Power & Operations

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is developing a generic environmental impact statement (GEIS) for small-scale advanced reactor designs. Just how small a reactor must be to fit the parameters of the GEIS is one topic open for public comment, but the NRC staff anticipates including reactors generating up to 30 MWt. The public comment period is open until June 30

Robert Feitel, speaking at his December 3, 2019, nomination hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety.

The Senate voted unanimously 87–0 on May 4 to confirm Robert Feitel as the inspector general of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The position had been vacant since the end of 2018, when the NRC’s longtime IG Hubert T. Bell retired.

A Department of Justice attorney, Feitel was nominated for the job by President Trump in October last year, and in December he was approved by the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, also by unanimous vote.

The Vogtle-3 containment vessel in March. Photo: Georgia Power

Despite its recent decision to trim the workforce at the Vogtle reactor construction project by about 20 percent to better address the COVID-19 pandemic, Southern Company is confident that Units 3 and 4—twin AP 1000 pressurized water reactors—will be up and running according to schedule.

A Michigan antinuclear group will have an opportunity next month to explain to an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board why there should be a public hearing on a license amendment request (LAR) concerning the fuel racks used in the Fermi-2 spent fuel pool (SFP).

High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) is the fuel of choice for many advanced reactor developers, including Advanced Reactor Concepts, which is designing the ARC-100, a sodium-cooled fast reactor. Developers face a potential supply problem, however: The United States has no clear path to build the commercial HALEU production facilities that would be needed to fuel a fleet of advanced reactors. A letter of intent signed by ARC and Centrus Energy, announced on April 28, calls for cooperation on the deployment of a commercial supply of HALEU and could lead to a HALEU purchase agreement for ARC-100 deployments in the late 2020s.

The Department of Energy announced on April 28 that the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (SODI) and the Southern Nuclear Development LLC (SND) would receive funding for their advanced nuclear technology development projects. The two awards—one to support site preparation for a future domestic advanced reactor demonstration project and the other for an advanced reactor regulatory licensing grant—have a total value of $5.4 million.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU), along with the Public Service Commission of Maryland, on April 27 filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals, requesting a review of an April 16 ruling by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that largely upheld its December 2019 order regarding PJM Interconnection’s forward-looking capacity auctions. The controversial order instructed PJM to expand its minimum offer price rule (MOPR) to include new and existing energy resources, including nuclear and renewables, that receive state subsidies. PJM operates the largest wholesale competitive electricity market in the country, covering 13 states and the District of Columbia.

Brouillette

The long-awaited report from the Trump administration’s Nuclear Fuel Working Group promises immediate support for the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle, but it doesn’t stop there. “This is a road map for what we think needs to be done to not only revitalize, but reestablish American leadership for this entire industry,” said Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette as he introduced the report during a press call on April 23.

Control room operators at Entergy Corporation’s Indian Point Unit 2 will permanently shut down the 1,028-MWe pressurized water reactor today, April 30, after more than 45 years of producing electricity for New York. The remaining operating reactor at Indian Point, the 1,041-MWe Unit 3, is scheduled to be retired exactly one year from now, on April 30, 2021.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation has created a web portal for nuclear reactor licensees to submit regulatory exemption requests related to the coronavirus pandemic. At this writing, the COVID-19 Regulatory Activities for Nuclear Reactors webpage is offering online submissions for 10 CFR Part 26 work-hour exemption requests.

Battelle Energy Alliance, the managing and operating contractor for Idaho National Laboratory, is seeking an expression of interest (EOI) from industry stakeholders interested in forming a partnership to develop and/or demonstrate advanced construction technologies and processes. The effort would be executed as an initiative of the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) at INL. Battelle announced the EOI on April 17, with a deadline for responses of May 16.

Entergy’s Indian Point nuclear power plant, in Buchanan, N.Y., would remain safe in the event of a rupture of a 42-inch natural gas pipeline installed near the facility, according to a team of Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff and outside specialists.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued for public comment a draft NUREG on the backfit rule.

The Climate Coalition—a self-described “confederation of individuals, environmental groups, climate and clean energy advocates”—is urging New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to suspend the closure of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Closing the plant, the group argues in a letter and petition delivered to the governor on April 22 (the 50th anniversary of Earth Day), would be particularly unwise, given the ordeal that the state is currently undergoing as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The plant is located in Buchanan, N.Y.

As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, Georgia Power Company is reducing the number of workers at its Vogtle-3 and -4 construction site, in Waynesboro, Ga., by approximately 20 percent, according to a recent joint Securities and Exchange Commission filing by the company and parent firm Southern Company.

Several companies involved in the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle have announced temporary shutdowns or staffing reductions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the modest increase in uranium spot prices triggered by production cuts could be a silver lining, uranium prices are still below a level that would prompt idled mines to get back in production once public health mandates are lifted.

The uranium market is global, and it should come as no surprise that a global pandemic is having an impact on facilities around the world, including in the following countries.

A forest fire near the Chernobyl site had no effect on radiation levels in the exclusion and evacuation zones around the site, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (SESU) on April 8. The “equivalent dose rates of gamma radiation did not change,” SESU stated.

SESU’s statement came three days after Egor Firsov, the head of Ukraine’s ecological inspection service, wrote in an online post, “There is bad news---in the center of the fire, radiation is above normal.” On a video that accompanied the post, Firsov displayed a Geiger counter that showed elevated levels of radiation.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will defer collecting fees and charges from its licensees due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a letter from NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki to a bipartisan group of lawmakers. The letter states, “The commission has approved a 90-day deferral of all annual fee (10 CFR Part 171) invoices that would have been issued in the third quarter of fiscal year 2020. The NRC is taking this action to temporarily mitigate the financial impacts and economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The new billing date for annual fees that were scheduled to be billed in the third quarter (April, May, and June) will be July 22, 2020.”

Here are some important updates to our April 10 story on COVID-19 cases at nuclear power plants:

An Atomic Safety and Licensing Board notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other concerned parties that it will not render its decision on a challenge to a license amendment regarding concrete degradation at Seabrook until this summer. The decision on the challenge—which was brought by the C-10 Research and Education Foundation, an opponent of license renewal for the New Hampshire plant—had been expected on April 9.