Kairos Power announced today that it has assembled an advanced nuclear development advisory consortium with four North American nuclear operators—Bruce Power, Constellation, Southern Company, and the Tennessee Valley Authority—dubbed Kairos Power Operations, Manufacturing and Development Alliance (Kairos Power-OMADA).
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the transfer of the operating license of the shutdown Kewaunee nuclear power plant from Dominion Energy to EnergySolutions. The transfer, which includes the general license for the Wisconsin site’s spent fuel storage facility, is contingent upon approval by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission.
EnergySolutions entered into an agreement with Dominion in May 2021 to acquire the Kewaunee site for decommissioning.
A recent article on a radio station website about an auxiliary feedwater (AFW) pump problem at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant led to information exchanges between a reporter, the American Nuclear Society, and nuclear advocates. The incident also involved a tweet by a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Levin
On July 21, Rep. Mike Levin (D., Calif.), whose district includes the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), announced with Rep. Rodney Davis (R., Ill.) the formation of the bipartisan House Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Caucus. The caucus, according to its members, seeks to address the challenges associated with stranded U.S. commercial spent fuel and to serve as a forum for those who want to make progress on the issue, regardless of whether they have a preferred solution.
Rep. Levin talked with Nuclear News staff writer Tim Gregoire about his goals for the caucus and finding an answer to the country’s spent nuclear fuel dilemma.
The accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, has sparked many safety improvements in the nuclear industry over the past decade. Lessons from the accident and its aftermath will influence firms and regulators as they consider the future design, construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear reactors.
An American Nuclear Society webinar, “Nuclear News Presents: A Look Back at the Fukushima Daiichi Accident,” held yesterday was attended by more than 1,550 viewers and generated about 150 questions to the panelists. The attendance was the largest ever for an ANS webinar.
The panelists were Mike Corradini, emeritus professor, University of Wisconsin; Dale Klein, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Joy Rempe, principal, Rempe and Assoc. LLC; Lake Barrett, senior advisor, Tokyo Electric Power Company and Japan’s International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID); and Paul Dickman, senior policy fellow, Argonne National Laboratory.
The webinar’s recording and slides are available here, along with an e-version of the March issue of Nuclear News, which features a cover story on the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
Episode 22 of RadioNuclear is now available. In this episode, we discuss the recent miniseries "Chernobyl", which recently concluded on HBO. We debunk some of the more egregious articles written in the wake of the show (see links to these articles below). We also discuss good ways to engage with individuals who are captivated with the show, and not necessarily familiar with nuclear technology.
Our latest ANS Nuclear Cafe Matinee film is the latest video update by Southern Company on the progress of the Vogtle nuclear plant expansion. This video runs just over seven minutes and brings you the details of the construction as of the last quarter of 2018. Enjoy!
This column was initially published in the October 16, 2014, issue of Fuel Cycle Week and is republished here with permission.
Day 4 of the annual National Nuclear Science week is all about Nuclear Safety.
• This week the GE-Hitachi ESBWR design received its Design Certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
In August 2014, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved NUREG-2157, Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel. That action was the end result of several years worth of detailed analysis of the known and uncertain impacts of storing used nuclear fuel on the earth's surface in licensed and monitored facilities.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Allison Macfarlane today fielded questions from in-person and virtual attendees at a live, unscripted 60-minute webinar on nuclear energy issues. The event-"Bloggers' Roundtable"-was held in Washington, DC, and was a collaborative effort of the NRC and the American Nuclear Society. The webinar provided an opportunity for nuclear bloggers and social media personalities to discuss the NRC's perspectives on a wide range of nuclear-related issues.
The American Nuclear Society will host an online webinar for nuclear bloggers-an unscripted question-&-answer session with Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Allison Macfarlane-on Thursday, September 11, 2014, from 9 AM-10 AM Eastern Time
In April 2014, ANS Nuclear Cafe published a valuable historical account and analysis of the Three Mile Island accident titled TMI operators did what they were trained to do.
If a tornado just happens to come through... flying steel pipes, telephone poles, or even automobiles will be no match for this building. This is the new Watts Bar FLEX building, housing emergency backup equipment like generators and pumps that could be used to replace equipment in case of damage from a natural disaster. Watts Bar will likely be the first nuclear facility in the United States to comply with all the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's post-Fukushima requirements, as the Tennessee Valley Authority works toward licensing for Watts Bar Unit 2 with a target date of beginning commercial operation in December next year.
A United States appellate court recently handed down two long-awaited rulings with respect to Yucca Mountain. As most observers expected, both decisions were decidedly in nuclear's favor.
On October 23, The Oregonian newspaper ran an op-ed by Leslie March of the Sierra Club Nuclear-Free Campaign that questioned the independence of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Paul Lorenzini, co-founder of Oregon-based NuScale Power, submitted a rebuttal based on his many years of experience with regulators worldwide.
Shortly after the Obama administration unlawfully terminated the Yucca Mountain Project, three Washington State citizens (Robert L. Ferguson [the author], Bill Lampson, and Gary Petersen) filed suit to hold the President and his administration accountable to the law. Similar suits filed by Aiken County, South Carolina, and the states of Washington and South Carolina; the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners; and Nye County, Nevada, were combined into one lawsuit.
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station never threatened public health and safety. Unit 2 could have been restarted as soon as its scheduled outage was completed in February 2012. Unit 3 could have been restarted by mid-March 2012. The total cost of the repairs, including purchased replacement power, should have been less than $50 million and been covered by the manufacturer's warranty.
As I discussed last fall, a federal appeals court ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to perform more thorough evaluations in support of its new Waste Confidence Rule, particularly with respect to the potential impacts of long-term storage of spent fuel at plant sites. While those evaluations are being performed, the NRC has suspended all new plant licensing and plant license renewals.