boominator
2 months ago
BWXT considers locating TRISO plant in Wyoming
BWX Technologies Inc has signed a cooperation agreement with the Wyoming Energy Authority to evaluate locations for a potential new TRISO nuclear fuel production facility in the state.
A vial of the finished TRISO fuel particles (Image: BWXT)
Under the agreement, BWXT will evaluate the requirements for siting a fuel fabrication facility in Wyoming. The roughly 18-month effort will evaluate such matters as potential factory locations, product specifications, facility design and engineering, estimated capital expenditures and operating costs, staffing and worker skill requirements, supply chain necessities, licensing and other requirements.
"This new effort will help establish the baseline for facilities necessary to meet anticipated demand for this specialised nuclear fuel and includes establishing the scale necessary for economic viability," the company said.
TRISO fuel comprises spherical kernels of enriched uranium oxycarbide (or uranium dioxide) surrounded by layers of carbon and silicon carbide, giving a containment for fission products which is stable up to very high temperatures. High-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) TRISO fuels are being considered as the preferred fuel in several advanced reactor designs currently under development.
"BWXT owns and operates the only two Nuclear Regulatory Commission Category 1-licensed commercial nuclear facilities in the United States, and we also manufacture fuel for the highly successful Canadian nuclear power market," said Joe Miller, president of BWXT subsidiary BWXT Advanced Technologies LLC. "For approximately 40 years, BWXT has furnished nuclear fuel across numerous government and commercial markets, giving the company a unique and highly credible background from which to draw on as we review options for a potential new facility."
"This is an exciting step forward for Wyoming's growing nuclear industry and another example that Wyoming is not sitting idle in this competitive market," said Rob Creager, executive director of the Wyoming Energy Authority. "Evaluating the potential to fabricate fuel on Wyoming soil will bring us closer to creating a viable full nuclear industry that will add value to our already robust energy portfolio."
BWXT is the only US company to manufacture irradiation-tested uranium oxycarbide TRISO fuel using production-scale equipment. As a participant in the US Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy's Next Generation Nuclear Plant programme for more than 15 years, BWXT has developed the expertise to manufacture TRISO-coated kernels. Under the DOE's Advanced Gas Reactor Fuel Development Program, BWXT has manufactured and certified TRISO-coated kernels and fuel compacts in production-scale quantities at its Specialty Fuel Facility in Lynchburg, Virginia.
BWXT has been heavily engaged with the State of Wyoming in evaluating options for constructing and deploying micro-reactors in the state since 2023. The company is currently working on a contract with the Wyoming Energy Authority to assess the viability of deploying small modular reactors in the state as a source of resilient and reliable energy to augment existing power generation resources. It has also signed agreements with Wyoming-based businesses such as L&H Industrial, Tata Chemicals Soda Ash Partners LLC and others in support of the goal of micro-reactor deployment in the state.
"As part of our all-of-the-above energy strategy, the possibility of a nuclear fuel fabrication facility here in Wyoming is exciting," Governor Mark Gordon said. "As the world's energy demands continue to rise, Wyoming must stay focused on protecting our core industries while continually augmenting our sources of energy. Wyoming has it all. Nuclear has been a stalwart in our energy portfolio, and like coal, can start with raw materials mined in Wyoming, processed in Wyoming, and used in Wyoming. A true trifecta."
Article Link
Researched and written by World Nuclear News
boominator
2 months ago
President Biden signs ADVANCE Act into law
10 July 2024
The bipartisan Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act aims to incentivise and support the development and deployment of new advanced nuclear technologies, including measures to streamline the regulatory approvals process.
The ADVANCE Act at a glance
The ADVANCE Act, among other things, directs the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to look for ways to speed up its licensing process for new nuclear technology. It will reduce regulatory costs for companies seeking to license advanced nuclear reactor technologies, as well as creating a "prize" to incentivise the successful deployment of next-generation reactor technologies. It will also direct the NRC to enhance its ability to qualify and license accident-tolerant fuels and advanced nuclear fuels.
