A pronuclear think tank in Belgium has written a letter to the country’s prime minister, Alexander De Croo, urging him to reevaluate the government’s plan to phase out nuclear power generation by 2025 and replace it with gas power.

Orano has delivered its first TN-LC spent nuclear fuel transport cask to Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company. The first use of the cask is planned for an international transport between South Korea and Sweden by the end of 2021.

KHNP received a license in June for the TN-LC transport cask from the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, South Korea’s regulatory agency, for the transport of high-burnup spent fuel.

There are reasons that individual researchers might seek to update their name on previously published work, including marriage or divorce, gender transition, or a change in religious affiliation. Having a former name listed on journal articles can cause significant problems for researchers applying for a new position or grant, effectively disclosing a personal event and potentially subjecting the individual to discrimination.

Gordon-Hagerty

Westinghouse Electric Company has appointed Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, former head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, to the board of directors for Westinghouse Government Services (WGS), the company announced yesterday. WGS is the delivery platform for Westinghouse’s nuclear technologies and services for government programs globally.

As the lead director for strategic programs at WGS, Gordon-Hagerty will help the company with continued strategy and development of programs to support Department of Energy and Department of Defense nuclear decommissioning, security, and energy goals, according to the announcement.

^{DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in posted articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Nuclear Society. The views expressed here are those of the individual authors. ANS takes no ownership of their views. The American Nuclear Society assumes no responsibility or liability for any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained on this site.}

Global warming is widely recognized as an existential threat that will have horrific consequences if left uncontrolled. The intent of this article is to create a call to action for our industry to unite in promoting nuclear energy as the best way to combat this threat while investing in research for improved deployment methodologies.  Together, we need to decriminalize our reputation by reversing the extraordinary and lasting fear generated by the sensationalistic and irresponsible reporting done throughout and after the Three Mile Island-2 nuclear accident.  Provided is context on how the world’s current energy use will only continue to accelerate global warming. Lastly is a proposed nuclear research program to develop a method to contract 1000-MWe or larger nuclear power plants that are safe and able to compete on price.   

ANS has published the second volume of Light Water Reactor Materials, by Donald R. Olander and Arthur T. Motta. The textbook is for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students, as well as for researchers in the field. Volume II, Applications, complements the first volume, Fundamentals, published in 2017.

Motta is a professor and graduate program chair in the Nuclear Engineering Department at Pennsylvania State University. Olander passed away in April of this year. (See a remembrance of Olander written by Motta in Nuclear News, July 2021, p. 117.) Olander's career spanned nearly 50 years at the University of California–Berkeley, where he mentored an entire generation of nuclear materials engineers—including Motta. Following his retirement in 2007, Olander and his former doctoral student—Motta—coauthored Light Water Reactor Materials.

A conversation among nuclear advocates led most to believe that nuclear supporters will have a minimized voice at this year’s UN Conference of the Parties on Climate Change, commonly known as COP26. According to Kirsty Gogan, cofounder of TerraPraxis and a senior climate and energy advisor to the U.K. government, “All three Green Zone applications by nuclear groups were rejected.” However, it seems some of that may be due to miscommunication regarding application deadlines for the COP26 Green Zone.

Kinzinger

With a note of desperation, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.) yesterday wrote a letter to President Biden and several top administration officials, asking them to consider the use of emergency powers to keep two Illinois nuclear power plants, Byron and Dresden, in operation, at least until state or federal laws are enacted to ensure their financial viability.

On June 16, the plants’ owner and operator, Exelon Generation, filed a deactivation notice for the two Byron units with grid operator PJM Interconnection. The requested deactivation dates for Byron-1 and -2 are September 14 and 16, respectively.

Exelon announced in August of last year that it would close the economically challenged Byron and Dresden facilities in the fall of 2021 without some form of state aid to provide compensation for their clean power.

The 11th installment of the ANS Young Members Group Spotlight on National Labs will feature the Nevada National Security Site. The webinar, moderated by ANS YMG member Kelsey Amundson, will be held this Thursday, August 26, noon - 1:30 pm EDT. The event is free and open to all, so please register now.

A coalition of power companies and labor unions has filed a petition with the New York Public Service Commission (PSC), calling for a new program or tier under the state’s clean energy standard to encourage the development of zero-emission dispatchable energy systems.

