Professionals from academic, environmental, nuclear and other organizations have written an open letter to US President-elect Donald Trump and Rick Perry – recently named by Trump as his choice for US Energy Secretary – urging them to take action to “save and grow” the country’s nuclear sector. world-nuclear-news.org

The US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has entered into follow-on cooperative agreements with three projects aimed at securing a domestic supply of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) without using highly enriched uranium (HEU). The latest funding completes the full $25 million NNSA contribution to each project. world-nuclear-news.org

Federal officials on Friday authorized the reopening of a major underground nuclear waste repository, which had been closed for nearly three years following a radiation accident. wsj.com

Fox News host Neil Cavuto worried on Thursday that Americans would not get to enjoy the fruits of Donald Trump’s economic plans if the new president triggers a nuclear war. www.rawstory.com

SONGS Decommissioning Solutions – a joint venture between Aecom and EnergySolutions – has been selected as the decommissioning general contractor by Southern California Edison (SCE) for the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Units 2 and 3 at the plant were shut down in June 2013. world-nuclear-news.org

Radioactive sludge has been transferred out of the world’s oldest nuclear fuel pond for the first time, the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and Sellafield Ltd announced yesterday. The project is being delivered ten years ahead of schedule and for half the expected cost, they said in a joint statement. world-nuclear-news.org

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday that it had issued two Combined Licenses for Duke Energy Carolinas’ two-reactor project proposed for a site near Gaffney, South Carolina, but the fate of the project remains far from certain. nuclearstreet.com

Can an agreement allay fears of a looming nuclear accident in Belgium? Two of its power stations, situated very close to Germany, are causing considerable alarm. dw.com

 

       The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was formed in 1977. The top priorities of FERC include:

·        Promotes reliable, efficient, and sustainable energy for consumers;

• Ensures just and reasonable rates, terms, and conditions;
• Promotes safe, reliable, secure, and efficient infrastructure; and
• Enforces compliance with FERC rules and federal law by detecting and deterring energy market manipulation.
• Regulates the transmission and wholesale sales of electricity in interstate commerce;
• Reviews certain mergers and acquisitions and corporate transactions by electricity companies;
• Regulates the transmission and sale of natural gas for resale in interstate commerce;
• Regulates the transportation of oil by pipeline in interstate commerce;
• Approves the siting and abandonment of interstate natural gas pipelines and storage facilities;
• Reviews the siting application for electric transmission projects under limited circumstances;
• Ensures the safe operation and reliability of proposed and operating LNG terminals;
• Licenses and inspects private, municipal, and state hydroelectric projects;
• Protects the reliability of the high voltage interstate transmission system through mandatory reliability standards;
• Monitors and investigates energy markets;
• Enforces FERC regulatory requirements through imposition of civil penalties and other means;
• Oversees environmental matters related to natural gas and hydroelectricity projects and other matters; and
• Administers accounting and financial reporting regulations and conduct of regulated companies. (Wikipedia)

       FERC has special pricing requirements with respect to “fast start” power generation sources such as coal, oil and natural gas plants that can respond to sudden spikes in energy demand. Such spikes are often caused by the variability of solar and wind power sources that do not match the variation in energy demand. Experts say that because of the fact that nuclear energy is not included in this special pricing, it cannot compete commercially with current fast start sources. They claim that this means that nuclear power is undervalued.

       Half the U.S. fleet of around one hundred reactors are boiling water reactors that can practice load following which means varying their output to follow demand. While they can change their output, it is not particularly relevant to the cost of operating the plant. It costs about the same to run at full capacity as it does to run at half capacity.

      Currently, the undervaluation of nuclear power production results in a serious disadvantage in the marketplace. Within the past two years, six states have shut down nuclear power plants because of economic issues. It is estimated that almost half the power reactors in the U.S. are in danger of being closed because they cannot compete.

        New regulations are being considered at FERC to take into account the ability of boiling water reactors to quickly ramp up their electricity production but critics say that there are other important price related issues that are not being addressed. It is estimated that the average nuclear power plant must spend twenty two million dollars every year to comply with government regulation. This is a much greater compliance cost that other sources of electricity. However, nuclear power plants are much more complex and dangerous that other forms of power generation. Getting regulatory approval to construct a new nuclear power plant in the U.S. can take up to twenty five years.

        Critics of current policies point out that competing with other power sources that receive special subsidies such as wind and solar power put nuclear power reactors at a distinct disadvantage in the power marketplace. While this may be true, on the other hand, these other power sources release less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than nuclear power. They also do not generate dangerous nuclear waste and they do not pose the same threat to the environment and human health.