The act will also support the development of advanced nuclear reactors in other countries, empowering the NRC to lead in international forums to develop regulations for advanced nuclear reactors, and directing the US Department of Energy to improve its process for approving the export of US technology to international markets, while maintaining strong standards for nuclear non-proliferation.
Streamlining the regulatory process, with international cooperation and collaboration between stakeholders, is widely seen as a key factor to the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors and advanced nuclear fuels at the scale required to tackle climate change and energy security concerns.
The legislation's progress
The act was introduced in the Senate in March 2023 by Senators Shelley Moore Capito, Tom Carper and Sheldon Whitehouse, with co-sponsors including John Barrasso, Cory Booker, Mike Crapo, Lindsey Graham, Martin Heinrich, Mark Kelly and Jim Risch. It was passed by the Senate on 18 June as part of the Fire Grants and Safety Act (S. 870), by 88 votes to 2. The act was passed by the House earlier in May this year, by 393 votes to 13.
Carper, who is chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, described the passage of the act - with overwhelming bipartisan support - as a "major victory" for the climate and US energy security.
The last stage of the process was the US President signing the act into law, with President Joe Biden doing so on Tuesday, posting a photo on social media outlet X with the message: "Earlier, I signed the ADVANCE Act, a bipartisan win for American energy security, innovation, and achieving economy-wide, net-zero emissions by 2050. Clean nuclear power and good union jobs. That's what the ADVANCE Act will help deliver."
Carper called it a "momentous day for our climate and America's clean energy future ... this bipartisan law will strengthen our energy and national security, lower greenhouse gas emissions and create thousands of new jobs, while ensuring the continued safety of this zero-emissions energy source. I’m thankful to each of my colleagues who helped write and pass this bill and to President Biden for signing it into law”.
Researched and written by World Nuclear News
boominator
6 months ago
Leaders commit to 'unlock potential' of nuclear energy at landmark summit
Leaders and representatives from 32 countries at the Nuclear Energy Summit backed measures in areas such as financing, technological innovation, regulatory cooperation and workforce training to enable the expansion of nuclear capacity to tackle climate change and boost energy security.
The summit photo had Brussels' Atomium as its backdrop (Image: Klaus Iohannis/X)
The summit of nuclear-backing countries was jointly organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Belgium, where it was held. In his opening remarks, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi noted that it had taken 70 years since US President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace United Nations speech for the first nuclear energy summit at the level of national leaders to be held.
He said that with the need for clean energy, "this is a global effort, the world needs us to get our act together" and ensure that international financial institutions can finance nuclear and increase nuclear energy capacity "in a safe, secure and non-proliferation way". He said "COP28 made it clear: to be pro-environment is to be pro-nuclear" and the summit "shows the nuclear taboo is over, starting a new chapter for nuclear commitment".
Belgium's Prime Minister Alexander de Croo noted his country's change of policy - from closing nuclear plants to extending operation - and said it was increasingly recognised that nuclear had to be part of the mix, with renewables, if the net-zero goals were going to be met.
In a series of speeches from the leaders attending, the need for energy security and carbon-free energy was frequently referenced, with International Energy Agency Director Fatih Birol saying that "without the support of nuclear power, we have no chance to reach our climate targets on time".
Extracts from the summit declaration
"We, the leaders of countries operating nuclear power plants, or expanding or embarking on or exploring the option of nuclear power ... reaffirm our strong commitment to nuclear energy as a key component of our global strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from both power and industrial sectors, ensure energy security, enhance energy resilience, and promote long-term sustainable development and clean energy transition.
"We are determined to do our utmost to fulfil this commitment through our active and direct engagement, in particular by enhancing cooperation with countries that opt to develop civil nuclear capacities in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a nationally determined manner, including for transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net-zero by mid-21st century in keeping with the science, as outlined in the First Global Stocktake of the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference."
