NEI Nuclear Notes

To continue building nuclear energy as a viable U.S. energy source, safety must continue to be the utmost priority. Nuclear safety is certainly Anne McCartin’s number one goal. As a nuclear safety analyst, she is responsible for creating and maintaining the nuclear facility safety basis for the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) Complex at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory . Anne's work ensures the appropriate controls are established to maintain safe operations that are in compliance with nuclear regulations and laws. She also provides independent reviews of safety basis documents, such as experiment safety analysis plans and core safety assurance packages. Anne McCartin Anne knows all too well how important nuclear energy is to the future of America’s energy industry. “ Our nation’s energy needs will only continue to increase,” she explains. “Nuclear energy provides a safe, reliable, carbon-free energy source on a scale that can meet those demands.” The ...

They write letters : A reader, whom I assume is opposed to nuclear generation, has recently written listing various incidents that have occurred at nuclear sites, some more than 60 years ago in experimental facilities. The writer described these incidents in highly dramatic fashion. This is a letter by James Lindsay to the Kawartha Lakes (Ontario)This Week. Most of it refutes the earlier letter, which I did not look up. But this struck me: If nuclear energy is respected, there is no need for fear. I’m going to guess, based on the letter, that Lindsay means that nuclear energy should be respected enough that people who are going to spout off against it should know something about it. That works. Facts beat fear. I’m not sure I’d adopt “Respect, don’t fear” as a motto – it has an intimidating air for what is, after all, a tool for making electricity (among many other things, of course). But the thought behind it is solid. John Grossenbacher from the Idaho National Labs mak...

The idea of nuclear professionals gathering in a Starbucks and exchanging their credentials with an eye toward future happiness has a certain appeal. And perhaps as quickly as it takes an atom to split. Love at first fission. But the Department of Energy has a (slightly) different idea in mind: The future of nuclear energy needs smart, creative thinkers. That's why more than 120 experts met up last week to "speed-date" each other's ideas. To its credit, DOE did pick a beautiful location, Boise, which is near the Idaho National Labs, for one of the meeting sites. So that’s one point in DOE’s favor. The Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory led the charge. More than 120 experts gathered for simultaneous workshops in six different cities, representing National Labs, universities, nonprofits and major companies. And you’ll note the word “energetic” in the following bit. The workshops kicked off with energetic remarks by Dr. Lynn ...

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has never hidden his support for nuclear energy. In 2011, before he took up his current post, he wrote an article for Foreign Affairs surveying the nuclear landscape, finding some sump holes and crevices (as well as gold-infused hillocks and verdant valleys), and concluded : As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere, finding ways to generate power cleanly, affordably, and reliably is becoming an even more pressing imperative. Nuclear power is not a silver bullet, but it is a partial solution that has proved workable on a large scale. … The government's role should be to help provide the private sector with a well-understood set of options, including nuclear power -- not to prescribe a desired market share for any specific technology. And: The United States must take a number of decisions to maintain and advance the option of nuclear energy. As energy secretary, he has embraced President Barack Obama’s “all-of-the-above” energy ...

The following blog post was submitted by Idaho National Laboratory ’s Caleb Robison for NEI’s Powered by Our People promotion. Powered by Our People is part of NEI’s campaign called Future of Energy , which NEI launched earlier this year. This promotion aims to communicate innovation in our nation’s nuclear facilities—in the voices of their workforces. Caleb Robison is an experiment system engineer who has worked at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory for the past nine years. He also mentors the next generation of nuclear professionals by participating in INL’s internship program. We can’t wait to highlight your facility’s innovators and their part in the #futureofenergy across our digital channels from July to September. Take a look at the featured content on our website . Caleb Robison of the Idaho National Laboratory Caleb Robison works at the lab's Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), where he prepares safety documentation for new experiments, coor...

