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.

Mike Rinehart

The nuclear industry is entering a period of renewed urgency, driven by the need for stable baseload power, heightened energy security concerns, and expanded defense infrastructure. Now more than ever, we must deliver new nuclear projects on time and on budget to maintain public trust and industry momentum.

The importance of execution certainty cannot be overstated—public trust, industry investment, and future deployment all hinge on our ability to deliver these projects successfully. However, history has shown that cost overruns and schedule delays have eroded confidence in the industry’s ability to deliver nuclear construction. As we embark on many first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactor builds, fuel cycle infrastructure projects, and extensive defense-related nuclear projects, we must ensure that execution certainty is no longer an aspiration—it is an expectation.

First Light Fusion announced last week that it has set a new record for the highest quartz pressure achieved on Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine using its amplifier technology to achieve an output pressure of 3.67 terapascal (TPa)—roughly doubling the pressure the company reached in its first experiment on the machine one year ago.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

Dear Secretary Wright:

On behalf of the U.S. nuclear professional community, I offer our sincere congratulations to you on your becoming the secretary of energy.

By now, I’m sure you have figured out that “Department of Energy” is a misnomer. If the Department of Government Efficiency ever requires truth in advertising, the DOE should be renamed the “Department of Nuclear Weapons, Security, Cleanup, and Sundry Energy and Science Programs.” That’s because more than 60 percent of the DOE’s budget is dedicated to “atomic energy defense activities”—making sure our nuclear bombs work, our aircraft carriers and submarines sail, and our Cold War messes get cleaned up.

Another calendar year has passed. Before heading too far into 2025, let’s look back at what happened in 2024 in the nuclear community. In today's post, compiled from Nuclear News and Nuclear Newswire are what we feel are the top nuclear news stories from April through May 2024.

Stay tuned for the top stories from the rest of the past year.

It's been another successful publishing year for the American Nuclear Society's Nuclear News, Radwaste Solutions, the online Nuclear Newswire, and the NN Daily newsletter.

For Nuclear News, below are the publishing themes for 2025.

If you have story ideas for any of these themes or for Radwaste Solutions, please contact Nucnews@ans.org.

Lisa Marshall
president@ans.org

Energy is the foundation of modern society. It enhances quality of life and drives industrialization. As we work toward fuller energy transition, policies are essential to organizing our march forward. Bipartisan legislation is doing just that, propelling our current and future actions.

The Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act will help propel the work of industry, academia, and several branches of government in exciting—and necessary—directions.

The Senate introduced the act in March 2023, and the House of Representatives passed the Fire Grants and Safety Act, which incorporated the ADVANCE Act, on May 9, 2024 (393–13). Then on June 18, the Senate passed the ADVANCE Act (88–2), and on July 9, President Biden signed the bill into law. New and revised approaches to process and deployment of nuclear energy capacity is well on its way. Below, I have highlighted a few title sections to show scope and significance.

Las Vegas, Nev. — The American Nuclear Society (ANS) issued the following statement during the 2024 ANS Annual Conference in Las Vegas:

“The American Nuclear Society applauds the Group of Seven (G7) leaders’ Apulia communiqué in its call for continued international cooperation in strengthening, expanding, and diversifying civil nuclear supply chains as the world deploys advanced reactors.

Power generation from nuclear fission as a clean and stable source of electricity has secured the interest of policymakers and industry leaders around the globe. Last fall, the United States spearheaded a pledge at COP28 to get countries to agree to triple nuclear capacity worldwide, and recently the members of the Group of 7 (G7) nations that currently use nuclear power have reaffirmed their pledges to invest in that power source to cut carbon emissions.

As of this writing, U.S. policymakers are trying to make good on that promise by passing legislation to support nuclear power, funding the domestic fuel supply chain, and working to pass the ADVANCE Act. On top of the support from Washington, D.C., power-hungry industries like data centers and chemical engineering are looking to secure stable, carbon-free power directly from power plants.

As small modular reactor (SMR) and advanced reactor (AR) developers look to build out their supply chains, NAC International (NAC) offers these companies a wide range of products and services for the full range of their nuclear energy facilities.

Ken Petersen
president@ans.org

With all that is happening in the industry these days, the nuclear fuel supply chain is still a hot topic. The Russian assault in Ukraine continues to upend the “where” and “how” of attaining nuclear fuel—and it has also motivated U.S. legislators to act.

Two years into the Russian war with Ukraine, things are different. The Inflation Reduction Act was passed in 2022, authorizing $700 million in funding to support production of high-­assay low-enriched uranium in the United States. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy this January issued a $500 million request for proposals to stimulate new HALEU production. The Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 includes $2.7 billion in funding for new uranium enrichment production. This funding was diverted from the Civil Nuclear Credits program and will only be released if there is a ban on importing Russian uranium into the United States—which could happen by the time this column is published, as legislation that bans Russian uranium has passed the House as of this writing and is headed for the Senate. Also being considered is legislation that would sanction Russian uranium. Alternatively, the Biden-Harris administration may choose to ban Russian uranium without legislation in order to obtain access to the $2.7 billion in funding.