The declaration adds: "We commit to work to fully unlock the potential of nuclear energy by taking measures such as enabling conditions to support and competitively finance the lifetime extension of existing nuclear reactors, the construction of new nuclear power plants and the early deployment of advanced reactors, including small modular reactors, worldwide while maintaining the highest levels of safety and security, in accordance with respective national regulations and circumstances. In this drive for more clean energy and innovation, we commit to support all countries, especially emerging nuclear ones, in their capacities and efforts to add nuclear energy to their energy mixes consistent with their different national needs, priorities, pathways, and approaches and create a more open, fair, balanced and inclusive environment for their development of nuclear energy, including its non-electrical applications, and to continue effectively implementing safeguards, consistent with Member States’ national legislation and respective international obligations.
"We are committed to continuing our drive for technological innovation, further improving the operational performance, safety and economics of nuclear power plants, enhancing the resilience and security of global nuclear energy industrial and supply chains. We reaffirm our commitment to ensuring safe, secure and sustainable spent nuclear fuel management, radioactive waste management and disposal, in particular deep geological disposal, and decommissioning, including decommissioning by design. We call for an intensified collective effort on ensuring the security of energy supply and resilience of individual, regional, and multinational clean energy resources.
"We are committed to creating a fair and open global market environment for nuclear power development to promote exchanges and cooperation among countries. We encourage nuclear regulators to enhance cooperation to enable timely deployment of advanced reactors, including small modular reactors. We emphasise the value of coordinated cooperation in nuclear fuel supply, nuclear power equipment manufacturing and resource security to ensure the stability of the nuclear energy industrial and supply chains."
"We support enhancing efforts to facilitate mobilisation of public investments, where appropriate, and private investments towards additional nuclear power projects. We emphasise that concrete measures in support of nuclear energy may include, as appropriate, tools such as direct public financing, guarantees to debt and equity providers, schemes to share revenue and pricing risks. We call for greater inclusion of nuclear energy in the Environmental, Social, and Governance policies in the international financial system ... we invite multinational development banks, international financial institutions and regional bodies that have the mandate to do so to consider strengthening their support for financing nuclear energy projects and to support the establishment of a financial level playing field for all zero emission sources of energy generation."
"To ensure the future availability of skilled nuclear sector professionals, we need to contribute further to nuclear education and research, and we consider of the utmost importance to train and retain a large and motivated workforce. Investment in skills, including re-skilling, through education and research is critical for the sector through the whole value chain."
What leaders said
The leaders and representatives of the countries attending the summit each gave short speeches. Here are some of the messages those attending heard.
Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, noted there were different views on nuclear within the European Union, and said the future was not assured for nuclear, citing a falling share of electricity generation in the EU since the 1990s. But she said it should play a crucial role given the urgency of tackling the climate challenge. She added that, assuming safety was assured, countries thinking of closing their existing nuclear power plants rather than extending their lifetimes should "consider their options carefully before foregoing a readily available source of low-emission electricity". She also urged innovation, noting a global "race" involving countries and companies backing small modular reactors, saying "let's go for it".
Romania's President Klaus Iohannis said the country was determined to develop its nuclear energy programme with both large scale and small modular reactors and to become a regional leader, while Bulgaria's Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov noted his country's 50 years of experience in nuclear energy and said investment in new nuclear was a cornerstone for its future plans.
Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic congratulated the organisers for holding a summit which was "much more important than many meetings and gatherings bureaucratically organised just to see each other and not to do things". He said his country wanted to build three or four small modular reactors and would like to get the know-how to do so and also have support for finding a way to finance them - "as much help as possible".
The Chinese President's Special Envoy Vice Premier Zhong Guoqing, said China had 55 nuclear energy units in operation with 36 under construction and was assisting many other countries, all contributing to tackling global climate change. He said that it was a global issue, and said it was crucial to double down on safety and security and also "to oppose politicisation of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy".
Croatia's Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said nuclear energy was crucial to achieve the net-zero goal and called for new nuclear financing to come from the European Investment Bank and other similar organisations, while Czech Republic Prime Minister Petr Fiala noted the benefits of long-term operation of existing plants for energy security, costs and climate targets and said "international cooperation will bring all of us bigger benefits".
