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DOE to award $900 million for milestone-based SMR deployment projects

October 17, 2024, 9:49AMNuclear News
At Amazon facilities in Virginia, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm celebrated support for new reactor deployments and announced that the DOE was accepting applications for SMR deployment funding. (Still shot from a video hosted on YouTube by The Climate Pledge)

Yesterday morning as Amazon, X-energy, Energy Northwest, and Dominion Energy were sharing a spotlight celebrating their investment in X-energy’s high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology, the Department of Energy opened up the application process for up to $900 million in cost-shared funding to support the initial domestic deployment of a different type of reactor—light water reactors generating about 300 MWe that the DOE calls Gen III+ small modular reactors.

DOE approves conceptual safety design report for Oklo fuel fabrication facility

October 16, 2024, 11:59AMNuclear News
At INL's Fuel Conditioning Facility, spent nuclear fuel material is being recycled into fuel for Oklo's commercial Aurora Powerhouse deployment at INL. (Photo: INL)

Oklo Inc. announced yesterday that a safety design report for the Aurora fuel fabrication facility the company plans to build at Idaho National Laboratory has the approval of the Department of Energy. At the facility, Oklo plans to use high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) that has been recovered from used Experimental Breeder Reactor-II fuel to produce fuel for its first planned microreactor—dubbed Aurora—which is also set for deployment at INL.

Insights from the DOME draft EA on EBR-II’s second life as a reactor test bed

October 15, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
The EBR-II dome, site of the DOME advanced reactor test bed. (Photo: INL)

On October 8, the Department of Energy’s Idaho Operations Office released the draft environmental assessment (EA) Demonstration of Microreactor Experiment (DOME) Test Bed Operations. The draft EA assesses the potential environmental impacts of plans to use the containment dome of the former Experimental Breeder Reactor-II at Idaho National Laboratory’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) to test multiple TRISO-fueled advanced reactor designs on a micro scale.

DOE issues $49 million to shift national lab research toward fusion energy vision

October 10, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News

The Department of Energy announced yesterday a total of $49 million in funding for 19 projects in the Foundational Fusion Materials, Nuclear Science, and Technology programs that span functional and structural materials R&D for heating technology, magnet technology, blankets, fuel cycle, and first wall research.

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.

GAO: DOE should pause work on Hanford’s HLW Facility

October 3, 2024, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
Hanford’s HLW Facility under construction in early 2024. (Photo: Bechtel National)

The Government Accountability Office has recommended that the Department of Energy put a hold on construction of its High-Level Waste Facility at the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. The GAO said design and construction of the facility, part of Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, also known as the Vit Plant, should be paused until several actions are taken, including considering other alternatives for managing the site’s high-level radioactive liquid waste.

Biden appoints six new NWTRB members

October 2, 2024, 3:01PMRadwaste Solutions

President Biden has announced the appointment of six new members to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent federal agency that evaluates the technical and scientific validity of the Department of Energy’s activities related to managing and disposing of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel.

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.

Palisades to receive $3B in federal, state funding to fuel plant restart

September 30, 2024, 3:00PMNuclear News
The Palisades nuclear power plant. (Photo: Holtec International)

With a $1.52 billion loan from the Department of Energy and $1.3 billion in grants to rural electric cooperatives near the plant, the ambitious plans to restart Michigan’s Palisades nuclear plant next fall are moving ahead.

NSUF awards 19 Rapid Turnaround Experiments

September 27, 2024, 10:07AMNuclear News

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy has awarded 19 experimental proposals access to Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) under the 2024 “third call” for Rapid Turnaround Experiment (RTE) projects. In total, the awards are valued at about $1 million and were granted to 19 principal investigators from 11 institutions, including universities and industry researchers.

Latest GAIN vouchers support data center and advanced reactor development

September 25, 2024, 12:01PMNuclear News

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy announced on September 24 four new GAIN vouchers. GAIN—the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear—selected four companies to receive vouchers to advance microreactor technologies, identify potential sites capable of hosting a nuclear-powered data center, and prevent corrosion in molten salt reactors.

Senators probe global competition in fusion energy deployment

September 25, 2024, 7:00AMNuclear News
A still shot from the Senate ENR Hearing to Examine Fusion Energy Technology Development.

