Senate committee advances NRC nominee Matthew Marzano

November 25, 2024, 3:06PMNuclear News

Marzano

The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 10–9 last week to advance the nomination of Matthew Marzano to serve on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It was a party-line vote, with all Democrats supporting Marzano and all Republicans voting “no.”

Marzano was nominated by President Biden in July to fill the open NRC seat, and the EPW Committee held a hearing in September on his nomination. His nomination will now go to the Senate for a vote, but it is not certain whether that will happen before the end of the year, in which case his nomination process would start over in 2025.

The five-member commission has been without a tiebreaker vote since June 2023 when Jeff Baran’s term expired.

Gail H. Marcus—ANS member since 1973

November 25, 2024, 7:03AMANS News

I like to say that I ended up at Massachusetts Institute of Technology because of my father. He saw that I seemed intimidated by the prospect of going there, so he dared me, figuring I would take the bait. And I did.

I graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s in physics in 1968, and two days later I married my classmate, Mike Marcus. After a summer at Ft. Monmouth, where I studied radiation damage to semiconductors, we spent the next few years back at MIT in grad school—Mike in electrical engineering and I in nuclear engineering. It was Mike who steered me toward nuclear engineering, noting that my interest was radiation damage to materials, and the nuclear engineering department was doing more of that than the physics department.

NRC okays construction permits for Hermes 2 test facility

November 21, 2024, 7:00AMNuclear News
Concept art for a Hermes plant. (Image: Kairos Power)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced yesterday that it has directed staff to issue construction permits to Kairos Power for the company's proposed Hermes 2 nonpower test reactor facility to be built at the Heritage Center Industrial Park in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The permits authorize Kairos to build a facility with two 35-MWt test reactors that would use molten salt to cool the reactor cores.

N.S. Savannah: Bridging the gap between decommissioning and historic preservation

November 15, 2024, 7:03AMNuclear NewsErhard W. Koehler and Anne Jennings
N.S. Savannah, the first commercial nuclear-powered cargo vessel, en route to the World’s Fair in Seattle in 1962. (Photo: U.S. National Archives)

It’s safe to say that readers of Nuclear News are familiar with decommissioning. It’s even safe to assume that experienced decommissioning practitioners are familiar with the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and how it applies to typical projects. What’s different about the N.S. Savannah is that the entire project site is a historic property—and in fact, is a federally owned National Historic Landmark (NHL), a status that confers the highest level of protection under law. Federal owners of NHLs are obligated to minimize harm in both planning and actions. Distilled to its salient point, no federal owner of an NHL should destroy it if there’s a reasonable alternative. That level of preservation is not what we normally associate with nuclear decommissioning. This perfectly summarizes the challenges, and opportunities, that decommissioning Savannah offered. The story of how the Maritime Administration (MARAD) managed these two otherwise contradictory processes showcases how historic preservation and decommissioning can positively intersect, provides a pathway for other historic facilities, and further adds to the already illustrious history of one of our nation’s significant 20th century landmarks.

MIT’s nuclear professional courses benefit United States—and now Australia too

November 14, 2024, 7:19AMNuclear NewsGuest Contributor
The ASA Nuclear Technology for Marine Propulsion class of 2024 poses at MIT. (All photos: MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering)

Some 30 nuclear engineering departments at universities across the United States graduate more than 900 students every year. These young men and women are the present and future of the domestic nuclear industry as it seeks to develop and deploy advanced nuclear energy technologies, grow its footprint on the power grid, and penetrate new markets while continuing to run the existing fleet of reactors reliably and economically.

Diablo Canyon completes dry storage campaign, seeks ISFSI license renewal

November 12, 2024, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions
The Diablo Canyon ISFSI cask loading team from Holtec, PG&E, and Diablo Canyon. (Photo: Holtec)

Holtec International announced that it has completed the campaign to transfer Diablo Canyon’s spent nuclear to dry storage ahead of its planned schedule, paving the way for the continued operation of the central California nuclear power plant.

Proposed rule for more flexible licensing under Part 53 is open for comment

October 31, 2024, 3:00PMNuclear News

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has published a proposed rule that has been almost five years in the making: Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors. The rule, which by law must take its final form before the end of 2027, would establish risk-informed, performance-based techniques the NRC can use to review and license any nuclear power reactor. This is a departure from the two licensing options with light water reactor–specific regulatory requirements that applicants can already choose.

Ship shape: Dismantling the Navy’s surface ship support barge

October 29, 2024, 7:03AMRadwaste SolutionsBruce Fox, David Lowe, Jack Reust, and Sean McCutcheon
The U.S. Navy’s Surface Ship Support Barge arrives in Mobile, Ala., for demolition after being towed by sea from Virginia. (Photos: APTIM)

The U.S. Navy’s Surface Ship Support Barge, converted in the 1960s from a WWII T2 tanker to a support barge to accept spent nuclear fuel during the refueling of nuclear aircraft carriers, was dismantled and disposed of by the nuclear decommissioning company APTIM as a first-of-its-kind vessel dismantlement project for the Navy. The project was executed under contract with Naval Sea Systems Command; however, regulatory oversight was accomplished through an interagency framework agreement between the U.S. Navy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Jim Byrne—ANS member since 1979

October 24, 2024, 12:00PMANS News

Julie and Jim Byrne on their wedding day, May 22, 1976.

