Just a few hours after a new Speaker of the House of Representatives was elected on October 25, the White House sent a list of funding priorities for “critical domestic needs” to Congress for consideration as legislators restart the stalled annual appropriations process. Those priorities include $2.2 billion for low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) enrichment capabilities. And to ensure that investment in domestic HALEU enrichment pays off, the White House is also calling for a long-term ban on enriched uranium from Russia.

The Department of Energy’s National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) awarded $3.9 million to three advanced nuclear energy developers on October 23 to design experiments to test microreactor designs in the Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) test bed at Idaho National Laboratory.

The Department of Energy has awarded a new small business contract to Inomedic Health Applications, Inc. (IHA) to provide continued occupational medical services to Hanford Site employees. According to the DOE, IHA is a small, disadvantaged, woman-owned business located in Hampton, Va.

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management cleanup contractor UCOR has increased its ability to recruit employees through a recent partnership with Tennessee’s Roane State Community College.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy will provide an update to the San Onofre Community Engagement Panel (CEP) on spent fuel transportation preparations on Thursday, October 26, at its quarterly meeting. The virtual meeting will begin at 2:00 p.m. (PDT) via Microsoft Teams video conference.

Members of the public can view the meeting online by visiting the SONGS community website for the link to the Microsoft Teams meeting and to register to comment.

The Department of Energy has released two additional requests for information related to its Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, which aims to repurpose certain DOE-owned lands—portions of which were previously used during the nation’s nuclear weapons program—into sites for clean energy generation, including include solar, geothermal, wind, and nuclear electricity.

The Department of Energy announced $7 billion on October 13 to launch seven regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs (H2Hubs) across the country and accelerate the commercial-scale deployment of clean hydrogen. Two of the seven hubs will feature hydrogen production using electricity—and possibly steam—from nuclear power. The federal government’s multibillion-dollar investment will be matched and exceeded by more than $40 billion from the awardees, for a total investment in clean energy and job creation near $50 billion.

Anyone involved in the nuclear power industry could tell you that the operation of nuclear power plants is a demanding and never-ending endeavor. Our machines are complex, our challenges are diverse, and our standards are unyielding. The truth is, however, many of us stay in this field because there’s something at the heart of what we do that makes it all worthwhile.

American Centrifuge Operating (ACO), a subsidiary of Centrus Energy, has started enriching uranium hexafluoride gas to high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) levels at the Department of Energy’s enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio, the DOE announced October 11. The HALEU will be used to help fuel the initial cores of two demonstration reactors awarded under DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program and will also support fuel qualification and the testing of other new advanced reactor designs.

The Department of Energy is seeking the public’s input on the Hanford Site’s 5-year plan, which outlines planned cleanup work either to be completed or initiated at the former plutonium production site near Richland, Wash. The DOE updates Hanford’s 5-year plan annually to reflect current progress and ongoing integrated planning for future work at the site.

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) signed a final order approving a 10-year permit renewal for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the nation’s deep geologic repository for defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste.

Ken Petersen
president@ans.org

I have jumped on the fusion power bandwagon! Power from fusion is going to happen. When I look at it, there are several factors that reinforce this. Technology has advanced and moved from basic science/research to engineering solutions. Several breakthroughs in supportive technologies have made fusion power plants a possibility. Finally—and most importantly—the private sector is heavily involved and investing to help move engineering solutions forward. This has resulted in a few dozen fusion companies developing different technologies with the same power generation goals. It is very reminiscent of the development of LW fission reactors in the 1950s and ’60s.

Technology has advanced in regard to materials and especially high-temperature superconducting magnets, high-energy lasers, and computer modeling. These improvements have allowed machines to become smaller and achieve the density, temperature, and time needed for fusion to occur.

Maintenance can mean no more than keeping the status quo. But plant maintenance programs at U.S. nuclear power plants do that and then some. Even the programs are themselves maintained and improved—and so a long-lived nuclear fleet has improved with time. Read on.

Through its Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program (MSIPP) and Tribal Education Partnership Program (TEPP), the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded five grants totaling $2.5 million to minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and tribal colleges and universities (TCUs).

Cavendish Nuclear (USA) Inc., a U.S.-incorporated, wholly owned subsidiary of Babcock International Group, has recently appointed its corporate board of directors and held its first board meeting at corporate headquarters in Arlington, Va.

When Norway’s Halden research reactor shut down in 2018, nuclear researchers around the world were forced to scramble. For 60 years, the Halden Reactor Project offered a 25-MWt boiling water reactor for research where scientists could expand their understanding of nuclear fuel reliability, reactor internals, plant procedures and monitoring, and human factors.

Penn State’s Radiation Science and Engineering Center (RSEC) has received the first new TRIGA fuel shipped to the United States since 2012, the university announced on September 28. The fuel reached University Park, Pa., on September 27 and is destined for RSEC’s Breazeale Reactor, the nation’s longest continuously operating university research reactor.

Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) has awarded separate vouchers to NuScale Power and Metatomic Energy to support the development of their small modular reactor and spent nuclear fuel conversion technologies.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is requesting comments on the regulatory basis for a proposed rule for light water reactor fuel designs featuring high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), including accident tolerant fuel (ATF) designs, and on draft guidance for the environmental evaluation of ATFs containing uranium enriched up to 8 percent U-235. Some of the HALEU feedstock for those LWR fuels and for advanced reactor fuels could be produced within the first Category II fuel facility licensed by the NRC—Centrus Energy’s American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. On September 21, the NRC approved the start of enrichment operations in the plant’s modest 16-machine HALEU demonstration cascade.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration recently marked the completion of a new long-term radioactive waste storage facility in Kazakhstan.

The facility, at Kazakhstan’s Institute of Nuclear Physics (INP), has been operational since 2022 and has an expected lifespan of 50 years. According to the NNSA, the facility conforms with all Kazakhstan and International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines and replaces a much older facility located at an INP property in Turaz.