Constellation Energy announced last week that it has completed its acquisition of NRG Energy’s 44 percent ownership stake in the South Texas Project nuclear power plant.
Hanson
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in a difficult position. The commission must manage competing pressures from those who think it overburdens the nuclear industry and needs to move more quickly to respond to the changing regulatory landscape, and from those who think it is too cozy with the industry it’s tasked with regulating. This is a common theme all regulators face, and was one theme of the discussion with the NRC chair, Christopher Hanson.
Hanson was designated chair of the NRC in January 2021 by President Joe Biden and has since wrestled with this dilemma as the person responsible for conducting the administrative, organizational, long-range planning, and budgetary functions of the agency.
X-energy, the Rockville, Md.–based small modular reactor/nuclear fuel developer, and Ares Acquisition Corporation (AAC), a publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company, have agreed to terminate their business combination agreement, effective immediately, the companies announced this week.
Elektrárna Dukovany II (EDU II), a subsidiary of Czech utility ČEZ, has received final bids for the construction of a fifth reactor at the Dukovany plant, as well as nonbinding bids for three additional units to be sited at Dukovany and at Temelín, the Czech Republic’s other nuclear power facility. (Dukovany currently houses four Russian VVER-440/V213 pressurized water reactors, while Temelín is home to two VVER-1000/V320s.)
Here is a recap of industry happenings over the past month:
TerraPower signs contracts to advance Natrium
TerraPower and Centrus Energy have signed a memorandum of understanding to expand their collaboration in the development of commercial-scale production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) to fuel TerraPower’s Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor, which is designed with a molten salt–based energy storage system. TerraPower is planning its Natrium demonstration project for a site in Kemmerer, Wyo., with a target operational date of 2030. Centrus plans to produce as much as 20 kilograms of fuel by the end of 2023 at its production facility in Piketon, Ohio, and to further scale up production with additional centrifugal cascades.
The Department of Energy has awarded a new small business contract to Inomedic Health Applications, Inc. (IHA) to provide continued occupational medical services to Hanford Site employees. According to the DOE, IHA is a small, disadvantaged, woman-owned business located in Hampton, Va.
One of the privileges of being president of the American Nuclear Society is awarding presidential citations to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding effort in some manner for the benefit of ANS or the nuclear community. Citations are conferred twice each year, at the Annual and Winter Meetings. ANS President Kenneth Petersen has named this season’s recipients, who will receive recognition at the upcoming Winter Conference and Expo in Washington, D.C.
ANS also announces the winners of awards presented by the Society’s professional divisions. These awards will be mailed to the recipients, and the divisions will recognize honorees at various division functions and meetings this fall. The 19 professional divisions of ANS are constituent units and represent a vast array of nuclear science and technology disciplines.
Texas-based Vistra Corporation was hoping to get the go-ahead from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this month for its proposed acquisition of Energy Harbor’s nuclear assets, but on October 13, the agency issued an order extending its review of the deal (called “tolling the time” in bureaucratese) to April 11, 2024. Currently down one seat, the four-member FERC voted 3–1 for the time extension, with the lone dissent coming from commissioner James Danly.
Hall
Nuclear energy stocks “have become far more compelling to many investors in recent years,” and “there are good reasons to support this carbon-free source of energy,” according to investment entrepreneur and financial lecturer Jason Hall. In an article recently published by The Motley Fool, Hall discusses the opportunities and risks of investing in nuclear energy companies and offers his perspective on three top nuclear energy stocks.
Nuclear basics and new innovations: Hall started at the beginning, describing the most basic aspects of nuclear energy: the production of heat through fission, the generation of electricity via turbines, and the mining and enrichment of uranium for fuel. He noted that there “are only a small handful of companies with the expertise and financial strength to deal with nuclear reactors, and almost all are either private, state-owned, or the subsidiary operation of a large industrial conglomerate.”
International engineering, construction, and project-management company Bechtel, which is headquartered in Reston, Va., opened its newest office, the Engineering Execution Center, in Knoxville, Tenn. The office—the second Bechtel has opened stateside in the last few months—will provide engineering support for the company’s numerous mission-based projects, and it is the second new U.S. office opened by Bechtel in the past few months—the other being in Chandler, Arizona.
Standard Power, a provider of infrastructure as a service to advanced data processing companies, has chosen NuScale Power as the technology provider for its plans to develop two small modular reactor–powered facilities in Ohio and Pennsylvania to run nearby data centers, the Portland, Ore.-based SMR developer announced on October 3.
Cavendish Nuclear (USA) Inc., a U.S.-incorporated, wholly owned subsidiary of Babcock International Group, has recently appointed its corporate board of directors and held its first board meeting at corporate headquarters in Arlington, Va.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the transfer of the operating licenses for four reactors and their associated spent fuel storage facilities from Energy Harbor Nuclear Corporation to Vistra Operations Company, the agency announced September 29.
Utah-based EnergySolutions announced that it has completed its acquisition of essentially all of the assets and business lines of Williams Industrial Services Group and its subsidiaries, including its nuclear, fossil fuel, energy delivery, and paper mill operations. The Williams business lines will now become part of EnergySolutions’s newly created Nuclear Services division
A U.S. federal court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by Westinghouse Electric Company last year to block the potential sale of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power’s APR-1400 reactor to Poland.
In a filing Monday with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Vistra Corporation committed to divesting itself of two power generation assets to help alleviate concerns over its proposed acquisition of Energy Harbor.
Allied Power has acquired Dominion Engineering, Inc. (DEI), Allied announced last week. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Allied provides a range of services—including routine maintenance, outage services and management, capital construction, and specialized support—for power plants in the United States.
DEI has provided field service equipment, technology, and consulting services for nuclear utilities and operators for more than four decades. Its services include work on refueling outages, decommissioning, and waste management activities.
Constellation Energy has announced an agreement with Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), Illinois’s largest electric utility, to power the latter’s 54 offices and metered facilities with locally produced nuclear energy, 24/7.
Westinghouse Electric Company and Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom have signed a memorandum of understanding on the development and deployment of the American firm’s AP300 small modular reactor in the Eastern European state.
France-based Framatome and the Hungary’s Ministry of Energy agreed this week to strengthen their relationship in the field of nuclear energy, including in such areas as fuel supply, education, research and development, implementation of new technologies, and long-term operation.