2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting: The state of U.S. HLW management

June 17, 2021, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions

It has been almost 40 years since the Nuclear Waste Policy Act established a program for the safe, permanent disposal of the nation’s used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, yet at reactor sites across the country, used fuel and HLW continue to languish, with seemingly no solution in sight.

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Fees amended for NRC licensees

June 17, 2021, 7:01AMNuclear News

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published notice in the Federal Register of a final rule amending the licensing, inspection, special projects, and annual fees to be charged to the agency’s applicants and licensees for fiscal year 2021. The rule goes into effect August 16.

2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting: President’s Special Session

June 16, 2021, 3:43PMNuclear News

The current orthodoxy on climate change—that it is an existential threat to global civilization—was challenged on June 15 during the 2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting's President’s Special Session, which featured two prominent dissenters from that view, Michael Shellenberger and Mark P. Mills.

The criminalization of nuclear

Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar

Nuclear energy is the cleanest, safest, densest, and most reliable energy source. The value proposition for nuclear energy is unparalleled. It is the only commercially proven, “dispatchable” clean energy technology that can be scaled up fast enough to meet the demand for electricity in a decarbonizing scenario. It is the answer for governments and nongovernmental organizations worldwide that are clamoring for a reduction in human-generated CO2 emissions. Humans flourish when they have access to plentiful, safe, and reliable energy. Nuclear excels at all of these.

NPIC&HMIT 2021 plenary: Digital I&C and the advanced reactor future

June 16, 2021, 7:01AMNuclear News

The pace of advances in nuclear instrumentation, controls, and human-machine interface technologies and their deployment has increased in recent years and are essential to achieving the enhanced safety and improved economics of advanced reactors.

ANS asks members to tell Congress to support nuclear R&D

June 15, 2021, 3:36PMANS News

As more than 1,500 meeting attendees were partaking in technical sessions during the 2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting, the American Nuclear Society launched a new policy engagement initiative aimed at drawing support for a segment of the Biden administration’s FY 2022 budget request. The initiative, kicked off today by an email to ANS members, urged the members to send letters to their congressional representatives asking for support of advanced nuclear research and development funding.

2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting: Better TENORM regulations needed

June 15, 2021, 12:04PMNuclear News

When it comes to technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) produced by the oil and gas industry, “regulations have not kept up with technology,” said the Environmental Protection Agency’s Philip Egidi during a panel session on the opening day of the 2021 ANS Annual Meeting.

Annual Meeting Opening Plenary Session: Breaking through to deployment

June 15, 2021, 9:57AMNuclear News

The theme of the 2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting—Breaking Through to Deployment—is a theme of action. It can take substantial momentum, shrewdly applied, to break through barriers.

Is nuclear finally getting the credit it deserves?

June 15, 2021, 7:00AMNuclear NewsCraig Piercy

Craig Piercy

“Prejudice” is a word we hear often these days. The dictionary defines it as a “preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.” In our current public discourse on race and gender, prejudice hangs in the air like a persistent fog that obscures the path to real progress. But prejudice is also a much broader societal phenomenon—our caveman brains are constantly looking for quick shortcuts (which psychologists call heuristics) to make sense of the world, which often leads us to conclusions that are outdated, unfair, or just plain wrong.

Korean team commits to R&D for marine molten salt reactors

June 14, 2021, 3:02PMNuclear News

Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) has announced that it will develop marine molten salt reactor (MSR) technology with the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). SHI president Jintaek Jeong and KAERI president Park Won-seok on June 9 signed an agreement to establish a strategic cooperative relationship and conduct joint research.

Meredith Angwin: The electric grid and reliability

June 14, 2021, 1:25PMNuclear NewsRick Michal

In her career as a chemist, Meredith Angwin headed projects that lowered pollution and increased reliability on the electric grid. Her work included pollution control for nitrogen oxides in gas-­fired combustion turbines and corrosion control in geothermal and nuclear systems.

