W. A. “Art” Wharton III

Multiple market forces on nuclear fuel have arisen seemingly at the same time since the Russian war in Ukraine started. Accident tolerant fuels (ATF), lead test rods, and lead test assemblies have had their first shot in real operating conditions, in recent cycles. But the popularity of their so-called accident tolerance has nothing to do with accidents, since any practical nuclear professional knows that the safety of nuclear energy is already higher than that of any other electricity generation source. The popularity comes down to fuel performance. Are we on the cusp of a revolution in nuclear fuel performance under the guise of accident tolerance?

While initial operation of MARVEL, a tiny microreactor that will be installed and operated inside Idaho National Laboratory’s Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility, might not occur until 2025, testing of a nonnuclear prototype is now under way at the New Freedom, Pa., manufacturing facility of Creative Engineers, Inc. (CEI). The Department of Energy announced the start of prototype testing on September 20.

The present size of the civil nuclear workforce in the United Kingdom is the largest it has been in the past 20 years. So reports the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), the main trade association for the U.K. civil nuclear industry, in its recently released Jobs Map 2023. The London-based organization has released this report annually for more than a decade with the objective of giving the government the most up-to-date, accurate statistics on which to base economic and energy decisions. The NIA reports that the latest job growth has been fueled partly by projects on advanced and emerging nuclear technologies.

The U.S. Embassy in Ghana last week announced $1.75 million to support establishing the West African nation as a small modular reactor regional training hub and center of excellence for the sub-Saharan African region.

The project is backed by the Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) capacity-building program, in which Ghana has participated since 2022.

Class was back in session this spring when, after a hiatus, the American Nuclear Society hosted its third session of Nuclear Energy 101 in Washington, D.C., for congressional staffers. This five-course educational series is a wonderful—and popular—tool for ANS to network with congressional staff and explain the basics of nuclear science and technology.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), an anthropogenic class of several thousand chemicals made for use in products such as nonstick cookware, water-, grease-, and stain-resistant materials, surfactants, and fire suppression foams [1], are emerging as a complicating factor in nuclear decommissioning. These chemicals, which have been manufactured globally, including in the United States, have gained regulatory and public attention due to their persistence and ubiquity in the environment, ability to be detected at low parts-per-trillion levels, and health-based standards set at levels hundreds to thousands of times lower than more classic contaminants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

Excitement is building for the 2023 American Nuclear Society Winter Conference and Expo, which will be held November 12–15 in Washington, D.C. The Society has named the recipients of 11 awards that will be presented at that time, as well as six new Fellows, who will be honored during the opening plenary.

Net Zero Nuclear, an initiative that debuted earlier this month at the World Nuclear Symposium in London, has named GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) its initial corporate sponsor. The announcement was made Wednesday at the Atlantic Council’s Nuclear Energy Policy Summit in New York.

American Nuclear Society Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy visited One White Flint North, where he sat down with U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Christopher Hanson for a one-on-one interview on September 18, 2023. The interview is available exclusively to ANS members to watch this week before it is released to the public. ANS members won’t want to miss the hour-long discussion, where Hanson opens up about important topics facing the NRC and the nuclear community and what he sees as the big successes during his first term as chair.

BWX Technologies is teaming with Crowley, a global shipping and energy supply chain company, under a memorandum of understanding to develop a ship with an onboard microreactor that could deliver power to users on shore via buoyed power cables. The concept, announced by both companies on September 20, is envisioned as a zero-carbon energy option for defense and disaster needs.

Net zero emission policies across the globe, and more specifically in the USA, have nuclear power plants in the crosshairs of efficiency and safe power generation. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), Nuclear Power currently provides 52% of the nation’s 100% clean electricity. However, shifting energy markets, among other economic factors, have already resulted in the early closure of 12 commercial reactors across the United States since 2013. These closures have put pressure on existing nuclear infrastructure, and the DOE has thus pledged a $6 Billion Program, named the Civil Nuclear Credit (CNC) Program, to preserve the clean nuclear energy infrastructure of the United States.

Utah-based EnergySolutions announced that it has completed its acquisition of essentially all of the assets and business lines of Williams Industrial Services Group and its subsidiaries, including its nuclear, fossil fuel, energy delivery, and paper mill operations. The Williams business lines will now become part of EnergySolutions’s newly created Nuclear Services division

This year’s American Nuclear Society Annual Meeting was filled with great content, some of which was covered in the August issue of Nuclear News (beginning on p. 22). One of the meeting’s executive sessions, “Bringing Nuclear History Forward,” focused on advanced reactor (AR) history and was well attended. The United States—along with many countries around the world—is turning to nuclear to combat climate change. Part of this is funding new and innovative companies to create first-of-a-kind nuclear reactors to provide abundant and clean power. Looking at the current designs of interest to the community brings up interesting comparisons to the test and experimental reactors of the past. Test reactors like the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II), the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF), Peach Bottom, Fort St. Vrain, Germany’s AVR, and others now are more important than ever in providing insight, data, and operational lessons learned to develop the next generation of reactors.

A U.S. federal court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by Westinghouse Electric Company last year to block the potential sale of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power’s APR-1400 reactor to Poland.

In a filing Monday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Vistra Corporation committed to divesting itself of two power generation assets to help alleviate concerns over its proposed acquisition of Energy Harbor.

Given how much carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere from fossil fuels, replacing those fuels with clean options like nuclear energy is urgent, but could be likened to shutting the barn door after the proverbial horse has bolted. But what if you could also round up excess CO₂ already in the atmosphere? That’s the goal of direct air capture (DAC) and other so-called negative emission technologies—to capture climate warming CO₂ for use in products or processes or for permanent storage.

Allied Power has acquired Dominion Engineering, Inc. (DEI), Allied announced last week. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Allied provides a range of services—including routine maintenance, outage services and management, capital construction, and specialized support—for power plants in the United States.

DEI has provided field service equipment, technology, and consulting services for nuclear utilities and operators for more than four decades. Its services include work on refueling outages, decommissioning, and waste management activities.

Constellation Energy has announced an agreement with Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), Illinois’s largest electric utility, to power the latter’s 54 offices and metered facilities with locally produced nuclear energy, 24/7.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced on September 18 that it expects to award 24 research and development grants totaling more than $11.7 million in fiscal year 2023 University Nuclear Leadership Program (UNLP) funds to university researchers in early 2024.

Washington state’s Department of Ecology said it has reached a settlement with the Department of Energy over access to data the state described as “critical” to the cleanup of the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash.