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Optimizing Maintenance Strategies in Power Generation: Embracing Predictive and Preventive Approaches
Nuclear manufacturer BWX Technologies has announced its plan to acquire Kinectrics Inc. for approximately $525 million. The deal is expected to close in mid-2025.
Here is a recap of industry happenings from the recent past:
DOE signs up first foreign partner for ARPA-E project
The Department of Energy has selected Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre as the first-ever foreign partner to join an Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) research project. The program is designed to accelerate the commercial development of fusion energy, with a focus on developing materials for the fusion reactor wall that can withstand extreme temperatures and radiation.
Another calendar year has passed. Before heading too far into 2025, let’s look back at what happened in 2024 in the nuclear community. In today's post, compiled from Nuclear News and Nuclear Newswire are what we feel are the top nuclear news stories from January through March 2024. Some images below are of the covers of Nuclear News for the months as noted.
Stay tuned for the top stories from the rest of the past year.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is hosting a hybrid public meeting with Holtec next week to discuss plans for needed repairs at Michigan’s Palisades nuclear plant before bringing the unit back on line.
U.S. General Services Administration seeks protection from future energy price hikes
The U.S. General Services Administration has announced a historic long-term purchase of electricity, including carbon-free electricity, from Constellation New Energy Inc. to power 13 federal agencies. In combination with another GSA contract, Constellation secured more than $1 billion from the deal.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has renewed for a second time the operating license for Unit 1 of Minnesota’s Monticello nuclear power plant.
The Department of Energy has offered up to $80 million of Inflation Reduction Act funding to back potential advancements in high-assay low-enriched uranium production. The new funding opportunity, announced in December, will prioritize technological advancement developing innovative technologies and approaches to strengthen the front-end of the HALEU supply chain. Applications are due by 5:00 p.m. (EST) on February 26, 2025.
TerraPower announced this week that it has awarded the major manufacturing contracts for its Natrium plant reactor enclosure system.
These vendor awards help advance deployment and commercialization of what the company is calling “America’s first advanced reactor,” according to TerraPower’s press release. The news is also a major milestone in establishing the advanced nuclear supply chain, the company added.
David Wright
There is a modern-day parable that NRC commissioner David Wright likes to reflect on from time to time, the story of a janitor on a mission. On a visit to NASA in the 1960s, or so the story goes, amid all the action and excitement and VIPs, President Kennedy stopped a janitor who was pushing his broom down the hallway. Kennedy asked the man what he was doing and he said, “Well, I’m putting a man on the moon.”
Wright believes people—all the people—are how jobs get done. And the people of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have a very big job ahead of them. Whether it is meeting the requirements of the ADVANCE Act, bringing 10 CFR Part 53 closer to the finish line, or working with its counterparts in other countries toward climate goals and international agreements, the NRC is moving mountains, one sweep of the broom at a time.
Constellation is launching a pilot program that allows its Washington, D.C., customers to purchase 100 percent nuclear energy for their homes.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) has announced that it plans to build a fusion power plant, named ARC, at the James River Industrial Park in Chesterfield County, Va.—and that it expects to be the first company to make fusion power available at grid scale.
BWXT Canada, a subsidiary of BWX Technologies, is partnering with Westinghouse Electric Company to build new nuclear projects in Canada and globally.
Comments on the rule are being accepted until February 28
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will host two public meetings in early January to educate and field questions about a proposed rule to allow more flexibility in licensing nuclear plants.
NuScale Power Corporation this week announced the opening of its Energy Exploration (E2) Center at the Ohio State University in Columbus.
American start-up Last Energy has received a letter of interest from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), confirming the bank’s willingness to move forward with due diligence for $103.7 million in financing for the company’s project in southern Wales.
Just one day after Urenco USA (UUSA) was picked by the Department of Energy as one of six contractors eligible to compete for future low-enriched uranium task orders, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on December 11 formally approved the company’s license amendment request to boost uranium enrichment levels at its Eunice, N.M., enrichment facility to 10 percent fissile uranium-235—up from its current limit of 5.5 percent.
In a one-on-one interview with the American Nuclear Society’s chief executive officer/executive director Craig Piercy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission commissioner Annie Caputo shared her journey in the nuclear community and her vision for the future of nuclear energy.
Pointing to the consequences of ignoring the perils of nuclear weapons, Rafael Mariano Grossi at last week’s Nobel Peace Prize forum called for diplomacy and dialogue to reduce nuclear tensions.
Read Grossi’s full speech and watch his keynote address here.
Jay F. Kunze
We welcome ANS members with long careers in the community to submit their own stories so that the personal history of nuclear power can be captured. For information on submitting your stories, contact nucnews@ans.org.
I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pa. In 1959, I received my Ph.D. in experimental nuclear physics utilizing the 400-MeV synchrocyclotron at Carnegie Mellon University, involving measuring the scattering of pi-mesons from protons (as a liquid hydrogen target). I joined ANS in January 1960.
I later joined General Electric’s Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion project to build a nuclear jet engine at the National Reactor Testing Station at Idaho Falls (now Idaho National Laboratory). In January 1961, the U.S. Army’s experimental nuclear reactor SL-1 blew up, killing three army personnel. At first, the Air Force would not permit General Electric to take part in the cleanup, but after the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion project was canceled by President Kennedy in March, GE took on the SL-1 disassembly and analysis project. I oversaw the analysis, which took nearly two years.