Angwin, an ANS member, was one of the first women to be a project manager at the Electric Power Research Institute, leading projects in nuclear energy and renewables.

In the past decade, Angwin began to study and take part in grid oversight and governance. For four years, she served on the Coordinating Committee for the Consumer Liaison Group associated with ISO New England, her local grid operator. It was during this time that she realized what a maze of confusion surrounded grid rules and grid management.

Uranium production expected to recover in 2021

June 14, 2021, 12:00PMNuclear News

The global production of uranium should increase by 3.1 percent to reach 51.2 metric kilotons this year, due to the return of production at Canada’s Cigar Lake and other mines where work was suspended in 2020, according to GlobalData, a U.K.-based data analytics firm.

Final RFP issued for WIPP transportation services contract

June 14, 2021, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has issued a final request for proposals for a transportation services contract for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico. The current WIPP transportation services contract, held by CAST Specialty Transportation, expires on May 27, 2022.

China’s Tianwan-6 up and running

June 11, 2021, 12:59PMNuclear News
The Tianwan-6 control room. Photo: CNNC

Unit 6 at the Tianwan nuclear plant has entered commercial operation, China National Nuclear Corporation announced last week. The domestically designed ACPR-1000 pressurized water reactor becomes CNNC’s 24th unit to enter service, raising the company’s installed generating capacity to 22.5 GWe (gross).

DOE finishes demolition of Biology Complex at Y-12 site

June 11, 2021, 12:00PMRadwaste Solutions
Demolition of the last of 11 structures at the former Y-12 Biology Complex at Oak Ridge was completed in June, and the removal of the building’s slab foundation is scheduled to be completed this fall. (Photo: DOE)

Crews with the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) have completed the demolition of Building 9207, the largest and final building at the former Biology Complex at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the DOE announced this week. Removal of the massive six-story, 255,000-square-foot building ushers in a new chapter of transformation at Y-12, the DOE said.

Smoldering over popular media’s coverage of Chernobyl

June 11, 2021, 9:28AMRadwaste Solutions
The Chernobyl site in 2017 following the placement of the New Safe Confinement structure. (Photo: EBRD)

No matter the discipline, reporting on technical issues for a mass audience is fraught with pitfalls. To make the subject understandable to the layperson, authors make generous use of analogies, which are inherently incomplete and tenuous, like a stone house being built on swampland.

Likewise, in an effort to garner as many clicks or views as possible, reporters and news outlets will often resort to sensationalism, making the news being reported more dramatic than it is. (To be fair, those supplying the news can also be guilty of sensationalism in their hunger for media coverage.)

Experts predict further delay to commercial start of Vogtle-3

June 11, 2021, 7:02AMNuclear News
Vogtle-3’s containment (right) and turbine building (left) in May. Photo: Georgia Power

Georgia Power recently pushed back its projected commercial operation date for Vogtle-3 from December of this year to January 2022, but now some engineering and financial experts are saying that this revised date is too optimistic.

Support for nuclear energy grows with climate change concerns

June 10, 2021, 3:09PMNuclear NewsAnn S. Bisconti

Public discourse on energy and climate increasingly includes nuclear energy, but how has that affected public opinion? The answer: a lot. A national public opinion survey conducted in May found that support for nuclear energy has rebounded, and politics, in part, may offer a window into why. For example, now Biden and Trump voters support nuclear energy about equally. Trump voters care more about affordable and reliable electricity. Biden voters care more about climate change, and their support is driven by perception of need. Perception of need is boosted by climate change, recent energy supply problems, and Democratic leadership endorsements. The importance of Democratic leadership endorsements is shown in the Obama bump in 2010 and the Biden bump in 2021. In both cases, the increase in overall support for nuclear is largely attributable to increased support among Democrats.

The survey, with 1,000 nationally representative U.S. adults, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points and was conducted by Bisconti Research Inc. with Quest Global Research Mindshare Online Panel. The report includes trend data going back 38 years.