A message from Goodway Technologies
Optimizing Maintenance Strategies in Power Generation: Embracing Predictive and Preventive Approaches
NuScale Power, the Portland, Ore.–based small modular reactor developer, will make a strategic shift from product development to product delivery with the establishment of a new VOYGR Services and Delivery business unit, the company announced this week.
On June 2, Nuclear Newswire published a letter from Jose Reyes, chief technology officer at small modular reactor developer NuScale Power, to May R. Berenbaum, editor-in-chief of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, regarding a research article published by PNAS two days previous. The article, “Nuclear waste from small modular reactors,” has grabbed more than a few headlines for its claim that SMRs will actually generate more nuclear waste than a standard large pressurized water reactor.
A Stanford University–led research article on small modular reactors published Tuesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is not sitting well with SMR developers or, for that matter, with much of the largely pro-SMR nuclear community.
Small modular reactor developer NuScale Power announced on Monday the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Romania’s Nuclearelectrica to conduct engineering studies, technical reviews, and licensing and permitting activities at a site in Doiceşti, Romania, selected as the preferred location for the deployment of a NuScale VOYGR power plant.
NuScale Power has signed a collaboration agreement with the U.S. Reactor Forging Consortium (RFC) to leverage the nation’s forging supply chain to prepare for the deployment of NuScale’s small modular reactor technology and to support, maintain, and expand U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Small modular reactor developer NuScale Power has signed a memorandum of understanding with three South Korean companies—Doosan Enerbility Company, GS Energy Corporation, and Samsung C&T Corporation—to explore the deployment of NuScale’s VOYGR power plants in Asia.
Universities are places where professionals, experts, and students come together to teach and learn, to conduct and disseminate research, and to dream and explore. Universities have a long history of technological innovation and development. It should therefore come as no surprise that institutes of higher education have been an integral part of the recent explosion of innovation within the advanced nuclear reactor community. Universities have not only powered workforce and technology development, but in a number of cases, they have served as the actual birthplaces of today’s advanced reactor designs.
From left: Kalev Kallemets, chief executive officer of Fermi Energia, and James Lauritsen, managing director of Laurentis Energy Partners. (Photo: Fermi Energia)
Laurentis Energy Partners will work with Fermi Energia to support the development of small modular reactors in Estonia, the companies announced yesterday at the 2022 Canadian Nuclear Association Conference being held in Ottawa, Ontario.
A subsidiary of Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Laurentis bills itself as a provider of SMR services throughout the development life cycle, from feasibility and planning through construction, commissioning, and operations. Fermi Energia is an Estonian energy company focused on SMR development and deployment.
What they’re saying: “Building on our owner’s engineer and nuclear management experience, Laurentis is pleased to work with Fermi Energia to provide an opportunity for Estonia to confidently introduce SMRs into their energy mix,” stated Jason Van Wart, vice president of Laurentis.
Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org
If you are in the nuclear world, it is hard to enter 2022 without a sense of optimism. Nuclear is enjoying a moment right now. Not a day goes by where there isn’t some new story on nuclear and climate or the development of new and advanced technologies, both fission and fusion.
On the business side, a flurry of deals and partnerships have been struck, and more start-up capital has flowed into nuclear energy projects in the past six months than in the previous three years combined. Soon, you will be able to buy shares of NuScale on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “SMR.” On the policy side, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is now law, providing roughly $8 billion in “guaranteed money” for both advanced reactor demonstrations and support for the operating fleet, potentially more if nuclear is competitive in the cross-cutting funding initiatives created and funded in the legislation.
We’ve sifted through facts and statistics on nuclear power in Ukraine to offer some choice insights here. Want more international nuclear data? Check out the March 2022 Nuclear News Reference Issue.
At an event held on February 14 at the Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., small modular reactor developer NuScale Power inked an agreement with KGHM Polska Miedz S.A., to initiate deployment of NuScale’s SMR technology in Poland.
.jpg)
The Tennessee Valley Authority’s board of directors has given the go-ahead for a program that will explore the development and potential deployment of small modular reactors as part of the utility’s decarbonization strategy.
