The Vogtle-3 containment vessel in March. Photo: Georgia Power

Despite its recent decision to trim the workforce at the Vogtle reactor construction project by about 20 percent to better address the COVID-19 pandemic, Southern Company is confident that Units 3 and 4—twin AP 1000 pressurized water reactors—will be up and running according to schedule.

BWX Technologies has announced the successful formation and sintering of uranium oxycarbide (UCO) fuel kernels that, once coated, will make up the fissile core of TRISO (tristructural isotropic) fuel particles. With that process demonstrated, BWXT has shifted the focus of its TRISO production restart to bringing two more furnaces online—an additional sintering furnace, used to apply heat and pressure to a solid fuel kernel, and a coating furnace.

Williams

When I was notified of my selection as the American Nuclear Society’s Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow shortly after last year’s ANS Annual Meeting, I knew I was about to embark on an exciting new adventure. Little did I know how eventful and unique it would be.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation has created a web portal for nuclear reactor licensees to submit regulatory exemption requests related to the coronavirus pandemic. At this writing, the COVID-19 Regulatory Activities for Nuclear Reactors webpage is offering online submissions for 10 CFR Part 26 work-hour exemption requests.

As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, Georgia Power Company is reducing the number of workers at its Vogtle-3 and -4 construction site, in Waynesboro, Ga., by approximately 20 percent, according to a recent joint Securities and Exchange Commission filing by the company and parent firm Southern Company.

This story was updated on April 29 with details about the ANS Annual Meeting.

The American Nuclear Society remains committed to serving the needs of the nuclear community even as the COVID-19 pandemic affects how we all communicate. Read on to learn more about the timely content that ANS is delivering to fit the way you live and work today.

An interview with ANS Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer Craig Piercy is featured on E&E News’ EnergyWire online publication. Piercy discussed issues facing the nuclear community, including COVID-19 challenges at power plants, the role of nuclear in the future, and politics on Capitol Hill.

Several companies involved in the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle have announced temporary shutdowns or staffing reductions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the modest increase in uranium spot prices triggered by production cuts could be a silver lining, uranium prices are still below a level that would prompt idled mines to get back in production once public health mandates are lifted.

The uranium market is global, and it should come as no surprise that a global pandemic is having an impact on facilities around the world, including in the following countries.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will defer collecting fees and charges from its licensees due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a letter from NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki to a bipartisan group of lawmakers. The letter states, “The commission has approved a 90-day deferral of all annual fee (10 CFR Part 171) invoices that would have been issued in the third quarter of fiscal year 2020. The NRC is taking this action to temporarily mitigate the financial impacts and economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The new billing date for annual fees that were scheduled to be billed in the third quarter (April, May, and June) will be July 22, 2020.”

ANS Young Members Group Chair Harsh Desai

The ANS Young Members Group has developed a new live webinar series that is free to all, and Harsh Desai is excited. “We have a great opportunity to highlight our national laboratory infrastructure, which is a pinnacle of innovation in nuclear science, technology, and engineering,” said Desai, chair of the YMG. “We’re giving each of the national labs the opportunity to highlight their mission, key projects, and rising stars, and we’re also giving members of the YMG executive committee valuable leadership experience building and moderating the webinar panels.”

Here are some important updates to our April 10 story on COVID-19 cases at nuclear power plants:

Recognizing the challenges that nuclear materials licensees may face in meeting certain regulatory requirements, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has developed options for licensees that may need regulatory relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. The options for providing regulatory relief were outlined in an April 7 letter from the NRC to licensees authorized to possess by-product, source, and special nuclear materials, including licensed nuclear materials users, uranium recovery, decommissioning (both materials and users), fuel facilities, and spent nuclear fuel storage facilities.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on universities has been wide-ranging, as it has forced remote learning across campuses, with a few exceptions.

Steve Biegalski, chair of the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization (NEDHO), whose membership consists of 44 academic institutions, said that the group’s universities have also transitioned to online education. The switch has gone fairly well, he said, adding that laboratory courses have not transitioned as well as regular classroom lectures. The biggest impact, however, has been in the area of research.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) has reduced operations at the majority of its cleanup sites as a result of stay-at-home orders in some states. The DOE said that most EM sites have transitioned to “essential mission-critical operations status with maximum telework” as a response to the coronavirus pandemic. The DOE said that EM is continuing to monitor developments associated with COVID-19 and is evaluating its potential impacts on projects.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has dispatched equipment to more than 40 countries to enable them to rapidly detect the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the agency announced on April 1. The IAEA said that the action is part of its response to requests for support from about 90 member states in controlling the number of infections worldwide.

Cases of the COVID-19 virus have been confirmed at nuclear power facilities in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Illinois at this writing: five at the Limerick plant, one at the Susquehanna plant, one at Vogtle, and one at Quad Cities.

The U.S. healthcare industry is warning that the COVID-19 pandemic may threaten supplies of the medical radioisotope molybdenum-99, whose decay product, technetium-99m, is considered the workhorse isotope in nuclear medicine for diagnostic imaging. The online magazine Radiology Business recently reported that the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) alerted its members on April 1 that it is monitoring supply shortages of Mo-99 “more closely than ever” during the pandemic.

Maria Korsnick, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy Larry Kudlow on March 19, citing the “severe financial strain” being anticipated or experienced by the organization’s member companies due to the COVID-19 crisis. Korsnick offered a number of policy and legislative proposals that, she said, “would be of immediate benefit in helping the people and the companies of our nation’s nuclear energy sector to withstand the ongoing operational and economic disruption.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has updated its list of who should be considered an indispensable part of the nation’s critical infrastructure workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding more specificity for the nuclear sector.

The update was released on March 28, one week after CISA issued Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce: Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19 Response, Version 1.0. In that initial document, the agency made only three explicit references to nuclear employees, identifying workers “needed for safe and secure operations at nuclear generation,” as well as those involved in critical manufacturing or hazardous materials work at nuclear facilities.

Ongoing efforts to deal with the coronavirus pandemic could hinder progress at the reactor construction project currently under way at the Vogtle nuclear plant near Waynesboro, Ga., according to a Southern Company report filed on April 1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.