Nuclear News

When a SpaceX rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on September 10 (see video here), sending a crewed commercial mission into low Earth orbit, an experiment designed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was onboard. Several high-purity metal samples will orbit Earth and absorb cosmic radiation for five days—including that from the Van Allen radiation belt—to help the lab answer questions about the radiation environment for manned space missions, according to a news release from PNNL.

The American Nuclear Society was formed in 1954 in the wake of President Eisenhower’s seminal Atoms for Peace speech. Around the same time that Congress was debating the Atomic Energy Act and John Landis was helping establish ANS, the National Security Council began deliberating about adding a nuclear-­powered merchant ship to the nascent Atoms for Peace program. We like to imagine that the idea germinated after Mamie Eisenhower christened the U.S.S. Nautilus, but the truth seems much drier. Regardless, Ike championed the project and announced it to a surprised crowd in an April 1955 speech in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Landis would become the principal architect of the ship’s nuclear power plant. Although Savannah’s reactor now rests in the low-level radwaste repository in Clive, Utah, the ship’s prospects are as bright as the future of ANS itself.

Oneid

EnergySolutions announced that it has launched Management Consultants International (MCI) to provide specialized consulting services for the nuclear, energy, chemical, oil, gas, technology, and manufacturing sectors. Operating separately from EnergySolutions, MCI will provide expertise to clients addressing multiplex issues before federal, state, and international agencies.

Nuclear industry veteran Pierre Oneid has been appointed president of MCI. He will also continue in his current role as executive vice president supporting EnergySolutions’ growth efforts. Formerly senior vice president and chief nuclear officer for Holtec International, Oneid joined EnergySolutions in May of this year.

The American Nuclear Society recently issued an open letter in support of a science-based approach to the regulation of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuels for commercial nuclear energy, voicing member concerns about hyperbole in a recent article published in Science, which advocated for restrictions on the use of HALEU despite decades of effective safeguards and security. This is not the first time ANS has stepped in to present the measured opinion of its membership on the value and appropriate regulation of HALEU.

Corey Hines

Current and future decarbonization goals necessitate robust and reliable energy generation solutions with high capacity factors to serve as baseload sources of clean energy. Next-generation advanced reactor and small modular reactor designs have driven new technology, training regimes, and new reactor design and implementation of solutions associated with new design concepts and scale.

Research and teaching institutions like Washington State University are responding to help meet the needs of future nuclear research and development and fill in workforce gaps by preparing the next generation of workers in nuclear science and engineering. Domestic university research reactors provide an unparalleled teaching and training tool and are an R&D force multiplier for enhanced nuclear skillset development and training. Investing in research reactors and the important mission they serve benefits nuclear research both domestically and globally. Research reactors offer low-cost, safe, real-world job training and provide the experimentation platforms necessary to advance and meet demands of ongoing and future work in the nuclear sector that transcends traditional nuclear R&D.

Ian Wall early in his career . . .

I graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from Imperial College, London, in 1958. Nuclear power was viewed favorably at the time, so I took a 1-year course on the subject. I was then offered fellowships at Cambridge University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and thought the latter would be more interesting, so I moved to Cambridge, Mass., to study nuclear engineering. After completing my doctorate in 1964, I joined the American Nuclear Society and took a job with General Electric, then in San Jose, Calif.

In 1967, GE assigned me to explore the use of probability in reactor safety. At that time, the prevailing opinion was that the probability of a severe accident was infinitesimally small and the consequences would be catastrophic.

Two universities in the Carolinas are collaborating in a program that pairs one school’s unique resources with hardworking students. The seeds of this partnership were sown 12 years ago, and now North Carolina State University is welcoming nuclear engineering seniors from South Carolina State University, giving them access to the PULSTAR, a research reactor designed, built, and operated by NC State.

Westinghouse Electric Company announced today that it has signed a teaming agreement with Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company to pursue opportunities in Sweden and Finland for nuclear power plants based on Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactor technology.

Marzano

The U.S. Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works will consider the nomination of Matthew Marzano to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during a hearing on Wednesday, September 11.

In July, President Joe Biden named Marzano as his choice to fill the open seat on the five-member commission. The NRC, the nation’s independent regulator of civilian nuclear safety, has been without a tiebreaker for votes among the four current members since commissioner Jeff Baran’s term ended in June 2023.

