A video posted to Twitter by Vice News discusses the prospect of advanced reactors being an important mix of carbon-free power production in the United States. Hosted by Gelareh Darabi, an award-winning Canadian-British-Iranian journalist and documentary filmmaker, the video provides quick and easy statistics for the general audience and pulls from social media influencer I_sodope. It also includes comments from nuclear experts.

Technicians loading the first reactor aboard the Akademik Lomonosov, Russia's floating nuclear power plant. Credit: Rosatom.

The Bellona news site is reporting that Rosatom is marketing its floating nuclear power plants to foreign countries. The news item noted on December 14 that Russia’s Tass newswire had published the information, citing government statements. Rosatom is Russia’s state nuclear corporation.

“Rosatom has made proposals for the installation of floating units to a number of foreign countries,” Yury Trutnev, a deputy prime minister and presidential representative to Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District, said earlier this month, according to Tass. “It’s clear that one unit is not enough for us to sell such modules. Their future replication would open a possibility for Russia to open a market niche where there currently is no one.”

Additively manufactured channel fastener. Source: ORNL

The Tennessee Valley Authority will load four new 3D-printed fuel assembly brackets next spring at its Browns Ferry nuclear power plant, in Athens, Alabama. The brackets will be the first of their kind loaded into a commercial reactor, according to the Department of Energy.

The components, also called channel fasteners, were manufactured at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee, in a joint project with TVA and its fuel supplier, Framatome, as part of the lab’s Transformational Challenge Reactor program. The program is designed to introduce new manufacturing techniques and approaches to industry partners in order to speed up the deployment of nuclear systems.

A 170-page energy white paper, Powering Our Net Zero Future, issued by the United Kingdom government on December 14 sets big goals for cleaning up the U.K.’s energy system. According to the U.K. government, the plan would create and support green energy jobs across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and would keep electricity bills affordable as the U.K. transitions to net zero emissions by 2050.

The white paper notes that the U.K. will generate emission-free electricity by 2050 with a trajectory that will see "overwhelmingly decarbonized power in the 2030s. Low carbon electricity will be a key enabler of our transition to a net zero economy with demand expected to double due to transport and low carbon heat."

The white paper builds upon the U.K. prime minister’s 38-page Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, which was issued on November 18.

Burgess

The U.S. Congress has failed to uphold its promise to fully fund Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, as a permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel, Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R., Texas) writes in an op-ed article published on December 8 in the Dallas Morning News.

More than three decades after passing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, Congress has yet to fully fund the Yucca Mountain Project. Burgess points out that while some countries have found success with reprocessing spent fuels, the fission process will always produce some amount of material that must be safely disposed, making it necessary to find a permanent solution.

Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power has announced the receipt of the initial shipment of nuclear fuel for Vogtle-3, characterizing the event as a “major step” for the two-unit nuclear expansion project currently under way at the Vogtle nuclear power plant near Waynesboro, Ga.

Next step: With the receipt of the first nuclear fuel assemblies, the project is now focused on one of the major milestones for Unit 3, hot functional testing, the last critical step before fuel load and, ultimately, in-service operation, Georgia Power said.

In October, Vogtle plant operator Southern Nuclear announced a readjustment of its July 2020 “aggressive site schedule” dates for Unit 3 hot functional testing, fuel load, and commercial operation. The dates were moved from October 2020, December 2020, and May 2021, respectively, to January 2021, April 2021, and the third quarter of 2021. Southern Nuclear said that hot functional testing could start as late as the end of March 2021 and fuel load as late as mid-year 2021 without jeopardizing Vogtle-3’s November 2021 regulatory approved in-service date.

Chesney

An Illinois lawmaker is hopeful that legislation is coming in the state that would benefit nuclear power plants. “I believe we’re going to have an incentive program that will be in partisan legislation,” said Andrew Chesney, Illinois state representative for the 89th District.

An aerial view of the ETTP site. Photo: Heritage Center, LLC

Kairos Power plans to site a test reactor it has dubbed Hermes at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The company has executed a Memorandum of Understanding with Heritage Center, LLC, to acquire the former K-33 gaseous diffusion plant site at ETTP, subject to ongoing due diligence evaluations. The announcement was made today, during the 2020 East Tennessee Economic Council Annual Meeting and Awards Celebration.

