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 Finnish government on February 16 granted a new operating license to Fortum Power and Heat Oy for its two Loviisa reactors—twin 507-MWe VVER-440/V213 units—providing them with an additional 20 years of operational life.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) and Poland’s National Atomic Energy Agency (PAA) have signed a memorandum of cooperation to share best practices and experience in reviewing advanced and small modular reactor technologies. (The two agencies are already engaged in cooperation on nuclear safety matters under a memorandum of understanding inked in 2014.)

The United Kingdom’s nuclear renaissance

The United Kingdom’s nuclear industry is expanding, with the U.K. government committed to supporting the build of more civil nuclear power plants (deployments up to 24 GW by 2050)¹ while also undertaking large-scale decommissioning work in parallel.² The defense sector is experiencing growth with the decommissioning, operation, and new build of submarines, plus managing the U.K.’s deterrent.³ Although the civil and defense programs are separate, they draw on the same group of skills and people.

Kairos Power, an Alameda, Calif.–based advanced reactor developer, announced yesterday that it has been named to Cleantech Group’s list of the 100 most innovative and promising private companies in the cleantech sector for 2023. Cleantech Group is a research and consulting services firm headquartered in San Francisco.

Small modular reactor developers Holtec International and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) are both looking to the United Kingdom as a prime location for deployment of their units—the SMR-160 and BWRX-300, respectively.

On December 19, Holtec Britain announced that it is poised to enter the United Kingdom’s generic design assessment (GDA) process for the SMR-160 early in 2023, enabling the start of construction of the first U.K. unit as soon as 2028. (The GDA, developed by the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency, gauges the safety, security, and environmental protection aspects of a nuclear plant design. Successfully completing the assessment culminates in a design acceptance confirmation from ONR and a statement of design acceptability from the Environment Agency.)

Shah

American Nuclear Society executive director/chief executive officer Craig Piercy interviewed Jigar Shah, the director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), in an ANS members-only online event on December 7. Shah and Piercy discussed the LPO’s role in assisting the U.S. nuclear energy industry both domestically and internationally in working toward the decarbonization of the power sector. The interview served as a follow-up to Shah’s article in Nuclear News, “Deploy, deploy, deploy: Achieving our climate goals requires nuclear this decade” (November 2022, p. 12).

Shah’s expertise: Before becoming LPO director in early 2021, Shah was president of Generate Capital, which he cofounded as an investment and operating platform for sustainable infrastructure, including distributed energy storage, microgrids, fuel cells, electric vehicles, and organic waste management. He also founded SunEdison, which pioneered “pay as you save” financing for solar energy. In addition, he was the founding CEO of the Carbon War Room, a nonprofit organization that helps entrepreneurs address climate change.

Jigar Shah

The Biden-­Harris administration has committed to decarbonizing the power sector by 2035 and the economy by 2050, while creating good jobs and promoting equity. There’s no question that the lowest-­cost, most reliable grid of the future will require clean, firm baseload power to support intermittent renewable energy.

Nuclear is such a reliable source of firm, flexible baseload power for the grid. Energy mix optimization models show that as penetration of renewables (such as solar and wind) grows, required energy storage capacity also grows, leading to increasing cost competitiveness of dispatchable carbon-­free power sources (including low-­impact hydro, geothermal energy, carbon capture and storage, zero-­carbon fuels like hydrogen, and nuclear). Nuclear power is an essential component of America’s transition to a clean electric grid to maintain reliability, resiliency, and affordability.

U.S. special envoy for climate John Kerry and Ukraine’s minister of energy German Galushchenko have announced a two-to-three-year pilot project aimed at demonstrating the commercial-scale production of clean hydrogen and ammonia from small modular reactors in Ukraine using solid oxide electrolysis.

Since at least June of last year—when TerraPower and PacifiCorp announced plans to site the Natrium reactor demonstration project at one of Wyoming’s retiring coal plants—the concept of repurposing those plants to host nuclear reactors has been a popular topic of conversation among the energy cognoscenti.

Canada’s Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and Czech Republic–based ČEZ have agreed to collaborate on nuclear technology deployment, including small modular reactors, under a memorandum of understanding signed yesterday in Prague.

