Nuclear Energy for Quarantined Kids – and Everyone!ANS Nuclear CafeEducationMarch 20, 2020, 10:21PM|Will DavisMore and more folks are having to essentially home-school their children or relatives’ children as this whole virus thing plays out – and they are benefiting from a tremendous effort on the part of educators everywhere as transition is made to sent-out and, increasingly, remote educational materials. I thought it might be useful to present, with commentary, some short nuclear energy videos that you could watch or use if you check down through materials or want to supplant them. (We really do have to take a moment to applaud our educators, everywhere, for what they’re facing – and the administrators as well.) Learn About Nuclear EnergyOur videos today are from the US Department of Energy. The video above will give a short introduction to what nuclear energy does for us every day, the basic premise of how it works, and will tell you some interesting facts about it.As we sit at home during these days we’re using all sorts of electric .. things. Lights, iPhones, iPads, television sets, radios. Microwave ovens and, our new favorite here, air fryers. Air conditioners in some places and electric heaters in others. All of these things we just plug into the wall outlets and they work. Magic? No.The electricity you receive at the house to make these things work is a product – sent, or shipped, to your home inside cables and wires. It comes from power plants – places where machines and devices create that electricity. Nuclear energy is our best emission-free source because it can provide electricity to you all day and night, regardless of whatever the weather is doing, and as it does so it creates no exhaust (like your car does.)Big cities need lots of power; they use very large power plants. Can small cities and towns take advantage of nuclear energy? Absolutely. They have in the past and will again, pretty soon!As we have seen in the above video, new, advanced and smaller kinds of nuclear reactors (and power plants sized to match) are poised to jump into the mix and make a place for themselves. They tried in the 1960’s, but unfortunately a number of these small reactors placed in rural areas were also very experimental designs that didn’t pan out partly because of their own peculiar shortcomings. We simply missed the opportunity to build very small versions of the types we already knew worked.Now, we have a wide range of experience over many years built up and have re-evaluated “what works.” New versions of old concepts and, in a very promising way, new concepts have come back and are in the process of being licensed and, eventually, built. Some of these are VERY small – what we now call “micro-reactors.”This “micro-reactor” field has also been explored previously – and in that case, it was the military that led the way. We heard the mention of replacing diesel power for remote villages and sites, and it turns out that’s exactly what the US Army wanted to do in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. The Army was tasked with operating a range of radar stations in the frozen tundra called the DEW Line, or Defense Early Warning line. This effort stopped in part because these stations were quickly replaced with the BMEWS (Ballistic Missile Early Warning System) radars, which unfortunately seriously cut the need for spending further money to develop truly reliable and workable tiny nuclear reactors.As we’ve seen above though the need for economical, safe and constant power (both electric power, and heat, we might add) has never really gone away; entire remote villages still today have to constantly truck in diesel fuel for large generators. These very small reactors have the potential to be complete game changers.Just a few days ago, Oklo submitted its Combined License Application to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission – and made a number of firsts! This was the first application to license an advanced reactor not cooled by water, and it’s also the first application submitted online. Read more here .. and if you’d like to meet one of the two principals behind this groundbreaking company, you can do that in today’s last video. Caroline Cochran talks below about what motivates her, and the process:So now you’ve learned a bit about nuclear energy, about new versions coming out, and met one of the new pioneers behind it. Take this opportunity to explore more!A tremendous variety of resources for education can be found at About Nuclear on the ANS websiteHere you can find links to the excellent Navigating Nuclear program as well as the lessons of the time-honored and well-updated “The Harnessed Atom” from the US Department of Energy.Will Davis has been a member of the Board of Directors for the N/S Savannah Association, Inc. He has been a contributing author for Fuel Cycle Week, and wrote his own popular blog Atomic Power Review. Davis is also a consultant and writer for the American Nuclear Society, and serves as Vice Chair of ANS’ Book Publishing Committee. He is a former U.S. Navy reactor operator and served on SSBN-641, USS Simon Bolivar. His popular Twitter account, @atomicnews is mostly devoted to nuclear energy. He likes to collect typewriters and early pocket calculators, which are piling up.Tags:covid-19nuclear educationquarantineu.s. doeShare:LinkedInTwitterFacebook
Climate change needs an Operation Warp SpeedThe government of the United States should throw its muscle behind ramping up a mammoth, rapid rollout of all forms of renewable energy through Operation Warp Speed, similar to what is being done with COVID-19, Clive Thompson writes in an Ideas column for Wired.The rollout should include energy sources that we already know how to build—like solar and wind — but also experimental emerging sources such as geothermal and small nuclear, and cutting-edge forms of energy storage or transmission.Go to Article
More adjustments to Vogtle milestone dates likelyThe initial shipment of nuclear fuel for Unit 3 arrives at the Vogtle site in December. Photo: Georgia PowerLargely as a result of the continuing COVID-19 crisis, the Vogtle reactor-construction project team expects to further adjust dates for achieving key project milestones, including the start of hot functional testing and fuel load for Unit 3, Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power announced on January 11.The company added, however, that it continues to expect to bring Unit 3 into service this November and Unit 4 into service in November 2022. Additional updates on the project will be provided during Southern’s quarterly earnings call next month.Go to Article
