Power & Operations

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently announced that it will begin reviewing most of the standard design approval (SDA) application for NuScale Power’s uprated small modular reactor technology, with the remainder of the review on hold until the company provides additional details on a key safety topic.

A recurring leak of water containing tritium has led to the temporary shutdown of Xcel Energy's Monticello nuclear power plant, in Minnesota.

“While the leak continues to pose no risk to the public or the environment, we determined the best course of action is to power down the plant and perform the permanent repairs immediately,” said Chris Clark, president of Xcel Energy–Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, in a March 23 news release. “We are continuing to work with and inform our state, federal, city, and county leaders in the process.”

Powering down the reactor to shutdown condition started last Friday.

The development of human society and technology is closely correlated to the means of energy acquisition, utilization method, efficiency, and spectrum of applications. High quality of life and sustainable socioeconomic development require a sustainable and reliable energy supply. Wealth, health, food, water, infrastructure, education, and even life expectancy itself strongly correlate with the consumption of energy per capita. Having an adequate, reliable, affordable, eco-friendly, and sustainable supply of energy is becoming more crucial for economic development and improving human well-being.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold four hybrid meetings around the United States as it seeks comment on a proposed rule to update its license renewal generic environmental impact statement (GEIS).

“I’m glad you came to our party!” said GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) chief nuclear officer Nicole Holmes as she prepared to announce that Wilmington, N.C.–based GEH will develop a standard design for its BWRX-300 boiling water small modular reactor with not one but three power producers representing three countries: Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Ontario Power Generation (OPG), and Synthos Green Energy (SGE). Celebration was a theme throughout the March 23 event held in Washington, D.C., which was flush with dignitaries representing the United States, Canada, and Poland.

According to a new study conducted by the economics consulting firm Analysis Group, “Massachusetts utilities could save their customers $880 million to more than $2 billion by 2032 by entering into a long-term power purchase contract with the Seabrook Station nuclear plant.” The study, Economic and Environmental Benefits to Massachusetts from the Operation of the Seabrook Nuclear Plant, also found that operation of the plant through 2032 is expected to contribute as much as $2.9 billion to the state’s economy and reduce regional greenhouse gas emissions by 5 million tons per year.

Hunt

In his spring 2023 budget speech to the House of Commons last Wednesday, U.K. chancellor of the exchequer Jeremy Hunt confirmed that, subject to consultation, nuclear power will be classified as environmentally sustainable in the U.K. green taxonomy, providing potential private investors in nuclear projects access to the same incentives currently enjoyed by investors in renewables. (Last year, the European Union added nuclear and natural gas to the list of green technologies covered by its taxonomy, but only on a transitional basis under what the European Commission termed “clear and strict conditions.”)

“We have increased the proportion of electricity generated from renewables from under 10 percent to nearly 40 percent,” Hunt declared. “But because the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, we will need another critical source of cheap and reliable energy. And that is nuclear.”

Tsai

The antinuclear energy policies of Taiwanese president Ing-wen Tsai, of Taiwan’s republic’s Democratic Progressive Party, stoked controversy on March 14 when the nation’s Kuosheng-2 nuclear power plant was taken off line to be decommissioned. Minister of economic affairs Mei-hua Wang, who oversees the state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower), claimed that the shutdown will not affect power supply because it will be offset by hydroelectric power, as well as gas- and coal-fired power plants. However, objectors to the shutdown claim the possibility of electricity blackouts, with opposition legislator I-ding Wu, of the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist) Party, countering that renewable energy would be insufficient to meet Taiwan’s energy needs and that fossil fuels are “dirtier” and “more expensive.”

Nuclear-free homeland: Tsai came to office in 2016, promising to make Taiwan a “nuclear-free homeland” by 2025 by decommissioning all six of its operable nuclear reactors when their 40-year operating licenses expired.

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s (GEH’s) BWRX-300 technology has completed phases 1 and 2 of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s vendor design review (VDR) process, the Wilmington, N.C.–based company announced yesterday.

EDF Energy, owner and operator of the United Kingdom’s nuclear reactor fleet, announced last week that it intends to keep its Hartlepool and Heysham 1 stations in operation to March 2026—two years past their previously scheduled 2024 retirement dates. EDF added that an additional 12 months of operation beyond 2026 is being contemplated.

NuScale Power, the Portland, Ore.–based small modular reactor developer, announced last week that it has placed the first upper reactor pressure vessel (RPV) long-lead material (LLM) production order with South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility.

Proponents of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant received the heartening news on March 2 that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had granted a “timely renewal” exemption to allow the plant to continue operating while its new license renewal application was under review. The exemption came after the NRC denied in January plant owner Pacific Gas & Electric’s request for the agency to resume review of its original license renewal application.

X-energy, the Rockville, Md.–based small modular reactor developer, has announced its plan to open the first Xe-100 reactor fleet management, monitoring, and training facility—the Plant Support Center–East (PCSE)—in the fourth quarter of this year.

A nuclear-powered hydrogen production facility has commenced operation at Constellation Energy’s Nine Mile Point plant, the company announced this week. The facility is the first of its kind in the United States to generate hydrogen using nuclear power, courtesy of the New York plant’s two boiling water reactors, the 620-MWe Unit 1 and 1,287-MWe Unit 2.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted for review Northern States Power Company’s subsequent license renewal application for its Monticello nuclear power plant. A notice of the agency’s decision, along with information on requests for a hearing in the matter, was published in the March 3 Federal Register.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced last Friday the issuance of 2022 assessment letters to operators of the nation’s commercial nuclear reactors, noting that of the 93 units in the agency’s Reactor Oversight Process, 87 “reached the highest performance category in safety and security,” known as Licensee Response.

Women including Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Lise Meitner, Chien-Shiung Wu, and Katharine Way were key pioneers in nuclear science and technology, but today the visibility of women in the nuclear sector remains low. Women make up just one-quarter of people employed in the nuclear sector, and for STEM positions in that field specifically, they make up just one-fifth of the workforce. About 8,000 of those women responded to an a survey from the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, and their responses have been captured in Gender Balance in the Nuclear Sector, a new report from the OECD NEA.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published a proposed rule that would update its generic environmental impact statement for license renewal of nuclear plants (LR GEIS).

Unit 3 at the Vogtle nuclear power plant has achieved initial criticality, Georgia Power announced yesterday. A key milestone on the way to the reactor’s commercial operation, initial criticality demonstrates that operators have safely started, for the first time, the nuclear reaction inside the unit. (Fuel loading at Vogtle-3 began last October.)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted Pacific Gas & Electric a “timely renewal” exemption so the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant can continue operating while its license renewal application is under review, it was announced yesterday. This new decision clears a major regulatory hurdle to extending the operating license of the Units 1 and 2 beyond their original closure dates of 2024 and 2025, respectively.