Issues on microreactors and irradiation experiments planned for Nuclear Science and Engineering

January 23, 2024, 3:00PMANS News

Two teams of guest editors from Idaho National Laboratory have announced plans for special issues of Nuclear Science and Engineering, the nuclear field’s longest-running technical journal. Abdalla Abou Jaoude and Abderrafi M. Ougouag are leading the issue on Technical Challenges and Opportunities in the Development and Deployment of Microreactors, while Joseph Nielsen and Piyush Sabharwall are organizing the issue on Irradiation Experiments Supporting Advanced Nuclear Technologies.

Informal survey asks when the next U.S. nuclear plant will come on line

January 23, 2024, 12:00PMANS Nuclear Cafe

Wesoff

According to an admittedly informal and unscientific survey of people from online “nuclear affinity groups” conducted by Eric Wesoff, the editorial director for clean energy newsroom Canary Media, there is no consensus regarding when the next nuclear power plant will come on line in the United States. Wesoff recently reported that upon polling his nuclear-connected network on LinkedIn, X, and Reddit, he found that “the responses were all over the map.”

Nuclear renaissance? Wesoff was prompted to try his survey about the expected date for the next nuclear plant because “conditions are perfect for the American nuclear renaissance.” He cited strong support for the nuclear industry from the Department of Energy as well as from public opinion polls and online “influencers.” He thought therefore that he would find confident predictions for when the next new U.S. reactor would go on line. Instead, he found uncertainty and varied responses.

Report: White House drops Jeff Baran as NRC nominee

January 23, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News

Baran

The White House has given up on the renomination of former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member Jeff Baran because of bipartisan opposition in the Senate, according to multiple media reports. After a handful of Democrats joined Senate Republicans to block the nomination last year, President Biden has decided to drop Baran as his pick, HuffPost first reported on Monday.

Baran joined the five-person federal panel in 2014 as an appointee of former president Barack Obama. The NRC oversees atomic energy and radiation safety and has become increasingly politicized in recent years, as different parties push for new processes and procedures for building new reactor types and expanding nuclear infrastructure.

Baran’s term ended in June 2023, and since then the commission has been without a tie-breaker for party-line votes among the four current members. Come June 30, NRC chair Christopher Hanson will complete his term and has yet to be renominated.

ORISE report shows decreases in NE degrees and enrollment numbers

January 23, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear News

The recently released 2021–2022 data from the Nuclear Engineering Enrollment and Degrees Survey, prepared by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), might be considered a mix of good news and bad. In 2022, there were 208 doctoral degrees awarded in nuclear engineering in the United States—the most since 1966, when the survey began. However, the overall number of nuclear engineering degrees awarded in 2021 and 2022 was at the lowest level in more than a decade. The results are based on data collected from 34 U.S. universities with nuclear engineering programs.

Nuclear Energy 101 ends on nuclear applications note

January 22, 2024, 3:02PMANS News

Nuclear Energy 101, the five-course educational series for congressional staffers, came to a close in October with its final talk. This seminar series is a fun—and popular—tool for ANS to explain the basics of nuclear science and technology to and network with Capitol Hill denizens. After a long hiatus, the series returned in March 2023, and delivered five successful courses.

A case of “nuclear power on the brain”

January 22, 2024, 12:22PMANS Nuclear Cafe

Crownhart

“I’ve got nuclear power on the brain this week.” So writes climate and energy reporter Casey Crownhart in a recent edition the Spark, the MIT Technology Review’s climate newsletter. In her article, Crownhart describes how, while she was conducting research on advanced nuclear energy for another article, she “went down some rabbit holes on . . . potential options for future nuclear plants” and has “reached new levels of obsession” about nuclear energy.

Nuclear primer: Crownhart’s article could serve as a primer for both basic nuclear and advanced nuclear technologies. She begins by discussing the “two absolutely essential pieces” of conventional nuclear power plants—namely, the enriched uranium fuel and the pressurized water cooling system—and explains that the cooling system “keeps the whole thing from getting too hot and causing problems.”

2024: The State of Advanced Reactors

January 19, 2024, 3:07PMNuclear NewsMatt Wald

Designs for high-tech products, and the start-ups that offer them, will always outnumber the commercial successes. Ditto: many more power plants are proposed than actually get built, no matter what the technology.

