The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is threatening enforcement action against the Department of Energy for failing to meet its obligations in removing containers of transuranic waste currently in temporary storage at Waste Control Specialists’ Federal Waste Facility in West Texas.

The world needs scientists, engineers, and technologists to ensure the safe, secure, and sustainable use of nuclear energy to meet global energy demands and environmental challenges. Yet, in many countries there are concerns about the potential loss of nuclear expertise and knowledge because of changes in workforce demographics. Much of the tacit knowledge in the sector was generated during the pioneering years of nuclear power. During this period, R&D projects and innovative construction projects were ramping up, and many nuclear power plants were being built. As a result, personnel in the industry were confronted with challenging and groundbreaking projects, as well as the risk of failure. It is this knowledge that is most difficult to harvest and is generally transferred via hands-on experience. In the current nuclear power landscape, where R&D spending is decreasing and innovation slows down as a general trend, this knowledge risks being lost if there are fewer opportunities to acquire hands-on experience work on challenging projects.

Montana is among the states that have already expressed interest in small modular reactor technology as a possible means of decarbonizing their energy sectors.

Just last year, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed into law H.B. 273, transferring the power to authorize construction of nuclear power facilities in the state from the public (via referendum) to the legislature.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) estimates that $100 million annually will be required for the next 15 years to develop a coordinated research program led by the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health to study how low doses of radiation affect disease risk. The recommended research would investigate causal links to specific health conditions and better define the impacts of radiation doses, dose rates, types of radiation, and exposure duration.

The Three Mile Island accident in 1979 was the most-studied nuclear reactor event in the U.S. There is a plethora of research about the accident available to the general public, including the president-appointed Kemeny Commission report and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Rogovin inquiry report (split into volume one, and volume two, parts one, two, and three), which are the two detailed government-sponsored investigations into the accident. There are also thousands of documents in the NRC’s ADAMS database available to the public, an excellent overview by NRC historian Samuel Walker Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective, as well as the Nuclear News special report from April 1979, and articles written by ANS members like William Burchill about the accident and the many changes it forced on the industry. If the producers of Meltdown: Three Mile Island—available on Netflix—had read any of those documents instead of relying mostly on input from antinuclear activists, their “documentary” might have been presented with at least some sense of balance and credibility.

Instead, similar to a recent Science Channel documentary on the Three Mile Island accident, Meltdown focuses on drama instead of science. This four-part miniseries does not attempt to provide a balanced set of facts from the technical community and instead relies heavily on nonexpert opinions and anecdotal statements to tell a story that easily falls apart under even the faintest scrutiny.

Nuclear News reached out to multiple ANS members who were involved with either the accident response or the clean up to help provide a critical look at some of the more egregious statements made in the documentary.

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio have been using a new tool as part of the dust-suppression systems for the X-326 process building demolition project. The X-326 was one of three massive process buildings originally built to enrich uranium at the site, which was in operation starting in the 1950s. Environmental remediation of the site began in 1989, and deactivation and decommissioning activities began in 2011. Demolition of the facility has led to a dusty work environment.

Piercy

The Association Forum recently highlighted the American Nuclear Society’s rapid response to the unfolding events in Ukraine earlier this year. Kim Kelly of the group’s Forum Magazine conducted an interview with ANS Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer Craig Piercy, who described the Society’s efforts to address public safety concerns and correct media reports regarding Ukraine’s nuclear power plants in the early days of the war. Piercy also discussed joint efforts between ANS and the European Nuclear Society (ENS) in setting up a relief fund to help workers in Ukraine’s nuclear energy industry.

Giving accurate information: Piercy noted that “existing international ties and bilateral ties we [ANS] have with other countries really came into play as the Ukraine invasion unfolded.” The Society had a team of nuclear experts in place, some with direct experience in Ukraine, to reach out to media outlets, answer media requests for information, and quickly correct inaccurate information that was reported.

A Stanford University–led research article on small modular reactors published Tuesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is not sitting well with SMR developers or, for that matter, with much of the largely pro-SMR nuclear community.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s Division of Nuclear Security is inviting female students who are enrolled in master’s programs in nuclear security to apply for internships in the IAEA Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme (MSCFP). The MSCFP, launched in February 2020, has the objective of increasing the number of women in the nuclear field.

