Nuclear News

Westinghouse Electric Company this week inked agreements with two of its European customers—Ukraine reactor fleet operator Energoatom and Bulgaria’s Kozloduy NPP–Newbuild, a firm established in 2012 to commission new nuclear power capacity at Kozloduy, Bulgaria’s only nuclear power facility.

The Breakthrough Institute, a nuclear-friendly environmental research center based in Berkeley, Calif., has announced the launch of mobilization efforts for its Build Nuclear Now project, in partnership with the similarly minded groups Stand Up for Nuclear, Generation Atomic, Mothers for Nuclear, Nuclear New York, and Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal.

The recent increase in investments and in new designs for nuclear power is essential if energy growth estimates are even marginally correct. The world will achieve a consumption of well over 35 trillion kilowatt-hours per year (35 tkWh/yr) by midcentury, with about 5 tkWh/yr of that in the U.S. This growth is essential because humanity requires about 3,000 kWh/yr per person to eradicate poverty, with the accompanying benefits of increased life span, decreased population growth, and decreased terrorism and war.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

In his new film Nuclear Now, Oliver Stone brings his seasoned directorial hand to bear on the modern case for nuclear energy. Of course, all of us in the field are suckers for a good nuclear movie. (Triple feature with Pandora’s Promise and A New Fire, anyone?) Stone really does do a masterful job of weaving imagery, narration, and animation together to tell the story of his personal journey to understanding the indispensability of nuclear.

What struck me in particular was Stone’s assertion that “we are running out of time to be afraid.” It made me think: How much time do we have left to lock in a durable shift in public opinion that can weather adverse events and clear public policy obstacles and still give the investment community confidence to put big chips on the table?

You don’t have to look far to find progress. Gallup released its annual “Americans’ Opinions of Nuclear Energy” poll in April. It shows a 4-point year-over-year increase in support for nuclear energy, which represents the highest level of support in the post-Fukushima era. Gallup’s numbers align with other polls that show steady increases in support for nuclear in the last few years, especially among the left-leaning respondents.

Deploying new reactors on the scale required to meet U.S. and international zero-carbon goals by 2050 will require rapid growth in the nuclear workforce, as American Nuclear Society executive director/chief executive officer Craig Piercy emphasized during his opening plenary address at the ANS Annual Meeting on June 12. Piercy pointed to the Department of Energy’s Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear, which estimates that an additional 375,000 people will be required to construct and operate 200 GW of advanced nuclear reactors by 2050—a dramatic increase from about 100,000 today. Where will those engineers, constructors, and operators be found? The 38 nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development agreed last week to a new recommendation from the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) that points to one way to increase the nuclear workforce: increase the number of women participating in the workforce.

France’s Ministry of Energy Transition last Friday announced an investment of more than €100 million ($108 million) in civil nuclear sector training, research, and innovation in alignment with President Emmanuel Macron’s October 2021 unveiling of the “France 2030” investment plan, as well as his February 2022 call for a “rebirth of France’s nuclear industry.” (Among other things, Macron’s envisioned rebirth includes the construction of at least six new nuclear reactors and life extensions for the country’s existing units.)

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories have signed a memorandum of understanding with the University of New Brunswick (UNB) to pursue collaborative research opportunities.

Nuclearelectrica, operator of the Cernavoda plant—Romania’s sole nuclear power facility—has announced the signing of a support agreement with the Romanian government for further development of the project to complete construction of Cernavoda-3 and -4.

Photo: University of Maryland Radiation Facilities

This year, the nuclear power industry is seeing a renewed mandate to innovate and supply carbon-free energy for a range of applications. These new reactor designs feature new fuel forms, expanded thermodynamic ranges, and different operational paradigms. The trend toward smaller designs is anticipated to dramatically reduce siting requirements and enable applications of nuclear heat more customizable to commercial use. This has many vendors and operators imagining creative ways to optimize reactor economics in an unpredictable energy market.

The existing U.S. nuclear fleet has benefited from experience and research generated in research and test reactors around the country. As our industry reinvests in innovation, it will once again turn to many of the same reactors. Those reactors—and the groups such as the National Organization of Test, Research, and Training Reactors (TRTR) that formed to support them—have their own history of innovation.

At a joint press conference in the White House East Room last week, President Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak—in Washington for two days of discussions with the president, members of Congress, and business leaders—debuted a new bilateral agreement dubbed the Atlantic Declaration for a Twenty-First Century U.S.-U.K. Economic Partnership.

When people think of the deployment of advanced nuclear reactors in the United States, they might imagine something far into the future, with countless steps between concept and reality. But those steps are becoming strides, and the finish line is rapidly drawing closer.