This is an axiom of free-market economies, but in early November 2023 it became painfully obvious in the advanced reactor field. NuScale Power, the only advanced reactor that has made it through the licensing gauntlet, acknowledged that the consortium of utilities that was its intended launch customer had failed to put together a feasible package.

Japan-U.S. decommissioning workshop coming up

January 19, 2024, 12:00PMANS Nuclear Cafe

The Japan-U.S. Decommissioning Workshop Series continues on February 8–9 when its second forum meets to discuss the handling of low-level radioactive waste (LLW) generated during the decommissioning process and how improved LLW management can reduce risk.

Registration for the online event is required. The registration deadline is 2:00 a.m. (EST) on February 5.

Heavy ions from Argonne’s ATLAS speed nuclear materials research

January 19, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News
Argonne scientists adjust the AMIS beamline prior to its commissioning. (Photo: Argonne)

Argonne’s newest beamline uses heavy ions to degrade a material’s properties as much in a day as a nuclear reactor does in a year, without introducing radioactivity. That’s according to an article published January 16 by Argonne National Laboratory. The Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS) now boasts a new beamline—the ATLAS Material Irradiation Station, or AMIS—that uses the accelerator’s lowest high-energy beams to displace atoms and mimic the degradation of materials inside an operating reactor over time. AMIS makes it easier and faster to test candidate fuel and structural materials for existing and future reactors.

The 2024 Nuclear News Energy Quiz

January 19, 2024, 7:02AMNuclear NewsJames Conca

Are you an energy genius? It’s hard to tell whether or not Americans are really aware of the energy that controls our lives, so the following quiz should be revealing. Click through the multiple-choice options below to reveal the answers. Most answers can be found in the pages of the 2023 issues of Nuclear News—if you’ve been a diligent NN reader you should do fine!

Scoring: Zero to five correct answers out of the 20 questions means you may need to read up on energy in order not to be at the mercy of others. Six to 10 correct answers is a good passing grade. Eleven to 15 right answers means you’re really energy literate. Sixteen to 19 correct answers means you should be advising Congress. Twenty right answers suggests you’re Mr. Spock reincarnated.

Roy G. Post announces “50 for 50” scholarship awards

January 18, 2024, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions

The Roy G. Post Foundation has announced the awarding of more than 50 graduate and undergraduate scholarships for 2024 for outstanding students who have demonstrating excellent academic achievements and leadership qualities and who have made positive impacts in their communities.

A more open future for nuclear research

January 18, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear NewsRobert Little, Elia Merzari, and Guillaume Wright

A growing number of institutional, national, and funder mandates are requiring researchers to make their published work immediately publicly accessible, through either open repositories or open access (OA) publications. In addition, both private and public funders are developing policies, such as those from the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the European Commission, that ask researchers to make publicly available at the time of publication as much of their underlying data and other materials as possible. These, combined with movement in the scientific community toward embracing open science principles (seen, for example, in the dramatic rise of preprint servers like arXiv), demonstrate a need for a different kind of publishing outlet.

Training facilities upgraded at Hanford's waste treatment plant

January 17, 2024, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions
Training instructor Chris Oliveros poses inside a new radiological control training classroom at Hanford’s WTP. (Photo: DOE)

The training team at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) recently added an extra level of realism to employee trainings by upgrading classrooms and adding new props, according to the Department of Energy.

OPG, Capital Power team up to bring SMRs to Alberta

January 17, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News

Two Canadian energy companies are teaming up to bring small modular reactors to Alberta.

Capital Power Corporation and Ontario Power Generation announced this week that they will spend the next two years exploring joint opportunities to bring SMRs to the province. Just under 13 percent of Canada’s power comes from its 19 nuclear reactors.

IAEA microplastic pollution research goes on location in Antarctica

January 17, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News
An IAEA researcher collects samples from the Antarctic shoreline. (Image: IAEA)

The International Atomic Energy Agency, in cooperation with Argentina, launched a scientific research expedition on January 6 to study microplastics in Antarctica—one of the planet’s most remote areas—as part of an effort to combat widespread microplastic pollution.