Idaho Governor Butch Otter Nuclear Notes highlighted Governor Butch Otter’s Leadership in Nuclear Energy commission when he formed it last February. Now, the group is beginning to issue reports . Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter today encouraged the people of Idaho to review the progress of his Leadership in Nuclear Energy (LINE) Commission and to begin a public dialogue on critical questions facing the Idaho National Laboratory and their potential impact on Idaho’s economy. This might sound like an "uh-oh, maybe this isn’t going to go so well" sort of moment, but Governor Otter is actually quite the fan of INL: “The timing was right for an extensive, external review of INL and nuclear-related activities in Idaho,” Governor Otter said. “I think this progress report clearly points out that the environmental cleanup envisioned by my predecessors has largely been realized while at the same time we’ve established INL as the nation’s preeminent nuclear research and developme...

Thanks to the folks at the ANS Nuclear Cafe for pointing to this video from Idaho National Laboratory 's Center for Advanced Energy Research. It's all about the CAVE: a "computer assisted virtual environment" that enables researchers " to literally walk into their data and examine it ." Very cool stuff. Leave your comments here, or over at Reddit .

A little story appearing in the Spokane (Wash.) Spokesman-Review: Gov. Butch Otter today signed an executive order creating the “Idaho Leadership in Nuclear Energy Commission,” or LINE Commission, to identify “opportunities and challenges associated with hosting the Idaho National Laboratory,” the nuclear facility in eastern Idaho. “Idaho clearly has been a recognized leader in nuclear energy research, development and demonstration for over 60 years,” Otter said. “We’ve also borne environmental burdens, but significant progress has been made in cleanup that enables us to focus more attention on the long-term viability and mission relevance of the INL.” I wasn’t sure what this meant, exactly – the name of the commission suggests that the goal is to promote INL as a notable state entity, but the text is a little more nuanced. Maybe that’s just how Gov. Otter goes about things : Otter's executive order on Wednesday reinforces his support of the industry's presence in...

From NEI’s Japan Earthquake launch page: UPDATE AS OF 11 A.M. EDT, THURSDAY, APRIL 21: As workers continue to pump cooling water into the reactors and used fuel pools at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, they also continue to deal with contaminated water at the site. A particular problem has been the leakage of highly radioactive water on the turbine building side of reactor 2. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) workers this week completed injecting liquid glass and cement-based grout to seal a concrete enclosure outside the building. They also installed iron plates at the screen room of reactor 2 and silt fences in front of the screen rooms of reactors 1-4. TEPCO is placing sandbags in strategic locations around the site. Workers also continued to pump water out of the reactor 2 turbine building into a tank at the on-site waste processing facility. This is a slow-moving process estimated to take 26 days. In all, TEPCO estimates that 67,500 tons of radioactive water ...

Dan Yurman at Idaho Samizdat beat me to this story so I'm going to copy from him ;-): A new report co-authored by the Electric Power Research Institute ( EPRI ) and the Idaho National Laboratory ( INL ) details how nuclear energy research, development, demonstration and deployment can help reduce U.S. carbon emissions and bolster energy security. The report [pdf], A Strategy for Nuclear Energy Research and Development , outlines the research necessary to create options for the deployment of nuclear energy in the decades ahead. The report also examines nuclear energy’s relevance to nonproliferation and the need for the United States to maintain international leadership in developing nuclear energy. ... The strategic plan defines six goals to expand the safe and economical use of nuclear energy: 1. Maintain today’s nuclear fleet of light water reactors 2. Significantly expand the fleet with advanced light water reactors 3. Develop non-electric applications for high-temperature rea...

From ScienceDaily : The research to improve the performance of coated-particle nuclear fuel met an important milestone by reaching a burnup of 9 percent without any fuel failure. Raising the burnup level of fuel in a nuclear reactor reduces the amount of fuel required to produce a given amount of energy while reducing the volume of the used fuel generated, and improves the overall economics of the reactor system. The [Idaho National Lab] team studied the very successful technology developed by the Germans for this fuel in the 1980s and decided to make the carbon and silicon carbide layers of the U.S. particle coatings more closely resemble the German model. The changes resulted in success that has matched the historical German level. INL's Advanced Test Reactor was a key enabler of the successful research. The ATR was used to provide the heating of the fuel to watch the fuel's response. The fuel kernel is coated with layers of carbon and silicon compounds. These microspheres ar...