ANS Nuclear Cafe

The ANS Nuclear Cafe is a blog owned and edited by the American Nuclear Society. Information contained on the ANS Nuclear Cafe has been provided by numerous sources. Therefore, the American Nuclear Society assumes no responsibility or liability for the accuracy of information contained herein. DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in posted articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Nuclear Society. The views expressed here are those of the individual authors. ANS takes no ownership of their views. The American Nuclear Society assumes no responsibility or liability for any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained on this site.


Responding to System Demand II: Extreme Scenarios

December 14, 2014, 3:12PMANS Nuclear CafeWill Davis

Gravelines Units 1 through 6, France.  Image courtesy AREVA USA.

Gravelines Units 1 through 6, France. Image courtesy AREVA USA.

The continued introduction of renewables onto the electric grid in the United States is ensuring that discussion of whether or not these assets can be integrated with existing or expected designs of other sources continues. In this discussion, nuclear energy is often wrongly described as "on or off"-but in fact, nuclear plants can and do load follow (respond to changing system demands) although it's a matter of both design and owner utilization-with a focus on economics-that determines if or when any actually do.

Reporting An "Incident" As An "Accident"

December 4, 2014, 9:27PMANS Nuclear CafeWill Davis

Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Station, Ukraine

On November 28, 2014, "Block 3" (or the third unit) at the massive Zaporizhia Nuclear Generating Station in Ukraine experienced a fault in electrical transmission equipment outside the nuclear portion of the plant itself. This fault essentially caused the 1000-MW rated nuclear plant to have nowhere to send that large amount of power it was generating, per its design. The nuclear plant tripped off its turbine generator (opening its output breakers) and scrammed the reactor. In the world of power generating equipment anywhere, no matter the power source, this type of event is fairly common. This scenario is possible when severe storms play havoc with the grid during intense lightning.

NRC Releases Yucca Post Closure Safety Evaluation Report (finally)

November 18, 2014, 6:35PMANS Nuclear CafeJim Hopf

hopf1Last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission finally released Volume 3 of the Safety Evaluation Report (SER) for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. This volume covers the post-closure evaluation of the repository, and includes all of the analyses that show that the repository will meet the stringent waste material containment requirements over the evaluated one million year period. Other volumes, which cover other areas of repository design (e.g., surface facilities, etc..), have yet to be released.

Thorium shines brightly at ANS Winter Meeting

November 14, 2014, 9:25PMANS Nuclear CafeWill Davis

I have generally been quite a skeptic about thorium as a source of nuclear fuel. Although I know that thorium was tried in the fuel at two very early commercial power reactors in the United States (Elk River, and Indian Point-1), the idea did not take off. The proposals to use thorium in fluid fuel reactors were far less successful, with none moving beyond the prototype stage. Even given the low success rate, it still remains that the use of thorium is promising.

Prompt Action Needed by ANS Members on EPA Clean Power Rule

November 7, 2014, 4:20PMANS Nuclear CafeWill Davis

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ANS President Dr. Michaele Brady Raap

American Nuclear Society President Michaele Brady Raap has released a letter calling ANS members to action-and by "action," she means making comments to the Environmental Protection Agency on its Clean Power Rule. According to Brady Raap, "the rule as it is currently structured would almost entirely discount the clean energy contributions of our current nuclear energy facilities and effectively penalize states that have new plants under construction."