear power plants, Bohunice and Mochovce—and France’s Framatome have signed a memorandum of understanding for the development of a global strategic relationship, the companies announced last week.

Westinghouse Electric Company says its eVinci microreactor technology is “100 percent factory built and assembled before it is shipped in a container to any location.” And “any location” is not restricted to planet Earth, given the company’s goal of sending a scaled-down version of eVinci to the lunar surface or on a mission to provide power in other space applications.

Officially established on November 15, 2021, with the signing of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—aka the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, or BIL—the Department of Energy’s Civil Nuclear Credit Program was designed to give owners/operators of commercial U.S. reactors the opportunity to apply for certification and competitively bid on credits to help support the continued operation of economically troubled units. Finally, the federal government, and not just certain farsighted state governments, would recognize nuclear energy for its important grid reliability and decarbonization attributes.

Having completed its review of the construction permit application for Kairos Power’s Hermes test reactor early last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) recently submitted its conclusions to the agency, recommending approval.

From a crowded field of would-be fusioneers, the Department of Energy has selected eight companies for the public-private Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program to develop fusion pilot plant designs and resolve related scientific and technological challenges within five to 10 years. The DOE announced awards totaling $46 million for an initial 18 months of work on May 31.

Constellation Energy, operator of the largest U.S. reactor fleet, is acquiring NRG Energy’s 44 percent ownership stake in the South Texas Project nuclear plant, the Baltimore, Md.–based company announced this morning.

The Senate Environment & Public Works Committee on May 30 approved the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act in a bipartisan 16-3 vote.

General Atomics (GA) and Tokamak Energy Ltd. are each independently developing magnetic confinement fusion power plant concepts that would use a tokamak and high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets to confine and shape a plasma heated to over 100 million degrees Celsius. On May 30, they announced a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on HTS magnet technology for fusion energy and other applications.

To help plan and prepare for new technologies involving artificial intelligence, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has released its Artificial Intelligence Strategic Plan (NUREG-2261) for fiscal years 2023–2027.

The NRC said that it expects license applications that include the use of AI technologies to be submitted to the agency for review and approval within the next few years. The strategic plan is meant to help ensure that NRC staff are prepared to review and evaluate such applications.

In the foreword, the NRC Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research director Raymond Furstenau introduces the strategic plan, writing, “We recognize that interest in AI is growing rapidly in both the public and private sectors. As such, I think [it] is important to lay the groundwork needed to ensure the safe and secure use of AI in NRC-regulated activities.”

Leaders of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last month sent letters to a variety of nuclear sector stakeholders requesting input in preparation for a June 14 hearing titled “Oversight of NRC: Ensuring Efficient and Predictable Nuclear Safety Regulation for a Prosperous America.” (The hearing will be livestreamed at https://energycommerce.house.gov/.)

“We invite you to submit to the committee information and recommendations to improve the licensing review and approval process, as well as the oversight of NRC licensees,” the lawmakers wrote. “We are interested in NRC activities involving the licensing and oversight of today’s operating reactors, as well as the siting, licensing, construction, and oversight of advanced nuclear reactor technologies.” The letter also noted the committee’s interest in “improving NRC efficiency, management of regulatory costs and fees, public health and safety, staff effectiveness and culture, collaboration with the Department of Energy, and international activities.”

Not everyone in the nuclear industry is familiar with a series of 105 historic wall charts displaying detailed illustrations of nuclear reactors and their internal components, but Ronald A. Knief is. Knief, a retired professor of chemical and nuclear engineering at the University of New Mexico and former principal engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, has spent decades collecting these educational items, which were originally published as foldout inserts in Nuclear Engineering International magazine from the 1950s through early 2000s.

McMorris Rodgers

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has advanced a bill to the chamber’s floor that, with certain exceptions, would ban the import of low-enriched uranium from Russia into the United States. Introduced in February by the E&C Committee’s chair, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R., Wash.), the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act (H.R. 1042) was approved in a (slightly) bipartisan 29–21 vote on May 24.

The legislation would start banning Russian uranium 90 days after its enactment but would also allow the Department of Energy to issue waivers should the DOE determine (1) that there is no alternate source of low-enriched uranium available to keep a U.S. nuclear reactor in operation or (2) that importing Russian uranium is in the national interest.

The Vogtle expansion project’s Unit 3 reactor has attained 100 percent energy output—the first time it has reached its maximum expected output of approximately 1,100 MWe, Georgia Power announced yesterday.

Westinghouse Electric Company, Bechtel, and Polish utility Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ)—the three firms leading the effort to build Poland’s first nuclear power plant—have announced the signing of a new agreement that defines the main principles of cooperation on the project’s design and construction and confirms the implementation of its next major stage.

Serving as the world’s first scalable nuclear power plant, Shippingport Atomic Power Station led the way for today’s nuclear generation fleet. Shippingport was centrally located roughly 25 miles from Pittsburgh, Pa., to provide electrical generation for many end-users. Shippingport also served as an experimental reactor that allowed engineers and designers the ability to test different core designs, and as such, the site housed additional testing equipment otherwise not commonly seen. The primary goal of Shippingport was always to generate electricity; however, its ability to function as an experimental reactor served utilities in further development of scalable nuclear generation.

Today’s atomic clocks are exceptional timepieces that won’t lose or gain a second in 30 billion years. But if you’re looking for even more precision, you’ll be glad to learn that physicists at CERN’s ISOLDE nuclear physics facility have observed the decay of thorium-229 nuclei trapped in a crystalline structure and confirmed the potential for a nuclear clock. CERN announced the news on May 24.

The Texas-based engineering company Jacobs and the University of Manchester in England are forming a new international research center designed to create robotics and autonomous systems that the organizations say will play a key role in the response to climate change.