Oak Ridge is Orano’s preferred site for enrichment, with no commitments yet

September 5, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News
Tennessee officials and lawmakers joined Orano representatives to announce Orano’s selection of Oak Ridge as its preferred site for a uranium enrichment facility. (Photo: tn.gov)

On September 4, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced that Orano had selected Oak Ridge as its preferred site to build a “multibillion-dollar” uranium centrifuge enrichment facility. For Tennessee, the announcement underscores Oak Ridge’s draw for nuclear technology companies. For Orano and the nuclear power community, the announcement is another sign the nation is edging closer to adding front-end nuclear fuel cycle capacity.

Think and do the extraordinary

September 5, 2024, 7:00AMNuclear NewsLisa Marshall

Lisa Marshall
president@ans.org

I had the pleasure of speaking at ANS’s Utility Working Conference last month and would like to share my thoughts with our wider membership.

Electrification is the foundation of modern society. The nuclear enterprise has and must continue to play a crucial role in the era in which we find ourselves—the energy transition era. We have made important gains in post-COVID times, with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and more recently the ADVANCE Act of 2024—all aimed at, broadly speaking, enhancing (nuclear) industry.

We have also seen greater public support for nuclear power. The National Nuclear Energy Public Opinion Survey has been undertaken every year for the last four decades. It has demonstrated for the last three years that three-fourths of respondents strongly or somewhat favor the use of nuclear energy as one of the ways to provide electricity within the United States.

IAEA expanding aid to protect Ukraine nuclear infrastructure

September 4, 2024, 3:02PMNuclear News

The military conflict with Russia that began in February 2022 has left Ukraine with “dangerous instability” of its national grid, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

Following a meeting in Kyiv with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on September 3, Grossi promised to take a more proactive stance in protecting the country’s energy infrastructure—especially where nuclear safety is vulnerable. During recent months there have been numerous missile and drone attacks, with some directly causing the disconnection of several nuclear power plants.

DOE awards $17 million to answer critical questions with HALEU data

September 4, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News

The Department of Energy awarded $17 million on August 30 for 16 experiment and analysis projects expected to yield criticality data that will assist the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in licensing and regulating high-assay low-enriched uranium and the fuel infrastructure—including packaging and transportation containers—required to demonstrate and deploy HALEU-fueled advanced nuclear reactors. Project teams include six national laboratories taking lead roles in partnership with other labs, universities, and multiple industry partners.

Savannah River turns to drones for inspecting waste tanks

September 4, 2024, 9:31AMRadwaste Solutions
SRS liquid waste contractor Savannah River Mission Completion will use drones equipped with cameras to inspect the cleaning status of waste tanks at the site. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will begin using drones for the first time to internally inspect radioactive liquid waste tanks at the department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Inspections were previously done using magnetic wall-crawling robots.

Four more Westinghouse AP1000 technology–based reactors approved in China

September 4, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear News

China’s State Council has approved the construction of four new nuclear reactors based on Westinghouse's AP1000 technology at two Chinese power plants. China’s State Power Investment Corporation plans to build two of the reactors at its Bailong nuclear power project in Guangxi Province, where preparatory groundwork construction can now begin at the site. The other two units were approved for the Lufeng nuclear power plant, located in Guangdong Province and owned by China General Nuclear Power Corporation, where sitework has already begun.

NRC agrees to reevaluate seismic risk at Diablo Canyon

September 3, 2024, 3:01PMNuclear News

In response to a petition filed by environmental groups earlier this year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will reinvestigate earthquake fault lines and the potential for seismic activity and ensuing damage at California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

American Nuclear Society response to Science article, “The weapons potential of high-assay low-enriched uranium” by Kemp et al.

September 3, 2024, 8:04AMANS News

September 3, 2024

Dr. Holden Thorp

Editor-in-Chief, Science

Subject: Science magazine Policy Forum article “The weapons potential of high-assay low-enriched uranium” published June 2024

Dear Dr. Thorp:

The American Nuclear Society—a professional nuclear science and technology society representing more than 10,000 members worldwide—writes this open letter to address concerns regarding Science magazine’s June 2024 Policy Forum article, entitled “The weapons potential of high-assay low-enriched uranium” by R. Scott Kemp, Edwin S. Lyman, Mark R. Deinert, Richard L. Garwin, and Frank N. von Hippel.

The article describes the potential misuse of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU)1. We acknowledge the importance of this discussion and the necessity of continually evaluating the proliferation risks associated with nuclear materials. However, after extensive technical review of the article by members and officers of the ANS Fuel Cycle and Waste Management Division and the ANS Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division, we remain unconvinced of the positions advocated by the authors.

Finland begins trial run of Onkalo repository

September 3, 2024, 7:06AMRadwaste Solutions
The site of the Onkalo deep geological repository near Eurajoki, Finland, with the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in the background. (Photo: Posiva)

Finland’s waste management organization Posiva announced that it has begun a trial run of placing spent fuel canisters in the Onkalo geologic repository, which is located near the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in southwestern Finland. No spent fuel will be disposed of during the trial run, which is expected to last several months.

