In December 2022, UCC UK became the first nuclear diving company in more than 60 years to enter Sellafield’s PFSP. (Photo: Sellafield Ltd.)

Underwater Construction Corporation (UCC) UK Ltd. announced that it has recently completed a nuclear diving pilot project at the Pile Fuel Storage Pond (PFSP) at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria, England. UCC UK said the project marks a significant decommissioning milestone for Sellafield, demonstrating the capability of the company’s methods and equipment to remediate the legacy nuclear pond while limiting worker dose.

The oldest pool on the Sellafield site, the PFSP was constructed between the late 1940s and early 1950s as a storage and cooling facility for irradiated fuel and isotopes from the two Windscale reactors and was in full operation until 1962. Then through the mid-1970s, the pond facility, one of six on the site, was used for storage of intermediate-level waste and fuel from the U.K. nuclear program.

The challenges of climate change are bringing nuclear energy back into focus. Even in Germany, which decided on a general nuclear phaseout in 2011 as a response to the Fukushima disaster that year, nuclear energy is again being discussed as a bridging technology. Compared with fossil fuels, nuclear saves considerable greenhouse gases. However, for a holistic view of CO₂ emissions from power plants, the procurement, maintenance, and repair of plant components must also be considered. At the very least, the CO₂ emissions caused by the high costs of testing and maintaining a nuclear power plant can be reduced.

Startup company Last Energy has announced power purchase agreements for 34 units of its 20-MWe nuclear power plants with four industrial partners in Poland and the United Kingdom. In total, according to the company, the deals represent more than $18.9 billion in electricity sales.

Since its formation in 2005, the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has been tasked with ensuring that the U.K.’s nuclear legacy sites are decommissioned and cleaned up safely, securely, cost-effectively, and in ways that protect the people and the environment.

The second of three machines that will be used to safely remove waste from the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo at the Sellafield nuclear site in the United Kingdom has successfully been assembled, it was announced by Sellafield Ltd., a subsidiary of the U.K. government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

A video showing how waste is removed and the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo prepared for decommissioning has been posted to YouTube and can be found here.

The U.K. Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and Tokamak Energy announced on October 10 that they signed a framework agreement to collaborate on developing spherical tokamaks for power production. This news is a complement to last week’s announcement from the U.K. government that the West Burton A coal-fired power plant site in Nottinghamshire has been selected as the future home of STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production), the U.K.’s planned prototype fusion energy plant. The government is providing £220 million (about $250 million) of funding for the first phase of STEP, which will see the UKAEA produce a concept design by 2024.

Future fusion energy facilities will continue to be regulated by the Environment Agency (EA) and Health & Safety Executive (HSE), the U.K. government announced June 20, and existing law on nuclear regulations will be amended to exclude fusion energy facilities from nuclear fission regulatory and licensing requirements. The move was announced by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) with the expectation it would provide “clarity to developers of prototype/demonstration fusion facilities currently being planned to support rapid commercialization.”

Europeans are taking resolute steps to reduce their output of climate-changing gases, but some countries are moving in the wrong direction.

Many countries are adding solar and wind, which are low-carbon energy sources. Some have moved to biomass, the value of which as a climate cure is not clear. A few are adding reactors, while others are defining nuclear as dirty energy and natural gas as “clean” and are changing their generation mix accordingly.

Westinghouse Electric Company and nuclear waste management company Perma-Fix Environmental Services plan to jointly develop a state-of-the-art advanced materials treatment facility in the United Kingdom. During the 2022 Waste Management Symposia, held last week in Phoenix, Ariz., the two companies signed a nonbinding agreement to cooperate on a facility that will provide low-level radioactive waste treatment services to the European market.

Three factors will drive nuclear exports: energy security, decarbonization, and geopolitics. Recent power prices in Europe, coupled with the situation in Ukraine, demonstrate the interplay of all three factors. Nuclear exports have to be viewed in the context of the current geopolitical climate, particularly relative to Russian and Chinese competitive offerings. Finally, the critical importance of nuclear energy in meeting global decarbonization efforts can be a driving force for exports, further enhanced by the inclusion of nuclear energy in clean/green taxonomies and the accompanying support from the ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investor community.

The government of the United Kingdom on January 31 announced the launch of Nuclear Waste Services. The new organization brings together site operator Low Level Waste Repository Limited, geological disposal facility developer Radioactive Waste Management Limited, and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s (NDA) Integrated Waste Management Program.

According to the U.K. government, Nuclear Waste Services will maintain current commitments to the Low-Level Waste Repository in West Cumbria, the geological disposal facility program, and the communities involved with both, while also creating a business with the capability to manage U.K. nuclear waste “safely and securely for generations to come.”

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.

Nuclear power provided about 70 percent of the electricity for the COP26 meeting in Glasgow on Tuesday, according to data from National Grid’s Carbon Intensity API.

Nuclear output from the Torness and Hunterston B power plants, supported by wind power, gave the southern Scotland region, which includes Glasgow, the lowest carbon electricity in the United Kingdom. Other parts of the country, which lack nuclear and renewable capacity, had to burn coal and gas to meet most of their electricity demand.

The United Kingdom has announced a shortlist of five sites as the potential future home of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA) prototype fusion energy plant, the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP). A final decision on the plant’s location is to be made by the U.K.’s secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy around the end of 2022.

Only a few of the more than 3,000 radioisotopes that scientists have synthesized in the laboratory are regularly used in diagnostic or therapeutic medicine. One significant barrier to the development of new medical radioisotopes is the difficulty of gaining access to radionuclides during the early stages of development and research. PRISMAP is a new medical radionuclide program designed to streamline that access for medical research in the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Inside a new steel-clad facility nicknamed “The Citadel,” First Light Fusion has installed a 22-meter two-stage gas gun—the third-largest such component in Europe.