ANS and the Breakthrough Institute yesterday submitted a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regarding the agency’s ongoing efforts to create a regulatory infrastructure for the development and commercialization of advanced reactors, a mandate of the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, signed into law in January 2019.
Two leading committees of the European Parliament have objected to adding nuclear and natural gas to the list of “green” technologies covered by the EU taxonomy—the classification system used by the European Union to guide private investment toward environmentally sustainable economic projects.
Engineering, construction, and project management firm Bechtel Corporation last week announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Toshiba America Energy Systems and Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions to pursue a civil nuclear power plant project in Poland.
Extending the operational life of California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant beyond 2025—its scheduled year of retirement—would help the state meet its climate goals more quickly, more reliably, and more cheaply than allowing the facility to close, a new study has found.
According to Retaining Diablo Canyon: Economic, Carbon, and Reliability Implications, keeping the plant on line could not only substantially reduce California’s emissions, natural gas use, and electric power costs, but also help avoid blackouts.
A new survey conducted by Bisconti Research shows strong numbers for public support of nuclear energy and for the building of additional nuclear power plants in the United States. Unlike other surveys on nuclear energy, which have yielded varying results over time, the Bisconti survey—known as the National Nuclear Energy Public Opinion Survey—is the only poll that has consistently asked the same questions in the same context for the past four decades, making its findings especially noteworthy for the nuclear industry.
On June 2, Nuclear Newswire published a letter from Jose Reyes, chief technology officer at small modular reactor developer NuScale Power, to May R. Berenbaum, editor-in-chief of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, regarding a research article published by PNAS two days previous. The article, “Nuclear waste from small modular reactors,” has grabbed more than a few headlines for its claim that SMRs will actually generate more nuclear waste than a standard large pressurized water reactor.
Steven P. Nesbit
president@ans.org
Years ago, my then boss was trying to convince me to accept an undesirable (to me) assignment, and he asked me, “Aren’t you a professional?” I wasn’t quite sure how to answer. By the textbook definition, a nuclear professional is someone who gets paid to do a job in the nuclear field. True as far as it goes, but the term means much more to me.
French utility giant EDF has announced that its NUWARD small modular reactor design will be the case study for a European early joint regulatory review led by the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN). Also participating in the review process will be the Czech Republic’s State Office for Nuclear Safety (SUJB) and Finland’s Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK).
BWX Technologies, Inc., will deliver the first microreactor in the United States under a contract awarded by the U.S. Department of Defense Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), the company announced today. BWXT will have two years to build a transportable microreactor prototype to the SCO’s Project Pele specifications and deliver it to Idaho National Laboratory for testing under a cost-type contract valued at about $300 million.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission have completed a first joint technical review of Terrestrial Energy’s Integral Molten Salt Reactor, the company announced earlier this week.
The IMSR was selected in December 2019 to be the first advanced non–light water nuclear reactor technology to be studied under an August 2019 NRC/CNSC memorandum of cooperation aimed at enhancing regulatory effectiveness through collaborative work on technical reviews of advanced reactor and small modular reactor technologies.
A new poll out from the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), a Melbourne, Australia–based free-market think tank, finds that a majority of Australians favor the construction of nuclear power plants in their country.
A Stanford University–led research article on small modular reactors published Tuesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is not sitting well with SMR developers or, for that matter, with much of the largely pro-SMR nuclear community.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has authored an article for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held last week in Davos, Switzerland.
Ontario-based GEH SMR Technologies Canada Ltd. and the Saskatchewan Industrial and Mining Suppliers Association (SIMSA) announced yesterday the signing of a memorandum of understanding focused on the potential deployment of the BWRX-300 small modular reactor in Saskatchewan.
The MOU calls for engaging with local suppliers to maximize the role of the Saskatchewan supply chain in the nuclear energy industry.
The target date for the start of electricity generation at Hinkley Point C’s Unit 1 reactor has been moved back to June 2027, following the completion of a schedule and cost review of the new nuclear build project, EDF announced last week.
While the review considered the main aspects of the project to construct two 1,630-MWe EPRs in Somerset, England, the schedule and cost of electromechanical works and of final testing were not examined, according to the utility.
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Westinghouse Electric Company and South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction have signed an agreement to “jointly participate in global AP1000 plant opportunities,” the Pennsylvania-based nuclear technology firm announced on May 24.
Small modular reactor developer NuScale Power announced on Monday the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Romania’s Nuclearelectrica to conduct engineering studies, technical reviews, and licensing and permitting activities at a site in Doiceşti, Romania, selected as the preferred location for the deployment of a NuScale VOYGR power plant.
Seung Chul Lee, deputy chief executive officer of Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power, has told the Polish Press Agency that KHNP is willing to cofinance the construction of six nuclear power units in Poland. KHNP formally offered to construct the APR1400 reactors, with a total capacity of 8.4 GW, in April. The Polish government plans to have the country’s first nuclear reactor begin operating in 2033 and for subsequent reactors to be completed every two to three years thereafter.
Rep. Graham Filler (Photo: Michigan House Republicans)
It’s not all bad news from Michigan. While it may not make up for the closing of Covert, Mich.’s Palisades nuclear plant, the state’s House of Representatives last week easily approved legislation that calls for a feasibility study to examine the potential for new nuclear generation.
Introduced on April 14 by Rep. Graham Filler (R., 93rd Dist.), House Bill 1609 passed the chamber 85–20 on May 19 (just one day prior to Entergy’s announcement that it closed Palisades 11 days before its scheduled retirement). Now in Senate hands, the measure instructs the Michigan Public Service Commission to engage an outside consulting firm to conduct the study.
Should the bill become law, the commission must deliver a report on the study to the governor and congressional leadership within 18 months.
ANS is set to host a virtual event titled “Turbulence Modeling and Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes,” the first in a new four-part lecture series on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) presented by the Society. The webinar runs from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. (EDT) on Wednesday, May 25, and is open to ANS members only. Advance registration is required.