Ontario’s largest electricity generator and the European energy giant have both pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

Westinghouse's eVinci microreactor (Image: Westinghouse)

Westinghouse Electric Company has signed a service agreement with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to bring the eVinci microreactor closer to commercialization, the company announced Tuesday. The agreement initiates a vendor design review (VDR)—a prelicensing technical assessment of a company’s reactor technology.

The objective of a VDR, according to the CNSC, is to verify the acceptability of a nuclear power plant design with respect to Canadian nuclear regulatory requirements and expectations, as well as Canadian codes and standards. The review also aims to identify fundamental barriers to licensing a new design in Canada and to assure that a resolution path exists for any design issues identified.

Ontario Power Generation and Microsoft Canada have formed a partnership aimed at combatting climate change and driving sustainable growth across the province of Ontario, the Canadian utility announced this week.

Under the partnership, Microsoft will procure clean energy credits (CECs) sourced from OPG’s nuclear and hydro assets in Ontario on an hourly basis. (OPG’s nuclear assets include the four-unit Darlington plant and six-unit Pickering facility.) According to the announcement, this will enable Microsoft to advance toward its 100/100/0 by 2030 goal, which commits the software firm to powering its data centers globally with zero-carbon energy, 24/7.

The American Nuclear Society is hosting the side event panel "Advanced Nuclear Reactors: A Possible Solution to Global Warming and Global Energy Poverty" at the Global Clean Energy Action Forum’s Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) . The event will be held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Thursday, September 22, from 1:45 to 2:45 p.m. EDT.

The event is open to all CEM participants.

Advanced reactor developers are designing many new nuclear energy products, targeting commercial demonstration before 2030. These products aim to provide different products and grid services beyond what is provided by the first generations of commercial nuclear plants, namely, gigawatt-scale electricity production. These reactors are intended for deployment in many novel scenarios, including being closer to population centers. They will be sited in governmental processes that encourage far more public participation than was possible when many of the existing plants were sited and built in the 1960s and 1970s. This means that community engagement and approval likely will be critical for project success. This article, which discusses this issue of social license, is an adaptation of “Social license in the deployment of advanced nuclear technology,” published in Energies in 2021.¹ A more detailed discussion can be found in the original article.

LA GRANGE PARK, ILLINOIS – Statement from American Nuclear Society (ANS) President Steven Arndt and ANS CEO/Executive Director Craig Piercy on passage of California Senate Bill 846:

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) has published Nuclear Energy as a Keystone Clean Energy Resource, a white paper that examines the role of nuclear power in providing carbon-free energy in the United States. The 57-page paper, prepared by Energy Ventures Analysis, includes a review of considerations for regulators to boost nuclear power’s contribution to the decarbonization energy transition.

A key point made in the paper is that reaching ambitious state and national decarbonization goals will require expansion of the nuclear energy resource base. Despite this, a number of barriers stand in the way of nuclear fleet expansion. Moreover, existing nuclear power plants must continue to deal with challenges, such as those from economic pressures, planned reactor retirements, regulatory issues, and competition with other energy industries.

The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) has announced the launch of a research project that will look into barriers to the adoption of advanced nuclear propulsion for commercial vessels.

The $794,000 project, awarded to ABS last year by the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, is now being formally contracted through the DOE’s U.S. Industry Opportunities for Advanced Nuclear Technology Development funding opportunity, according to ABS’s August 17 announcement. Support is to be provided by Idaho National Laboratory’s National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC).

LA GRANGE PARK, Ill. – The American Nuclear Society (ANS) President Steven Arndt and ANS CEO and Executive Director Craig Piercy issued the following statement on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022:

Small modular reactor developer X-energy and materials science giant Dow this morning announced the signing of a letter of intent aimed at deploying X-energy’s Xe-100 reactor technology at one of Dow’s U.S. Gulf Coast facilities. The companies expect the SMR plant, which would provide power and process heat to the Dow facility, to be operational by approximately 2030.

Dow is the first manufacturer to declare its intention to develop SMR technology options and intends to take a minority equity stake in X-energy, according to the announcement.

News of the collaboration broke at the American Nuclear Society’s Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo, being held through August 10 at Marco Island, Fla.