IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi traveled to Antalya, Turkey, on March 10 to meet with Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss the safety and security of Ukraine's nuclear facilities. After returning to Vienna, Grossi held a press conference at which he said that a “common denominator” had emerged from the discussions and that both sides agree that something needs to be done. “They are both ready to work and to engage with the IAEA,” he said. “So this is a very important building block.”

Today’s #ThrowbackThursday post looks back at some of Nuclear News’s reporting on the Fukushima Daiichi accident, which was initiated 11 years ago tomorrow. The news reporting includes the initial coverage of the event from the pages of Nuclear News in April 2011 and the in-depth coverage of the 2011 ANS Annual Meeting, where special sessions focused on the accident.

Statement from American Nuclear Society President Steven Nesbit and Executive Director and CEO Craig Piercy:

“There is a reported ongoing loss of grid power at the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone as a result of damaged transmission lines. This loss of power is a serious matter, but it does not pose a threat to the public.

The events of the past 12 days are unprecedented and nerve-wracking for the nuclear community. Never before has a nuclear power plant been in a full-scale war zone until the Russian invasion of Ukraine started on February 24. The world watched nervously as Russian troops and heavy equipment rolled through the Chernobyl site and then a week later attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Russian forces are now less than 50 kilometers from the South Ukraine nuclear power plant.

Statement from American Nuclear Society President Steven Nesbit and Executive Director and CEO Craig Piercy:

Statement from American Nuclear Society President Steven Nesbit and Executive Director and CEO Craig Piercy:

Statement from American Nuclear Society President Steven Nesbit and Executive Director and CEO Craig Piercy:

Statement from American Nuclear Society President Steven Nesbit and Executive Director and CEO Craig Piercy:

The brave nuclear professionals of Ukraine and their families need support from the international community as they continue to safely operate their country’s nuclear fleet during the Russian invasion. In response to this need, ANS has set up the Ukrainian Nuclear Workers Humanitarian Fund to support the nuclear community in Ukraine.

"We stand in awe of the bravery and resolution displayed by the Ukrainian people,” ANS President Steven Nesbit said. “We need to do what we can to help our fellow nuclear professionals and their families across the globe as they deal with a situation no one should have to face."

The American Nuclear Society (ANS) has launched a humanitarian relief fund to help Ukraine’s nuclear professionals and their families impacted by the military invasion of their country.

Denying a Russian claim of control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Energoatom earlier today declared that “Russian propaganda media reports that the invaders allegedly took control of the Zaporizhzhia NPP are a cynical fake.” According to Energoatom, all four of its nuclear power plants are under the control of Ukraine and are operating normally with enhanced defenses.

Statement from American Nuclear Society President Steven Nesbit and Executive Director and CEO Craig Piercy:

Russian forces invaded Ukraine today in what news sources are calling the largest military attack of one state against another on the European continent since World War II. These developing events follow an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission in Brussels on February 22, when NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia’s recent actions constituted “serious escalation” of tensions in the region and that Russia had shifted from covert attempts to destabilize Ukraine to overt military action. Well before this juncture was reached, news outlets had questioned the readiness of Ukraine’s nuclear power fleet to operate safely in a country at war and ensure energy security, while Energoatom, which operates all of Ukraine’s nuclear power reactors, has issued assurances of safety and security.

This is the second of five articles to be posted today to look back at the top news stories of 2021 for the nuclear community. The full article, "Looking back at 2021,"was published in the January 2022 issue of Nuclear News.

Quite a year was 2021. In the following stories, we have compiled what we feel are the past year’s top news stories from the January-March time frame—please enjoy this recap from a busy year in the nuclear community.

• Click here to see the first article in the series.

On his blog, Neutron Bytes, ANS member Dan Yurman lays out two proposals for saving the Versatile Test Reactor.

The Department of Energy has plans to build the VTR at Idaho National Laboratory, but federal funding for the project may have dried up.

Mies

Graham

An article written by national security experts Thomas Graham Jr. and Richard W. Mies, published online in The National Interest on August 3, argues that a recent move by the House Appropriations Committee to zero out the budget for the Versatile Test Reactor “has grave ramifications for U.S. national security and the fight against climate change.” Funding and building the VTR would present an opportunity for the United States to regain its leadership role in nuclear reactor designs and fuel, Graham and Mies assert.

Former ambassador Graham is chairman of the board of Lightbridge Corporation and former general counsel and acting director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Retired admiral Mies served as the fourth commander in chief of U.S. Strategic Command. Graham and Mies serve as cochairs of the Atlantic Council’s Nuclear Energy and National Security Coalition. Select excerpts from their article are provided here.

Key facilities at a multipurpose nuclear research center in the high plains of Bolivia are nearing operation, and a ceremonial first concrete pour for the nuclear research reactor that will serve as the centerpiece of the project was held on July 26. Bolivian president Luis Arce attended the ceremony at the Center for Nuclear Technology Research and Development (CNTRD). Also attending were Kirill Komarov, first deputy director general for corporate development and international business at Rosatom (Russia’s state atomic energy agency), and authorities from the Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energies and the Bolivian Nuclear Energy Agency (ABEN).

Iraq is reportedly talking with Russia and France while also reaching out to the United States to discuss the prospect of building nuclear reactors for civil application, according to an article published last week by Nuclear Engineering International (NE International).

China will have the world's largest nuclear power fleet within a decade, an International Energy Agency official noted during a session at the High-Level Workshop on Nuclear Power in Clean Energy Transitions, World Nuclear News reported on March 3.

The workshop was held jointly by the IEA and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The IEA official, Brent Wanner, head of Power Sector Modelling & Analysis for the agency's World Energy Outlook publication, said that as nuclear fleets in the United States, Canada, and Japan reach their original design lifetimes, decisions will have to be made about what will happen after that. Absent license renewals, the contribution of nuclear power could decline substantially in those countries while China’s reactor building program will boost it into the first position.

Technicians loading the first reactor aboard the Akademik Lomonosov, Russia's floating nuclear power plant. Credit: Rosatom.

The Bellona news site is reporting that Rosatom is marketing its floating nuclear power plants to foreign countries. The news item noted on December 14 that Russia’s Tass newswire had published the information, citing government statements. Rosatom is Russia’s state nuclear corporation.

“Rosatom has made proposals for the installation of floating units to a number of foreign countries,” Yury Trutnev, a deputy prime minister and presidential representative to Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District, said earlier this month, according to Tass. “It’s clear that one unit is not enough for us to sell such modules. Their future replication would open a possibility for Russia to open a market niche where there currently is no one.”