Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: 2025

Safety Evaluation Related to the U.S. SFR Owner, LLC Construction Permit Application for the Kemmerer Power Station, Unit 1, (EPID L-2024-CPS-0000) - ML25329A252.pdf Natrium Closes in on a Construction Permit The staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has concluded that there are no safety issues in the way of giving a construction permit to TerraPower to build its Natrium plant, a sodium-cooled low-pressure, high-temperature fast reactor. The staff asserted that its finding was “the first use of a fully risk-informed, performance-based approach to establish the licensing basis for a commercial power reactor.” Although a performance-based rule, like Part 53, would be needed to achieve that milestone. The term “performance-based” means that the requirements were stated in terms of objectives to be met, but that the NRC did not prescribe precisely how the applicant was supposed to meet them. “Risk-informed” has been a goal of the commission for about 30 years, and means that the attention of regulators, plant designers, and managers is focused on requirements that are significant to safety. The company has already begun building an accompanying molten salt system that will store energy from the reactor in the form of heat, to produce electricity in varying amounts, depending on grid demand. In current-generation nuclear plants, the electricity-generating system is integral to plant design, and its construction must also wait for issuance of a construction permit. But in the Natrium design, the reactor is de-coupled from electricity generation. The reactor will run at a steady heat output, but electricity production can be higher or lower, allowing the owner to sell into the market when wholesale prices are higher, and withhold production when the grid is flooded with cheap surges of renewable energy. TerraPower still needs a hearing and a vote by the Commission before it gets a construction permit, and after that, it has to build the plant in adherence with the design and with various quality control requirements. But the finding from the staff, a major milestone, came a month earlier than scheduled, and despite accelerating the schedule it was also under budget. It follows a finding by the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, an independent oversight group, approving the design. The NRC’s approval is contained in a report of more than 750 pages, of which 13 are a reference list of acronyms and abbreviations. The project is in Kemmerer, Wyoming, near a decommissioning coal plant. It is one of two flagship projects under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, launched in May 2020 with a goal of building two reactors by 2027. Natrium now plans to load fuel in 2030 and begin running the following year. One complication is that it needs uranium fuel enriched to nearly 20 percent. The initial plan was to buy that from the Russian state nuclear monopoly, but that idea was dropped after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Western companies, and one in South Africa, are now gearing up to make that fuel. The Energy Department’s other flagship advanced reactor project, a gas-graphite pebble bed model, is a step behind; that company applied for a construction permit in March.

In other news US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud have signed a Joint Declaration on the Completion of Negotiations on Civil Nuclear Cooperation. "Today is a historic day for the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," Wright said. "We've come together on a deal for civil nuclear cooperation. Together, with bilateral safeguard agreements, we want to grow our partnership, bring American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia and keep a firm commitment to non-proliferation." California-based nuclear startup company Deep Fission, which is proposing to place microreactors deep underground, has announced the official name of its proprietary underground reactor: The Gravity Nuclear Reactor. "Gravity is one of the most reliable forces in nature," said Liz Muller, Co-Founder and CEO of Deep Fission. "That same reliability is what we’ve built into our reactor design." Deep Fission's system combines three established technologies: a standard pressurised water reactor from the nuclear sector, deep borehole drilling from the oil and gas industries, and geothermal heat transfer techniques. The company is targeting a Levelised Cost of Electricity of USD50–70 per MWh. Sweden's radioactive waste management company Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB, has, through its subsidiary SKB International, signed a new agreement with the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency. SKB said the information exchange agreement strengthens the relationship and cooperation between the two organisations. Sweden, through SKB, is a pioneering country that already has a final repository for short-lived radioactive waste and has begun construction of a used nuclear fuel repository. SKB International already has several projects together with the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency to export Swedish expertise in nuclear waste management. The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that the main 750 kV external power line to Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been reconnected after it was shut down on Friday following the activation of a protection system. Its restoration means the plant once again has two external power lines available.

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