The NRC has been in the spotlight in recent years as the United States experiences a resurgence in demand for and technology advances in nuclear power. The commission is facing a high volume of license requests and is working to modernize and streamline its review process.

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina recently began onboarding 24 graduates from Denmark Technical College in Denmark, S.C., as part of SRS’s Production Operator Apprentice School.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

I recently attended the 2024 Utility Working Conference where, despite the widespread travel disruptions created by Tropical Storm Debby, nearly 600 folks from the U.S. nuclear utility and supplier community had descended on southwest Florida to network, do business, and have a little fun.

The UWC has always been a bit different from other nuclear industry meetings: a little less “happy talk” about the future, a little more “real talk” about the practical challenges facing the industry.

To be sure, the mood on the expo floor was buoyant. Business is good for anyone serving the existing fleet these days. The Inflation Reduction Act’s investment incentives have finally gained traction, which has resulted in utilities taking a more long-term approach to their plant maintenance and uprate projects, which in turn has created bigger opportunities for suppliers.

Kimberly Cook-Nelson

For Kimberly Cook-Nelson, the path to the nuclear industry started with a couple of refrigerator boxes and cellophane paper. Her sixth-grade science project was inspired by her father, who worked at Seabrook power station in New Hampshire as a nuclear operator.

“I had two big refrigerator boxes I taped together. I cut the ‘primary operating system’ and the ‘secondary system’ out of them. Then I used different colored cellophane paper to show the pressurized water system versus the steam versus the cold cooling water,” Cook-Nelson said. “My dad got me those little replica pellets that I could pass out to people as they were going by at my science fair.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is amending its regulations governing the licensing of nonpower production or utilization facilities (NPUF) to make license renewal criteria more consistent with the limited risk such facilities pose to public safety.

The Texas A&M University System (TAMUS) is seeking proposals from qualified candidates to construct a commercial nuclear reactor on the university’s RELLIS campus in Bryan, Texas.

Interested parties are welcome to attend a virtual preproposal conference today, September 6, at 11:00 a.m. (EDT). Information about this conference, including a link to participate, can be obtained via email to soprocurement@tamus.edu.

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation announced today a milestone for the United Arab Emirates with the fourth unit of the Barakah nuclear power plant entering commercial operation.

Kairos Power accomplished another step forward for its Hermes 2 reactor plans as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week published its final environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact.

On September 4, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced that Orano had selected Oak Ridge as its preferred site to build a “multibillion-dollar” uranium centrifuge enrichment facility. For Tennessee, the announcement underscores Oak Ridge’s draw for nuclear technology companies. For Orano and the nuclear power community, the announcement is another sign the nation is edging closer to adding front-end nuclear fuel cycle capacity.

Lisa Marshall
president@ans.org

I had the pleasure of speaking at ANS’s Utility Working Conference last month and would like to share my thoughts with our wider membership.

Electrification is the foundation of modern society. The nuclear enterprise has and must continue to play a crucial role in the era in which we find ourselves—the energy transition era. We have made important gains in post-COVID times, with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and more recently the ADVANCE Act of 2024—all aimed at, broadly speaking, enhancing (nuclear) industry.

We have also seen greater public support for nuclear power. The National Nuclear Energy Public Opinion Survey has been undertaken every year for the last four decades. It has demonstrated for the last three years that three-fourths of respondents strongly or somewhat favor the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity within the United States.

The military conflict with Russia that began in February 2022 has left Ukraine with “dangerous instability” of its national grid, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

Following a meeting in Kyiv with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on September 3, Grossi promised to take a more proactive stance in protecting the country’s energy infrastructure—especially where nuclear safety is vulnerable. During recent months there have been numerous missile and drone attacks, with some directly causing the disconnection of several nuclear power plants.

The Department of Energy awarded $17 million on August 30 for 16 experiment and analysis projects expected to yield criticality data that will assist the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in licensing and regulating high-assay low-enriched uranium and the fuel infrastructure—including packaging and transportation containers—required to demonstrate and deploy HALEU-fueled advanced nuclear reactors. Project teams include six national laboratories taking lead roles in partnership with other labs, universities, and multiple industry partners.