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) announced on June 8 that Barakah-4, the fourth and final Korean-designed APR-1400 reactor to be built at the United Arab Emirates’ Barakah nuclear power plant, has commenced the testing necessary to demonstrate its readiness for an operating license from the UAE’s Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation.

For two decades, J. J. Keller & Associates has been honoring safety professionals in North America. Once again, the Wisconsin-based regulatory, safety, and compliance solutions company is accepting applications and nominations for its annual Safety Professional of the Year (SPOTY) Awards. These awards recognize environmental health and safety professionals who “go above and beyond their daily duties to build a culture and vision for safety and achieve excellence in safety for their companies,” according to the company.

Applications and nominations can be submitted through July 31 at 5:00 p.m. (CST). Safety professionals who are legal residents of the United States or Canada may apply for themselves, or they may be nominated by other individuals. All official rules for participation are available on the J. J. Keller website.

Realta Fusion of Madison, Wis., and Zap Energy of Everett, Wash., are just two of the eight fusion developers selected by the Department of Energy for funding last week under the public-private Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program. They are the two companies with power plant concepts that don’t fit neatly into established fusion confinement categories. As energy secretary Jennifer Granholm said when she announced the awardees, “Some are working on more technically mature approaches like tokamaks and stellarators and laser inertial fusion, and others are working on innovative concepts with lower technical maturity like mirror and Z-pinch, which could lead to more compact and lower cost systems.”

NuScale Power has signed an agreement with training and consulting firm Accelerant Solutions for the development and implementation of a reactor operator training program, the Portland, Ore.–based small modular reactor developer announced on June 7.

Steven Arndt
president@ans.org

This will be my last column in Nuclear News as president of the American Nuclear Society. Where has the year gone? For me and for all of us in the nuclear community it has been an exciting and productive 12 months. We have cheered the decision to extend Diablo Canyon operations, witnessed fuel loading and—hopefully by the time the June issue of NN is out—the start of commercial operations of Unit 3 at Vogtle, and seen significant strides forward in the licensing and deployment of small modular reactors. Internationally, we have watched the progress in the deployment of new units in the United Arab Emirates and other countries, as well as renewed commitment to nuclear in countries including Japan, South Korea, India, and the United Kingdom. All of this has been a result of both public and private investment in and commitment to nuclear.

Recently, the Inflation Reduction Act and other government actions in the United States have provided opportunities for increased investment in nuclear energy, including production tax credits and investment tax credits.

Representatives of Westinghouse and Fortum sign MOUs in Helsinki, Finland, on June 7. From left are Laurent Leveugle, vice president of new nuclear at Fortum; Petra Lundström, executive vice president of nuclear generation at Fortum; Elias Gedeon, senior vice president of commercial operations at Westinghouse; and Roman Romanowski, vice president of new plant market development at Westinghouse. (Photo: Westinghouse).

Looking to add Finland and Sweden to its growing list of potential reactor customers in Europe, Westinghouse Electric Company on June 7 announced the signing of memoranda of understanding with Finnish state-owned energy company Fortum—operator of the two-unit Loviisa nuclear plant—to explore the possibilities of developing and deploying AP1000 and AP300 reactor projects in the two Nordic nations. The MOUs, according to Westinghouse, establish a framework of collaboration for detailed technical and commercial discussions.

For almost four decades, the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Ruth Patrick Science Education Center at the University of South Carolina–Aiken (USC Aiken) have partnered to bring science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education to the area's kindergarten through 12th grade students.

Ontario Power Generation—owner and operator of Canada’s Darlington and Pickering nuclear plants—and Poland’s ORLEN Synthos Green Energy (OSGE) have signed a letter of intent (LOI) that builds on the companies’ existing cooperation on the deployment of small modular reactors in Europe, OPG announced last week.

Andrew Paterson

Having worked at the U.S. Department of Energy for a decade (1997–2007) and across the energy sector on the Environmental Business International board for 30 years, I have witnessed firsthand the widely shared opinion that the “next big thing” in nuclear will be small modular reactors for urban centers and to provide both heat and power for a variety of energy-intensive sectors. To meet the decarbonization demands of these urban centers, the current energy landscape is pushing many countries away from a “renewables-only” strategy. For example, the German Energiewende (or “energy turnaround”) formally started around 2000 under then chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to phase out nuclear toward mostly renewables (with natural gas backup imported from Russia). As demonstrated by the 2022 gas supply shock and price spikes, Germany created its own nightmare: They now suffer the highest energy prices in Europe, have an unstable grid, and are forced to use more coal.