Bowing to current COVID-19 realities but buoyed by the success of June’s virtual Annual Meeting, ANS event planners returned to the virtual realm for this year’s Utility Working Conference. Originally scheduled for August 9–12 at Marco Island, Fla., the condensed event was held Wednesday, August 11, wherever registrants’ computer devices happened to be located.

In addition to 26 educational sessions and workshops, UWC 2020 featured an opening plenary session titled “Achieving Transformational Change: A leadership discussion,” moderated by Bob Coward, MPR Associates principal officer and ANS past president (2017–2018). Plenary panelists included representatives from three utilities—Arizona Public Service (APS), Exelon, and Xcel Energy—plus the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In addition to coverage of the opening plenary further below, Newswire also covered other UWC sessions from the day, which are available for reading here:

• More from UWC 2020 Click here
• More from UWC 2020: Round 2 Click here
• More from UWC 2020: Round 3 Click here

The opening plenary coverage starts directly below:

Assuming the world takes seriously the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, U.S. nuclear exports could be worth between $1.3 trillion and $1.9 trillion over the next 30 years, according to a new report by market research and analysis firm UxC.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has lifted its ban on financing nuclear power projects abroad. Last month, the DFC proposed the change to its Environmental and Social Policy and Procedures, which had specifically prohibited it from offering such support.

The change, announced by the DFC on July 23, also implements a key recommendation made in an April 2020 report issued by the U.S. Nuclear Fuel Working Group, an interagency initiative to review and modernize U.S. nuclear energy policy.

A team from Arizona Public Service’s (APS) Palo Verde nuclear plant, in Wintersburg, Ariz., has won the Nuclear Energy Institute’s “Best of the Best” Top Innovative Practice (TIP) Award for developing in-house software applications that use machine learning to automate such time-consuming tasks as screening reports or searching maintenance logs. The award was announced July 9 during NEI’s first-ever virtual TIP Awards presentation.

House Democrats on June 30 rolled out a vision of what U.S. climate change policy might look like in the event the Democratic party holds its current House majority, retakes the Senate, and wins the White House in November. The vision was presented in the form of a sweeping 547-page majority staff report entitled Solving the Climate Crisis: The Congressional Action Plan for a Clean Energy Economy and a Healthy, Resilient, and Just America.

The Nuclear Energy Institute on June 24 hosted The State of the Nuclear Energy Industry 2020, a three-segment webinar featuring remarks from Maria Korsnick, president and chief executive officer of NEI; an interview with Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), conducted by Jason Grumet, founder and president of the Bipartisan Policy Center; and a panel discussion moderated by Rich Powell, executive director of ClearPath.

The American Nuclear Society and the Nuclear Energy Institute have organized a workshop for industry partners to discuss standards needs to support advanced reactors. The workshop will be conducted virtually through the Zoom platform

The workshop will be held on Tuesday, June 23, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (EDT).

The Utilities Service Alliance’s organizational banners.

The Utilities Service Alliance (USA) was founded in 1996. Current membership stretches from coast-to-coast and includes eight utilities and nine nuclear stations: Energy Northwest, Columbia; Luminant, Comanche Peak; Indiana Michigan Power Company, Cook; Nebraska Public Power District, Cooper; DTE Energy, Fermi; Xcel Energy, Monticello and Prairie Island; STP Nuclear Operating Company, South Texas Project; and Talen Energy, Susquehanna. These plants represent 14 reactors (six boiling water reactors and eight pressurized water reactors) and more than 15,000 MWe of generation.

The USA Material Cost Reduction (MCR) project kicked off in January 2017. The Nuclear Energy Institute’s Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative was in full swing as the utilities’ chief nuclear officers created multiple focus areas for cost reductions at the plants.

The President’s Special Session of the 2020 American Nuclear Society Virtual Annual Meeting, organized by ANS’s Young Members Group (YMG) and Student Sections Committee (SSC), featured an all-star group of nuclear policy luminaries opining on the current influence of nuclear technology on U.S. national security and where the nation stands with regard to leadership of the future global nuclear industry.

American Nuclear Society President Marilyn Kray recognized recipients of four ANS awards on June 9 during the 2020 ANS Virtual Annual Meeting. The following awards were presented as part of the ANS President’s Special Session.

Kray

American Nuclear Society President Marilyn Kray announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with other key nuclear organizations today during the President’s Special Session of the Virtual Annual Meeting.

American Nuclear Society members Mark T. Peters, Kenneth W. Robuck, and Thomas R. White were reelected to the Nuclear Energy Institute’s board of directors during its May 20 meeting. The board is composed of executives from companies that hold licenses to operate nuclear energy facilities and selected representatives of other organizations involved in commercial nuclear technologies. Members of the executive committee and the board’s non-utility members typically serve three-year terms, and officers are elected annually.

Nuclear power plant performance includes both operational and safety aspects and is an outcome of numerous elements, such as the reliability of equipment, reduction in challenges to plant operations, protection of workers, and proficiency of operations. These elements are inextricably linked to each other and to the safety of each facility. In short, a well-run plant is a safe plant for the workers and the public, and a well-run plant is an efficient plant. By-products of high performance include improved regulatory performance, worker safety, plant reliability, and, most important, public health and safety.

The Nuclear Energy Institute has released Nuclear by the Numbers, a 28-page report brimming with statistics showing the benefits of U.S. nuclear power generation. NEI issued a summary of the report in March (NN, Apr. 2020, p. 19).

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.”

In a summary report released to its membership on March 3, the Nuclear Energy Institute lauded the nation’s commercial nuclear industry for reactor performance in 2019, citing “record highs” in electricity generation and capacity factors.

Advanced reactor cores are being designed for higher efficiencies and longer lifetimes, but to get there, they need high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).

Enriched to between 5 and 19.75 percent fissile U-235, HALEU is packed with nuclear potential. It can be used as a feedstock for the demonstration of new fuel designs, from uranium alloys to ceramic pellets and liquid fuels. Those fuels can enable advanced reactor and microreactor demonstrations. Operating light-water reactors could potentially transition to HALEU uranium oxide fuels for extended operating cycles and improved plant economics.