Nuclear News

Rezin

Pritzker

Nuclear advocates may have applauded Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker two years ago when he signed legislation providing $694 million to three of the state’s struggling nuclear power plants, but they’re hissing him now: On Friday, Pritzker vetoed S.B. 76, a bill that would have lifted the state’s decades-old moratorium on new nuclear power plant construction.

Introduced in January by Sen. Sue Rezin (R., 38th Dist.), S.B. 76 called for deleting language in the Illinois Public Utilities Act that forbids nuclear plant construction in the state until the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency determines that the federal government “has identified and approved a demonstrable technology or means for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste, or until such construction has been specifically approved by a statute enacted by the General Assembly.”

As global concerns about climate change and energy sustainability intensify, the need for cleaner and more efficient energy sources is more critical than ever. Nuclear power consistently emerges as an important part of the solution, driving the development of innovative technologies. While numerous fission technologies were built and proven in the early days of nuclear energy, times and regulations have changed. Between the 1950s and mid-1970s, Idaho National Laboratory built 52 reactors—then paused for five decades. Can this nation return to the frontier once again, embarking on new fission technologies? With a mature regulatory environment and increasing public support, how quickly can a new non–light water system be deployed in modern times?

The International Atomic Energy Agency has carried out the first mission of its Disused Sealed Radioactive Sources Technical Centre peer review service, or DSRS TeC, at the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT) in Bangkok. Held July 18–21, the inaugural mission was supported by funds from the United States.

General Fusion announced on August 9 that it will build a fusion machine called Lawson Machine 26 (LM26) at the company’s new headquarters in the city of Richmond, British Columbia, near Vancouver. The machine is intended to achieve fusion conditions of over 100 million degrees Celsius by 2025 and progress toward scientific breakeven by 2026 to support the company’s vision of commercial fusion energy by the early to mid-2030s.

More than 700 registered attendees descended on Florida’s Marco Island for the ANS Utility Working Conference this week, with many traveling through a wave of severe storms to get there—a fitting start to a meeting themed “Building Resiliency in a Rapidly Changing World.”

Three days of panels and educational sessions formally opened on Monday, August 7, with a plenary on “The Nuclear Industry’s State of Resiliency” featuring three invited speakers: Annie Caputo, NRC commissioner; Bob Willard, president and chief executive officer of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations; and Jeff Lyash, president and CEO of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Matthew Rasmussen, general chair of the UWC and senior vice president for engineering and operations support at TVA, introduced the speakers following opening remarks from ANS President Kenneth Petersen and ANS Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy. Together, the plenary speakers pointed to challenges ahead in ensuring effective leadership, nuclear plant resilience, and energy security—and found cause for celebration in the recent and long-awaited announcement of commercial operation at Vogtle-3.

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site has introduced its newest team members, Dee and Freda, two highly skilled explosive-detecting K-9 officers. The police dogs will work with Richland Operations Office contractor Hanford Mission Integration Solutions to help ensure the safety and security of the legacy nuclear reservation near Richland, Wash.

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) has issued a final report to the Swedish government regarding its investigation into how the regulatory framework for the country’s nuclear power might be improved.

Young members have always been an asset to the American Nuclear Society, attending the Annual and Winter Meetings; joining Society divisions, groups, and student sections; and leading their own events and webinars. ANS would like to highlight some of its young members for their contributions to bringing nuclear energy to the larger world beyond our industry.

Unit 6 at the Bruce nuclear power plant in Kincardine, Ontario, achieved a sustained fission chain reaction over the weekend—a key step in returning the 817-MWe CANDU reactor to commercial operation, Bruce Power announced yesterday.

Here is a recap of industry happenings over the past month:

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

International SMR collaboration launched

The nine member states of the International Nuclear Regulators’ Association (INRA)—Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States—have agreed to collaborate on the generic design assessment and licensing of small modular reactor technologies. According to a statement released by the organization, the internationally standardized reactor designs would aid in the facilitation of efficient regulatory reviews, although local issues such as siting and environmental factors must be addressed by national regulatory agencies. The INRA members expressed their support for the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Nuclear Harmonisation and Standards Initiative, but they stressed that independent, national regulatory reviews should not be replaced by an international approach.

Łukasz Młynarkiewicz (left), acting president of PEJ, and Krzysztof Zaremba, rector of the Warsaw University of Technology, signed an agreement on August 7 regarding the training of personnel for Poland’s nuclear energy program. (Photo: Warsaw University of Technology)

Polskie Elektrownie Jądrowe (PEJ), the state-owned firm set up to lead Poland’s efforts to establish a civil nuclear power program, signed an agreement yesterday with the Warsaw University of Technology to cooperate on the training of personnel for the nuclear sector.

