Nuclear News

Published since 1959, Nuclear News is recognized worldwide as the flagship trade publication for the nuclear community. News reports cover plant operations, maintenance and security; policy and legislation; international developments; waste management and fuel; and business and contract award news.


U.S. Navy soliciting ideas for nuclear energy

October 10, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News

The Department of the Navy (DON), which comprises both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps, issued a request for information this week on potential deployment of clean energy generation on underutilized military lands.

IAEA warning issued after assassination of Zaporizhzhia worker

October 10, 2024, 7:03AMNuclear News

A man killed in a car bomb last week in Enerhodar, Ukraine, may have been targeted because of his ties to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The International Atomic Energy Agency received information from both the Russian Federation and Ukraine about the suspected assassination, which occurred in the town where most of the plant staff live, said IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

The DOE picks six HALEU deconverters. What have we learned?

October 9, 2024, 3:01PMNuclear News

The Department of Energy announced contracts yesterday for six companies to perform high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) deconversion and to transform enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) to other chemical forms, including metal or oxide, for storage before it is fabricated into fuel for advanced reactors. It amounts to a first round of contracting. “These contracts will allow selected companies to bid on work for deconversion services,” according to the DOE’s announcement, “creating strong competition and allowing DOE to select the best fit for future work.”

Liftoff report lifts the lid on cost and risk in push to nth-of-a-kind reactors

October 9, 2024, 12:01PMNuclear News

The Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear report that was released in March 2023 by the Department of Energy called for five to 10 signed reactor contracts for at least one reactor design by 2025. Now, 18 months have passed, and despite the word “resurgence” in media reports on the U.S. nuclear power industry, 2025 is fast approaching with no contracts signed.

Engagement in nuclear science and technology

October 9, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear NewsLisa Marshall

Lisa Marshall
president@ans.org

My current position affords me the opportunity to travel across the nation and world, engaging with people and organizations. I am deliberately using the word engagement to stress the long-term relationship aspect of our endeavors. It is an opportunity to listen—not to respond, but to understand. It is also an opportunity to foster a collaborative connection where comfort in posing questions and developing solutions are achieved.

Pulling from engagement in the higher education literature:

Historically, in a different societal context, higher education reached out to communities in an expert model of knowledge delivery. That connection with communities has transitioned over the years to a more engaged model in which community and university partners cocreate solutions. This occurs at local, national, and global levels. Today and in the future, public universities need to build on their experience of university–community relationships and transition to making engagement more central to the core of the institution. Through such progress, higher education can continue to contribute fully to the advancement of the United States as a stronger, wealthier, and more equitable country.1

NRC seeks comments on proposed rule for new reactors

October 8, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking comment on a proposed rule for a generic environmental impact statement for licensing new reactors. According to the NRC, the statement uses a technology-neutral framework and plant/site parameters to identify environmental issues common to new reactors as well as those issues needing project-specific analysis.

Industry Update—October 2024

October 8, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear News

Here is a recap of industry happenings from the recent past:

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

Collaboration on SMR-powered ships

The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and the Korea Ship & Offshore Plant Research Institute (KRISO) have formed a collaboration to advance the commercialization of ships powered by small modular reactors, as well as floating SMR power-generation platforms. ABS is to provide an analysis of regulatory guidelines and international standards for the design of SMR-powered ships. KRISO is to develop the core technologies for the ships, such as conceptual designs and propulsion systems, as well as a framework for integrated ship and nuclear power safety analysis. KRISO will also design a floating SMR power-generation platform together with a commercialization model for supplying stable power to island areas.

Federal watchdog says NRC needs to address more radiological risks, including “dirty bombs”

October 7, 2024, 3:02PMNuclear News
The three elements of radioactive material risk (Image: U.S. GAO)

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office finds that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not taken the steps needed to address the potential economic and societal radiological risks that could arise from a “dirty bomb.”

Reports: Japan’s leaders call for nuclear reactor restarts

October 7, 2024, 9:35AMNuclear News

During some of his first public remarks last week, Japan’s new economy minister Yoji Muto promoted the importance of nuclear energy for his nation.