With California’s electricity rates the highest in the continental United States, and with rolling blackouts last summer and more blackouts likely this year, now is not the time to shut down the emission-free, reliable energy source that is the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, according to Gene Nelson, the legal assistant for Californians for Green Nuclear Power.

The two-unit Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant is scheduled to be shut down in 2025.

Companies, universities, and national laboratories across the United States are working together to develop and demonstrate advanced nuclear technologies. To deploy those technologies on a global scale and maximize U.S. efforts to combat climate change, technology developers eyeing the export market must navigate rules and recommendations designed to ensure that international safeguards, security, and nonproliferation standards are met. Understanding and, where appropriate, integrating these standards early in the development process is crucial for streamlining export and technology deployment.

Benjamin

A federal grand jury has indicted a former Westinghouse Electric Company executive for allegedly concealing information regarding progress (or, more accurately, lack of progress) on the now defunct multibillion-dollar expansion project at the Summer nuclear plant.

Jeffrey A. Benjamin, who served as Westinghouse’s senior vice president for new plants and major products during the effort to build two AP1000 reactors at the Jenkinsville, S.C., facility, has been charged with 16 felony counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud, securities fraud, and causing a publicly traded company to keep a false record, according to an August 18 news release from the U.S. States Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina. The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years and a $5 million fine.

Westinghouse will segment and dispose of the reactor internals and pressure vessels at Sweden’s Ringhals-1 and Ringhals-2 under a deal announced last week with plant owner Vattenfall. Unit 2, a pressurized water reactor, and Unit 1, a boiling water reactor, were shut down in 2019 and 2020, respectively, after operating for more than 40 years.

The lack of a specialized laboratory at Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) has slowed efforts to study irradiated materials at the facility. Things will change soon, however, with the addition of the new Activated Materials Laboratory that is planned to be built and operational by 2024.

Exelon Generation has received a grant from the Department of Energy to explore the potential benefits of on-site hydrogen production and has chosen its Nine Mile Point nuclear power plant as the demonstration site, the company announced on Wednesday. (In 2019, Exelon received a conditional commitment from the DOE to co-fund a hydrogen electrolyzer demonstration at a nuclear plant.) Located in Scriba, N.Y., Nine Mile Point consists of two boiling water reactors—the 620-MWe Unit 1 and the 1,287-MWe Unit 2.

The Department of Energy is celebrating a major milestone in its tank waste mission at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. DOE tank operations contractor Washington River Protection Solutions has finished construction of the pipeline that will carry treated waste from an underground tank to the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) for vitrification.

^{DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in posted articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Nuclear Society. The views expressed here are those of the individual authors. ANS takes no ownership of their views. The American Nuclear Society assumes no responsibility or liability for any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained on this site.}

Introduction

In April 2016, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission initiated an investigation that led to enforcement proceedings regarding my actions while employed as the research reactor director at Reed College. In the course of those proceedings, the director of the NRC Office of Enforcement made a finding that I had submitted incomplete or inaccurate information to the NRC in 2015. As part of the resolution we reached, I agreed to outline those events so that others can learn from my experience. I also offered to propose a redraft of ANSI/ANS-15.4, Selection and Training of Personnel for Research Reactors, with an aim of making the challenges I encountered less likely to recur for other research reactor directors.

At the box office or streaming at home, it’s fear, not truth, that sells. The laws of physics are swept aside, apocalypse is inevitable, and superpowered heroes wait until the last possible second to save the universe. It can make for great entertainment, but in the real world we need to stick with science over science fiction and be wowed by engineering, not special effects.

The truth is, science and innovation are incredible in their own right. From communications and machine learning to space travel and medical advances, technology is evolving in hyperdrive to solve real problems. With climate change and global warming here on earth, we don’t have to go looking for trouble in a galaxy far, far away.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have completed the first collaborative project under a two-year-old memorandum of cooperation (MOC) aimed at enhancing technical reviews of advanced reactor and small modular reactor technologies, the CNSC announced earlier this week.

The project, a 23-page joint report from the regulators on a white paper submitted last July by X-energy regarding reactor pressure vessel (RPV) construction code specifications for the company’s Xe-100 SMR, was released to the public on August 6. The Xe-100 is an 80-MWe unit that can be scaled into a “four-pack” 320-MWe power plant, according to X-energy.