Here is a recap of industry happenings from the recent past:

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

Radiant purchases nuclear-grade graphite for its microreactor

Microreactor startup Radiant Industries and Amsted Graphite Materials, the largest American-­owned synthetic graphite producer, have reached an agreement to collaborate on reducing U.S. reliance on foreign sources of nuclear-grade graphite. The collaboration began with Radiant placing a purchase order with Amsted for its Kaleidos microreactor, a 1-MW high-temperature, gas-cooled portable microreactor that has a graphite core and uses TRISO fuel.

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state recently unloaded a shipment of more than 10,000 gallons of sodium hydroxide delivered to the site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). The liquid sodium hydroxide will be the first chemical fed into the plant’s melters to simulate Hanford’s radioactive and chemical tank waste.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has posted an unclassified version of its annual report to Congress on the results of the agency’s security inspection activities in 2023.

The report covers the NRC’s security inspection program, including force-on-force exercises, for commercial nuclear power reactors and Category I fuel cycle facilities. It keeps Congress and the public informed of the NRC’s oversight of the protection of the nation’s civilian nuclear power infrastructure and strategic special nuclear material.

Because of its hardness and its hardiness in the face of high temperatures, silicon carbide has been used for industrial purposes for decades. It has proven its worth as a key component of tiny TRISO fuel particles. But SiC has a weakness—in its pure form it is too brittle for use in structural components, such as 12-foot-long light water reactor fuel cladding tubes.

In 1976 at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a 64-year-old chemical operations technician named Harold McCluskey was working on columns filled with special exchange resins in a glove box at the Plutonium Finishing Plant.

The European Commission has issued a positive opinion on the technical and nuclear safety aspects of the construction of Units 3 and 4 at Cernavoda nuclear power plant in Romania.

Under the Euratom Treaty, nuclear project developers are required to notify the EC of planned investments and to demonstrate compliance with the highest nuclear safety standards.

An analysis of the LDR-50 low-temperature nuclear district heating reactor, developed by Steady Energy, indicates that “significant reductions in CO₂ emissions can be achieved by replacing fossil heating fuels with nuclear energy [district heating].” The study, conducted by researchers from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and published in the journal Energies, describes carbon footprint reductions and other environmental benefits derived from the LDR-50, which Steady Energy hopes to introduce in Finnish and other European district heating markets by the 2030s.

State regulators will study the economic and technical feasibility of adding advanced nuclear technology in Florida.

The directive was included in a sweeping energy bill, House Bill 1645, passed by the Florida Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Florida Public Service Commission must issue a report to the governor and legislative leaders by April 1, 2025, with findings and recommendations to support new nuclear in the state—specifically including military bases.

Aalo reported last week that it has submitted a regulatory engagement plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in “a huge step forward in getting regulatory approval for our Aalo-1 reactor.”

The latest in the series of ANS Community of Practice (CoP) presentations on risk-informed, performance-based (RIPB) principles, held May 31, 2024, was a departure from past presentations. Rani Franovich and N. Prasad Kadambi provided their perspectives on what is missing in current dialogue on RIPB. What followed was a meaningful discussion and exchange of perspectives regarding what is meant by “performance based.”

Peters

Mark Peters will become president and chief executive officer of MITRE, effective September 3, 2024. He will succeed Jason Providakes, who previously announced his intention to retire after 37 years with the not-for-profit research and development company, including seven years as president and CEO.

Peters is a recognized expert in nuclear fuel cycle technologies, nuclear waste management, and national security, with more than 25 years of leadership and scientific discovery for federally funded R&D centers (FFRDCs). He currently serves as executive vice president, laboratory management and operations, at Battelle Memorial Institute, which, with other strategic partners, operates eight FFRDCs for the federal government, with responsibility for governance and oversight of the Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security national laboratories.

American Electric Power and Exelon are seeking a hearing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about a proposed data center project linked to Talen’s Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.

A statistical analysis of the factors behind the 2021–22 energy crisis in Europe is the subject of the article “Patterns and correlations in European electricity prices,” published in the journal Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science. The study—conducted by researchers at the Institute for Energy and Climate Research at Forschungszentrum Jülich and the University of Cologne, both in Germany, and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences—describes reasons for the surge in energy prices that go beyond the commonly cited cause of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While commissioning began earlier this year at Turkey’s first nuclear plant, new reports say the project is delayed by sanctions against Russia due to its military invasion of Ukraine.

Lauren Garrison

We have seen many advancements in the fusion field in the past handful of years. In 2021, the National Academies released a report titled Bringing Fusion to the U.S. Grid.^a In March 2022, the White House held a first-ever fusion forum, “Developing a Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy.”^b The National Ignition Facility had a record-setting fusion pulse that achieved more power output than the laser input, called ignition, in December 2022.^c The Department of Energy’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) started a new public-private partnership program, the fusion milestone program, in May 2023 that made awards to eight fusion companies in a cost-share model.^d That same summer, FES got a new associate director, Dr. Jean Paul Allain,^e who has announced intentions for changing the structure of the FES office to better embrace an energy mission for fusion while keeping the strong foundation in basic science and non-fusion plasmas. ITER construction has continued, with various parts being delivered and systems finished. For example, the civil engineering of the tokamak building was completed in September 2023 after 10 years of work.^f Even more fusion companies have been founded, and the Fusion Industry Association has 37 members now.^g

Constellation Energy is in talks with the governor’s office and state legislators about funding to restart a unit at Three Mile Island nuclear plant, Reuters has reported. The ongoing talks have been described as “beyond preliminary” by two sources.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy has issued a request for information opportunity for the design and construction of a federal consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) for spent nuclear fuel. The DOE is planning on establishing a federal CISF to manage SNF until a permanent repository is available. In May, the DOE received initial approval, known as “Critical Decision-0,” for such a facility.

The deadline for submissions is September 5.

An external radiation monitoring station was taken out by shelling and fire near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine the last week of June.

This brings the total to four of the plant’s 14 radiation monitoring sites that are out of commission, further reducing the effectiveness of its off-site capability to detect and measure any radioactive release during an emergency, said IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

The Energy Communities Alliance, a membership organization of local governments adjacent to or impacted by Department of Energy sites, has awarded grants to three community organizations to develop avenues for inclusive public engagement and discussions of consent-based approaches to siting facilities for the interim storage of the nation’s spent nuclear fuel.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

A good bit of this month’s edition of Nuclear News is devoted to the latest developments in fusion energy.

While 2024 may not have the punchy investment headlines of ’22, I think it’s fair to say that fusion energy technology is making tangible progress beneath the surface, with unannounced stealth funding plans and the continuation of public-private partnerships.

When will it become a productive element of our global energy architecture? No one knows for sure. There are still myriad challenges to be solved in high-temperature ­materials, high–critical temperature superconductors, advanced algorithms, and tritium fuel cycle control, just to name a few. But every day, fusion feels a tiny bit more mature, like somehow it has left its childhood bedroom in physics to move into the dorm room of engineering.