Muto said the new administration—including newly appointed prime minister Shigeru Ishiba—plans to restart “as many reactors as possible so long as they are safe,” reported NucNet, a nuclear-centered news agency in Brussels.

Opinion: Financing the future of clean energy—Green bonds in the nuclear sector

October 4, 2024, 12:04PMNuclear NewsAmjad Ghori, Paul Murphy, and Caitlin Murphy

As evidenced by the well-attended Climate Week NYC, there is a growing awareness that nuclear energy must be incorporated into national energy strategies if net-zero goals are to be achieved. In recent years, green bonds have found solid footing in the world of energy finance. These eco-friendly issuances have evolved from supporting just wind and solar projects and are increasingly being used to power much-needed growth in the civil nuclear sector. Green bonds that have been issued over the past several years in Canada, France, Finland, and the United States are now being used to support investment in nuclear projects, from breathing new life into old reactors to in certain instances supporting nuclear new build projects. However, a question remains: Can this liquidity be deployed where and when it is needed most—to support ambitious new nuclear project buildouts?

TerraPower reaches market-scale production of Ac-225

October 4, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News

TerraPower Isotopes, a subsidiary of Bellevue, Wash.–based TerraPower, announced it is now producing actinium-225 at commercial scale, making the medical isotope available to the pharmaceutical industry through weekly production runs. As a result, TerraPower Isotopes said its actinium, after further manufacturing, is now used in multiple drug developers’ radiopharmaceuticals in human clinical trials across the globe.

Kairos to build salt plant and expand its New Mexico manufacturing campus

October 3, 2024, 12:01PMNuclear News
Kairos Power leaders, elected officials, and key partners break ground on the Salt Production Facility at the company’s Manufacturing Development Campus in Mesa del Sol, N.M. (Photo: Kairos Power)

Kairos Power broke ground yesterday on a Salt Production Facility at the company’s newly dedicated Manufacturing Development Campus during an event at a sprawling site in Mesa del Sol, N.M., just south of Albuquerque. The new facility will produce the FLiBe (a mixture of lithium fluoride and beryllium fluoride salts) needed to cool the advanced reactors Kairos Power plans to build, starting with its Hermes nonpower demonstration reactor in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and could be operational and producing salt in 2026, according to an October 3 Department of Energy news release.

Survey highlights how knowledge leads to support for nuclear energy

October 2, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
Survey respondents (%) who favor or oppose the use of nuclear energy for electricity in the United States, 1983–2024. (Graph: Bisconti Research Inc.)

Ann Stouffer Bisconti has been surveying and analyzing the American public’s attitudes and knowledge about nuclear energy for more than four decades. Her research company’s 2024 survey proved to be especially revealing. “The 2024 National Nuclear Energy Public Opinion Survey contained such a wealth of information that I prepared nine reports” to cover all the collected data, she said.

BWXT fuel processing subsidiary pauses operations amid Hurricane Helene; site is "safe"

October 1, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
The Nuclear Fuel Services facility in Erwin, Tenn. (Photo: BWXT)

BWX Technologies subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. suspended operations last Friday at a Tennessee facility to assess conditions following Hurricane Helene. A company spokesperson said the site remained "in safe and secure condition."

New uranium and fluorine detection method set to boost nuclear safeguards

October 1, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News
ORNL’s tandem technologies detect fluorine and isotopes of uranium at the same time to discern the fingerprint of a nuclear material made for fuel or weaponry. (Image: Benjamin Manard and Jacquelyn DeMink/ORNL)

By combining two techniques, analytical chemists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have for the first time simultaneously detected fluorine and different uranium isotopes in a single particle. Quickly detecting both elements together may help International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors determine if and when undisclosed enrichment has taken place. The findings, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, “push the limit” of how fast single particles can be characterized in terms of their chemical, elemental, and isotopic compositions, according to a September 26 news release from ORNL.

N.C. energy council talks nuclear policy and workforce

October 1, 2024, 7:00AMNuclear News
Attendees at the North Carolina Nuclear Energy Industry Advisory Council meeting. (Photo: Steve Rea)

A mix of nuclear professionals and advocates gathered las week to discuss public policy, workforce needs, and regulatory matters at a meeting of the North Carolina Nuclear Energy Industry Advisory Council.