Sherwood-Randall

The Biden administration on March 2 announced a new strategy to remove and secure certain highly radioactive materials that are used in hospitals and other civilian commercial facilities as a measure to prevent such materials from being acquired by terrorists for making “dirty bombs” or other weapons. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, White House assistant to the president for Homeland Security, shared the details of the National Security Memorandum to Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism and Advance Nuclear and Radioactive Material Security (NSM19) later that same day in a discussion at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) global security organization in Washington, D.C., according to a report in the New York Times.

National strategy: Biden’s newly signed NSM 19 “integrates, in a systematic way, U.S. policies to counter the use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons by non-state actors; sets out unified priorities for Departments and Agencies across the Federal government; and affirms the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to work with state, local, tribal, international, and private sector partners on preventing, mitigating, and responding to WMD terrorism threats.”

The Department of Energy has announced the release of application guidance for the second award cycle of its $6 billion Civil Nuclear Credit (CNC) Program.

Part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—the $1.2 trillion bipartisan measure signed by President Biden in November 2021—the CNC Program was established to prevent the premature retirement of economically challenged nuclear power plants in recognition of the crucial role the Biden administration sees nuclear playing in achieving its ambitious decarbonization goals, including 100 percent clean electricity by 2035.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published its 2022–2023 Information Digest, NUREG-1350, Vol. 34, which describes the agency's responsibilities and activities and provides general information regarding nuclear-related topics.

One doesn’t typically come across nuclear fusion in a fashion magazine, but a recent issue of Vanity Fair profiled the creative director of a famous luxury fashion house who has made nuclear fusion a conceptual focus of her clothing creations. According to the article, Gabriela Hearst, the creative director at the New York City office of Paris-based Chloé, has designed a spring-summer 2023 collection “inspired by site visits to labs in the Pacific Northwest, New England, and southern France, where hundreds of scientists and engineers are working to develop technology that will produce a net energy gain through fusion.”

Georgia Institute of Technology has announced the Consortium for Emerging Technologies and Innovation’s third ETI Annual Summer School, which will focus on advanced manufacturing within the context of nuclear nonproliferation.

Registration is now open. Register online by May 15, 2023.

The Oregon Encyclopedia website has posted an article about the state’s Oregon Centennial Exposition and International Trade Fair, held in Portland in 1959 in celebration of Oregon’s becoming the 35th U.S state 100 years prior. The Oregon Encyclopedia is a project of the Oregon Historical Society.

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency is offering the first International School on Simulation of Nuclear Reactor Systems (SINUS) workshop in May this year, with the topic “Reactor Single- and Multi-Physics Simulations Based on Light Water Reactor (LWR) Uncertainty Analysis in Modeling (UAM) Benchmark.”

Registration for the workshop is available online.

Entergy’s River Bend nuclear power plant started its 22nd scheduled refueling and maintenance outage on February 11. The plant, located in St. Francisville, La., is a 967-MWe General Electric boiling water reactor.

The United States is supporting a junior professional officer (JPO) position in the International Atomic Energy Association to work on spent nuclear fuel management. The role is for an associate project officer-spent fuel management, who will be based in Vienna, Austria, and work under the direct supervision of the technical leader of the spent fuel management team in the Division of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology.

Waste Management Symposia (WMS), which hosts the annual Waste Management Conference in Phoenix, Ariz., is launching a new effort along with Longenecker & Associates to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education efforts to attract and build the next-generation nuclear workforce. The engineering, environmental, and nuclear services company Spectra Tech is joining the initiative by matching Longenecker & Associates' contributions to the program.

Institutional investor BNF Capital has taken a 10.7 percent stake in Lightbridge Corporation, which is developing fuel for small modular reactors and existing light water reactors. BNF Capital is based in London, U.K. Lightbridge is located in Reston, Va.

A new survey by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) indicates that 71 percent of the German public supports the continued use of nuclear energy in the country, while 29 percent want it ended. The survey results, which were reported by German news source Bild and elsewhere, come amid ongoing controversy regarding the current plans by the German government to shut down the nation’s three remaining nuclear power plants in mid-April.

A creative fan of Lego—and nuclear power—has designed a nuclear power plant out of the famous building blocks and has submitted the idea to the Lego Group for possible production—but first, the idea needs the support of the public.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has opened registration for its 35th annual Regulatory Information Conference (RIC 2023) The conference, themed “Navigating the Nuclear Future,” will be held March 14–16 in North Bethesda, Md., and will be the first in-person RIC since 2019, although the event will also be accessible virtually.

Register now. Registration, which is required to attend, can be completed by filling out the conference registration online form. The conference is free to the public.

The Nuclear Innovation Alliance (NIA) released a new report last week titled Transforming the U.S. Department of Energy: Paving the Way to Commercialize Advanced Nuclear Energy, which gives recommendations for how the Department of Energy (DOE) can help advanced nuclear power technologies cross the finish line to commercialization. It calls for a “whole-of-government and whole-of-society effort dependent on successful public-private partnerships.”

The NIA report acknowledges that boosting energy security and meeting decarbonization goals will require at least double the domestic nuclear energy capacity that is on line today. But the nuclear industry is highly complex, and its supply chain is atrophied. The success of advanced nuclear technology will depend on careful collaboration and planning to bolster a new supply chain.

The use of small modular reactors would be an excellent, cost-effective way to recharge electric heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs), such as trucks, according to a recent study published in Applied Energy. The Idaho National Laboratory–funded study was conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan.

A “resurgence of interest” in nuclear propulsion for space missions is described in a new article authored by science writer Jon Kelvey for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ (AIAA’s) Aerospace America website. The focus of Kelvey’s article is nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP), which, according to the Department of Energy, “could significantly reduce travel times and carry greater payloads than today’s top chemical rockets­—giving humans a great chance of exploring deep space.”

NAC International Inc. has completed its acquisition of Philotechnics Ltd., a health physics, radiological services, and waste management company headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tenn., with a satellite facility in San Diego, Calif. The company, now under NAC International ownership, has been renamed NAC Philotechnics Ltd.

Paragon Energy Solutions and Thermo Fisher Scientific have entered into a definitive agreement that grants Paragon a long-term license for the product line of Thermo Fisher’s Gamma-Metrics neutron flux monitoring systems (NFMS). The agreement allows the legacy nuclear reactor customers of service provider Thermo Fisher to more easily purchase spare parts, upgrades, services, and new systems from Paragon, a leading supplier of safety-related products and components for the nuclear industry. This enhanced purchasing ability reduces the risk of obsolete products being used in the operating nuclear fleet.

The discovery of a small amount of uranium inside a package of scrap metal bars at Heathrow Airport in London has raised a number of puzzling questions that are being investigated by Scotland Yard, headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police (the Met). Investigators said that the uranium, which was found by Border Force staff during routine screening at the airport on December 29, originated in Pakistan, though it arrived at Heathrow on a passenger flight from Oman and, according to a January 11 report in the Guardian, was bound for an Iranian-owned business with offices in the United Kingdom.