Doug VanTassell

Certainty!

As CEO of Paragon, I’m excited by the momentum in our industry. But like every nuclear business leader, I grapple with the challenges of delivering projects on time amid capacity and investment constraints. While the industry’s future is bright, the timing of good news doesn’t always align with commitment orders.

Market uncertainty

For the commercial operating fleet, the past five years have been overwhelmingly positive. The private and public sectors recognize nuclear power as a reliable and clean energy source. Rising power rates have made deregulated nuclear plants profitable, while regulated markets have increased support from public utility commissions.

In the new year, ANS launched Trustees of Nuclear, a corporate partnership program ANS executive director/chief executive officer Craig Piercy announced in the January issue of Nuclear News (p. 25). The goal of Trustees of Nuclear is to directly support ANS’s programs aimed at improving nuclear literacy, like the Society’s K-12 nuclear STEM activities, public engagement, and discussions with policymakers. As the main professional organization for the whole nuclear discipline, ANS is in a unique position to unite leaders in the nuclear community to focus on these long-term programs and help the country realize the full potential of the atom.

NuScale Power and Paragon Energy Solutions have signed a patent license agreement that will make NuScale’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission–approved reactor protection system architecture available to the broader nuclear industry, the two companies announced on July 12.

Known as the Highly Integrated Protection System (HIPS) platform, the system was developed by NuScale and Rock Creek Innovations (RCI), a hardware supplier of commercial nuclear protections systems, over six years of collaboration that began in 2010. Paragon, a supplier of safety-related parts and components, acquired RCI in December 2021.

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.