Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

As you may have heard, the American Nuclear Society recently entered into a 50/50 joint venture with the Nuclear Energy Institute to host an annual industrywide meeting in late summer, which will replace ANS’s Utility Working Conference and NEI’s Nuclear Energy Assembly. Simply put, we are taking the best of both events to create the ultimate nuclear power meeting of the year. If you are a longtime UWC attendee, you will feel right at home in the aisles of the exhibit hall, or in the working sessions designed to tackle the shared practical challenges operators face. NEI will bring the nuclear C-suite presence along with the freshest insights on industrywide issues.

The U.S. nuclear industry is growing, and we need to get even bigger if we are going to make good on the promise of a resurgence. The auto industry has SEMA, the tech industry has CES. It’s time the U.S. nuclear industry had its top event of the year.

A new webinar series launched by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Department of Nuclear Energy, the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, and the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) will discuss global progress toward a permanent solution for high-level waste and spent nuclear fuel, with presentations by senior representatives of national HLW and SNF management programs around the world.

Register for the first webinar here.

Fatigue has been identified as a major risk factor in industrial accidents. According to the National Safety Council, 13 percent of workplace injuries can be attributed to fatigue.¹ Other research indicates that working 12 hours per day is associated with a staggering 37 percent increase in risk of injury.² Considering fatigue was a contributing factor to major nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, it makes sense that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission imposes hefty fines to ensure strict adherence to its fatigue management regulations—particularly, Code of Federal Regulations Title 10, Part 26, “Fitness for Duty Programs.”

Lisa Marshall
president@ans.org

October 11, 2024, marked the 70th anniversary of the American Nuclear Society. Taking a long view, we have not looked back and instead have tackled challenges and moved forward with lessons learned. Whether we pull examples from energy or nonenergy aspects of our nuclear enterprise, our planet has benefited from nuclear science and technology, and ANS has been there every step of the way.

As the Society reflects on its own history, let us remember:

• The first commercial nuclear power stations started operation in the 1950s.
• Nuclear energy now provides about 9 percent of the world’s electricity from about 440 power reactors.
• Nuclear provides about 25 percent of the world’s low-carbon electricity.
• Nuclear is the world’s second-largest source of low-carbon power.
• More than 50 countries utilize nuclear energy in about 220 research reactors. In addition to research, these reactors are used for training and for the production of medical and industrial isotopes.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced it has awarded a 10-year, $3 billion contract to West Valley Cleanup Alliance (WVCA) for decommissioning and demolition work at the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York. WVCA is a newly formed limited liability company made up of BWXT Technical Services Group, Jacobs Technology, and Geosyntec Consultant. Teaming subcontractors include Perma-Fix Environmental Services and North Wind Portage.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said that contractors have completed the treatment of 2,000 gallons of radioactive and chemical waste as part of the Hanford Site’s Test Bed Initiative project, which aims to demonstrate the feasibility of alternative options for retrieving and treating low-activity tank waste at the site in Washington state.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published a proposed rule that has been almost five years in the making: Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors. The rule, which by law must take its final form before the end of 2027, would establish risk-informed, performance-based techniques the NRC can use to review and license any nuclear power reactor. This is a departure from the two licensing options with light water reactor–specific regulatory requirements that applicants can already choose.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and state officials met in August with officials at the U.S. Army’s Fort Drum in upstate New York to discuss deployment of a small modular reactor to supply the installation’s energy needs. According to local CBS affiliate WWNY, two congresspersons have called on the secretary of the army to place an SMR at Fort Drum, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has determined that an SMR would be “the optimal option” for the site’s energy purposes.

The pursuit of returning two of the country’s retired nuclear plants into service is not only unusual—it is unprecedented and promises to make history.

That’s according to a piece coauthored by former assistant secretary for nuclear energy Katy Huff in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists regarding plans from Holtec and Constellation to restart Michigan’s Palisades plant and Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Unit 1, respectively.