The agreement provides for “substantive and research cooperation” as well as “cooperation in the development and implementation of scholarship programs [and] co-organization of competitions for scientific works or design competitions,” PEJ said in a news release. PEJ and the university will also work together on a curriculum to enable graduates to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to find employment in the nuclear energy field, the company added.

According to Poland’s Ministry of Climate and Environment, there are already some 80 companies operating in the Central European nation that provide services to nuclear technology vendors worldwide, with another 300 ready to join the nuclear supply chain.

Three college interns from the Savannah River Site were the keynote speakers at a recent Up & Atom Breakfast hosted by Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness (CNTA). The breakfast was held at Newberry Hall in Aiken, S.C.

In Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), the deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion reaction ³H(d,n)⁴He, enhanced by the 3/2⁺ “Bretscher resonance,” is responsible for 99 percent of primordial helium-4. While this fact has been known for decades, it has not been widely appreciated. The importance of the resonant nature of the DT fusion reaction has been amplified by recent activities related to the production and use of terrestrial fusion, including the recent net-gain shot at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Here, we aim to highlight the anthropic importance of the ⁴He-producing DT reaction that plays such a prominent role in models of nucleosynthetic processes occurring in the early universe. This primordial helium serves as a source for the subsequent creation of more than 25 percent of the carbon (¹²C) and other heavier elements that compose a substantial fraction of the human body. Further studies are required to determine a better characterization of the amount of ¹²C than this lower limit of 25 percent. Some scenarios of core stellar nucleosynthetic yield of ¹²C suggest that even higher percentages of carbon from primordial helium are possible.

Canadian nuclear tech firm Terrestrial Energy has signed a manufacturing and supply contract with Springfields Fuels Limited—a Britain–based subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Company—for the design and construction of an Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) fuel pilot plant.

In an August 3 press release, Terrestrial said that Springfields’ reactor fuel manufacturing facility has extensive existing infrastructure available to support the fuel supply for IMSR development and is scalable to support a fleet of IMSR plants operating in the 2030s. Located near Preston, Lancashire in northwestern England, the Springfields facility is the only site in the United Kingdom for nuclear fuel manufacturing.

U.S. Congressman Chuck Fleischmann (R., Tenn.) speaks at the ETEC NOW Conference in Knoxville. (Photo: Type One Energy

Type One Energy Group, a Madison, Wis. –based stellarator fusion energy company, announced the opening of new offices in Oak Ridge, Tenn., during the East Tennessee Economic Council’s fifth annual NOW Conference, held August 1–2 in Knoxville.

Type One Energy’s expansion into Oak Ridge follows the company’s recent funding of an oversubscribed seed round of $29 million. The company is also one of eight fusion developers that was selected by the Department of Energy in late May to receive a total of $46 million in funding to kick off the public-private Milestone-Based Fusion Development Program, aimed at developing fusion pilot plant designs.

The U.K. government recently confirmed a further £170 million (about $216 million) investment of previously allocated funding for development work on the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power plant project in Suffolk, England.

Coons

Budd

A bipartisan coalition of 15 senators led by Sens. Ted Budd (R., N.C.) and Chris Coons (D., Del.) is backing a resolution declaring that “in order to maintain geopolitical energy leadership, reduce carbon emissions, and enhance the energy security of the United States, the Senate is committed to embracing and promoting nuclear power as a clean baseload energy source necessary to achieve a reliable, secure, and diversified electric grid.”

The resolution, S. Res. 321, was introduced July 27 and referred to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Fellow fission fans: Cosponsors of S. Res. 321 include Sens. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.), Mike Crapo (R., Idaho), Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), Pete Ricketts (R., Neb.), Jim Risch (R., Idaho), Kyrsten Sinema (I., Ariz.), Thom Tillis (R., N.C.), Mark Warner (D., Va.), and Roger Wicker (R., Miss.).

SHINE Technologies, a Wisconsin-based medical isotopes and fusion technology company, announced today that it has demonstrated clearly visible Cherenkov radiation produced by fusion for what is believed to be the first time in history. Cherenkov radiation is the characteristic blue glow typically seen in underwater fission reactions.

Advanced nuclear technology firm TerraPower announced today the selection of four suppliers to support its Natrium reactor demonstration project, in development near a retiring coal plant in Kemmerer, Wyo.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted for formal review NuScale Power’s standard design approval (SDA) application for its updated small modular reactor design, the Portland, Ore.–based firm announced yesterday.