Power & Operations


TVA's OIG spots “high” risks in Sequoyah chemistry program

July 14, 2021, 9:30AMNuclear News
Sequoyah nuclear power plant (Photo: Photorush/Wikimedia Commons)

In an evaluation report released last week on the Sequoyah nuclear plant’s chemistry/environmental program, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Office of the Inspector General identified certain risks, both behavioral and operational, that could impact organizational effectiveness. Program behavior was assessed from interviews and field work conducted from September 21 through November 3, 2020, with operations assessed in February of this year.

PJM board okays plan to ease concerns with MOPR ruling

July 14, 2021, 6:59AMNuclear News
Map of the PJM Interconnection territory in dark blue. Image: PJM

PJM Interconnection’s board of managers has approved the grid operator’s proposal to address the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s controversial December 2019 minimum offer price rule (MOPR) order affecting PJM’s forward-looking capacity auctions. (PJM operates the largest wholesale competitive electricity market in the country.)

Communicating about radiation in the 21st century

July 8, 2021, 9:27AMNuclear NewsPaul A. Locke

Locke

It might seem odd to begin a discussion about radiation risk communication with a title that references the 21st century. Simple math tells us that more than 20 percent of the 21st century is in our rearview mirror. Still, today we are relying on many of the concepts and ideas about communication that were developed decades ago. Using dated techniques for outreach about radiation hinders efforts to engage communities and the public in a discussion about the risks and benefits of technologies that use radiation sources.

Several years ago, I visited the Hanford Site’s B Reactor. I also toured an operating nuclear power plant that is currently part of the U.S. fleet, and I have learned about the design and operation of advanced small modular reactors. The evolution in reactor designs represented by these three technologies demonstrates that a culture of innovation and research delivers success. The nuclear industry is now, and continues to be, forward-looking as power generation, cleanup, and worker protection become advanced and are made safer, more efficient, and ready for the future.

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Construction permit application for Egyptian reactors submitted

July 6, 2021, 12:59PMNuclear News

Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) has applied to the Egyptian Nuclear and Radiological Regulation Authority (ENRRA) for a construction permit to begin building the first two of four proposed Russian-designed and -supplied reactors at Egypt’s El Dabaa site.

Nuclear power as the missing piece of the climate change solution

July 6, 2021, 7:08AMANS Nuclear Cafe
(Image: CNET)

Dietmar Detering, a German entrepreneur and cochair of the advocacy organization Nuclear New York, believes nuclear energy could be the key to solving the climate crisis. He's part of a wave of environmentalists campaigning for more nuclear energy, an idea explored by CNET in the July 1 article, Is nuclear power the missing piece of our climate change puzzle?

EDF and ENEC to partner on nuclear R&D

July 1, 2021, 9:34AMNuclear News
Laurent Clement, EDF Middle East chief executive officer (seated, left), and Ahmed Al Mazrouei, ENEC vice president of R&D (seated, right), sign a letter of intent on June 30 to cooperate on nuclear R&D. Looking on are Hervé Maillart, head coordinator of the French nuclear industry at EDF (left), and ENEC CEO Mohamed Al Hammadi. (Photo: ENEC)

Électricité de France has signed a letter of intent with the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation to develop a memorandum of understanding for cooperation on research and development in the nuclear energy sector.

Unit 5 construction begins at Kudankulam

July 1, 2021, 7:03AMNuclear News
India’s Kudankulam plant, during the June 29 Unit 5 construction launch ceremony. Photo: Rosatom

Work on the third phase of the multi-reactor project at India’s Kudankulam nuclear power plant formally commenced earlier this week with the first pouring of concrete into the foundation plate of the Unit 5 reactor building.

Featured speakers announced for upcoming UWC

June 30, 2021, 9:29AMANS News
Featured speakers: From left, Elnitsky, Tsipursky, Baranwal, and Cullen.

Attend the 2021 ANS Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo, being held August 8–11 in Marco Island, Fla., and hear from some of the leading executives in the nuclear energy field.

Registration details: Register now for the UWC. Sign up by July 15 to save $150. Members save an additional $200. Not a member? Join today.

Romania ratifies Cernavoda deal with U.S.