The year in review 2020: Research and ApplicationsHere is a look back at the top stories of 2020 from our Research and Applications section in Newswire and Nuclear News magazine. Remember to check back to Newswire soon for more top stories from 2020.Research and Applications sectionARDP picks divergent technologies in Natrium, Xe-100: Is nuclear’s future taking shape? The Department of Energy has put two reactor designs—TerraPower’s Natrium and X-energy’s Xe-100—on a fast track to commercialization, each with an initial $80 million in 50-50 cost-shared funds awarded through the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program. Read more.Go to Article
Report finds uranium resources sufficient for foreseeable futureAdequate uranium resources exist to support the long-term, sustainable use of nuclear energy for low-carbon electricity generation, as well as for other applications, including hydrogen production. That assessment is contained in the latest (28th) edition of Uranium—Resources, Production and Demand, a global, biennial reference prepared jointly by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency.The publication adds, however, that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and recent reductions in uranium production and exploration could affect available supplies, suggesting that timely investment in innovative mining and processing techniques would help assure that uranium resources are brought to market when needed.Go to Article
John Gilligan: NEUP in support of university nuclear R&DJohn Gilligan has been the director of the Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) since its creation in 2009 by the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE). NEUP consolidates DOE-NE’s university support under one program and engages colleges and universities in the United States to conduct research and development in nuclear technology. The two main R&D areas for NEUP funding are fuel cycle projects, which include evolving sustainable technologies that improve energy generation to enhance safety, limit proliferation risk, and reduce waste generation and resource consumption; and reactor projects, which strive to preserve the existing commercial light-water reactors as well as improve emerging advanced designs, such as small modular reactors, liquid-metal-cooled fast reactors, and gas- or liquid-salt-cooled high-temperature reactors.Go to Article
Nuclear Education and COVID-19The COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States on a wide basis in March of this year, and life as we knew it changed. “Social distancing” and “essential workers” entered the jargon and working from home for many became the norm.The number of remote meetings skyrocketed, and various companies have seen that business can be conducted without having employees in the office. For universities, distance learning has been common for a while now, but with COVID it has become essential.Nuclear News asked some nuclear engineering professors about how their programs have been dealing with the pandemic. We posed three questions and asked for responses to any or all of them:How has COVID affected your NE program, and what have you learned from the experience?Has your NE program been able to contribute to your university’s broader COVID response (e.g., through research or volunteer programs)?What opportunities or challenges do you foresee in the next year for your program and your students?The following are responses received by NN.Go to Article
Report: Nuclear and other low-carbon generation becoming cost-competitiveThe levelized costs of electricity generation from low-carbon technologies, including nuclear, are dropping and are increasingly below that of conventional fossil fuel generation, concludes a new report from the International Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA).The 223-page report, Projected Costs of Generating Electricity—2020 Edition, the ninth such jointly produced analysis, includes plant-level cost data on power generation from nuclear, natural gas, coal, and a variety of renewable sources, including wind, solar, hydro, and biofuels. The report provides data from 243 plants in 24 countries.Go to Article
Vogtle project team reports delays, holds to approved start datesIn testimony filed last week with the Georgia Public Service Commission, Georgia Power and Southern Nuclear acknowledge that the “aggressive” target dates set in July for some of the Vogtle construction project’s upcoming milestones have had to be pushed back by a few months. At the same time, however, the companies continue to express confidence in being able to meet the regulatory-approved commercial start dates for the new reactors—November 2021 for Unit 3 and November 2022 for Unit 4.The testimony was filed in support of Georgia Power’s Twenty-third Semi-annual Vogtle Construction Monitoring Report, released in August, which covers the period from January 1 to June 30, 2020.Go to Article
Bruce Power harvests Co-60 for use against COVID-19Bruce Power has harvested a second batch of Co-60 this year. Image: Bruce PowerBruce Power announced on October 22 that it has completed its second harvest of cobalt-60 this year during an outage of Unit 8 of the Bruce nuclear power plant in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada. The company said that with this latest harvest, it will have provided the world enough of the medical isotope to sterilize 20 billion–25 billion pairs of gloves or COVID-19 swabs.The Co-60 will be sent to Ottawa-based Nordion for processing and distribution over the next several weeks, according to Bruce Power. From there, the isotope will be shipped around the world for use in gamma irradiation to sterilize medical devices such as single-use gowns, surgical gloves, scalpels, syringes, and other critical health care equipment.Go to Article
Bruce Power unveils net zero by 2050 strategyThe Bruce nuclear power plant. Photo: Bruce PowerSpeaking last week at a virtual event of the Empire Club of Canada, Bruce Power president and chief executive officer Mike Rencheck announced “NZ-2050”—the company’s strategy for helping Canada achieve its stated goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.Canada’s only private sector nuclear generator, Bruce Power operates the Bruce Nuclear Generation Station, located in Kincardine, Ontario. The plant houses eight units, all CANDU pressurized heavy-water reactors, with a total output of 6,288 MWe.Go to Article