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban said nuclear was the only way of generating electricity which was cheap, safe, sustainable and reliable. His country has continued with its plans for the Russian-built Paks II nuclear power plant project and noted that companies from a number of countries in Europe, and the USA, were involved in the project. He said it was in everyone's interests to "prevent nuclear energy" becoming a "hostage of geopolitical hypocrisy and ideological debate".
FInland's Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said his country's next steps for nuclear included district heating, hydrogen production and a deep geological disposal site for radioactive waste, while the Netherlands' Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that for many years people had reservations about nuclear but views have changed, with the war in Ukraine "acting as an accelerator ... never before has it been so obvious that for the transition to succeed we need every source".
Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico said his government was planning to construct 1200 MW of new capacity and would be inviting the world's companies to bid for the contracts. Slovenia's Prime Minister Robert Golob said public support for nuclear energy in his country was now above 65% - "it has never been higher". He said that financing was needed from multilateral banks at affordable rates, and also investment was needed in a new skilled workforce. He said global warming was the biggest threat and "we need to act immediately".
French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country has large-scale nuclear expansion plans, welcomed the alliance for new nuclear, saying nuclear energy was the only way to reconcile the need to reduce emissions, create jobs and boost energy security. He added that many countries wanted to electrify mobility "but if the electricity is produced by fossil fuels it is a stupid move". He said there was a need to combine improving energy efficiency, and increase renewables as well as new nuclear.
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar said nuclear was prioritised within the country's power and climate change policy areas. He also said small modular reactors hold the promise of bringing nuclear energy to remote or hard to reach areas.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the Akkuyu nuclear power plant would meet 10% of the country's electricity demand when completed and the plan is for more large plants and SMRs. He also backed IAEA efforts to stop an accident happening at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. For Japan, Masahiro Komura, Parliamentary vice minister for foreign affairs, said it was essential to introduce clean energy to the greatest possible extent and to devise strategies to get more investment to enhance the use of nuclear energy.
For the USA, John Podesta Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy, Innovation and Implementation, said the summit was a 21st Century update for the Atoms for Peace vision, and referenced the commitment by countries at COP28 to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, which he said means 200 GW of new nuclear capacity in the USA. He said a start had already been made and added that the country would also aim to help tackle the climate crisis by helping other countries across the world "build safe, secure, reliable, nuclear power".
Which countries signed the declaration
Argentina, Armenia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, France, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, UK, and the USA.
Industry support for the summit
A number of industry representative groups issued a joint statement in which they welcomed the outcome of the summit, and "the commitment of the national leaders assembled to the development and deployment of nuclear energy to fight climate change, provide energy security, and drive sustainable economic development. We stand ready to work alongside governments to deliver the required nuclear capacity to meet the challenges ahead of us".
The statement from the groups - World Nuclear Association, Canadian Nuclear Association, Japan Atomic Industrial Forum, Korea Atomic Industrial Forum, Nuclear Energy Institute, Nucleareurope, and Nuclear Industry Association - said that industry needed governments to provide long-term policies and clarity for potential investors, as well as ensuring ready access to national and international climate finance mechanisms for nuclear deployment, and "promote development of the supply chain commensurate with expansion targets and continue investment in nuclear research".
World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y León, said: “This meeting builds upon the good work at COP28, where we saw 25 governments come together and pledge a tripling of global nuclear capacity. As an industry we are here ready to meet the challenge and turn policies into projects to deliver the necessary nuclear energy expansion.”
What happens next?
A number of speakers at the event looked forward to similar future summits to continue to drive forward the initiative. De Croo and Grossi both said that the next summit would not necessarily need to be held in Belgium, and said it was unlikely to be an annual event, but the summit declaration concluded by saying: "We welcome and support the IAEA in convening, in cooperation with a Member State, another Nuclear Energy Summit in due course to maintain the momentum and continue building support for nuclear energy to decarbonise our world."
boominator
7 months ago
US seeks proposals for domestic HALEU production
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for uranium enrichment services to help establish a reliable domestic supply of fuels using high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). Such fuel is not currently commercially available from US-based suppliers.
