Part 1 of 4 Parts
     Venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs are investing significant money in nuclear energy for the first time. That is changing the pace of innovation in the nuclear industry. Ray Rothrock is a longtime venture capitalist who has personal investments in 10 nuclear startups. He said, “There has not been a resurgence of nuclear power, ever, since its heyday in the late 1970s. Now that is changing. I have never seen this kind of investment before. Ever.”
      Jacob DeWitte is the CEO of the micro-reactor startup Oklo. He says that the landscape has changed dramatically since he began raising funds in 2014. At the time, he was a part of the Y Combinator startup incubator. He added, “More investors are interested, more investors are excited by the space, and they’re getting smarter to do the diligence and know what to do here — which is good.”
     John Parsons is an economist and lecturer at MIT. He said, “I think having fresh perspectives is really good.  Nuclear energy is a very complex science, and it’s been supported by the federal government and at these national labs. And so that’s a very small circle of people. And when you broaden that circle, you get a lot of new minds, different thinking, a variety of experiments.”
     Parsons continued, “In any industry, there can be a ‘groupthink’ or ‘narrowness’ in the way things are done over time. With private investment in the space, there will be out-of-the-box thinking. Maybe that out-of-the-box thinking doesn’t produce anything useful. Maybe it turns out that the old designs are the best. But I think it’s really wonderful to have the variety of takes.”
     In spite of the enthusiasm of the previous quotes, not everyone is so optimistic that the recent flow of venture dollars will actually lead to significant progress.
       Naomi Oreskes is a professor of the history of science at Harvard University. She said, “Investors have often invested in stupid things that didn’t work. Because the reality is that in a 75-year history of this technology, it has never been profitable in a market-based system. If investors are putting money into nuclear now, that’s because they think they can make money, and I can only think they believe they will make money because they think that there’s a big opportunity to have the federal government pick up a big part of the tab.”
     From 2015 to 2021, total venture capital deal flow in the U.S. has increases fifty-four percent in terms of deals actually closed and two hundred and ninety four percent by dollar value. This is according to data compiled by the private capital market research firm Pitchbook. In that same time period, climate investing deal flow in the U.S. rose by two hundred and fourteen percent in terms of volume and one thousand three hundred and forty-eight by dollar value. In the nuclear space, investments rose even faster by three hundred twenty five percent by volume and three thousand six hundred forty-two percent by dollar value.
Please read Part 2 next

Design change in Prairie Island nuclear plant requested republicaneagle.com

Further runtime extension for German nuclear plants no longer possible  cleanenergywire.org

Kudankulam unit 3 reactor building dome installed world-nuclear-news.org

Flushing of safety systems at Rooppur 1 world-nuclear-news.org

 

Ambient office = 77 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 155 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 160 nanosieverts per hour

Grape from Central Market = 104 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water =75 nanosieverts per hour

Russia readies hypersonic missile for launch in fresh nuclear threat  euronews.com

North Korea fires ballistic missiles towards sea off east coast Aljazeera.com

UK opens applications for GBP60 million HTGR research world-nuclear-news.org

Borssele earmarked for two new reactors world-nuclear-news.org

Ambient office = 87 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 110 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 113 nanosieverts per hour

English cucumber from Central Market = 99 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 68 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 65 nanosieverts per hour

Biden administration holding out hope North Korea won’t proceed with possibly imminent nuclear test washingtimes.com

India tests long-range missile for nuclear deterrence apnews.com

Refurbished OPG reactor cleared to begin fuel loading world-nuclear-news.org

Ukraine has the military capability to take back Crimea nbcnews.com

 

 

Ambient office = 66 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 111 nanosieverts per hour

Blueberry from Central Market = 126 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 90 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 70 nanosieverts per hour

Dover Sole from Central = 95 nanosieverts per hour

     BWX Technologies Inc is headquartered in Lynchburg, Virginia. BWX is a supplier of nuclear components and fuel to the U.S. government. They provide technical, management and site services to support governments in the operation of complex facilities and environmental restoration activities. BWX will produce TRISO fuel in to power the Project Pele microreactor. Pele is the first microreactor to be manufactured and operated in the U.S.
      BWX is manufacturing a core for Project Pele, TRISO fuel for additional reactors and coated particle fuel for NASA under a thirty-seven-million-dollar award from the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). INL will manage the contract and provide technical support and oversight.
     The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) has partnered with the Department of Energy (DoE) to develop, prototype and demonstrate a transportable reactor. This is being called a whole-of-government effort in Project Pele to develop a transportable microreactor. Such reactors can deliver clean, low-carbon energy where and when it is needed. They will be a resilient power source for DoD operational needs. They can also potentially be used in the civilian and commercial sectors for disaster response and recovey, power generation at remote locations, and deep decarbonization initiatives.
     BWX was chosen earlier this year by the SCO to construct the prototype which is to be completed and delivered in 2024 for testing at INL. The TRISO fuel will be delivered separately.
     TRISO stands for TRIstructural-ISOtropic fuel. The TRISO particles contain a spherical kernel of enriched uranium oxycarbide surrounded by layers of carbon and silicon carbide. These outer layers trap fission products inside the particles. TRISO has been described by the DoE as “the mort robust nuclear fuel on Earth.” The high-assay low enrichment (HALEU) fuel is down blended from the U.S. stockpile of high-enriched uranium (HEU). BWX’s facilities are the only private U.S. facilities that are licensed to possess and process HEU.
       Kathryn Huff is the U.S. Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy. She said that it was “extremely exciting to see decades of DOE’s investments in TRISO fuel … paying off to power many of the most innovative advanced reactor designs to be deployed within this decade”.
      John Wagner is the INL Laboratory Director. He said, “This commercial TRISO fuel production line is the culmination of more than 15 years of work at INL and other DOE national laboratories, in partnership with BWXT, to develop and qualify this fuel with immense potential for use in microreactors, space reactors and other advanced reactor concepts. As the United States moves steadily toward a carbon-free energy future, nuclear power is an essential part of the journey. Project Pele will demonstrate the viability of this fuel type, opening the door for other advanced reactors.”
     BWX said that it has expanded its speciality coated fuel production manufacturing capacity through previously announced awards funded by the DoD Operational Energy Capabilities Improvement Fund Office and NASA and program management provided by SCO. In addition to TRISO, BWX also produces speciality coated fuels for NASA for the space nuclear propulsion project inside the agency’s Space Telescope Mission Directorate.

Putin’s nuclear bombers take flight in show of force as Russia ‘readies nuke missiles to strike West’ the-sun.com

New Leaders for Nuclear Forces, Minuteman Modernization, WWII Ace Promoted af.mil

Dismantling of Vermont Yankee reactor core completed world-nuclear-news.org

Point Lepreau nuclear plant taken offline after power loss cbc.ca

 

 

Ambient office = 54 nanosieverts per hour

Ambient outside = 114 nanosieverts per hour

Soil exposed to rain water = 114 nanosieverts per hour

Red bell pepper from Central Market = 79 nanosieverts per hour

Tap water = 110 nanosieverts per hour

Filter water = 87 nanosieverts per hour