Power & Operations

From left: Bonnie Jenkins, the U.S. State Department’s undersecretary for arms control and international security, and Jānis Vitenbergs, Latvia’s economics minister. (Photo: U.S. State Department)

The U.S. and Latvian governments announced last week a new partnership under the Biden administration’s Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) program.

Launched in April of last year, the FIRST program is designed to deepen strategic ties, support energy innovation, and advance technical collaboration with partner nations on nuclear energy infrastructure.

The U.S.-Latvia FIRST project, according to the State Department, will draw on expertise from across government, industry, national laboratories, and academia for policy and technical exchanges focused on topics such as workforce development, stakeholder engagement, regulatory development, and familiarization with advanced nuclear technologies—including SMRs—to support Latvia’s energy independence and security and climate priorities. Latvia currently has no nuclear power facilities.

What they’re saying: “We are pleased to be working with Latvia to explore what role advanced nuclear technologies can play in Latvia’s future energy mix,” said Bonnie Jenkins, the State Department’s undersecretary for arms control and international security. “The United States and Latvia share a commitment to energy security, combatting climate change, and nonproliferation. The FIRST program provides a framework for our countries to work together to achieve these goals.

The U.K. government has released a new energy strategy aimed at boosting Britain’s energy independence, stabilizing its soaring energy prices, and accelerating the deployment of new nuclear, wind, solar, and hydrogen to mitigate climate change.

At the same time, the 38-page document, British Energy Security Strategy, calls for near-term support for domestic oil and gas, stating, “Net zero is a smooth transition, not an immediate extinction, for oil and gas.” (The United Kingdom in 2019 became the first of the world’s major economies to embrace a legal obligation to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.)

Following through with this strategy, the government says, could result in low-carbon sources generating up to 95 percent of British electricity by 2030.

Officials in California are planning to replace the electricity produced by the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, scheduled to shut down in 2025, “mostly with Wyoming coal-fired generation.” That claim is made in a post on the Capitol Weekly website written by Gene Nelson, a cofounder of Californians for Green Nuclear Power (CGNP). Nelson writes that although state officials are trying to hide this plan from the public, CGNP uncovered it by detecting four obscure clues in California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) filings.

Bruce Power and Ontario Power Generation (OPG) have announced an agreement to work together to support new nuclear technologies in Ontario. Bruce Power operates the Bruce nuclear plant and OPG operates the Darlington and Pickering facilities.

Westinghouse’s plans for supplying AP1000 reactors to Ukraine may have been complicated by Russia’s invasion of the country, but the company is nonetheless continuing its efforts to strengthen business ties in Central and Eastern Europe. On April 5, Westinghouse signed memorandums of understanding with three companies in Slovenia.

Energy Harbor—owner and operator of the Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse, and Perry nuclear power plants—recently announced its plan to become a carbon-free energy infrastructure and supply firm in 2023. Energy Harbor is based in Akron, Ohio.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday unveiled its Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2022-2026, providing what it terms “a blueprint for how the agency will plan, implement, and monitor the work needed to ensure the safe and secure use of radioactive materials.”

According to the NRC, the four-year plan also includes a new focus on efforts to inspire stakeholder confidence and to continue fostering a healthy organization.

From the chairman: The 38-page document includes a message from the NRC chairman, Christopher Hanson: “In expanding the strategic plan to incorporate these areas of focus, I believe that this strategic plan will serve the agency better over the next four years by providing a clear roadmap that can be utilized in budget development and the agency’s ongoing implementation of the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018."

Fitterling

Nuclear power from small modular reactors should be a central part of the chemical industry’s drive toward achieving carbon neutrality, according to Jim Fitterling, chairman and chief executive officer of Dow Inc. Fitterling’s comments, delivered at the 2022 International Petrochemical Conference, hosted by American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and held March 27–29 in San Antonio, Texas, were reported by Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS).

Beyond renewables: The ICIS report noted that more than 25 percent of Dow’s manufacturing sites are fully or partially powered by renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, and hydropower. Nevertheless, Fitterling said, “We need a broader and more realistic approach to feed our energy needs. Renewables are great, and we’re a tremendous supporter . . . but renewables alone are not the answer.” He added that renewable power generation would have to increase 90 times to equal the energy that is currently provided by hydrocarbons in the United States.

