The Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) announced December 19 that seven firms will get vouchers to access the nuclear research facilities and expertise of the national laboratory complex in the first round of fiscal year awards. Each company is paired with one or more national laboratories to work on concepts from advanced reactor fueling to fuel recycling to climate forecasting.

A bipartisan group of nine House members is calling on the Department of Energy to give “fair, full, and swift consideration” to Holtec International’s application for DOE Loan Programs Office funding to restart the company’s Palisades nuclear plant, closed last year by the facility’s previous owner, Entergy.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted for review Pacific Gas and Electric’s formal request to extend Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant’s operating licenses for another 20 years.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

"Craig, when you are climbing a mountain, make sure you stop once in a while to enjoy the view.”

An old colleague would sometimes say this to me. It’s hard to believe, but last month marked four years as the Executive Director/CEO of the American Nuclear Society.

If you were an ANS member in the fall of 2019, you know the Society was amid a decade-long decline. Membership numbers were falling, the operational deficit was rising, staff morale was poor, and productivity was low. The fear among the elected leadership was that without significant change, ANS could cease to exist in any meaningful or functional way.

I am immensely grateful for the elected leadership of that time—people like ANS past presidents Bob Coward (2017–2018) and Marilyn Kray (2019–2020), who delivered the ANS Change Plan 2020, which provided a road map for modernizing the organizational structure of ANS.

The Carolinas-Virginia Tube Reactor (CVTR), also known as Parr due to its location in Parr, S.C., was a 65-MWt (17-MWe) pressurized tube reactor. Construction began in January 1960, and the reactor reached initial criticality in March 1963. Commercial operation commenced in December 1963, and the reactor was permanently shut down in January 1967 after the test program was complete.

EDF Energy’s new nuclear build megaproject at Hinkley Point C last Friday moved forward—or, more literally, upward then downward—when workers, with a substantial assist from Big Carl, the world’s largest crane, successfully lifted the C1 reactor building’s 47-meter-wide, 245-ton steel dome into place.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management issued for public comment the first request for qualifications (RFQ) related to the department’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, which aims to increase energy production by making DOE land available for the potential development of carbon-free energy (CFE) electricity generation through leases.

What happened at COP28, the annual United Nations climate event held this year in Dubai, was the greatest outpouring of global support for nuclear power the world has seen since the thunderous reception to Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace call exactly 70 years ago. For the first time, nuclear energy was specifically mentioned in the closing statement of a COP event as one possible way to combat climate change.

The same high energy density that makes nuclear energy a clean and efficient source of power could make it a good alternative to defend the planet against catastrophic asteroid impacts. NASA demonstrated the world’s first planetary defense technology in September 2022 by deliberately crashing a “kinetic impactor”—a heavy, box-like spacecraft—into an asteroid. Now, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have developed a new tool to model how a nuclear device could deflect—or even destroy—an asteroid threat to Earth in a more efficient and controlled way.

Powering our Economy and the World with Clean Energy—Our Path Forward to 2035 is a new document released by the province of New Brunswick, Canada, that “outlines a 12-year energy road map and supporting strategies for how the energy landscape will transition in New Brunswick and how we will achieve our energy reliability, sustainability, and affordability goals.”

A message at the beginning of the document—signed by the New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs and minister of natural resources and energy development Mike Holland—notes the importance of engaging New Brunswickers on the province’s energy future. “We will be forming an energy transition working group” to gather input from provincial stakeholders, the letter states.

The Department of Energy, in its 2023 Year in Review released on December 20, noted that its cleanup program in 2023 had successes in treating liquid tank waste, carrying out deactivation and decommissioning, remediating groundwater and soil contamination, and reducing risk at its various sites across the nation.

William “Ike” White, senior advisor in the DOE's Office of Environmental Management, said that the office “realized numerous accomplishments in 2023 that not only reduce risks but help position cleanup sites for the next phase of progress. In addition, our workforce’s efforts over the past year led to a cleaner environment while also boosting DOE’s national security missions, supporting scientific innovation, and enabling a better future.”

A new report from the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) describes the use of nuclear energy to decarbonize some activities normally powered by oil and gas.

Decarbonization Strategies for Upstream Oil and Gas Operations with Advanced Nuclear Technologies, prepared by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under contract to EPRI, was intended to “inform broader discussions around decarbonization [oil and gas] operations” at COP28, held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from November 30 to December 12.

The Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) in the Department of Energy’s Office of Science introduced a new plan—"Building Bridges: A Vision for the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences”—during a Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) hearing on December 13, and announced that news December 14. What’s included? A plan for the DOE to “establish the steps needed to help advance fusion energy, including addressing key science and technology gaps in the supply chain and industry.” The vision is less a guiding document than a preview of DOE-FES’s near-term intentions, which include drafting a fusion science and technology road map in 2024 to shape investments for the coming decade.

Unit 4 at India’s Kakrapar nuclear plant has achieved initial criticality, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) has announced. This latest milestone in the country’s ambitious nuclear power program was reached early on December 17.

A vertical cask transporter at Ukraine’s CSFSF. (Photo: Holtec)

Holtec International announced on December 19 that Energoatom, Ukraine’s national nuclear energy company, has begun transporting spent nuclear fuel from the nation’s operating reactors to its newly built and commissioned Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility (CSFSF). The facility is expected to save Ukraine $200 million annually through avoided payment to the Russian Federation for transport and storage to that country.

According to a December 15 report by Interfax, a total of 13 spent fuel containers have already been placed at the CSFSF, which is currently operating under a three-year trial operation permit.

Background: Located inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the CSFSF is designed for the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel from the South Ukraine, Khmelnytskyi, and Rivne nuclear power plants.

Holtec, under contract by Energoatom, completed the construction and licensing of the CSFSF in 2021. Transport of spent fuel to the facility was to begin in early 2022 but was delayed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In the episode “Duffless” in season 4 of The Simpsons, Homer is deep in the bowels of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant when he encounters a gigantic mutant spider. He turns to a map that says, “To overcome the spider’s curse, simply quote a Bible verse.” Homer starts with, “Uh, thou shalt not . . .” but then, unable to remember anything from the Bible, he instead brains the spider with a rock. This sort of nuttiness is often how we’ve depicted the power plant on the show, where I’ve been a writer and producer for 20 seasons.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Legacy Management, which oversees department legacy sites that have been cleaned of radioactive waste and environmental contamination, debuted its first podcast on December 15. Launched in honor of the office’s 20th anniversary, the podcast series includes four episodes, each featuring a different member of the DOE-LM team.

Here is a recap of industry happenings over the past month:

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

SMR power barge designs approved

The American Bureau of Shipping has approved in principle the designs for an offshore small modular reactor power barge from Korea Shipbuilding and Offshore Engineering and Kepco Engineering and Construction. Another collaborator on the project is the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry, which assisted ABS in design reviews. The SMR barges are designed to provide electricity for islands and other remote communities.

Dan Yurman, the editor and publisher of the Neutron Bytes blog and member of the American Nuclear Society, has been honored by the online Energy Central community as one of the “Top Voices” in its Energy & Sustainability Network for 2023.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has issued a draft request for proposal for technical support services contract for the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO), which manages the department’s cleanup efforts at the two gaseous diffusion plant sites in Ohio and Kentucky.