A view of Savannah River’s K Area, where employees began downblending plutonium in 2016. (Photo: DOE)
Contractor employees at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina recently exceeded their plutonium downblending goal for 2022 ahead of schedule as part of the ongoing activities to remove Pu from the state, the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) announced.
From left: Kimberly Cook-Nelson, John Dinelli, and Bill Maguire. (Photos: Entergy)
New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation yesterday announced changes to its senior leadership, including the selection of Kimberly Cook-Nelson as executive vice president and chief nuclear officer, replacing Chris Bakken.
Cook-Nelson, Entergy’s first female CNO, will be based in Jackson, Miss., the company’s nuclear operations headquarters. She joined Entergy in 1996 as a design engineer at the Waterford nuclear plant in Killona, La., rising to general manager of plant operations in 2011. Most recently, she held the position of chief operating officer, nuclear operations. (In addition to the Waterford facility, Entergy owns and operates Arkansas Nuclear One in Russellville, Ark., Grand Gulf in Port Gibson, Miss., and River Bend in St. Francisville, La.)
Nicholas Spivey, left, an SRNL mechanical engineer, and Kurt Gerdes, director of EM’s Office of Technology Development, use virtual reality simulation of an EM worksite during meetings held at the IHMC in Pensacola, Fla. (Photo: DOE)
For the first time since forming in 2020, more than 40 members of a Department of Energy team met in person to evaluate technologies, including exoskeletons and wearable robotic devices, that could be adapted to the cleanup mission of department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), helping improve the safety and well-being of its workers.
Participating in the forum were (from left) John Hopkins (NuScale Power), Renaud Crassous (EDF), Daniel Poneman (Centrus Energy), Adriana Cristina Serquis (CNEA), and Boris Schucht (Urenco).
The nuclear industry leaders assembled in Washington, D.C., last week to discuss small modular reactor supply chains agreed that lost generation capacity from the expected retirement of hundreds or thousands of coal power plants over the next decade—a cliff, in one panelist’s words—represents an opportunity that developers of SMRs and advanced reactors are competing to meet.
“I think in total 80 projects are ongoing,” said Boris Schucht, panel moderator and chief executive officer of Urenco Group, as he opened the forum. “Of course not all of them will win, and we will discuss today what is needed so that they can be successful.”
Sesuvium portulacastrum (Photo: David Eickhoff/Wikicommoms)
The authors of a study that was recently published in Advances in Agriculture have recommended that the plant Sesuvium portulacastrum, commonly known as sea purslane, “be cultivated in [cesium]-contaminated soils and near nuclear power plants for phytoremediation.” The researchers found that S. portulacastrum is a “hyper-accumulator” of radioactive cesium isotopes, which are byproducts of nuclear fission reactions in nuclear reactors. The study results suggested that these plants could efficiently remove the toxic metallic chemicals from contaminated soil around nuclear facilities.
Constellation Energy's Clinton nuclear power plant. (Photo: NRC)
Constellation Energy, owner and operator of the nation’s largest reactor fleet, will ask the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the operating licenses of the Clinton and Dresden reactors by 20 years, the company announced Monday, adding that it expects to file license applications with the agency in 2024.
One of two cases that display the impressive belt-buckle collection.
Collecting belt buckles from nearly every nuclear power plant in the U.S. wasn’t the goal for Don Hildebrant when he obtained his first one. Over time, it just turned out that way.
One day years ago, Hildebrant came across a buckle from the nuclear plant where he worked, and it seemed before he knew it, he had collected more than 250 of them—some from plants that were never even completed. “When you look at the collection, you will see an interesting story of where nuclear power has been, and how far it has come,” he said.
Bruce's Unit 7 is now producing Lutetium-177, used in targeted cancer therapeutics. (Photo: Bruce Power)
An international collaboration between Bruce Power, Isogen (a Kinectrics and Framatome company), and ITM Isotope Technologies Munich SE (ITM) announced they have begun commercial production of lutetium-177 using Unit 7 of the Bruce nuclear power plant in Kincardine, Ontario. According to the companies, this marks the first time a commercial power reactor has been used to commercially produce short-lived medical radioisotopes.
From left: U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security Bonnie Jenkins; Japan’s state minister of economy, trade, and industry Fusae Ōta; Ghana’s deputy minister of Energy William Owuraku Aidoo; and U.S. assistant secretary for nuclear energy Kathryn Huff. (Photo: DOE Office of Nuclear Energy)
The United States and Japan have announced Winning an Edge Through Cooperation in Advanced Nuclear (WECAN)—a new agreement aimed at supporting the deployment of small modular reactors and other advanced reactor technologies in partner countries.