(Image: DOE)
The current US commercial nuclear fuel cycle is based on reactor fuel that is enriched to no more than 5% U-235 (known as low-enriched uranium, LEU). Some of the advanced reactor technologies that are currently under development use HALEU fuel - enriched to between 5% and 20% U-235 - which enables the design of smaller reactors that produce more power with less fuel than the current fleet, as well as systems that can be optimised for longer core life, increased safety margins, and other increased efficiencies. At present, only Russia and China have the infrastructure to produce HALEU at scale.
DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy plans to award one or more contracts to produce HALEU from domestic uranium enrichment capabilities. Once enriched, the HALEU material will be stored on site until there is a need to ship it to deconverters.
Under the HALEU enrichment contracts - which have a maximum duration of 10 years - the government assures each contractor a minimum order value of USD2 million, to be fulfilled over the term of the contract. Enrichment and storage activities must occur in continental USA and comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. Proposals are due by 8 March.
This RFP incorporated industry feedback received on a draft version issued in June last year.
In total, President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act will provide up to USD500 million for HALEU enrichment contracts selected through this RFP and a separate one, released in November, for services to deconvert the uranium enriched through this RFP into metal, oxide, and other forms to be used as fuel for advanced reactors.
"Nuclear energy currently provides almost half of the nation's carbon-free power, and it will continue to play a significant part in transitioning to a clean energy future," said US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. "President Biden's Investing in America is strengthening our national and energy security through the domestic buildup of a robust HALEU supply chain, helping bring advanced reactors online in time to combat the climate crisis."
"The Biden-Harris Administration knows that nuclear energy is essential to accelerating America's clean energy future," added Assistant to the President and National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi. "Boosting our domestic uranium supply won't just advance President Biden's historic climate agenda, but also increase America's energy security, create good-paying union jobs, and strengthen our economic competitiveness."
DOE projects that more than 40 tonnes of HALEU could be needed before the end of the decade, with additional amounts required each year, to deploy a new fleet of advanced reactors in order to reach the current US Administration's goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero emissions by 2050.
DOE is supporting several activities to expand the HALEU supply chain for advanced commercial reactors, including recycling used nuclear fuel from government-owned research reactors. In November, DOE reached a key milestone under its HALEU Demonstration project when Centrus Energy produced the country's first 20 kilograms of HALEU.
Together, the USA, Canada, France, Japan and the UK have announced collective plans to mobilise USD4.2 billion in government-led spending to develop safe and secure nuclear energy supply chains.
Earlier this week, the UK government announced it will invest GBP300 million (USD381 million) to launch a HALEU programme, making it the first country in Europe to launch such a nuclear fuel programme.
In September, Orano revealed plans to extend enrichment capacity at its Georges Besse II (GB-II) uranium enrichment plant in France, and said it had begun the regulatory process to produce HALEU there.
Full Article Link
boominator
8 months ago
Biden To Help U.S. Break Russia's HALEU Monopoly
Biden Offers Companies Millions To Help U.S. Break Russia's Monopoly On HALEU
Workers at the Ohio-based nuclear enricher Centrus erecting a centrifuge for producing HALEU
The Biden administration showed up to last month’s global climate summit in Dubai with a radical new plan to replace coal and compete again with Russia and China over a technology American scientists pioneered.
The United States led nearly two dozen other nations in a pledge to triple the world’s supply of nuclear power by 2050. While most of the reactors under construction in other countries today are Russian models, the U.S. promoted its growing slate of high-tech startups with cutting-edge reactor designs as an American alternative to working with the Kremlin.
The big problem with that pitch? The small, next-generation nuclear reactors companies like the one billionaire Bill Gates backs are designed to run on a potent but rare type of uranium fuel with only one commercial supplier on the market: the Russian government.