As I was finishing my studies at the University of Pittsburgh and about to graduate with a degree in civil engineering, I talked to a local navy recruiter about a position with the Seabees. He told me there were no Seabee billets, but that the navy had a nuclear power program that might interest me. When I said yes, it wasn’t long before I was whisked off to Washington, D.C., to interview with someone named Admiral Hyman Rickover. The one thing they told me was to stand up to “the kindly old gentleman.”

The day started with technical interviews and then I was ushered into the admiral’s office. I was a typical college student, and I spent my money on food and beer and not on haircuts. On seeing me, Admiral Rickover told me that I looked like a girl. After a bit of back-and-forth, he asked me a couple of other questions. His last comment to me was that I must know something and to get out of his office.

U.S. lawmakers look to simplify export control to grow international nuclear partners

October 22, 2024, 3:00PMNuclear News

Legislative proposals focused on streamlining the U.S. nuclear energy export process have circulated on Capitol Hill for several years, notably aimed at establishing a single point of contact in the government to simplify global nuclear projects.

The most recently introduced International Nuclear Energy Act (INEA) proposal (S. 826) promotes engagement with partner nations to develop a civil nuclear export strategy and to offset China’s and Russia’s growing influence on international nuclear energy development.

American Nuclear Society welcomes Supreme Court review of NRC ruling

October 10, 2024, 2:35PMPress Releases

Washington, D.C. — The American Nuclear Society (ANS), a nonprofit representing over 10,000 professionals in the fields of nuclear science and technology, issued the following statement regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant certiorari to Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas:

NRC seeks comments on proposed rule for new reactors

October 8, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking comment on a proposed rule for a generic environmental impact statement for licensing new reactors. According to the NRC, the statement uses a technology-neutral framework and plant/site parameters to identify environmental issues common to new reactors as well as those issues needing project-specific analysis.

Federal watchdog says NRC needs to address more radiological risks, including “dirty bombs”

October 7, 2024, 3:02PMNuclear News
The three elements of radioactive material risk (Image: U.S. GAO)

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office finds that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not taken the steps needed to address the potential economic and societal radiological risks that could arise from a “dirty bomb.”

Keeping up with Kewaunee

October 4, 2024, 3:14PMRadwaste Solutions
Wisconsin’s Kewaunee nuclear power plant as it appeared in May of this year. A number of ancillary buildings have already been demolished and their waste removed. The intermodal waste transportation staging areas can be seen to the left. The site ISFSI is out of view to the right. (Photo: EnergySolutions)

In October 2012, Dominion Energy announced it was closing the Kewaunee nuclear power plant, a two-loop 574-MWe pressurized water reactor located about 27 miles southeast of Green Bay, Wis., on the western shore of Lake Michigan. At the time, Dominion said the plant was running well, but that low wholesale electricity prices in the region made it uneconomical to continue operation of the single-unit merchant power plant.

BWXT fuel processing subsidiary pauses operations amid Hurricane Helene; site is "safe"

October 1, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News
The Nuclear Fuel Services facility in Erwin, Tenn. (Photo: BWXT)

BWX Technologies subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. suspended operations last Friday at a Tennessee facility to assess conditions following Hurricane Helene. A company spokesperson said the site remained "in safe and secure condition."

Palisades to receive $3B in federal, state funding to fuel plant restart

September 30, 2024, 3:00PMNuclear News
The Palisades nuclear power plant. (Photo: Holtec International)

With a $1.52 billion loan from the Department of Energy and $1.3 billion in grants to rural electric cooperatives near the plant, the ambitious plans to restart Michigan’s Palisades nuclear plant next fall are moving ahead.

Atomic Canyon preps open-source nuclear search tool for release

September 30, 2024, 12:01PMNuclear News

Atomic Canyon is developing a generative AI search for the nuclear energy sector and is working with the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to get it done. On September 26, Atomic Canyon announced its initial results about six months after the collaboration was first announced in March.

NRC seeks input on DRP contamination guidance

September 30, 2024, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is soliciting public comment on the agency’s guidance for addressing discrete radioactive particle (DRP) contamination resulting from the decontamination and decommissioning of nuclear facilities. According to the NRC, the draft guidance is intended to avoid any inconsistencies in how the agency approaches DRP contamination.

NRC to hold public meetings on ADVANCE Act implementation

September 27, 2024, 8:22AMNuclear News

As part of its implementation of the ADVANCE Act, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced on September 26 that it will periodically hold public meetings on the legislation, which was signed into law on July 9.

Information about these meetings can be found on the NRC website at least 10 days before each meeting.