. . . and today.

Weitzberg then. . .

My first exposure to nuclear engineering was in 1956–57 when I was a fourth-­year chemical engineering undergraduate at MIT. The previous summer, I worked at an oil refinery in New Jersey and our class visited a Monsanto sulfuric acid factory in Boston Harbor. I lost my enthusiasm for chemical engineering and decided to take a couple of introductory nuclear engineering courses as a senior. After a summer job at Y-­12 in Oak Ridge, I started on a nuclear engineering master’s degree program. (An Atomic Energy Commission fellowship certainly helped my decision.)

The following summer, I performed reactor physics experiments at Brookhaven with Herb Kouts, Joe Hendrie, Rudy Sher, and Henry Windsor. In January 1962, after defending my Ph.D. dissertation on measuring uranium-­238 capture in lattices of uranium rods in heavy water, I headed to Los Angeles to work on SNAP reactors for Atomics International. There, I performed critical experiments and managed their aerospace safety program.

Hideyo Hanazumi, governor of Niigata Prefecture in Japan, has approved the restart of two reactors at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant. The seven-unit facility, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company, is the largest nuclear power plant in the world. It has been shut down since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami struck the country, severely damaging TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Paducah Project Office is weighing options on reprocessing approximately 9,700 tons of contaminated nickel being stored at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky.

The 4th Annual Advanced Reactor Codes and Standards Collaborative (ARCSC) Workshop will take place on December 4 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (EST). The event, which will be hosted at the Electric Power Research Institute’s office Washington, D.C., has a hybrid format, offering the opportunity for both in-person and virtual attendance. It’s focus is on sharing the ARCSC’s progress on developing codes and standards to support advanced reactor development and will also feature industry-focused breakout discussions, conversations with industry leaders, and more.

Click here to register for the workshop.

A recent webinar hosted by the American Nuclear Society featured leading experts in South Carolina’s nuclear sector, who discussed how the state will leverage its resources, history, and experience to become a frontrunner in new development. Hosted by ANS Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy, it offered perspectives from the utility, commercial, and academic worlds.

Go deeper: To hear more from each panelist on the nuclear present and future of South Carolina, watch the full webinar here.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it has received the first portion of a construction permit application from Oklo subsidiary Atomic Alchemy that requests permission to build four nonpower reactors for a radioisotope production facility at Idaho National Laboratory. The submission is now available for public inspection on the NRC website.

The U.S. nuclear industry is standing at its most volatile regulatory moment yet—one that will shape the trajectory and the safety of the industry for decades to come. Recent judicial, legislative, and executive actions are rewriting the rules governing the licensing and regulation of nuclear power reactors. Although these changes are intended to promote and accelerate the deployment of new nuclear energy technologies, the collision of multiple legal shifts—occurring simultaneously and intersecting with profound technological uncertainties—is overwhelming the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and threatening to destabilize investor and industry expectations.

As President Trump hosted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House on November 19, Energy Secretary Chris Wright confirmed that the United States and Saudi Arabia have signed a “historic” deal on cooperation in the civilian nuclear energy sector. The “Joint Declaration on the Completion of Negotiations on Civil Nuclear Cooperation” is seen as an important part to strengthen U.S. influence in the Gulf region to counter the influence of Iran, Russia, and China.

Workers have begun demolishing the massive X-333 Process Building at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced. The largest of three former uranium enrichment process buildings at Portsmouth, the X-333 building is the second of the three buildings to be demolished at the site and is a priority for DOE-EM.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy is requesting comments on a draft voluntary agreement for the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Defense Production Act (DPA) Consortium, with a short deadline of November 24 for comments.

Notice of the request for comments, along with the text of the draft voluntary agreement, was published in the November 17 Federal Register.

The Department of Energy announced on November 18 that it has closed on a $1 billion loan through its Loan Programs Office to Constellation to aid in financing the restart of the 835-MWe Crane Clean Energy Center, formerly Three Mile Island-1.

AI for energy, and energy for AI: that is the new refrain. But can nuclear power plants be deployed at the pace needed for substantial and timely contributions to the energy infrastructure? For Westinghouse, delivering its AP1000 on time and on budget in the United States is a challenge not yet accomplished, while newcomers like Aalo Atomics are turning to AI to speed design, permitting, and construction.

As part of the Janus Program, announced in October, the Department of the Army is seeking potential commercial vendors to build microreactor power plants at nine military installations that are under consideration.

Nieh

Earlier today, the U.S. Senate officially confirmed Ho Nieh in a 66–32 vote to serve as a commissioner on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission through the remainder of a term that will expire June 30, 2029. All present Republicans, alongside 15 Democrats and one Independent, cast their votes in favor of Nieh, who was nominated by President Trump in July and fills the seat left vacant following the dismissal of former commissioner Christopher Hanson.

NRC details: The commission leading the NRC now comprises four members. Nieh joins Chair David Wright and commissioners Bradley Crowell and Matthew Marzano. One spot remains unfilled after the resignation of Annie Caputo in July. President Trump nominated Douglas Weaver earlier this month to fill Caputo’s seat.

A new type of material has been demonstrated to greatly enhance the ability to recover uranium from seawater, according to a study published recently in Sustainable Carbon Materials. The research, which could lead to a new way of obtaining uranium for nuclear reactor fuel, was conducted by scientists from Weifang University and North China Electric Power University.

Due to the days lost to the government shutdown, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extended the public comment period for a draft environmental impact statement for the TX-1 advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility being built in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox joined Brigham City Mayor D. J. Bott this week to announce a new partnership among the state, city, Hi Tech Solutions, and Holtec International. The partnership plans to develop a “full-scale nuclear energy ecosystem” based in Brigham City that will feature advanced manufacturing, workforce development, and Holtec’s SMR-300.

Valar Atomics has announced that its Nova Core achieved zero-power criticality on November 17 at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s National Criticality Experiments Research Center (NCERC) at the Nevada National Security Site.

Small modular reactor developer X-energy and its subsidiary TRISO-X announced yesterday the start of aboveground construction for its TX-1 advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn.  The first-in-the-nation facility will be the first of two Oak Ridge facilities built to manufacture the company’s TRISO fuel for use in its Xe-100 SMR.