A contractor for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) started tearing down a 1940s-era facility in May at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Demolition of the former Criticality Experiment Laboratory, also known as Building 9213, is the latest project by EM to address a large inventory of high-risk excess contaminated facilities at the Oak Ridge Reservation.

The ANS Young Members Group hosted the latest of its “Spotlight on Nuclear Careers” virtual events on May 27. This event, on "Energy," featured Sarah Camba Lynn, manager of the balance of plant and diesel systems strategic engineering group at Luminant’s Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Glen Rose, Texas. Lynn was previously a nuclear steam supply system engineer at Comanche Peak. She is also the treasurer for the ANS Young Members Group executive committee and an executive committee member in the ANS Operations and Power Division. The webinar was moderated by Ishita Trivedi of the Young Members Group.

Accelerators and other new facilities are producing an increasing share of the radioisotopes that were once sourced solely from a handful of research reactors around the globe; demand for alpha-emitters is increasing; and the need for an ensured supply of both radioactive and stable isotopes is now heightened as many countries seek an alternative to Russian isotopes. Those are just a few of the key points that emerged from a recent webinar, “Demand and Supply of Isotopes Around the World: From Diverse Perspectives,” organized by the World Council of Isotopes, along with the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation and the University of Saskatchewan, the hosts of the upcoming 11th International Conference on Isotopes (11ICI).

Work crews at the Department of Energy's Hanford Site recently completed the first transfer of test water from the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant's Effluent Management Facility to the nearby Liquid Effluent Retention Facility (LERF). The transfer of 6,000 gallons was the first simulation of the process that will be used to treat secondary liquid waste from the plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility during operations to treat tank waste.

“This is a tremendous accomplishment that culminates years of work by our team and alumni toward being ready for hot commissioning,” said Valerie McCain, project director and senior vice president for Bechtel National, Inc. “It’s an important step for the entire Hanford team and our collective mission of protecting the Columbia River and its shoreline communities.”

Bechtel National is a contractor of the DOE's Office of Environmental Management's Office of River Protection.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) last week began accepting bids for the contract to manage the Portsmouth site in Ohio and Paducah site in Kentucky, where the former uranium enrichment plants are being decommissioned and remediated.

The final request for proposals for the Portsmouth Paducah Project Office’s Operations and Site Mission Support (OSMS) contract were issued by EM on March 25. The new contract, which has an estimated value of $2.9 billion over the 10-year performance period, will replace an existing contract currently held by Mid-America Conversion Services.

The Department of Energy reported this month that the final container of legacy transuranic waste from the Savannah River Site arrived at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for permanent disposal on the afternoon of April 14. The shipment capped the end of a journey for 239 shipments that began in 2011.

In all, trucks that carried the shipments weighed a combined 11,402,000 pounds and travelled more than 347,000 miles to the WIPP site.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has authored an article for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held last week in Davos, Switzerland.

Four national laboratories have been chosen by the Department of Energy to receive a combined $38 million to launch the Net Zero Labs Pilot Initiative: Idaho National Laboratory, National Energy Technology Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The pilot program is planned as “a foundation of net-zero solutions that can be replicated at facilities across DOE, the federal government, and state and local governments” in support of the administration’s goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions no later than 2050, according to the DOE. Additional funding is expected to be available to all 17 national laboratories on a competitive basis next year.

Fusion energy is attracting significant interest from governments and private capital markets. The deployment of fusion energy on a timeline that will affect climate change and offer another tool for energy security will require support from stakeholders, regulators, and policymakers around the world. Without broad support, fusion may fail to reach its potential as a “game-­changing” technology to make a meaningful difference in addressing the twin challenges of climate change and geopolitical energy security.

The process of developing the necessary policy and regulatory support is already underway around the world. Leaders in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, China, and elsewhere are engaging with the key issues and will lead the way in setting the foundation for a global fusion industry.

Ontario-based GEH SMR Technologies Canada Ltd. and the Saskatchewan Industrial and Mining Suppliers Association (SIMSA) announced yesterday the signing of a memorandum of understanding focused on the potential deployment of the BWRX-300 small modular reactor in Saskatchewan.

The MOU calls for engaging with local suppliers to maximize the role of the Saskatchewan supply chain in the nuclear energy industry.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that 53 percent of American voters support the construction of new nuclear power plants in the United States, while 31 percent oppose new plants. He further reports that 21 percent strongly favor and 14 percent strongly oppose new nuclear facilities.