The 2024 American Nuclear Society Annual Conference opened with a bang yesterday as 1,200 attendees gathered in Las Vegas to network, collaborate, and socialize. Honors and awards were presented to several recipients, and ANS welcomed twelve new Fellows.

The plenary opened with an address from ANS Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer Craig Piercy that brought this year’s theme to the fore straight away: The time is now to deploy new nuclear projects—and not acting at this moment is simply not an option.

The U.S. Senate voted last week to put three new members on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, a bipartisan energy oversight board.

The chamber confirmed the nominations of Republican Lindsay See and Democrats David Rosner and Judy Chang. The votes on the nominations were 86–9, 68–26 and 63–33, respectively.

International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi was in Switzerland last week to talk with insurance executives at the Nuclear Pools’ Forum about the potential of nuclear power.

Donalds

Byron Donalds, the Republican representative from Florida’s 19th Congressional District, is a well-known proponent of nuclear energy. In his latest op-ed, which appeared in The Floridian, Donalds describes himself as “unabashedly pronuclear” and characterizes his state as a supporter of nuclear power, with four operating reactors providing 69.3 percent of Florida’s carbon-free electricity, powering 2.3 million homes. He emphasizes, however, that “there’s so much nuclear potential yet to be realized in the Sunshine State.”

Environmental benefits: Donalds notes that nuclear energy provides “countless environmental benefits” to Floridians, as well as reliable electricity. The 1,132 acres on which the state’s St. Lucie nuclear power plant is located have mangrove swamps, beaches, marshes, and other wildlife habitats that are home to more than 180 species of animals—36 of which are endangered or threatened.

The staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have sent a proposed rule covering the disposal of low-level radioactive waste to the agency’s commissioners for approval. The proposed rule would amend NRC regulations to require new and revised site-specific technical analyses and permit the development of site-specific criteria for LLW disposal. It would also authorize the near-surface disposal of certain greater-than-Class-C (GTCC) waste streams and provide for the licensing of those waste streams by NRC Agreement States.

The ANS Trustees of Nuclear corporate membership program invites nuclear industry companies and suppliers to join ANS in support of the Society’s K-12 STEM initiatives, the Rapid Response Taskforce, and Nuclear Policy Leadership Events. Below are summaries of the three programs supported by the Trustees of Nuclear.

A 60-year-old Wyoming industrial machinery company has joined forces with nuclear innovator BWX Technologies to build and deploy 50-megawatt microreactors in America’s heartland over the coming years to provide carbon-free heat and power for industrial users.

Interim Storage Partners (ISP), a joint venture of Waste Control Specialists and Orano USA, has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate its license for a consolidated interim storage facility for commercial spent nuclear fuel in Andrews County, Texas.

Infinity Power has developed a nuclear battery that it says generates electrical power from radioisotopes with 60 percent overall efficiency, exceeding that of other radioisotope energy conversion methods, which are typically less than 10 percent. The company believes its technology—developed in part under contracts from the Department of Defense—has potential for “next-generation radioisotope power sources.”

The American Nuclear Society’s 2024 Annual Conference starts this Sunday, June 16. We are looking forward to welcoming more than 1,000 members of the nuclear community in Las Vegas. This meeting is set to be one to remember, with a spectacular group of speakers lined up for our plenary sessions, executive sessions, technical tracks, and two embedded topicals—Advanced Reactor Safety and the International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants.

Texans are likely to experience intermittent power outages this summer, according to an analysis by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

Members of ERCOT, the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), and others from the energy industry spoke to the state’s House of Representatives’ Committee on State Affairs earlier this week. ERCOT’s newest report indicates a 16 percent chance of an electric grid emergency and a 12 percent chance of rolling blackouts in August—likely occurring on nights when there is low wind power production.

With the placement of 25 wall sections, 208 support columns, and 7 roof sections, work crews have completed all major concrete placements for the megavolume Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) 10 at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and its contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) recently demonstrated the use of cold spray technology as a means of refurbishing double-shell waste tanks at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The tanks store liquid radioactive and chemical waste that was created during Hanford’s plutonium production era.

The American Nuclear Society President’s Special Committee on Certification is continuing to make progress toward launching a nuclear certification program. The program, which was outlined to the ANS Board of Directors in 2023, is being designed to help establish industry standards and bridge workforce gaps in the nuclear sector to address the growing demand for qualified professionals in the nuclear industry.

A computer rendering of a tokamak device designed by students at the University of New South Wales. (Credit: UNSW)

A recent article on Australia’s ABC News website highlighted the work of undergraduate physics and engineering students at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to design, build, and operate their own small nuclear fusion reactor. The ambitious work, known as the AtomCraft project, is being led by associate professor Patrick Burr with the objective of producing a student-built tokamak reactor by the end of 2026.

Australia-based HB-11 Energy and U.K.-based Tokamak Energy have partnered with UNSW for the project.

Research goals: The AtomCraft project has the following research goals for participating students, according to its website:

Our team aims [to] make the world’s first fusion reactor entirely designed, built, and operated by students. And [to] do so in 2 years. You will develop innovative solutions to engineering challenges across many engineering disciplines, work closely with industry partners, and be part a vibrant team of enthusiastic and dedicated people who want to push the boundaries of what is possible with fusion energy.

Radiant Industries announced on June 4 that the safety design strategy (SDS) for a test of its Kaleidos microreactor in the National Reactor Innovation Center’s DOME test bed at Idaho National Laboratory now has approval from the Department of Energy. Radiant hopes to test Kaleidos—a 1-MW high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor—by 2026 and then market portable commercial reactors to power remote locations and provide backup or primary power for critical applications in hospitals or for disaster relief.

Results of two new surveys have shed light on American public opinion regarding nuclear energy. The surveys, which were conducted with very different methods, offer generally encouraging news for the nuclear industry.

The American Nuclear Society Student Section at University of California–Irvine presented ANS STEM learning materials at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory Young Women’s Conference in STEM. Members of the section were on hand at the May 17 conference, held at University of California–San Diego, with Geiger counters, an ANS Visualizing Radiation Cloud Chamber Kit, pellet cards, and more, courtesy of ANS STEM Programs.

In budget discussions conducted last week, the California legislature rejected a $400 million budget item to help keep the state’s sole remaining nuclear plant operational.

Diablo Canyon—owned by Pacific Gas & Electric—has been the subject of much debate in California. To meet grid demands during a record hot summer in 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom had cut a deal to give $1.4 billion to support continued operations at the 2,200-MWe nuclear facility.

Sterile mosquitoes are being used to reduce the population of insecticide-resistant Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Fort Myers, Fla., which can spread viruses including dengue, yellow fever, Zika, and chikungunya.