Nuclear News

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

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

TerraPower signs contracts to advance Natrium

TerraPower and Centrus Energy have signed a memorandum of understanding to expand their collaboration in the development of commercial-scale production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) to fuel TerraPower’s Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor, which is designed with a molten salt–based energy storage system. TerraPower is planning its Natrium demonstration project for a site in Kemmerer, Wyo., with a target operational date of 2030. Centrus plans to produce as much as 20 kilograms of fuel by the end of 2023 at its production facility in Piketon, Ohio, and to further scale up production with additional centrifugal cascades.

The Department of Energy’s National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) awarded $3.9 million to three advanced nuclear energy developers on October 23 to design experiments to test microreactor designs in the Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) test bed at Idaho National Laboratory.

The Department of Energy has awarded a new small business contract to Inomedic Health Applications, Inc. (IHA) to provide continued occupational medical services to Hanford Site employees. According to the DOE, IHA is a small, disadvantaged, woman-owned business located in Hampton, Va.

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management cleanup contractor UCOR has increased its ability to recruit employees through a recent partnership with Tennessee’s Roane State Community College.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations launched Atoms4Food on October 18 at the 2023 World Food Forum in Rome as a flagship initiative to help boost food security and tackle growing hunger around the world. Atoms4Food will support countries as they apply nuclear techniques to boost agricultural productivity, reduce food losses, ensure food safety, improve nutrition, and adapt to the challenges of climate change.

German-based radiopharmaceutical biotech company ITM Isotope Technologies Munich and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories are launching a new joint venture company for the industrial-scale production of actinium-225, which is used in targeted alpha therapies to fight cancer. The new company is being called Actineer.

The Unit 3 reactor at Slovakia’s Mochovce nuclear power facility has completed the commissioning process, becoming a full-fledged member of the country’s nuclear fleet, plant owner Slovenské Elektrárne has announced.

Among the typical bustle of outage activities at the Surry Power Station in Virginia during the fall of 2022, an unfamiliar sound broke through the commotion. Even with hearing protection in place, a faint whir thunk, whir thunk, whir thunk could be heard, announcing the arrival of the latest innovation in nuclear power. Dominion Energy, owner and operator of Surry, had combined new technologies from robotics company Boston Dynamics and radiation detection company Gamma Reality Inc. to provide radiological condition monitoring throughout the plant that could protect technicians from radiation exposure. The result? A quadruped robot with real-time 3D radiation mapping and data fusion capabilities.

Texas-based Vistra Corporation was hoping to get the go-ahead from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this month for its proposed acquisition of Energy Harbor’s nuclear assets, but on October 13, the agency issued an order extending its review of the deal (called “tolling the time” in bureaucratese) to April 11, 2024. Currently down one seat, the four-member FERC voted 3–1 for the time extension, with the lone dissent coming from commissioner James Danly.

Ultra Safe Nuclear (USNC) announced on October 17 that it had been awarded a contract by NASA to develop and mature space nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) systems to advance the nation’s cislunar capabilities. Under the contract, USNC says it will manufacture and test proprietary fuel and simultaneously collaborate with its commercial partner, Blue Origin, to mature the design of an NTP engine optimized for near-term civil science and cislunar missions.

The Department of Energy announced $7 billion on October 13 to launch seven regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs (H2Hubs) across the country and accelerate the commercial-scale deployment of clean hydrogen. Two of the seven hubs will feature hydrogen production using electricity—and possibly steam—from nuclear power. The federal government’s multibillion-dollar investment will be matched and exceeded by more than $40 billion from the awardees, for a total investment in clean energy and job creation near $50 billion.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has docketed an application from Dominion Energy South Carolina for the subsequent license renewal (SLR) of the V. C. Summer plant’s Unit 1 reactor. The action was announced in Monday’s edition of the Federal Register.

Anyone involved in the nuclear power industry could tell you that the operation of nuclear power plants is a demanding and never-ending endeavor. Our machines are complex, our challenges are diverse, and our standards are unyielding. The truth is, however, many of us stay in this field because there’s something at the heart of what we do that makes it all worthwhile.

Westinghouse has signed a contract with Rolls-Royce SMR to develop a fuel design for the British firm’s small modular reactor program, the companies announced last week.

The design work, to be undertaken in the United Kingdom and the United States, will include associated core components and will be based on an existing Westinghouse pressurized water reactor fuel assembly design.

Operating costs for nuclear units have grown significantly since the start of the commercial nuclear power industry. For nuclear power generation to remain competitive, process efficiencies and innovations will need to be introduced. The challenge for any change is to improve the safe operation of the nuclear unit. An area of opportunity to reduce operating costs while improving operational safety is through upgraded fuel design and manufacturing. At Southern Nuclear, the pressurized water reactor fuel engineering team worked with Westinghouse to implement the PRIME fuel features, where simple improvements would yield safer operation and long-term cost-savings due to a more robust fuel design. Implementing the PRIME fuel ensures that the operator’s burden from fuel performance is minimized while keeping the reactor unit in a safe operating condition.

American Centrifuge Operating (ACO), a subsidiary of Centrus Energy, has started enriching uranium hexafluoride gas to high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) levels at the Department of Energy’s enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio, the DOE announced October 11. The HALEU will be used to help fuel the initial cores of two demonstration reactors awarded under DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program and will also support fuel qualification and the testing of other new advanced reactor designs.

Barnard

It’s late March 2023, and freshman state Rep. Stephanie Barnard (R., 8th Dist.) moves quickly through the halls of the capitol building in Olympia, Wash. She enters a room packed with state legislators—both Democrats and Republicans—who are waiting for a meeting to begin.

The event is part of the recently formed Nuclear Energy Caucus, and the featured speaker is Carol Browner, director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy under President Obama and the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration. The meeting is a success, with animated discussion following Browner’s address.

International engineering, construction, and project-management company Bechtel, which is headquartered in Reston, Va., opened its newest office, the Engineering Execution Center, in Knoxville, Tenn. The office—the second Bechtel has opened stateside in the last few months—will provide engineering support for the company’s numerous mission-based projects, and it is the second new U.S. office opened by Bechtel in the past few months—the other being in Chandler, Arizona.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I were looking to purchase a new car. But just as we made that decision, major pricing inflation and supply constraints became an issue. So, we decided to wait. We also knew that we would need new tires before we could sell our current vehicle. Instead of buying the best quality (and expensive) tires, we got the much cheaper ones, knowing we would only use them for a brief period. Why invest in an asset that won’t be serving its purpose for you that much longer, right?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week issued a preliminary “yellow” finding to Dominion Energy for failing to resolve a two-decade-long problem with cracks in the piping of the V. C. Summer plant’s emergency diesel generator (EDG) fuel oil system.