Hours before the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) opened a scheduled September 19 hearing on fusion energy technology development, CNN published an article titled “The US led on nuclear fusion for decades. Now China is in a position to win the race.” The article was entered into the hearing record, but senators had already gotten the message.

ECA: Harris or Trump, DOE-EM needs “comprehensive review”

September 23, 2024, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions

Regardless of who is sitting in the Oval Office next year, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management needs to take a close look at itself and “launch a comprehensive review of all aspects of the EM program,” according to a new report from the Energy Communities Alliance, which represents communities adjacent to or near DOE nuclear cleanup sites.

The 18-page ECA transition paper, Ensuring Long-Term Success: Recommendations for the Next Administration on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Mission, calls on the next administration to “take a fundamental look” at DOE-EM’s entire cleanup effort, including both sites that are active and those where work has been completed. How DOE-EM integrates with other DOE programs, including the National Nuclear Security Administration and the offices of Nuclear Energy, Science, and Legacy Management, should also be examined, according to the paper.

Westinghouse completes front-end design for eVinci microreactor test

September 23, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News
Heat pipes transfer heat out of the eVinci microreactor’s core and allow for air cooling without using water or pressurized gas. (Photo: DOE)

Westinghouse Electric Company has completed the front-end engineering and experiment design (FEEED) for a prototype microreactor at Idaho National Laboratory, the Department of Energy recently announced. The one-fifth scale version of eVinci, Westinghouse’s 5-MWe sodium-cooled heat pipe design, is one of three reactors that could be tested at the National Reactor Innovation Center’s (NRIC) DOME test bed “as early as 2026,” the DOE said.

NextEra Energy selected for WIPP solar power project

September 19, 2024, 12:03PMRadwaste Solutions
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico. (Photo: DOE)

Juno Beach, Fla.–based NextEra Energy Resources Development has been selected to enter realty negotiations for a large-scale solar electricity generation project at the DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southeastern New Mexico as part of the department’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative.

Dust: Trapped by a laser or threatening ITER, it’s making headlines

September 17, 2024, 7:02AMNuclear News
An optically trapped microparticle in high vacuum is visible as a white dot levitated between two lenses, which are used to focus and collect invisible infrared laser light used to trap the particle. (Photo: DOE/Yale Wright Lab)

Start talking about dust in a vacuum, and some people will think of household chores. But dust has featured in recent nuclear science and engineering headlines in curious ways: ITER is deploying oversized dust covers inspired by space satellites in the south of France, while at Yale University, researchers have watched every move of a dust-sized particle levitating in a laser beam for telltale twitches that indicate radioactive decay.

INL readies new Sample Preparation Laboratory

September 13, 2024, 7:01AMNuclear News
The outside of the Sample Preparation Laboratory at the Materials and Fuels Complex at Idaho National Laboratory. (Photo: INL)

Idaho National Laboratory has completed substantial construction of the first new hot cell facility at the lab site in 49 years—a Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL) that will accelerate research, development, and qualification of structural nuclear materials for both existing and new nuclear reactors. In an announcement last week of the milestone and the ribbon-cutting ceremony held to mark it, INL said the SPL is expected to be fully operational in 2025.

HALEU without hyperbole: ANS speaks up for science and transparent risk assessment

September 11, 2024, 3:05PMNuclear News

The American Nuclear Society recently issued an open letter in support of a science-based approach to the regulation of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuels for commercial nuclear energy, voicing member concerns about hyperbole in a recent article published in Science, which advocated for restrictions on the use of HALEU despite decades of effective safeguards and security. This is not the first time ANS has stepped in to present the measured opinion of its membership on the value and appropriate regulation of HALEU.

ECA warns of delay to DOE’s interpretation of HLW

September 10, 2024, 7:06AMRadwaste Solutions
Work begins on the TBI demonstration at the Hanford Site, during which 2,000 gallons of low-activity waste will be treated and shipped off-site for disposal. (Photo: DOE)

The Energy Communities Alliance (ECA), which advocates for communities adjacent to or impacted by Department of Energy sites, is asking the department to conduct an independent analysis evaluating the impacts of delaying the implementation of its statutory interpretation of high-level radioactive waste, which holds that some waste from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel may be classified as non-HLW.