Got a minute (and 22 seconds)? Catch a quick update on the first new commercial nuclear energy in the United States of the 21st century-in Tennessee.

(Above, Westinghouse artwork depicting the Clinch River Breeder Reactor plant as envisaged in November 1973.)

Today's ANS Nuclear Matinee shows viewers a time-lapse film of a steel superstructure being built on top of the dome of Sequoyah-2's reactor containment building. The work is being done to ready the site for a large maintenance project scheduled at the plant. When complete, the superstructure will support the removal of parts of the dome along with the reactor containment vessel and steam generator enclosures.

On September 11, the National Nuclear Security Administration (U.S. Department of Energy) hosted a public meeting in Chattanooga, Tenn., concerning its Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on the disposition of surplus weapons-grade plutonium as mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for use in power reactors. You may have seen the ANS Call to Action for the hearing and perhaps read the ANS position statement or background information.

On August 16, G. Ivan Maldonado, PhD, Associate Professor of Nuclear Engineering with the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, attended a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Board Meeting on behalf of the American Nuclear Society to present comments on the use the of mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel technology to accomplish the timely disposition of surplus weapons-grade plutonium.