Small modular reactor developer NuScale Power has informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission via letter that a combined license application (COLA) for the Carbon Free Power Project’s SMR plant is expected to be submitted to the agency in January 2024. The COLA will be for a six-unit 77-MWe plant.
The public power consortium Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems launched the Carbon Free Power Project in 2015 to develop, own, and operate the nation’s first SMR plant, to be located at Idaho National Laboratory, with reactor technology supplied by NuScale.
Designing a reactor is complicated but building one may be harder. Even companies that have had lots of practice haven’t always done it well. And all the power reactors in service today were built by companies that had years of experience in other kinds of big steam-electric power plants. In contrast, some of the creative new designs now moving toward commercialization come from start-ups that have never built anything at all. How should they prepare?
This is the fifth of five articles posted today to look back at the top news stories of 2021 for the nuclear community. The full article, "Looking back at 2021,"was published in the January 2022 issue of Nuclear News.
Quite a year was 2021. In the following stories, we have compiled what we feel are the past year’s top news stories from the October-December time frame—please enjoy this recap from a busy year in the nuclear community.
This is the second of five articles to be posted today to look back at the top news stories of 2021 for the nuclear community. The full article, "Looking back at 2021,"was published in the January 2022 issue of Nuclear News.
Quite a year was 2021. In the following stories, we have compiled what we feel are the past year’s top news stories from the January-March time frame—please enjoy this recap from a busy year in the nuclear community.
As 2021 closes, Nuclear News is taking a look back at some of the feature articles published each month in the magazine. The April issue reviewed the current state of advanced reactors. This article looks at how the DOE and private industry are working together to realize the benefits of advanced nuclear.
As electric utilities rush to reduce carbon emissions by investing in intermittent renewables such as wind and solar, they often rely heavily on fossil fuels to provide steady baseload power.
More than 60 percent of the nation’s electricity is still generated with fossil fuels, especially coal-fired and gas-fired power plants that have the ability to quickly ramp up or ramp down power to follow loads on the electric grid. Most experts agree that even with a radical advancement in energy storage technology, relying exclusively on wind and solar to replace fossil fuels won’t be enough to maintain a stable electric grid and avoid the major impacts of climate change.
ADVANCED REACTORS MARKETPLACE
GEH’s BWRX-300 SMR technology chosen for Darlington clean energy project
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has been selected by Ontario Power Generation as technology partner for the Darlington site's new nuclear plant project. GEH will work with OPG to deploy a BWRX-300 small modular reactor as early as 2028 at the Darlington site in Canada.
■ NuScale Power and Kazakhstan Nuclear Power Plants LLP have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the deployment of NuScale VOYGR power plants in Kazakhstan. KNPP specializes in the development of nuclear power plant construction in Kazakhstan. The agreement calls for a sharing of nuclear and technical expertise between NuScale and KNPP. Under the MOU, NuScale will support KNPP’s evaluation of NuScale’s SMR technology, including nuclear power plant engineering, construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance, and project-specific studies and design work.
■ PKN ORLEN and Synthos Green Energy have signed an agreement to set up a joint venture, ORLEN Synthos Green Energy, with a goal to prepare and commercialize small nuclear reactor technology, particularly GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s BWRX-300 reactors, in Poland. Related, BWXT Canada Ltd. signed a letter of intent with Synthos and GEH for the manufacture of key SMR components for Poland.
In its latest show of interest in Central and Eastern European markets, Portland, Ore.–based NuScale Power has signed a memorandum of understanding with Kazakhstan Nuclear Power Plants LLP (KNPP) to explore the deployment of NuScale’s small modular reactor plants—recently christened VOYGR—in Kazakhstan.
The Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) has installed the NuScale small modular reactor control room simulator at the Center for Advanced Small Modular and Micro Reactors (CASMR).
TEES performs collaborative research through universities, national laboratories, and state and federal agencies with the goal of finding solutions to global technical challenges.