Chantilly, Va.-based Amentum has been awarded a 7-year contract estimated to be worth €5.5 million (about $6 million) to consult on the dismantling of steam drum separators in Units 1 and 2 of Lithuania’s Ignalina nuclear power plant. Once the country’s largest generator of electricity, Ignalina was permanently shut down in 2009 and the plant’s two RBMK-1500 reactors are expected to be fully decommissioned by 2038.

TerraPower announced today that it has signed a term sheet with ASP Isotopes Inc. as the first step of a planned investment in the construction of a high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enrichment facility and the eventual purchase of HALEU produced at the facility to fuel its Natrium fast reactors.

Seattle-based Ultra Safe Nuclear (USNC), developer of a high-temperature, gas-cooled microreactor design that has drawn interest from potential customers and research and development funding from the Department of Energy, announced yesterday that it has filed a petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to facilitate its sale to Standard Nuclear Inc. The filing, made in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., includes USNC and its subsidiaries, Ultra Safe Nuclear-Technologies, USNC-Power, and Global First Power.

The municipality of South Bruce, located near the Bruce nuclear power plant in southwestern Ontario, voted narrowly in favor of being a willing host to a potential deep geologic repository for Canada’s spent nuclear fuel. The official declaration of results from the municipality showed that 51 percent of South Bruce residents voted in favor of the referendum, with 1,604 voting "yes" and 1,526 voting "no." Voter participation was 69 percent, surpassing the 50 percent voter turnout required to make the vote binding by law.

With more than 40 fusion development companies announcing plans and funding, it’s hard for a newcomer to stand out, but Pacific Fusion is giving it a try. The company, based in Fremont, Calif., was founded in summer 2023 and emerged from “stealth mode” last Friday with $900 million in committed funding from investors, a team that includes people directly involved in the successful ignition experiments at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF), and a technical paper that makes a case for a pulsed magnetic fusion approach to fusion energy.

The life and career of James Wm. Behrens have been intertwined with the American Nuclear Society since his joining as a member in 1979. Now, to recognize Behrens for his philanthropic and programmatic commitment to ANS, the conference room at ANS's new headquarters has been named in his honor.

Tokyo Electric Power Company announced yesterday that is has recommenced a trial exercise to retrieve nuclear fuel debris from Unit 2 of Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. TEPCO is attempting to retrieve a small amount of fuel debris from Unit 2’s pressure vessel for analysis before beginning a large-scale removal of the debris.

Sweden’s Land and Environmental Court has granted the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB, or SKB) an environmental permit to build and operate a geologic repository for the country’s spent nuclear fuel near the Forsmark nuclear power plant, about 86 miles north of Stockholm. The permit also includes the building of a spent fuel encapsulation plant at the central interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at Oskarshamn, about 200 miles south of Stockholm.

The U.S. Navy’s Surface Ship Support Barge, converted in the 1960s from a WWII T2 tanker to a support barge to accept spent nuclear fuel during the refueling of nuclear aircraft carriers, was dismantled and disposed of by the nuclear decommissioning company APTIM as a first-of-its-kind vessel dismantlement project for the Navy. The project was executed under contract with Naval Sea Systems Command; however, regulatory oversight was accomplished through an interagency framework agreement between the U.S. Navy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Commercial nuclear power is illegal in Australia, and it has been since the 1990s. This past June, however, the country’s main opposition party announced plans to build seven commercial nuclear reactors in the 2030s and 2040s on sites presently occupied by aging coal-fired plants—should the party’s Liberal–National Coalition win power in federal elections next year. This statement has reignited a public debate regarding the potential role of nuclear energy in Australia.

In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains on the outskirts of Fort Collins, Colo.—home to Colorado State University—work began this month on a new laser facility funded by a public-private partnership. The private portion is $150 million from Marvel Fusion, announced in August 2023, while $12.5 million—the latest funding for CSU from the Department of Energy’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)—will support the new facility as part of LaserNetUS, a laser research network operated by DOE-FES to provide access to laser facilities for multidisciplinary researchers from the United States and abroad.