Last autumn, a facility in Ohio began the nation’s first domestic production of what’s called high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU (pronounced HAY-loo). But it’s still at a small scale.
Now the Biden administration is trying to entice more companies into the market.
On Tuesday, the Department of Energy offered private companies a minimum of $2 million each to start producing HALEU domestically, the second part of a $500 million tranche of federal dollars for nuclear fuel production from President Joe Biden’s climate-spending law, the Inflation Reduction Act. The agency announced the first for a separate part of the HALEU-making process in November.
“Boosting our domestic uranium supply won’t just advance President Biden’s historic climate agenda,” Ali Zaidi, Biden’s national climate adviser, said in a statement, “but also increase America’s energy security, create good-paying union jobs, and strengthen our economic competitiveness.”
Biden's national climate adviser Ali Zaidi hailed the latest funding for HALEU production
All 93 atom-splitting machines operating at U.S. power plants today are conventional light-water reactors based on the technology first commercialized in the 1950s to harness the tremendous heat released from fission reactions to boil water that makes steam that spins turbines to generate huge volumes of nonstop zero-carbon electricity.
Light-water reactors are only built to handle fuel made from uranium enriched up to 5% using high-speed gas centrifuges into the unstable uranium-235 isotope needed for a sustained fission reaction. Many of the “advanced” reactors now vying for regulatory approval in the U.S. are instead designed to handle fuel enriched up to 20%, meaning the technology uses four times as much of the energy per unit of uranium as the traditional variety.
While the U.S. and its allies levied unprecedented sanctions on Russia’s oil, gas and mining companies after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Moscow’s state-owned Rosatom remains immune as the fourth-largest source of traditional fuel imports for American utilities.
That may not be true forever. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives last month passed legislation calling on the U.S. to ban imports of Russian uranium.
The U.S. used to produce most of its own reactor fuel. As part of the 1990s, a Clinton-era deal encouraged the struggling post-Soviet Russia to dismantle its nuclear weapons, however, the U.S. agreed to buy any reactor fuel made from weapons. The cheap supply of Russian fuel put U.S. enrichers out of business, with the last facility closing down a decade ago.
Existing reactors have alternatives to Russia.
Canada, Kazakhstan and Australia ? the top three suppliers of uranium to the U.S., respectively ? are all looking to increase mining. France’s state-owned uranium company, Orano, announced plans in October to increase enriched fuel production by 30%. Three new uranium mines entered into production in Arizona and Utah in just the past few months.
But next-generation reactors that need HALEU suffer from a classic chicken-versus-egg problem. Who can confidently invest in building a first-of-a-kind reactor that needs Russian fuel while the U.S. is trading barbs with Moscow? Who can confidently invest in enriching fuel for reactors that don’t currently exist and are not yet even licensed in the U.S.?
The federal government is providing an answer to both by pumping billions into propping up advanced reactors and fuel production in hopes they can advance simultaneously in time for the projected start of the new nuclear rollout at the start of the 2030s.
But Edward McGinnis, who spent 30 years working on nuclear power at the Energy Department before becoming the chief executive of the fuel-recycling startup Curio, said the Biden administration is overlooking a vital potential source of HALEU: nuclear waste.
In the background, the COGEMA factory rises from the landscape.
The spent rods of uranium pellets that come out of traditional reactors after a two-year fuel cycle still contain as much as 97% of their energy ? which is why the material remains dangerously radioactive for so long. Companies like Curio want to use special tools to separate all the different radioactive isotopes out of nuclear waste, dramatically reducing how much toxic material needs to be stored long term and increasing the domestic supply of reactor fuel.
Recycling nuclear waste is a complicated process that the U.S. government feared in the 1970s would increase the supply of radioactive materials for weapons, banning the nation’s first facility from opening. France, Russia and Japan all built plants to reprocess uranium fuel. While the U.S. lifted its ban on nuclear recycling in 2005, no company has yet made a serious attempt to build a new facility.
The IRA legislation that provided the new funding for HALEU production did not include recycling nuclear waste.