        There is concern at FERC that widespread use of wind and solar power in the U.S. could make the U.S. grid unreliable. If coal, oil or natural gas have to be used to make up shortfalls of electricity due to demand spikes, then a great deal of unwanted carbon dioxide will enter the atmosphere. On the other hand, advances in massive batteries and other types of energy storage devices could help level out the energy supply in case of demand spikes. I find the arguments for new FERC regulations to help nuclear power reactors compete in the marketplace to be unconvincing. 

Japan has scrapped plans to generate electricity at a multi-billion dollar experimental nuclear reactor, the government said today, giving up on the decades-old project due to spiraling costs. Once touted as a “dream reactor,” the Monju facility was designed to generate more fuel than it consumes via nuclear chain reaction, an attractive alternative in a country with few natural resources. indianexpress.com

The Northwest’s only nuclear power plant shut down unexpectedly shortly before noon on Sunday. The shutdown was caused by an equipment malfunction at the Bonneville Power Administration’s substation near the Columbia Generating Station, which is operated by Energy Northwest. dailyprogress.com

 A proposed federal effort to assess whether nuclear waste can be stored in 3-mile-deep holes is raising the ire of some Haakon County residents in western South Dakota. capjournal.com

Kazakhstan, producer of more than 20,000 tonnes of natural uranium per year, has welcomed security guidance recently developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Vienna-based agency said yesterday that Kazakhstan – which established a “comprehensive system for the control and physical protection of natural uranium” in 2010 – had contributed to an IAEA publication entitled Nuclear Security in the Uranium Extraction Industry and issued in February this year. world-nuclear-news.org

 

 

 

 

       I have often posted articles about problems with the disposal of nuclear waste. This is one of the greatest issues with the use of nuclear power. The waste from nuclear power plants has radioactive isotopes that are dangerous for thousands of years. Many schemes to bury the waste and/or process it to make it less dangerous have been proposed. Today I am going to talk about research on the nature of uranium compounds that might help with the disposal of nuclear waste.

       Researchers at the Centre for Radiochemistry Research (CRR) at the University of Manchester in the U.K. are working on describing the quantitative modeling of the electronic structure of a family of uranium nitride compounds. Studying the electronic structure of these complexes is difficult4 because inter-electronic repulsion, crystal field, and spin–orbit coupling effects can be of similar magnitude. This new model should help with disposal of nuclear waste by improving separation and recycling technologies by leading to an improved understanding of the way in which actinide complexes interact with extractants which are used in separating the different components of nuclear waste.

       The Co-Chairman of the CRR said, “quantifying the electronic structure of these elements in molecules is a major challenge because many complex electronic effects become very important and of similar magnitude to each other with heavy elements. This makes their modeling very complex and much more difficult than for more routinely probed elements such as the transition metals.

This means that traditional descriptions of the electronic structure of actinide elements are often of a qualitative nature – but this is precisely the area where quantitative models are needed because our understanding of core chemical concepts become increasingly nebulous at the foot of the periodic table.”

      Some of the researchers at the CRR had previously found that some uranium nitrides and uranium oxo molecules were essentially the same except for the a single nitrogen atom being swapped with a single oxygen atom. The symmetry of the molecular complexes and the oxidation state of the uranium ions made them ideal candidates for developing a quantitative model of electronic states.

      In order to proceed with their project, the researchers needed to produce a large family of molecules but existing methods of synthesis were not reliable. Fortunately, the researchers were able to develop a new way to reliably synthesize the uranium complexes that they needed. A family of fifteen uranium nitrides and oxo compounds was prepared.

      Important information about the lowest electronic states of the molecules was obtained through the use of variable temperature magnetization and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy. Near-infrared spectroscopy was used to probe electronic transitions into energy states above the low levels studied with the first two processes. These three techniques allowed the researchers to build comprehensive pictures of the full electronic structures of the molecules.

      Further research into the interaction of uranium nitride and oxo complexes with extractants used in separation and recycling of nuclear waste will be aided by this new understanding of the behavior of electrons in these uranium complexes.

WEST is the new name for Tore Supra, a plasma facility near Cadarache in southern France, which has been upgraded to undertake research towards the ITER fusion project. The reactor celebrated its first plasma on 14 December. world-nuclear-news.org

The Department of Energy on Monday announced it has chosen four companies to develop proposals for test sites to explore storing nuclear waste thousands of feet underground. morningconsult.com

Officials at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth say the plant remained shut down Sunday, three days after leaks were found in several steam valves. boston.com

BWXT Canada announced Monday that it has purchased GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Canada, and renamed the company BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada. kitchener.ctvnews.ca