Web workshop: Separating nuclear reactors from the power block with heat storageANS NewsJuly 27, 2020, 3:06PM|ANS News StaffA three-part free webinar workshop, Separating Nuclear Reactors from the Power Block with Heat Storage: A New Power Plant Design Paradigm, will run for three upcoming Wednesdays, starting this week on July 29. The workshop is being hosted jointly by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).The workshop directors are Charles Forsberg of MIT, Piyush Sabharwall of INL, and Andrew Sowder of EPRI.The workshop is free but registration is required.Background: Nuclear plant design has followed fossil plant design with tight integration of the reactor and the power block that includes the turbine generator. This workshop examines an alternative system design, proposed by several reactor developers, that incorporates large-scale multi-gigawatt-hour heat storage between the reactor and the power block.This change in plant design is driven by changes in electricity markets—the addition of wind and solar that causes price volatility and the goal of a low-carbon grid.The reactor, operating at baseload, is a heat production system that converts a cold heat-storage medium, such as salt, to a hot storage medium that is sent to a second tank. The reactor is decoupled from the production of electricity or heat to industry. The power cycle takes hot salt or other storage fluid, produces variable electricity for the grid with a peak output that may be several times the power output of the reactor, and sends cold salt or other fluid to the cold fluid storage tank. Heat can be sent to industry. If there is very-low-price electricity, electricity can be bought and converted to stored heat for later use.The three sessions: Each of the workshop's three sessions will run on different days, as follows:Session 1, July 29: Markets, Requirements and Systems Design (10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. EDT)Session 2, August 12: Technologies for Heat Storage and Power Cycles (10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. EDT)Session 3, August 26: Economics, Business Strategies and Demonstration Strategies (10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. EDT)Details: Each session will include time for questions after each speaker and time after all talks for questions and general discussions among the participants. The presentations will be posted after each session. Registration for the workshop is required.Tags:epriheat storageinlmitnuclear reactor designpower blockwebinarworkshopShare:LinkedInTwitterFacebook
ANS webinar updates progress at FukushimaThe accident at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on March 11, 2011, has sparked many safety improvements in the nuclear industry over the past decade. Lessons from the accident and its aftermath will influence firms and regulators as they consider the future design, construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear reactors.An American Nuclear Society webinar, “Nuclear News Presents: A Look Back at the Fukushima Daiichi Accident,” held yesterday was attended by more than 1,550 viewers and generated about 150 questions to the panelists. The attendance was the largest ever for an ANS webinar.The panelists were Mike Corradini, emeritus professor, University of Wisconsin; Dale Klein, former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Joy Rempe, principal, Rempe and Assoc. LLC; Lake Barrett, senior advisor, Tokyo Electric Power Company and Japan’s International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID); and Paul Dickman, senior policy fellow, Argonne National Laboratory.The webinar’s recording and slides are available here, along with an e-version of the March issue of Nuclear News, which features a cover story on the Fukushima Daiichi accident.Go to Article
DOE steps up plutonium production for future space explorationThis high-resolution still image is from a video taken by several cameras as NASA’s Perseverance rover touched down on Mars on February 18. Credits: NASA/JPL-CaltechNASA’s Perseverance rover, which successfully landed on Mars on February 18, is powered in part by the first plutonium produced at Department of Energy laboratories in more than 30 years. The radioactive decay of Pu-238 provides heat to radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) like the one onboard Perseverance and would also be used by the Dynamic Radioisotope Power System, currently under development, which is expected to provide three times the power of RTGs.Idaho National Laboratory is scaling up the production of Pu-238 to help meet NASA’s production goal of 1.5 kg per year by 2026, the DOE announced on February 17.Go to Article
ANS Fellows elected to National Academy of EngineeringMagwoodPetersANS Fellows William D. Magwood IV and Mark T. Peters have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).Magwood, an ANS member since 1983, is the secretary general for the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. He was elected for “leadership and contributions to research programs that drive innovation in global nuclear energy enterprises.”Peters, an ANS member since 2007 and the executive vice president for Laboratory Operations at Battelle, was elected “for leadership and contributions in advancing U.S. nuclear energy capabilities and infrastructure.”Go to Article
NASA’s radioisotope-powered science will persevere on MarsMembers of the Perseverance rover team in Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory react after receiving confirmation of a successful landing. Photo: NASA/Bill IngallsNASA mission control and space science fans around the world celebrated the safe landing of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover on February 18 after a journey of 203 days and 293 million miles. Landing on Mars is difficult—only about 50 percent of all previous Mars landing attempts have succeeded—and a successful landing for Perseverance, the fifth rover that NASA has sent to Mars, was not assured. Confirmation of the successful touchdown was announced at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., at 3:55 p.m. EST.“This landing is one of those pivotal moments for NASA, the United States, and space exploration globally—when we know we are on the cusp of discovery and sharpening our pencils, so to speak, to rewrite the textbooks,” said acting NASA administrator Steve Jurczyk. “The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission embodies our nation’s spirit of persevering even in the most challenging of situations, inspiring, and advancing science and exploration. The mission itself personifies the human ideal of persevering toward the future and will help us prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.”Only radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG) can provide the long-lasting, compact power source that Perseverance needs to carry out its long-term exploratory mission. Perseverance carries an RTG powered by the radioactive decay of plutonium-238 that was supplied by the Department of Energy. ANS president Mary Lou Dunzik-Gougar and CEO and executive director Craig Piercy congratulated NASA after the successful landing, acknowledging the critical contributions of the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.Go to Article