Polskie Elektrownie Jadrowe (PEJ)—the state-owned company set up to lead Poland’s effort to build nuclear power plants—has submitted an environmental impact report to the country’s General Directorate for Environmental Protection regarding the construction and operation of the first such facility, which is to have a total capacity of up to 3,750 MWe.

A recent article on a radio station website about an auxiliary feedwater (AFW) pump problem at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant led to information exchanges between a reporter, the American Nuclear Society, and nuclear advocates. The incident also involved a tweet by a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

An International Atomic Energy Agency team of experts has completed its review of the long-term operational safety of South Africa’s Koeberg nuclear power plant, which is operated by the public utility Eskom.

Ukraine’s nuclear operator, Energoatom, announced yesterday that the Russian military has withdrawn from the Chernobyl plant and surrounding area. “According to the staff of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, there are now no outsiders on-site,” Energoatom stated in an online post. Russian forces took control of Chernobyl on February 24, day one of the invasion.

In a separate post, the company said that the Russians had formally agreed to return the responsibility for Chernobyl to Ukraine. It shared a scan of a document, with the heading “Act of acceptance and transfer of protection of the Chernobyl nuclear plant,” purportedly signed by a representative of Russia’s National Guard, a representative of Rosatom, Russia’s state atomic energy corporation, and a Chernobyl plant shift manager.

The governments of four Canadian provinces—Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, and Alberta—have published a plan outlining the path forward for the advancement of small modular reactors, which could provide the nation with safe, reliable, and zero-emissions energy and create new export opportunities.

The 60-page document, A Strategic Plan for the Deployment of Small Modular Reactors, builds on an SMR feasibility study conducted under a memorandum of understanding signed in 2019 by the premiers of Ontario, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan and in 2021 by the premier of Alberta. Prepared by Ontario Power Generation, Bruce Power, New Brunswick Power, and SaskPower, the study concluded that SMR development would support domestic energy needs, curb greenhouse gas emissions, and position Canada as a global leader in clean technologies and the fight against climate change.

On March 4, Russian forces set fire to an office building at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, raising fears about reactors being damaged. The attack stirred up memories of the Chernobyl accident in 1986, a reaction that longtime nuclear opponents are taking advantage of to rekindle their cause. However, the reactors operating in Ukraine today are profoundly different from the design used at Chernobyl, and are, by nature, difficult to damage.

Let’s set the record straight and explain the risks of nuclear power plants in war zones.

The Fuqing nuclear plant’s Unit 6, one of two Chinese-designed and -developed Hualong One reactors at the site, has entered commercial operation, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced on March 25. The milestone was reached some 14 months after the reactor’s twin, Fuqing-5, became the first Hualong One in the world to enter commercial operation.

Also known as the HPR1000, the Hualong One is a 1,000-MWe Generation III pressurized water reactor that incorporates design elements of CNNC’s ACP1000 and China General Nuclear Power Group’s ACPR1000+.

The trend of big-tech billionaires of Silicon Valley investing in next-generation nuclear energy startup companies continues. In a March 22 article on the Bloomberg website, Lizette Chapman, of the site’s venture capital group, writes that these investors view nuclear power as “a solution to both cutting carbon emissions and weaning the world off now-controversial Russian gas.”

Unit 2 at the United Arab Emirates’ Barakah nuclear power plant has entered commercial operation, Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) announced on March 24. Unit 2 adds an additional 1,400 MW of zero-carbon emission electricity to the UAE’s national grid, bringing the total amount of electricity produced at Barakah to 2,800 MW.

The United States and the Philippines recently signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic civil nuclear cooperation to help boost the development of the latter’s nuclear energy program.

“Many states have made carbon dioxide–reduction plans with no hope of success. But if they want to meet even a portion of those goals, they must put nuclear power back on the table.” So opined Tim Cavanaugh, senior editor at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, in an essay published by The Hill on March 23.

In keeping with the ringing endorsement of nuclear energy it gave in January, the Czech Republic continues moving forward with plans for new reactor construction.