The United States has an ambitious goal: to establish a high-assay low enriched-uranium advanced nuclear fuel supply chain, revive the once thriving nuclear fuel market for low-enriched uranium in the nation, and “reestablish U.S. leadership in nuclear energy more broadly.” Making a success of that could have impacts beyond the nuclear sector. According to the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, “Expanding domestic LEU and HALEU enrichment production will be essential for fueling the clean energy required to bring down emissions in all sectors of the economy—including in hard-to-abate sectors such as manufacturing and industrial—while delivering high paying jobs to communities across the country.”

The newest edition of the Nuclear News Buyers Guide will be out soon, marking the 55th year of the most comprehensive goods and services publication in the nuclear industry. The American Nuclear Society invites all companies that perform or seek nuclear-related work to participate by identifying areas of expertise and providing contact information.

Patrick O'Brien

The adage “a rising tide raises all boats” keeps coming to my mind whenever I think about the work ahead for small modular reactor and advanced reactor development companies. The groundwork being laid by the entire industry is key to moving the whole group forward together. The drive to construct new nuclear will need to include all sizes, designs, and companies, because unlike in many industries, there is no way there can only be one “winner” if we are to meet climate goals.

Recently, at global climate summit COP28, a large portion of the international community announced a joint aim to triple worldwide nuclear power generation by 2050. This is tremendous news and a huge step in the right direction for many reactor developers. It means that the work developers are doing now will lead to a market for their product for years to come. The questions we must all be asking are “How do we get there?” “Who is going to take the leap of faith to build the first-of-a-kind designs?” and “What challenges lie ahead?”

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions’ Supply Chain Management (SCM) team recently hosted its first staff augmentation summit to strengthen relationships with 25 staffing firms and provide upcoming process changes for fiscal year 2024.

In the newly released 2023 edition of The World Nuclear Supply Chain report, the World Nuclear Association recommends a number of actions to ensure that the international supply chain remains “suitably robust, competitive, and adaptive to meet the anticipated need for long-term operation and new nuclear build.”

The fifth edition of the report provides a market-oriented view that focuses on opportunities and challenges related to nuclear-grade structures, systems, components, and services. Evaluated are supply chain considerations ranging from large-scale reactors to small modular reactors to reactor refurbishment.

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

Wow, that was a banger! The 2023 Annual Meeting had the energy level of an ANS Student Conference. That’s no easy feat. I’ve had several requests for my opening plenary remarks. Here is a shortened version, edited for reading:

So, “Failure Is Not an Option.” I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure about it in the beginning. It’s not anodyne like “Powering Our Future!” or some punny Indy reference like “Racing to the Finish.” It didn’t seem to fit our situation.

That phrase, popularized by the movie Apollo 13, has its origins in a time of crisis: three men trying to “eyeball” a free return trajectory to Earth while a team of NASA engineers figures out how to literally put a square peg into a round hole to save the astronauts’ lives.

Westinghouse Parts Business (WPB) is proud of the first next generation Motor Generator (MG) Set System fully operational at Palo Verde Generating Station. The team completed a first-of-a-kind (FOAK) implementation and installation at the power plant operated by Arizona Public Service (APS), including the next generation MG Control Power Cabinets and new MG Sets. Additionally, Westinghouse installed the new ARCH (Advanced Rod Control Hybrid) system. These systems were installed in a single outage providing additional synergies and cost savings to operations.

Reports released this week point to a clean energy future fueled by atomic energy—if and when pressing supply chain issues can be resolved. Advanced Reactor Roadmap, Phase 1: North America, released on May 15 by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Nuclear Energy Institute, takes a broad look at the deployment of advanced fission reactors and identifies supply chain ramp-up as one key enabler. The Fusion Industry Supply Chain: Opportunities and Challenges, released by the Fusion Industry Association on May 17, focuses on fusion energy supply chain issues.

Kathryn Huff

Deploying a fleet of advanced reactors in the 2030s means deploying high-assay low- enriched uranium (HALEU) infrastructure now.

The future fleet will need more than 40 metric tons of HALEU by 2030, according to Department of Energy projections. Getting to the 5–20 percent fissile uranium-235 content of HALEU involves either enriching natural or low-enriched uranium (LEU) or downblending high-enriched uranium (HEU).

Because downblending the limited stocks of HEU held at the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory and Savannah River Site is a short-term option at best, the Energy Act of 2020 authorized a HALEU Availability Program to build a sustainable enrichment infrastructure by the time advanced reactors are ready for commercial deployment.

Comments on a request for information reached the DOE in February 2022, just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amplified global energy security concerns. While the war in Ukraine didn’t change the DOE’s plans, it “accelerated everything,” said Kathryn Huff, who leads the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) as assistant secretary. “Our attention is now laser-focused on this issue in a way that it wouldn’t have been in the past.”