Power & Operations

The Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation announced last week start-up at its fourth nuclear unit at the Barakah plant in the UAE.

The plant is run by ENEC’s operating and maintenance subsidiary Nawah Energy Company. In the coming weeks, Unit 4 will be linked to the national electricity grid and undergo testing as power production is gradually increased to full capacity.

Vogtle Unit 4 synchronized and successfully connected to the electric grid on March 1, just two weeks after reaching initial criticality.

This milestone is one of the final steps to completing Southern Nuclear’s long-awaited Vogtle project, adding the second of two large-scale reactors to the United States’ fleet in as many years—the first such additions to that fleet in more than three decades.

The Canadian government has announced up to C$50 million ($36.8 million) in funding for predevelopment work to study the feasibility of building 4,800 megawatts of new generating capacity at the Bruce nuclear power plant in Ontario.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published Clinton Power Station’s initial license renewal on the agency’s website.

Constellation Energy submitted the application February 14, seeking an extension for the Illinois plant's current operating license from 20 years to 40 years. This would allow the Illinois plant to run through 2047.

Unit 4 at Kakrapar nuclear power plant was connected to the grid on February 20, the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) has announced. The 700-MWe pressurized heavy water reactor achieved first criticality on December 17, 2023.

The effort to build the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset, England, has been “prodigious, lengthy, and increasingly costly.” So says London-based energy, business, and environment writer Stanley Reed in his recent New York Times article, “Why Britain Is Struggling with Nuclear Power.”

Construction formally began this week on two new nuclear reactors in China.

The China National Nuclear Corporation held a ground-breaking ceremony to mark the first phase of construction of the Jinqimen nuclear power plant in the eastern province of Zhejiang.

Constellation Energy is asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an initial license renewal for its Clinton nuclear plant in Illinois, which would allow the facility to operate through 2047.

This move is not unexpected from Constellation, the largest producer of nuclear power in the United States. The vast majority of nuclear plants in the United States have already been approved for their first 20-year renewal term. Clinton, which came on line in 1987, is one of the nation’s “newer” plants.

Georgia Power’s Vogtle-4, located near Waynesboro, Ga., reached initial criticality this week, hitting a major milestone in the start-up of the reactor.

The company announced the news on February 14. Initial criticality demonstrates that operators have safely started the nuclear reactor, or, in other words, the fission reaction within the unit is now self-sustaining and the nuclear reactor is ready to produce heat.

A fire this past weekend at Chinon nuclear power plant in France forced two reactors to be shut down. According to initial reports, a transformer in a nonnuclear sector of Unit 3 caught fire.

The incident occurred February 10 in the early morning hours, local time, and the fire was quickly extinguished.

New legislation being considered could make Hawaii the 29th state to produce nuclear power—although the proposal faces an uphill battle.

Two bills introduced in the state legislature would pave the way for nuclear power production in Hawaii:

• H.B. 1741 proposes a constitutional amendment that would allow for construction of a nuclear power plant without prior legislative approval.
• H.B. 1516 would establish a nuclear energy commission within the state’s Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism to study potential benefits of nuclear energy.

A ceremonial ground-breaking event took place last week at the site where the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says four new nuclear reactors will be built over the next 20 years.

Danagoulian

Areg Danagoulian, associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, draws on his experiences growing up in Soviet-era Armenia to argue that nuclear energy is crucial to “help strengthen liberal democracies that are being unprecedently threatened” by what he calls authoritarian regimes, such as Russia and China.

Disasters both natural and man-made: In his essay “How Nuclear Power Saved Armenia,” published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Danagoulian recalls the shutdown of Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear reactors in 1989 in the wake of fears generated by the 1986 Chernobyl accident, which “dramatically undermin[ed] public trust in nuclear power as a safe source of energy.” He asserted that “the public perception of danger from nuclear power was magnified by the outrageous lies that the Soviet leadership spread about the disaster, the obvious incompetence and irresponsibility of the Soviet nuclear designers who built and operated the Chernobyl reactor, and the poorly executed cleanup efforts, which were compounded by miscalculations and gross mistakes.”

A new report, A New Nuclear Age: How 2023 Developments Will Impact the Industry in 2024, has been released by Morgan Lewis, a global corporation that provides litigation, corporate, labor and employment, and intellectual property services. Morgan Lewis’s energy specialist attorneys, who compiled the report, reviewed recent developments in rules and guidance from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy that have impacted various aspects of the nuclear energy industry. Covered areas include cybersecurity, small modular reactors, advanced reactors, sustainability, export controls, plant decommissioning, microreactors, and fusion systems. Also considered in the report are potential future developments that may further affect the nuclear industry this year.

The Czech government is looking to accelerate the pace at which it is adding nuclear energy to its grid. Officials announced yesterday that it plans to build up to four nuclear reactors—instead of one—as the country tries to become more energy independent and shift away from fossil fuels.

The Palisades nuclear power plant in Covert, Mich., may become the first in the United States to be restarted after permanent shut down—with help from a $1.5 billion loan being championed by the Biden administration.

Ontario Power Generation’s Pickering nuclear power plant may see decades of new service beyond its original lifespan, which included plans to shut reactors down this year.

Ontario energy minister Todd Smith announced today government support for refurbishing four nuclear reactors collectively known as Pickering B, located on the north shore of Lake Ontario, east of Toronto. This move is part of a larger energy strategy, as forecasts show the demand for electricity is expected to double in the next 25 years.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled two meetings in February to discuss the environmental evaluation and review process for the license renewal application of the two-unit Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in Avila Beach, Calif.

Crownhart

“I’ve got nuclear power on the brain this week.” So writes climate and energy reporter Casey Crownhart in a recent edition the Spark, the MIT Technology Review’s climate newsletter. In her article, Crownhart describes how, while she was conducting research on advanced nuclear energy for another article, she “went down some rabbit holes on . . . potential options for future nuclear plants” and has “reached new levels of obsession” about nuclear energy.

Nuclear primer: Crownhart’s article could serve as a primer for both basic nuclear and advanced nuclear technologies. She begins by discussing the “two absolutely essential pieces” of conventional nuclear power plants—namely, the enriched uranium fuel and the pressurized water cooling system—and explains that the cooling system “keeps the whole thing from getting too hot and causing problems.”

Japanese regulators have ordered further review at a nuclear power plant in central Japan following a series of deadly earthquakes that rocked the country on New Year’s Day.