INL seeks efficiency boost for radioisotope-powered spacecraftThe RTG used to power the Mars Perseverance rover is shown here being placed in a thermal vacuum chamber for testing in a simulated near-space environment. Source: INLThe Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is celebrating the scheduled landing of the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars in just two days’ time with a live Q&A today, February 16, from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. EST).INL and Battelle Energy Alliance, its management and operating contractor, are already looking ahead to the next generation of plutonium-powered spacecraft: the Dynamic Radioisotope Power System (Dynamic RPS). INL announced on February 15 that it is partnering with NASA and the DOE to seek industry engagement to further the design of this new power system.Go to Article
DOE extends comment period on VTR environmental reviewThe Department of Energy has extended the public review and comment period for the Draft Versatile Test Reactor Environmental Impact Statement (DOE/EIS-0542) through March 2, 2021.The DOE issued the draft EIS for the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) for comment on December 21, 2020. The draft document identifies Idaho National Laboratory as the DOE’s preferred location for the VTR, a proposed sodium-cooled fast-neutron-spectrum test reactor that, according to the DOE, will enhance and accelerate research, development, and demonstration of innovative nuclear energy technologies.In August 2020, Battelle Energy Alliance, which operates INL for the DOE, began contract negotiations with a Bechtel National–led team that includes TerraPower and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy to support the design and construction of the VTR.Go to Article
Coming up: ANS webinar on the NPTThe American Nuclear Society will be hosting an expert panel in a discussion on the origins of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as well as discuss its future.The free webinar "The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at 50 Years" will take place on Monday, February 15, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (EST) .Registration is required.Go to Article
INL’s MARVEL could demonstrate remote operation on a micro scaleThe Department of Energy launched a 14-day public review and comment period on January 11 on a draft environmental assessment for a proposal to construct the Microreactor Applications Research Validation & EvaLuation (MARVEL) project microreactor inside Idaho National Laboratory’s Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility.The basics: The MARVEL design is a sodium-potassium–cooled thermal microreactor fueled by uranium zirconium hydride fuel pins using high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU). It would be a 100-kWt reactor capable of generating about 20 kWe using Stirling engines over a core life of about two years.The DOE proposes to install the MARVEL microreactor in a concrete storage pit in the north high bay of the TREAT reactor building. Modifications to the building to accommodate MARVEL are anticipated to take five to seven months. Constructing, assembling, and performing preoperational testing are expected to take another two to three months prior to fuel loading.Go to Article
EPRI names Rita Baranwal as new VP of nuclear, CNOBaranwalThe Electric Power Research Institute today announced Rita Baranwal as its new vice president of nuclear energy and chief nuclear officer. Baranwal succeeds Neil Wilmshurst, who was promoted to senior vice president of energy system resources in November.Baranwal most recently served as the Department of Energy’s assistant secretary for its Office of Nuclear Energy, where she managed the DOE's portfolio of nuclear research for existing and advanced reactors and new designs. Baranwal unexpectedly resigned from that position late last week.Go to Article
Reclassification of HLW could reduce risks while saving billions, DOE saysAn engineered stainless steel container designed to hold LLW at Hanford. Photo: Bechtel National, Inc.A Department of Energy report to the U.S. Congress shows that the reclassification of high-level radioactive waste could save more than $200 billion in treatment and disposal costs while allowing DOE sites to be cleaned up sooner—all still without jeopardizing public health and safety.The report, Evaluation of Potential Opportunities to Classify Certain Defense Nuclear Waste from Reprocessing as Other than High-Level Radioactive Waste, identifies potential opportunities for the DOE to reduce risk to public and environment while completing its cleanup mission more efficiently and effectively. Those opportunities are based on the DOE’s 2019 interpretation of the statutory term HLW, which classifies waste based on its radiological characteristics rather than its origin.Under the DOE’s interpretation of HLW, waste from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel may be determined to be non-HLW if the waste (1) does not exceed concentration limits for Class C low-level radioactive waste as set out in federal regulations and meets the performance objectives of a disposal facility; or (2) does not require disposal in a deep geologic repository and meets the performance objectives of a disposal facility as demonstrated through a performance assessment conducted in accordance with applicable requirements.Go to Article