“We are thrilled at the prospect of coming to East Tennessee,” said Michael Laufer, cofounder and chief executive officer of Kairos Power. “The infrastructure available at ETTP, combined with its proximity to key collaborators at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, makes this a great location to demonstrate our technology. The successful commissioning of Hermes builds on our current technology development programs and extensive engagement with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Ultimately, Hermes will prove that Kairos Power can deliver real systems at our cost targets to make advanced nuclear a competitive source of clean energy in the United States.”

Lou Martinez, vice president of strategy and innovation, added, “Today is an important day for Kairos Power. We are celebrating our 4th anniversary by showcasing an important milestone.”

The American Nuclear Society turns 66 today! ANS was founded on December 11, 1954, at the National Academy of Sciences on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The beginnings: ANS was launched in the mid-1950s, a time of growing interest in employing peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology for bettering the lives of people in the United States and around the world. President Eisenhower had presented his dramatic 1953 "Atoms for Peace" speech to the United Nations, proposing international knowledge-sharing for the development of civilian nuclear science and technology.

While a number of associations already had nuclear divisions or groups, many people felt that a new organization was needed. Following its establishment in 1954 as a not-for-profit association of individual members, ANS quickly added breadth and depth to its activities, resulting in an organization that was both influenced by and had an influence on the burgeoning nuclear field.

The Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization (NEDHO) is an alliance of the heads (chairs) of about 30 nuclear engineering schools, departments, and programs in the United States. NEDHO is managed by an executive committee consisting of the chair, the chair-elect, and the three most immediate past-chairs. NEDHO meetings are normally held in conjunction with the American Nuclear Society’s national meetings. The NEDHO meetings are open to anyone, but on matters that require a vote, each institution is limited to a single official representative (i.e., one vote).

The American Nuclear Society Honors and Awards Committee, in conjunction with the Diversity and Inclusion in ANS Committee, has established the Social Responsibility in the Nuclear Community Award. The award recognizes an individual, group, or organization for outstanding efforts in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the nuclear community.

The award may be presented for a singular outstanding effort or a sustained effort over a long period of time. The award consists of an engraved plaque and a $1,000 monetary prize and will be presented annually at the ANS Winter Meeting, beginning in 2021, if an eligible candidate is nominated and selected.

As a result of last month’s power uprate announcement from NuScale Power regarding its small modular reactor—a 25 percent increase to 77 MWe—the company has now announced updated evaluations for the technical feasibility and economics of producing hydrogen using heat and electricity from its SMR, the NuScale Power Module (NPM).

Anže Logar, Slovenia’s foreign minister (left), talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on December 7 in Washington, D.C. Photo: State Department

In the latest example of the Trump administration’s recent efforts to forge nuclear agreements with Central and Eastern European nations (for other examples, see here, here, and here), the United States earlier this week signed a memorandum of understanding concerning strategic civil nuclear cooperation (NCMOU) with Slovenia.

The NCMOU was signed on December 8 during a visit to Washington, D.C., by a Slovenian delegation headed by Foreign Minister Anže Logar. Signing it were Christopher Ford, the administration’s assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, and Jernej Vrtovec, Slovenia’s minister of infrastructure.

The previous day, Logar met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss, among other topics, “the importance of energy security and how civil nuclear cooperation can strengthen the strategic bilateral relationship,” according to a State Department readout.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued the draft report, Consolidated Decommissioning Guidance, Characterization, Survey, and Determination of Radiological Criteria (NUREG-1757, Volume 2, Revision 2), with a request for comments by February 8.

NUREG-1757, which is intended for use by applicants, licensees, and the NRC staff, was last updated in 2006. This latest revision addresses lessons learned and experience gained from the review of license termination plans, decommissioning plans, and final status surveys for licensees undergoing license termination since then.

Notice of the draft NUREG was published in the December 8 Federal Register.

The Deepsea Delta oil-drilling platform in the North Sea. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Nuclear decommissioning projects can benefit from the lessons learned in the fossil fuel industry, according to a December 8 Reuters Events post that draws heavily from an article published in the ANS magazine Radwaste Solutions.

