In keeping with the ringing endorsement of nuclear energy it gave in January, the Czech Republic continues moving forward with plans for new reactor construction.
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The Canadian government has announced an investment of C$27.2 million (about $21.6 million) in Westinghouse Electric Canada to support the development of the company’s eVinci microreactor technology.
François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry, made the announcement on March 17 during a visit to the company’s Burlington, Ontario, facility.
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.
Bechtel and Westinghouse Electric Company on February 23 announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with GE Steam Power to explore opportunities in their joint pursuit of civil nuclear power projects in Poland.
The preferred site for Poland’s initial foray into nuclear power, chosen last December, is Lubiatowo-Kopalino, near the Baltic coast. Bechtel and Westinghouse are preparing a front-end engineering design for the site, supported by a grant from the United States Trade and Development Agency.
We’ve sifted through facts and statistics on nuclear power in Ukraine to offer some choice insights here. Want more international nuclear data? Check out the March 2022 Nuclear News Reference Issue.
Westinghouse Electric Company and Southern Nuclear have agreed to a plan to install four Westinghouse lead test assemblies in Vogtle-2, a 1,169-MWe pressurized water reactor located in Waynesboro, Ga. Four lead test assemblies containing uranium enriched up to 6 percent U-235 will be loaded in Vogtle-2 in 2023, marking the first time that fuel rods with uranium enriched above 5 percent U-235 are put in use in a U.S. commercial power reactor.
Designing a reactor is complicated but building one may be harder. Even companies that have had lots of practice haven’t always done it well. And all the power reactors in service today were built by companies that had years of experience in other kinds of big steam-electric power plants. In contrast, some of the creative new designs now moving toward commercialization come from start-ups that have never built anything at all. How should they prepare?
Westinghouse Electric Company has signed memorandums of understanding with seven companies in the Czech Republic. The MOUs, signed on January 13 at the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Prague, cover cooperation on the potential deployment of a Westinghouse AP1000 reactor at the Dukovany nuclear plant, as well as other potential AP1000 projects in Central Europe.
In a wide-ranging “program statement” laying out its policy priorities, the Czech Republic’s new, center-right government has endorsed nuclear energy and renewables and called for power generation from coal to be phased out by 2033.
The final version of the statement was released on January 7 by the five-party coalition government, sworn into office last month and led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala, head of the Civic Democratic Party.
This is the fifth of five articles 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 October-December time frame—please enjoy this recap from a busy year in the nuclear community.
Westinghouse Electric Company plans to expand operations at its Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility (CFFF), located in Hopkins, S.C., with an investment of $131 million over the next five years. The project, announced on December 15 by South Carolina governor Henry McMaster’s office, includes upgrades to equipment and procedures, as well as enhancements to the CFFF’s pollution prevention systems and controls. The investment will expand automation and digitalization at the facility, improving inspection capabilities and product quality, according to the governor's office. Westinghouse expects to complete the project by January 2026.
Westinghouse Electric Company has filed a pre-application regulatory engagement plan (REP) with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its eVinci microreactor, the company announced on Tuesday.
Delbert
This year’s recipient of ANS’s Darlene Schmidt Science News Award is Caroline Delbert, a contributor to the Popular Mechanics magazine and website. The Schmidt Award seeks out journalists and science writers who demonstrate keen effort to report on the work of professionals in the field of nuclear science and technology. In her writing for Popular Mechanics, Delbert regularly covers nuclear, with a focus on advanced reactor designs, fusion energy, nuclear space technology, and non-energy applications of nuclear technology and radiation. This year alone she has published dozens of articles on those topics, and thanks to Popular Mechanics’ cross-publishing across Esquire, Men’s Health, MSN, Yahoo! News, and other platforms, Delbert’s dispatches on nuclear science and technology have reached a wider audience than a nuclear energy beat reporter at a financial website or trade publication could ever reach.
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will increase its oversight of Vogtle-3—one of the two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors under construction at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Waynesboro, Ga.—after finalizing two inspection findings involving the unit’s safety-related electrical cable raceway system. Vogtle’s operator, Southern Nuclear, was informed of the decision in a November 17 letter.
The agency had launched a special inspection at Vogtle-3 in June of this year to determine the cause and extent of construction quality issues in the raceway system, which consists primarily of conduits and cable trays designed to prevent a single event from disabling redundant safety-related equipment.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued for public comment a draft environmental impact statement on NextEra Energy’s application for the subsequent license renewal of its Point Beach reactors, located in Two Rivers, Wis. Subsequent license renewal allows a reactor to operate for 20 years beyond the expiration of its original license renewal.
The nuclear industry’s first 100 percent accident tolerant fuel assembly is in operation at Exelon Generation’s Calvert Cliffs plant, the Department of Energy announced yesterday. The advanced fuel will operate in the reactor for the next four to six years and will be routinely inspected to monitor its performance, the DOE said.
Located in Lusby, Md., Calvert Cliffs houses two pressurized water reactors. Unit 1 is rated at 907 Mwe, and Unit 2 at 881 Mwe.
A recently completed feasibility study by Westinghouse Electric Company and Bruce Power concludes that the eVinci microreactor is capable of providing cost-competitive clean energy to decentralized, off-grid markets in Canada.
Here is a recap of industry happenings over the course of the past month:
ADVANCED REACTORS MARKETPLACE
Terrestrial Energy and Cameco examine partnership for deploying IMSR Generation IV nuclear power plants
The Department of Energy is providing $50 million in a cost-sharing project with Exelon Generation to digitalize the control room at the company’s Limerick nuclear power plant, the department announced yesterday. Once implemented, the facility will house the first fully digital safety system upgrade at a U.S. nuclear power plant.
ANS Fellows hold the highest grade of membership in the Society. Five new Fellows will be recognized during the opening plenary session of the upcoming 2021 ANS Winter Meeting.