Metropolis Works receives 40-year license renewalNuclear NewsPower & OperationsApril 2, 2020, 9:16AM|Nuclear News StaffThe Nuclear Regulatory Commission on March 24 relicensed the only uranium conversion plant in the United States, Honeywell International’s Metropolis Works.Metropolis Works can now operate until March 24, 2060, potentially logging operations for over a century. Built in 1958 to produce uranium hexafluoride (UF6) for the U.S. government, Metropolis Works began selling UF6 on the commercial market in 1968.The details:The plant’s source materials license has been renewed for 40 more years, with an authorized capacity of 15,000 metric tons. The previous license renewal granted to Metropolis Works was issued in 2007 for a 10-year term. The NRC staff documented its review of Honeywell’s February 2017 request for a 40-year license renewal in an environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact published in October 2019 and a final safety evaluation report published in December 2019. The staff also considered alternatives, including renewing the license for a shorter term (NN, Dec. 2019, p. 49).The process: The plant in Metropolis, Ill., receives uranium ore concentrate from mills and in situ recovery facilities and converts it to gas. The gas is cooled to a liquid and drained into 14-ton storage and transport cylinders. As the UF6continues to cool over the course of five days, it transitions from a liquid to a solid. The cylinder, with UF6in a solid form, can then be transported to another facility forenrichmentand fabrication into commercial power reactor fuel.What happens now: Metropolis Works curtailed operations in late 2017, citing market conditions, and entered a “ready-idle” status with a reduced amount of material on-site. The fully licensed and operational plant is expected to remain idle until demand for its services increases. The Trump administration’s Nuclear Fuel Working Group has been charged with addressing near-term challenges to the domestic uranium mining and conversion industry, and help could be on the way in the form of a $150-million fiscal year 2021 budget proposal for a U.S. uranium reserve (NN, Mar. 2020, p. 74).Tags:fuel cyclelicensingnuclear fuel working groupu conversionShare:LinkedInTwitterFacebook
FY21 appropriations bills released, funds for U reserve includedThe Senate Appropriations Committee last week released all 12 fiscal year 2021 appropriation measures and subcommittee allocations, including an Energy and Water Development bill that provides $150 million for establishing a U.S. uranium reserve, the same amount requested by the Trump administration in its February budget estimate.The committee’s Republican majority decided to bypass the usual markup and full Senate consideration of the bills and instead proceed directly to negotiations with the House, in hopes of passing an omnibus bill by the December 11 deadline to avoid a government shutdown.Shelby“By and large, these bills are the product of bipartisan cooperation among members of the committee,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee. “As negotiations with the House begin in earnest, I look forward to working with Chairwoman Lowey, Vice Chairman Leahy, and Ranking Member Granger to resolve our differences in a bipartisan manner.”Go to Article
NRC denies challenge to Three Mile Island’s emergency planThe Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rejected a petition by Three Mile Island Alert (TMIA) challenging Exelon’s request to revise its site emergency plan for the closed Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. Exelon submitted a request to the NRC to amend its TMI-1 license to reflect the reduced risks of the defueled reactor, which was permanently shut down in September 2019.In an order issued on October 8, the NRC commissioners upheld a decision by an NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board denying TMIA’s petition to intervene and request a hearing in the license amendment request. That decision, issued on January 23, 2020, found that the antinuclear group had not established standing in the case and that its contentions were inadmissible.Go to Article
Legislation to reduce Russian uranium imports introduced in SenateSens. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) and Martin Heinrich (D., N.M.) on September 24 introduced S. 4694, the Russian Suspension Agreement Extension Act of 2020, designed to extend and expand limits on Russian uranium imports. The legislation—cosponsored by Sens. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.), Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), and Jim Risch (R., Idaho)—has been referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.Go to Article
HALEU investment is key part of TerraPower’s demo proposalTerraPower announced on September 15 that it plans to work with Centrus Energy to establish commercial-scale production facilities for the high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) needed to fuel many advanced reactor designs.The proposed investment in HALEU fuel fabrication is tied to a TerraPower-led submittal to the Department of Energy’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), which was created to support the deployment of two first-of-a-kind advanced reactor designs within five to seven years. TerraPower would like one of those designs to be Natrium, the 345-MWe sodium fast reactor that it has developed with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy.Go to Article
Senators press Trump for answers on Saudi nuclear capabilitiesVan HollenAmid news stories of possible undeclared nuclear facilities in Saudi Arabia and China's involvement with them (see here and here, for instance), Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) on August 19 led a bipartisan group of senate colleagues in sending a letter to President Trump requesting more information on the matter.Cosigners included Sens. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), Susan Collins (R., Maine), Tim Kaine (D., Va.), and Jerry Moran (R., Kan.).Go to Article
Supporters of nuclear infrastructure bill testify at Senate hearingThe draft American Nuclear Infrastructure Act of 2020 (ANIA) received support from three energy experts at a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing on August 5. The legislation had been introduced the previous week by Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the committee’s chairman.Testifying before the committee were Amy Roma, a founding member of the Nuclear Energy and National Security Coalition at the Atlantic Council and an attorney at Hogan Lovells; W. Paul Goranson, chief operating officer of Energy Fuels Inc. and president of the Uranium Producers of America (UPA); and Armond Cohen, executive director of the Clean Air Task Force (CATF). (For more on the CATF, remember to check out next month’s Nuclear News.)Go to Article
Record low uranium production noted as Congress debates reserve fundingUranium producers around the world have suffered through years of record low uranium prices. In 2019 the United States recorded its lowest total uranium production—174,000 lb U3O8—since the U.S. Energy Information Administration began collecting data in 1949, according to the agency’s Today in Energy analysis of July 17.U.S. uranium producers asked the federal government to come to their aid in January 2018, and President Donald Trump created the U.S. Nuclear Fuel Working Group (NFWG) in July 2019. While the NFWG issued a report in April 2020 recommending support for the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, uranium producers are in a waiting game once again as the U.S. House of Representatives works on Fiscal Year 2021 appropriations legislation.Go to Article
ANS backs DFC move to permit nuclear investmentsThe U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has proposed eliminating legacy prohibitions against financing international nuclear power projects, and ANS Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy lodged his support for the move in a letter submitted to the DFC on July 2.Go to Article
NRC accepts Centrus Energy’s application for HALEU license expansionThe Nuclear Regulatory Commission has accepted for review Centrus Energy Corporation’s application to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium at its facility in Piketon, Ohio, the company announced on June 23. HALEU-based fuels will be required for most of the advanced reactor designs currently under development and may also be utilized in next-generation fuels for the existing fleet of reactors in the United States and around the world.Go to Article
NRC amends fees for FY 2020The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is amending its regulations for the licensing, inspection, special projects, and annual fees that it will charge applicants and licensees for fiscal year 2020. The FY 2020 final fee rule, published in the June 19 Federal Register, includes fees required by law to recover approximately 90 percent of the NRC’s annual budget authority. A proposed rule was published for public comment on February 18 of this year, with a March 19 due date. The final rule goes into effect on August 18.Go to Article