New laws offer nuclear industry incentives for existing power plant uprates

August 30, 2024, 3:02PMNuclear NewsPaul Menser

This year, the U.S. nuclear industry received a much-needed economic boost that could help preserve operating nuclear power plants and incentivize upgrades that extend their lifespan and power output.

Signed into law in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act offers production tax credits (PTCs) for existing nuclear power plants and either PTCs or investment tax credits (ITCs) for new carbon-free generation. These credits could make power uprates—increasing the maximum power level at which a commercial plant may operate—a much more appealing option for utilities.

BWXT to probe options for new centrifuge pilot plant under contract with NNSA

August 30, 2024, 12:01PMNuclear News

BWX Technologies announced on August 26 that its Nuclear Fuel Services subsidiary had received a contract from the National Nuclear Security Administration for a yearlong engineering study of a pilot plant capable of testing a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment technology developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and producing domestic-origin enriched uranium the NNSA can use for multiple national security purposes. BWXT, which has a long history of providing fuel fabrication and downblending services for the federal government, has not—until now—included enrichment in its portfolio.

INL spent fuel transfers are ahead of schedule

August 30, 2024, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
Work crews at the INL Site prepare to move Peach Bottom fuel from a transfer cask to a storage vault. (Photo: DOE)

Crews at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory Site recently completed work to transfer baskets of spent nuclear fuel ahead of a September 30 deadline.

DOE accepting applications for NE scholarships and fellowships

August 30, 2024, 7:06AMNuclear News

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy is making $6 million available in scholarships and fellowships for students pursuing nuclear energy-related degrees across the United States. The funding is provided through the DOE’s University Nuclear Leadership Program (UNLP). 

The short life of the Hallam plant

August 29, 2024, 3:06PMNuclear NewsJeremy Hampshire
Aerial view of Hallam nuclear power plant (toward right) and Sheldon Power Station (toward left). (Photo: U.S. AEC/Wiki Commons)

The Hallam nuclear power plant in Nebraska, about 25 miles southwest of Lincoln, was a 75-MWe sodium-­cooled, graphite-moderated reactor operated by Consumers Public Power District of Nebraska (CPPD). It was co-located with the Sheldon Power Station, a conventional coal-fired plant. The facility had a shared control room and featured a shared turbo generator that could accept steam from either heat source.

NRC issues subsequent license for North Anna plant

August 29, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
The North Anna nuclear power plant. (Photo: Dominion)

Dominion Energy’s North Anna nuclear power plant received its second operating license renewal earlier this week, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced.

North Anna Units 1 and 2 are twin 973-MWe three-loop Westinghouse pressurized water reactors located about 40 miles northwest of Richmond, Va. Unit 1’s operating license will now expire April 1, 2058, and Unit 2’s will expire August 21, 2060.

2024 Robert Maher Memorial Scholarship is awarded

August 29, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News

Holston

Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC) and the charitable educational organization Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness (CNTA) have announced that Micah Holston, a student at Kennesaw State University, is the winner of the 2024 Robert Maher Memorial Scholarship.

The $5,000 scholarship is sponsored by SRMC, the liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy at the Savannah River Site.

The winner: Holston, a senior from Marietta, Ga., is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in physics and political science with minors in nuclear engineering, math, and international affairs. CNTA executive director Allison Hamilton Molnar said the organization is proud to award this scholarship to such a deserving student.

The IAEA and two African universities deploy sediment tracking tech in Kenya

August 29, 2024, 7:02AMNuclear News
The 10-member team that collaborated to survey sediments in Kenya’s Kilindini Harbor. (Photo: IAEA)

Kilindini Harbor in Mombasa, Kenya, is East Africas largest international seaport. But rapid development of the Kenyan coastal zone is changing sediment distribution and dispersal patterns in the region, and shifting sediment poses safety and efficiency risks to ships in the harbor. With help from the International Atomic Energy Agency, a team of researchers from Kenya and South Africa has deployed a unique system to measure natural radionuclides in beach and aquatic sediments and map sediment transportation in the region. The IAEA described the mission in a photo essay published August 21.

From the pages of Nuclear News: Industry update August 2024

August 28, 2024, 3:31PMNuclear News

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

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

Last Energy forms partnership with NATO center

The NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence (ENSEC COE), located in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Washington, D.C.–based Last Energy have formed a partnership to investigate military applications for microreactor technologies. The agreement was ENSEC COE’s first with a company in the nuclear energy sector. Last Energy, which is a spin-off of the research institute Energy Impact Center, will conduct research with ENSEC COE on microreactor applications for NATO military installations, explore opportunities for deploying microreactors on NATO bases, and serve as an industry advisor to ENSEC COE. Last Energy’s PWR-20 small modular reactor is a pressurized water reactor with a capacity of 20 MWe (60 MWt). It is designed to be built off-site and assembled in modules within a period of 24 months.