Reuters reporter Paul Day interviewed the authors of “Tapping Nonnuclear Knowledge,” which appeared in the Fall 2020 issue of RS and examines research being done on cross-sector learning between nuclear and oil and gas decommissioning projects, particularly the mega projects of decommissioning nuclear power plants and offshore oil rigs.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi signs a memorandum of understanding with the International Energy Agency during an online event. Photo: IAEA

To help speed the transition to clean energy that many experts say will be required to achieve global climate goals by mid-century, the International Atomic Energy Agency and International Energy Agency (IEA) have agreed to strengthen cooperation on activities involving nuclear power.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi and IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol on November 30 signed a memorandum of understanding, under which the two organizations will share data, statistics, energy modeling tools, policy analysis, and research, according to the IAEA on December 3. The agencies will also collaborate on publications, seminars, workshops, and webinars and increase participation in each other’s conferences and meetings of mutual interest.

The Fusion Energy Science Advisory Committee (FESAC), which is responsible for advising the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, on December 4 published the first public draft of Powering the Future: Fusion and Plasmas, a 10-year vision for fusion energy and plasma science. FESAC was charged with developing a long-range plan in November 2018.

The scope: The report, which is meant to catch the eye of leaders in the DOE, Congress, and the White House, details the needs of the fusion and plasma program identified by a FESAC subcommittee—the DOE Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee for Long Range Planning—with the help of the fusion research community. The yearlong Phase 1 of the Community Planning Process, organized under the auspices of the American Physical Society’s Division of Plasma Physics, gathered input and yielded a strategic plan that is reflected in the FESAC’s draft report.

New legislation to address Ohio’s scandal-ridden nuclear subsidy bill, H.B. 6, was introduced in the state’s House of Representatives on December 1. Unlike the measures introduced earlier this year that sought to either fully or partially repeal the bill, H.B. 798 calls for delaying subsidies for the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants by one year. (Currently, charges on ratepayers’ monthly electric bills are set to begin in January.) Cleveland.com has more on the story.

In an article published by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on December 7, politicians representing New Brunswick, Canada, debate the benefits and potential risks of investing in small modular reactor development. Two major parties in the province support SMR development, while the Green Party sees “danger signs.”

A renewed U.S. interest in advanced nuclear technology is making headlines around the world. Growing energy needs and an increased desire to limit carbon emissions are driving a flurry of activity among education institutions, national laboratories, and private companies. New nuclear technologies are rapidly maturing toward commercialization with the aim of deploying a new generation of advanced reactors. These advanced nuclear energy systems have the potential to provide cost-effective, carbon-free energy; create new jobs; and expand nuclear energy’s outputs beyond electricity generation alone.

“DOE and U.S. industry are extremely well-equipped to develop and demonstrate nuclear reactors with the requisite sense of urgency, which is important not only to our economy, but to our environment, because nuclear energy is clean energy,” Rita Baranwal, assistant secretary for Nuclear Energy, recently noted in a Department of Energy news release.

The DOE anticipates significant global demand for advanced reactors, and with support from Congress, intends to invest $3.2 billion over the next seven years in the new Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP). The initial funding opportunity was announced in May 2020. The call specified the need for reactor technologies that improve on the safety, security, economics and/or environmental impact of currently operating reactor designs. The goal of the program is to maintain the nation’s leadership in the global nuclear energy industry through the successful research, design, and deployment of advanced reactors in the United States and international marketplaces.

The ARDP will provide funds for three phases of public-private technology development partnerships over the next decade and a half:

1. Advanced Reactor Demonstrations: The initial $160 million funding allocation, announced in October 2020, will support two companies that can license, construct, and operate an advanced reactor design in the next five to seven years.
2. Risk Reduction for Future Demonstration: The second phase of funding availability will support an additional two to five reactor designs that could be commercialized approximately five years after the Advanced Reactor Demonstrations. Awards are expected to be announced by the end of 2020.
3. Advanced Reactor Concepts-20 (ARC-20): The third pathway to meet the advanced reactor demonstration goals will support up to two less mature reactor designs that will take a further five years to develop beyond the Risk Reduction phase.