The article below was originally published in the March 2021 issue of Nuclear News. (Also included in that issue is a great review article from Lake Barrett outlining the current status of the decontamination and decommissioning going on at Fukushima .) That month marked 10 years since the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan and crippled the Fukushima plant. The words that follow remain timely, since various news outlets continue to report on the dangers of Fukushima's wastewater without providing context to the Japanese plan to discharge it.

Clark

Brooke Poole Clark has been named general counsel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency announced yesterday. Clark has been serving as secretary of the NRC since April 2022. She will succeed Marian L. Zobler, who will be retiring this fall after 33 years of service. Clark’s appointment is effective October 15.

The job: In her new role, Clark will oversee the Office of the General Counsel, where she will direct matters of law and legal policy; provide legal opinions, advice, and assistance to the agency; monitor adjudicatory proceedings; provide legal interpretations; and represent and protect the interests of the NRC in legal matters.

Quote: “Brooke has 25 years of legal and leadership experience,” said NRC chair Christopher T. Hanson. “Her wealth of expertise on policy and regulatory issues from her experience in both the government and private sector makes her exceptionally qualified for this position. She will play an instrumental role in the challenges ahead.”

The Department Justice earlier this week filed comments with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regarding Vistra Corporation’s proposed acquisition of Energy Harbor, the Ohio-based owner and operator of the Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse, and Perry nuclear plants. Echoing misgivings raised in June by PJM Interconnection’s market monitor Monitoring Analytics regarding the possible exercise of undue market power as a result of the deal, the DOJ Antitrust Division’s 16-page document urges FERC to carefully review the proposal to ensure it will not substantially lessen competition and increase wholesale electricity prices in the PJM region.

National, state, and local leaders joined the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and its lead cleanup contractor, United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), earlier this month to celebrate the groundbreaking for a new on-site disposal facility at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee.

Watch a video highlighting the Environmental Management Disposal Facility groundbreaking ceremony here.

U.K. energy security secretary Grant Shapps (center), Ukraine minister of energy German Galushchenko (right), and Ukraine deputy minister of energy Yaroslav Demchenkov (left) with captured Russian military vehicles in Kyiv on August 22. (Photo: BEIS Communications)

The U.K. government has announced its intention to provide a loan guarantee of £192 million (about $244 million) to enable Britain-based Urenco to supply Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom with uranium enrichment services. (Urenco has been a supplier to Energoatom since 2009.) The loan is to be made through UK Export Finance, the nation’s export credit agency.

According to the August 23 announcement, the added support will “strengthen Ukraine’s energy security and further isolate Putin by helping the country maintain its independence from Russian nuclear fuel.” Once provided, the additional funds will boost the United Kingdom’s total nonmilitary assistance to Ukraine to nearly £5 billion (about $6.4 billion), the government stated.

The announcement came as Grant Shapps, U.K. secretary of state for energy security and net zero, visited Kyiv to meet with senior government ministers and leading energy figures—including Energoatom president Petro Kotin and Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Oleksandr Kubrakov and energy minister German Galushchenko—to discuss British support for Ukraine’s eventual recovery.

“I see nuclear energy as the obvious path forward, and it confuses me as to why everybody else doesn’t. That’s the primary goal with my Miss America policy platform of ‘clean energy, cleaner future.’”

Recently I sat down with Grace Stanke, the current Miss America and a student at the University of Wisconsin in nuclear engineering exploring subjects like nuclear fuel enrichment and reactor performance (as well as being a virtuoso violinist, for good measure).

This year she’s touring the country advocating for clean energy in a cleaner future and for America to reach net zero with the help of nuclear power, while correcting misconceptions and improving communication about nuclear science and encouraging young women to pursue STEM careers.

We talked just after she had finished visiting the Hanford Site while she was on her way to appear at Town Hall Seattle at the request of grassroots pronuclear group Friends of Fission Northwest. I was impressed with the depth of her knowledge and her ability to communicate difficult issues in a concise manner that didn’t require any deep background to understand. I mean, who knows the intricacies of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant? I was tempted to ask her to run for president.

In a notice published in the August 21 Federal Register, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is requesting public input on the latest set of results from a multiyear project to study risk at a two-unit nuclear power plant site.

