As the World Turns

The world just goes about its business:

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said on Thursday it was seeking public comment on the proposed certification of General Electric-Hitachi Nuclear Energy's Economic Simplified Boiling-Water Reactor (ESBWR) design for use in the United States.

And that’s fine.

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And the world may want to stop and see what’s happened and why:

The report, submitted to member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) shortly before Japan's nuclear crisis erupted this month, said the global nuclear sector maintained a high level of safety performance in 2010.

But, it warned, "in some cases, plans for nuclear power program development moved faster than the establishment of the necessary regulatory and safety infrastructure and capacity."

The report, in this case, was generated by the IAEA, presumably to see if member countries agreed with its premise. There’ll be more to say about this, but for now, it’s just a reporter looking for an angle. The article does include, further down:

The report, obtained by Reuters Thursday, did not name any countries [ie, Japan]. It invited comment from the IAEA's 151 member states by mid-April, before a final version would be issued.

And probably wouldn’t have included Japan if it did name countries, as the country has a substantial regulatory infrastructure.

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But the events in Japan continue. The world should not move on quite yet:

Tokyo Electric Power said on Thursday the overall situation was stabilizing at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Engineers are trying to stabilize the six-reactor plant 250 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo nearly two weeks after an earthquake and tsunami battered the plant and devastated northeast Japan, leaving nearly 26,000 people dead or missing.

See Evening Report, above this post, for more.

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How Nanomaterials Can Make Nuclear Reactors Safer and More Efficient

The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior communications advisor at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald.

From the batteries in our cell phones to the clothes on our backs, "nanomaterials" that are designed molecule by molecule are working their way into our economy and our lives. Now there’s some promising work on new materials for nuclear reactors.

Reactors are a tough environment. The sub atomic particles that sustain the chain reaction, neutrons, are great for splitting additional uranium atoms, but not all of them hit a uranium atom; some of them end up in various metal components of the reactor. The metal is usually a crystalline structure, meaning it is as orderly as a ladder or a sheet of graph paper, but the neutrons rearrange the atoms, leaving some infinitesimal voids in the structure and some areas of extra density. The components literally grow, getting longer and thicker. The phenomenon is well understood and designers compensate for it with a …

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If Isaiah had been a nuclear engineer, he’d have loved this project. And the Trump Administration should too, despite the proposal to eliminate it in the FY 2018 budget.

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With 50 different state legislative calendars, more than half of them adjourn by June, and those still in session throughout the year usually take a recess in the summer. So springtime is prime time for state legislative activity. In the next few weeks, legislatures are hosting hearings and calling for votes on bills that have been battered back and forth in the capital halls.

On Tuesday, The Ohio Public Utilities Committee hosted its third round of hearings on the Zero Emissions Nuclear Resources Program, House Bill 178, and NEI’s Maria Korsnick testified before a jam-packed room of legislators.

Washingtonians parachuting into state debates can be a tricky platform, but in this case, Maria’s remarks provided national perspective that put the Ohio conundrum into context. At the heart of this debate is the impact nuclear plants have on local jobs and the local economy, and that nuclear assets should be viewed as “long-term investments” for the state. Of course, clean air and electrons …

NEI Nuclear Notes

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