The draft letter of the Energy Department’s latest request for proposals for enriching HALEU states on page 8 that the uranium used to make the fuel “must have been mined and converted, and not come from a source that was recycled or reprocessed.”
“Some people don’t realize when we’re saying we need to support HALEU that recycling can be one of the two solid legs of our future nuclear fuel domestic production capability,” McGinnis said by phone Tuesday.
The main federal effort for funding nuclear waste recycling is the Energy Department’s experimental ARPA-E program, which in 2022 gave out $38 million to companies and laboratories for research, including $5 million to Curio.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), who chairs the House’s appropriations subcommittee on water and energy, tacked $15 million for reprocessing uranium fuel onto the latest federal budget proposal to help companies advance beyond the research phase into licensing and locating an actual plant.
McGinnis said the U.S. hasn’t even considered spending that kind of money deploying nuclear waste recycling in at least 15 years. He called on the Senate and White House to champion the measure in budget talks.
“You’re not only complementing the traditional uranium mining, you’re also, by extracting from our so-called nuclear waste, solving to a large degree the nuclear waste problem at the same time,” he said. “It’s a win-win.”
boominator
8 months ago
NuScale Lays Off Nearly Half Its Workforce
NuScale is the second major U.S. reactor company to cut jobs in recent months.
Almost exactly one year ago, NuScale Power made history as the first of a new generation of nuclear energy startups to win regulatory approval of its reactor design ? just in time for the Biden administration to begin pumping billions of federal dollars into turning around the nation’s atomic energy industry.
But as mounting costs and the cancellation of its landmark first power plant have burned through shrinking cash reserves, the Oregon-based company is laying off as much 40% of its workforce, HuffPost has learned.
At a virtual all-hands meeting Friday afternoon, the company announced the job cuts to remaining employees. HuffPost reviewed the audio of the meeting. Two sources with direct knowledge of NuScale’s plans confirmed the details of the layoffs.
By Friday evening, NuScale’s stock price had plunged more than 8% as investors sold off shares. NuScale did not respond to a call, an email or a text message seeking comment.
Surging construction costs are imperiling clean energy across the country. In just the past two months, developers have pulled the plug on major offshore wind farms in New Jersey and New York after state officials refused to let companies rebid for contracts at a higher rate.
But the financial headwinds are taking an especially acute toll on nuclear power. It takes more than a decade to build a reactor, and the only new ones under construction in the U.S. and Europe went billions of dollars over budget in the past two decades. Many in the atomic energy industry are betting that small modular reactors ? shrunken down, lower-power units with a uniform design ? can make it cheaper and easier to build new nuclear plants through assembly-line repetition.
The U.S. government is banking on that strategy to meet its climate goals. The Biden administration spearheaded a pledge to triple atomic energy production worldwide in the next three decades at the United Nations’ climate summit in Dubai last month, enlisting dozens of partner nations in Europe, Asia and Africa.
The two infrastructure-spending laws that President Joe Biden signed in recent years earmark billions in spending to develop new reactors and keep existing plants open. And new bills in Congress to speed up U.S. nuclear deployments and sell more American reactors abroad are virtually all bipartisan, with progressives and right-wing Republicans alike expressing support for atomic energy.
A rendering from the Idaho National Laboratory shows what NuScale's debut power plant was supposed to look like.
But the U.S. trails rivals like China and Russia in deploying new types of reactors, including those based on technologies that scientists working for the federal government first developed.
Until November, NuScale appeared on track to debut the nation’s first atomic energy station powered with small modular reactors. But the project to build a dozen reactors in the Idaho desert, and sell the electricity to ratepayers across the Western U.S. through a Utah state-owned utility, was abandoned as rising interest rates made it harder for NuScale to woo investors willing to bet on something as risky a first-of-its-kind nuclear plant.
In 2022, NuScale went public via a SPAC deal, a type of merger that became a popular way for debt-laden startups to pay back venture capitalists with a swifter-than-usual initial public offering on the stock market.