June 29, 2021, 12:00PMNuclear News
The Cernavoda plant, in southeastern Romania. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Zlatko Krastev

Romania has ratified a draft intergovernmental agreement signed in 2020 with the United States on cooperation in the field of nuclear energy. Initialed last October by Romania’s energy minister, Virgil Popescu, and the then U.S. energy secretary Dan Brouillette, the agreement, reportedly worth some $8 billion, calls for cooperation on completing the construction of Units 3 and 4 at Romania’s Cernavoda nuclear power plant, as well as the refurbishment of Unit 1. The European Commission gave its nod to the agreement last November.

IAEA releases nuclear power status data for 2020

June 28, 2021, 9:29AMNuclear News
Image: IAEA

The International Atomic Energy Agency last week released its annual nuclear power status data, collected by the Power Reactor Information System (PRIS), the agency’s publicly available nuclear power database.

According to the IAEA’s data summary, nuclear power in 2020 played an important role as an adaptable and reliable supplier of electricity during the pandemic.

Special inspection begins at Vogtle-3

June 23, 2021, 12:01PMNuclear News
Vogtle’s Unit 3, earlier this month. Photo: Georgia Power

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has launched a special inspection at the Vogtle new-build site to identify the errors that necessitated construction remediation work on Unit 3’s electrical cable raceway system.

Duke files SLR application for Oconee

June 23, 2021, 9:30AMNuclear News
Aerial view of Oconee Nuclear Station (Photo: ©Duke Energy)

Duke Energy has filed a subsequent license renewal (SLR) application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the Oconee nuclear plant reactors, the Charlotte, N.C.–based utility announced on June 21.

2020 enforcement cases rise but still below five-year average

June 22, 2021, 9:29AMNuclear News

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently released its Enforcement Program Annual Report for calendar year 2020, showing a total of 61 escalated enforcement actions taken last year against licensees, non-licensees, and individuals—an increase of 7 percent from CY 2019, but a number that remains below the five-year (2016–2020) average.

Exelon files to deactivate the Byron reactors

June 18, 2021, 12:06PMUpdated June 18, 2021, 4:50PMNuclear News
The Byron nuclear power plant.

Exelon on June 16 filed with grid operator PJM Interconnection to deactivate the two Byron reactors in Illinois. The move came one day after the Illinois Senate adjourned without reaching an agreement on a comprehensive energy package that would have provided nearly $700 million to keep Byron’s reactors, as well as Exelon’s Dresden and Braidwood nuclear power plants, in operation. (In August of 2020, Exelon announced that it would close the economically challenged Byron and Dresden facilities in the fall of 2021 without some form of state aid to provide compensation for their clean power.) The state’s House of Representatives also adjourned earlier this week without taking up the bill.

Online monitoring technology to extend calibration intervals of nuclear plant pressure transmitters

June 18, 2021, 1:55PMNuclear NewsH. M. Hashemian

Online monitoring (OLM) technology can be used in nuclear power plants as an analytical tool to measure sensor drift during plant operation and thereby identify the sensors whose calibration must be checked physically during an outage. The technology involves a procedure to (1) retrieve redundant sensor measurements from the process computer or through a separate data acquisition system, (2) calculate the average of these measurements and the deviation of each sensor from the average, and (3) identify any sensor that has deviated beyond its predetermined monitoring limit.

2021 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting: CEO roundtable

June 18, 2021, 9:37AMNuclear News

The 2021 ANS Annual Meeting brought together three leading chief executive officers from the nuclear industry on June 16 for a discussion centered on the future role of nuclear energy deployment and the challenges of portfolio management during a time of net-zero carbon goals.

No deal yet in Illinois for Exelon nuclear plants

June 17, 2021, 12:00PMANS Nuclear Cafe

The Illinois Senate adjourned on June 15 without calling a comprehensive energy regulatory reform package for a vote, Capitol News Illinois reported. State Sen. Bill Cunningham (D., Chicago) and Senate president Don Harmon (D., Oak Park) said afterward that they expect a vote to happen sometime this summer as negotiations continue.

Fees amended for NRC licensees

June 17, 2021, 7:01AMNuclear News

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published notice in the Federal Register of a final rule amending the licensing, inspection, special projects, and annual fees to be charged to the agency’s applicants and licensees for fiscal year 2021. The rule goes into effect August 16.