Nuclear News

Georgia Power’s Vogtle-4, located near Waynesboro, Ga., reached initial criticality this week, hitting a major milestone in the start-up of the reactor.

The company announced the news on February 14. Initial criticality demonstrates that operators have safely started the nuclear reactor, or, in other words, the fission reaction within the unit is now self-sustaining and the nuclear reactor is ready to produce heat.

The American Nuclear Society has published the first voluntary consensus standard for nuclear reactor design that formally incorporates risk-informed, performance-based (RIPB) decision-making in July 2022. ANSI/ANS-30.3-2022, Light Water Reactor Risk-Informed, Performance-Based Design, tells reactor designers how they can incorporate RIPB principles and methods to ensure safety in new commercial light water reactor designs, and it includes a spectrum of options using both deterministic and risk-based approaches. As the first such standard, ANSI/ANS-30.3-2022 represents progress toward the adoption of RIPB principles for nuclear regulation and licensing—a shift the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was directed to make in the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, which became law five years ago.

PanTera, a Belgian joint venture created by Ion Beam Applications (IBA) and SCK CEN, has signed a capacity reservation agreement with pharmaceutical giant Bayer for the supply of actinium-225 starting in the second half of 2024. An alpha-emitting radioisotope with a half-life of 10 days, Ac-225 has shown potential for treating various types of cancer through targeted alpha therapy.

A fire this past weekend at Chinon nuclear power plant in France forced two reactors to be shut down. According to initial reports, a transformer in a nonnuclear sector of Unit 3 caught fire.

The incident occurred February 10 in the early morning hours, local time, and the fire was quickly extinguished.

Last month at the American Nuclear Society’s Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee’s (RP3C’s) Community of Practice (CoP), Brandon Chisholm presented “Development of a Risk-Informed and Performance-Based Safety Case for TerraPower’s Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment (MCRE).” RP3C holds a CoP on the last Friday of the month from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (ET), and participation is open to all professionals interested in RIPB principles and practices. Chisholm’s January 26 presentation is available to stream on YouTube.

Two weeks remain for public comments on the proposed language in the new federal rules proposed for hydrogen production tax credits. A public hearing on the regulations is scheduled for March 25, 2024.

While the federal proposal is largely popular among environmentalists and some pronuclear advocates, there are concerns from others that it would cut out opportunities for existing legacy nuclear plants that are well-equipped to convert part of their operations to hydrogen production. The proposed rules require hydrogen to come from newly built resources—the largest obstacle for legacy nuclear sites but further incentive to deploy new reactors—and would permit using natural gas if employed with carbon capture and sequestration.

Newhauser

Wayne Newhauser is a professor and the Charles M. Smith Chair of Medical Physics at Louisiana State University. Newhauser and Georgia Tech’s Shaheen Dewji—both longtime American Nuclear Society members—worked on a multiyear study that looked at workforce issues for six of the most important radiation professions.

An article authored by Newhauser and Dewji that looks in-depth at the study will be published at a later date in Nuclear News.

Newhauser sat down with NN editor-in-chief Rick Michal to talk about the study and its findings, published last year in the Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics.

New legislation being considered could make Hawaii the 29th state to produce nuclear power—although the proposal faces an uphill battle.

Two bills introduced in the state legislature would pave the way for nuclear power production in Hawaii:

• H.B. 1741 proposes a constitutional amendment that would allow for construction of a nuclear power plant without prior legislative approval.
• H.B. 1516 would establish a nuclear energy commission within the state’s Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism to study potential benefits of nuclear energy.

The Department of Energy announced February 7 that fuel for the MARVEL microreactor, which Idaho National Laboratory plans to host inside the Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) facility, is now being fabricated by TRIGA International, with the first fuel delivery expected in spring 2025. MARVEL operation was expected “by the end of 2024” as recently as May 2023, but that timeline had shifted by October, when the DOE said MARVEL “is expected to be completed in early 2025.” Now, according to the DOE’s latest announcement, “Fuel loading for MARVEL is anticipated to occur in 2026, with the microreactor expected to be on line by 2027.”

The roles of nuclear energy as a clean energy source and in space exploration were highlighted at the recent Atoms for Humanity symposium, held October 25–26, 2023. The symposium, which was organized by Purdue’s Center for Intelligent Energy Systems (CiENS) and hosted by the university’s School of Nuclear Engineering, was held on the West Lafayette, Ind., campus in Eliza Fowler Hall.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced its intention to award 22 education grants worth a total of $8.2 million to 16 academic institutions in 15 states. The grants, which are part of the NRC’s University Nuclear Leadership Program (UNLP), are meant to support nuclear engineering and science programs. Two of the recipient schools are classified as minority-serving institutions.

A ceremonial ground-breaking event took place last week at the site where the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says four new nuclear reactors will be built over the next 20 years.

The American Nuclear Society President’s Special Committee on Certification is making progress toward launching a nuclear certification program later this year. The program outlined to the ANS Board of Directors in 2023 is being designed to help establish industry standards and bridge workforce gaps in the nuclear sector to address the growing demand for qualified professionals in the nuclear industry.

Recent staff cuts at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) are raising concerns among international nuclear watchdogs.

Ahead of his visit to the plant on February 7, International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi told the Associated Press that he will focus on the impact of personnel reductions, especially while Russia has denied access to employees of Ukraine’s nuclear operator, Energoatom.

The long-awaited fourth unit at Plant Vogtle has hit another delay.

Atlanta-based Southern Co. announced last week that vibrations in the cooling system in Unit 4 require additional work that will push the reactor’s start date from the first quarter this year to the second quarter. The company said the problem is already fixed, but there is too much additional testing needed to meet a first quarter deadline.

According to the Council on Radionuclides and Radiopharmaceuticals, more than 82,000 nuclear imaging procedures using nuclear medicine are performed throughout the world every day. To administer these vital medical procedures, radiopharmaceutical companies and hospitals rely on a handful of producers of medical radioisotopes.

Here is a recap of industry happenings from the recent past:

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

UAE prepares for advanced nuclear

Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), the United Arab Emirates’ nuclear energy development organization, has signed several agreements regarding advanced reactors, many of which were signed at the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) in Dubai, UAE.

Hundreds of employees at the Westinghouse nuclear fuel fabrication facility in South Carolina are trying to form a union and join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Idaho National Laboratory announced on January 31 that it is expanding its research partnership with the Colorado School of Mines (Mines). Representatives from the two institutions signed a memorandum of understanding in October that outlines a framework for collaboration on research into energy storage, high-temperature fuel cells, geothermal energy systems, the nuclear fuel cycle and reactor engineering, environmental science, and next-generation mining science and engineering.

Holtec International has agreed to pay $5 million in penalties to the state of New Jersey to avoid criminal prosecution over $1 million in tax credits that the company, along with Singh Real Estate Enterprises (SRE), sought in 2018. Holtec has also agreed to retain an independent reviewer approved by New Jersey to monitor future applications for state benefits.