A group of researchers analyzed recent updates to the International Nuclear Workers Study (INWORKS) and published their findings—“Cancer mortality after low dose exposure to ionising radiation in workers in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States (INWORKS): cohort study”—in the journal BMJ on August 16. The multinational research team, led by David B. Richardson of the University of California–Irvine, reports “evidence of an increase in the excess relative rate of solid cancer mortality with increasing cumulative exposure to ionizing radiation at the low dose rates typically encountered by French, U.K., and U.S. nuclear workers [and] evidence in support of a linear association between protracted low dose external exposure to ionizing radiation and solid cancer mortality.”

The Canadian government continued advancing its small modular reactor action plan on Saturday with the approval of up to C$74 million (about $54.6 million) in federal funds for SMR development in Saskatchewan, led by the province’s main electricity provider, SaskPower.

The Wyoming Energy Authority (WEA) recently recommended nearly $10 million—$9,999,802 to be exact—in funding from its Energy Matching Funds (EMF) program for a proposed project to deploy a BWXT Advanced Technologies microreactor in the state. (BWXT AT is a subsidiary of BWX Technologies Inc.)

On April 10, the University of Missouri (MU) took its first formal step toward building NextGen MURR when school officials issued the request for qualifications for the project. The RFQ is a solicitation for interested companies to offer the design, engineering, licensing, environmental, and developmental services that are needed for NextGen MURR, planned to be larger and more capable than the school’s existing University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR)—which itself has been the most powerful research reactor and most intense neutron source on any U.S. campus since it began operating in 1966.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sat down with X-energy chief executive officer Clay Sell and Dow chair and CEO Jim Fitterling last week for a “fireside chat” at the University of Texas–Austin on the role of nuclear energy and technology in the state.

The American Nuclear Society has published the following new standard, which is available for purchase in the ANS Store:

ANSI/ANS-8.21-2023, Use of Fixed Neutron Absorbers in Nuclear Facilities Outside Reactors (revision of ANSI/ANS-8.21-1995; R2019)

Bruce Power, the utility in Ontario, Canada, and health-care company Nordion announced that they are working to increase the production of cobalt-60 to meet increasing world market demands. The companies said they will increase the amount of Co-60 Bruce Power is able to produce in its reactors “by innovating a new adjuster component configuration.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has completed its final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for Kairos Power’s application to build the Hermes demonstration reactor in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and is advising that the construction permit (CP) be issued.

“After weighing the environmental, economic, technical, and other benefits against environmental and other costs, and considering reasonable alternatives, the NRC staff recommends, unless safety issues mandate otherwise, that the NRC issue the CP to Kairos,” the FEIS states.

Rasmussen

The plenary sessions held earlier this month in Florida at the 2023 ANS Utility Working Conference were focused on the concept of resilience, the meeting’s theme. The August 9 plenary, which was moderated by UWC general chair Matt Rasmussen, senior vice president of engineering and operations support for the Tennessee Valley Authority, included presentations by Chris Glover, president and chief executive officer of Volkswagen Chattanooga; Petro Kotin, president of Ukraine’s nuclear plant operator Energoatom; and Steve L. Robbins of S. L. Robbins and Associates. The session’s opening remarks were provided by Rep. Byron Donalds (R., Fla.).

It’s been almost 35 years since Illinois last added a nuclear power reactor to the grid (Braidwood-2, a pressurized water reactor operated by Constellation, reached commercial operation in October 1988). And it’s been 63 years since a research reactor reached initial criticality at the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The university’s TRIGA Mark II started up in August 1960 and was shut down in 1998. For about 25 years, UIUC—the flagship public university in a state that generates more power from nuclear energy than any other—has lacked an operating research reactor.

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) released the proposed final permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant renewal process on August 15. The NMED also announced a public hybrid meeting scheduled for September 22, where the public will have the opportunity to ask questions about the proposed final permit.

In the newly released 2023 edition of The World Nuclear Supply Chain report, the World Nuclear Association recommends a number of actions to ensure that the international supply chain remains “suitably robust, competitive, and adaptive to meet the anticipated need for long-term operation and new nuclear build.”

The fifth edition of the report provides a market-oriented view that focuses on opportunities and challenges related to nuclear-grade structures, systems, components, and services. Evaluated are supply chain considerations ranging from large-scale reactors to small modular reactors to reactor refurbishment.

Natura Resources of Abilene, Texas, has awarded a contract to Zachry Nuclear Engineering, which has offices in Connecticut and North Carolina, to complete the engineering and design of Natura's 1-MWt molten salt reactor (MSR). The agreement also provides terms under which Zachry may execute the engineering, procurement, and construction phase of the project. The dollar amount of the contract was not disclosed.