In its latest quarterly earnings, NuScale reported just under $200 million in cash reserves, nearly 40% of which was tied up in restricted accounts.
On a call with analysts in November, Ramsey Hamady, NuScale’s chief financial officer, said the firm expected to “take in about $50 million worth of cash from customers from work that we do.”
But the firm spent more than that in the previous three-month cycle ? a function, the executive said, of how project costs fluctuate regularly.
“This isn’t just a fixed-expense business. There’s variable expense, and there’s a lot of discretionary spending,” Hamady said. “We spend more as we have contracts, and we pull in our spending as contracts either get pushed out or delayed or whether we want to focus more on discretionary spend or nondiscretionary spend.”
boominator
12 months ago
World needs nuclear for net zero, says John Kerry
World needs nuclear for net zero
Nuclear will be essential for the world to accelerate its transition away from fossil fuels, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said at a New York summit this week. He also praised the recently launched Net Zero Nuclear Initiative - which has now welcomed GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) as its first corporate partner.
Kerry addresses the summit on 18 September.
Kerry was addressing the first day of Nuclear Energy Policy Summit 2023: Accelerating Net Zero Nuclear, an inaugural event organised by the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center in partnership with the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation on the sidelines of New York Climate Week and the United Nations General Assembly.
Extreme weather events are only going to increase as the world falls behind on its climate targets, Kerry said, as he called for science-based decision-making. "The reality is that this year it's going to be worse than last year, and next year is going to be worse than this year, no matter what we do - for the simple reason that we're way behind," he said. "We're currently heading towards something like 2.4 degrees, 2.5 degrees of warming on the planet and everything that you see happening today is happening at 1.1 degrees Celsius of warming," he said.
"We have to recognise a reality here. We have to transition away from unabated burning of fossil fuel," Kerry said.
"Most scientists will tell you … we can't get to net zero 2050 unless we have a pot, a mixture, of energy approaches in the new energy economy. And one of those elements which is essential in all the modelling I've seen, is nuclear."
The magnitude of the challenge will require commitment, he added. "Even if you had a quintupling of renewable energy, you will not alter the current course of 2.4 degrees - it's that big a challenge right now." This needs commitment firstly "not to keep making the problem worse" by supporting the use of fossil fuels which remain unabated, and secondly to accelerate all zero emissions or extremely low emissions approaches to energy, transportation and ultimately heavy industry: "We don't have the luxury of unilaterally disarming ourselves … with respect to any decarbonisation technology when we're facing the urgency of this crisis - it's all of the above we need on the table."
The USA is now committed, "based on experience and based on reality", to trying to accelerate the deployment of nuclear energy, he said. "It's what we believe we absolutely need in order to win this battle and we believe we still can win this battle".
The COP28 climate conference - which takes place in Dubai from 30 November until 12 December - is an opportunity to try to galvanise more action, and Kerry said he was pleased to see the launch of the "pioneering" Net Zero Nuclear platform. This initiative was launched in early September by World Nuclear Association and the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), with support from the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Atoms4NetZero and the UK government, and aims to ensure that nuclear energy’s potential is fully realised in facilitating the decarbonisation of global energy systems by promoting the value of nuclear energy and removing barriers to its growth especially in the run-up to COP28.
Speaking after Kerry's address to Nuclear Energy Policy Summit 2023, World Nuclear Association Director General Sama Bilbao y Léon announced that GEH has become Net Zero Nuclear's first corporate partner.
"We do want to make sure that this initiative brings the entire global nuclear industry together," Bilbao y Léon said. GE's decision to join the initiative clearly shows that the company - which works in a number of clean energy technologies - "sees nuclear as a key component of any serious energy transition towards clean energy processes," she added.
Trade smarter, not harder: Unleash your inner pro with our toolkit and live discussions.
Ask ADVFN Intelligence (AI)
77Port
1 week ago
Going_4_It
3 months ago
IBB-99
5 months ago
Remember Tomorrow
7 months ago
Hot Features
Premium
