The Department of Energy announced contracts yesterday for six companies to perform high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) deconversion and to transform enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) to other chemical forms, including metal or oxide, for storage before it is fabricated into fuel for advanced reactors. It amounts to a first round of contracting. “These contracts will allow selected companies to bid on work for deconversion services,” according to the DOE’s announcement, “creating strong competition and allowing DOE to select the best fit for future work.”

The Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear report that was released in March 2023 by the Department of Energy called for five to 10 signed reactor contracts for at least one reactor design by 2025. Now, 18 months have passed, and despite the word “resurgence” in media reports on the U.S. nuclear power industry, 2025 is fast approaching with no contracts signed.

Lisa Marshall
president@ans.org

My current position affords me the opportunity to travel across the nation and world, engaging with people and organizations. I am deliberately using the word engagement to stress the long-term relationship aspect of our endeavors. It is an opportunity to listen—not to respond, but to understand. It is also an opportunity to foster a collaborative connection where comfort in posing questions and developing solutions are achieved.

Pulling from engagement in the higher education literature:

Historically, in a different societal context, higher education reached out to communities in an expert model of knowledge delivery. That connection with communities has transitioned over the years to a more engaged model in which community and university partners cocreate solutions. This occurs at local, national, and global levels. Today and in the future, public universities need to build on their experience of university–community relationships and transition to making engagement more central to the core of the institution. Through such progress, higher education can continue to contribute fully to the advancement of the United States as a stronger, wealthier, and more equitable country.¹

A historic referendum in Kazakhstan this past weekend showed that its citizens strongly support adding nuclear generation to the nation’s energy supply.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking comment on a proposed rule for a generic environmental impact statement for licensing new reactors. According to the NRC, the statement uses a technology-neutral framework and plant/site parameters to identify environmental issues common to new reactors as well as those issues needing project-specific analysis.

Here is a recap of industry happenings from the recent past:

ADVANCED REACTOR MARKETPLACE

Collaboration on SMR-powered ships

The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and the Korea Ship & Offshore Plant Research Institute (KRISO) have formed a collaboration to advance the commercialization of ships powered by small modular reactors, as well as floating SMR power-generation platforms. ABS is to provide an analysis of regulatory guidelines and international standards for the design of SMR-powered ships. KRISO is to develop the core technologies for the ships, such as conceptual designs and propulsion systems, as well as a framework for integrated ship and nuclear power safety analysis. KRISO will also design a floating SMR power-generation platform together with a commercialization model for supplying stable power to island areas.

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office finds that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not taken the steps needed to address the potential economic and societal radiological risks that could arise from a “dirty bomb.”

During some of his first public remarks last week, Japan’s new economy minister Yoji Muto promoted the importance of nuclear energy for his nation.

Muto said the new administration—including newly appointed prime minister Shigeru Ishiba—plans to restart “as many reactors as possible so long as they are safe,” reported NucNet, a nuclear-centered news agency in Brussels.

As evidenced by the well-attended Climate Week NYC, there is a growing awareness that nuclear energy must be incorporated into national energy strategies if net-zero goals are to be achieved. In recent years, green bonds have found solid footing in the world of energy finance. These eco-friendly issuances have evolved from supporting just wind and solar projects and are increasingly being used to power much-needed growth in the civil nuclear sector. Green bonds that have been issued over the past several years in Canada, France, Finland, and the United States are now being used to support investment in nuclear projects, from breathing new life into old reactors to in certain instances supporting nuclear new build projects. However, a question remains: Can this liquidity be deployed where and when it is needed most—to support ambitious new nuclear project buildouts?

TerraPower Isotopes, a subsidiary of Bellevue, Wash.–based TerraPower, announced it is now producing actinium-225 at commercial scale, making the medical isotope available to the pharmaceutical industry through weekly production runs. As a result, TerraPower Isotopes said its actinium, after further manufacturing, is now used in multiple drug developers’ radiopharmaceuticals in human clinical trials across the globe.