Tri-City Herald

January 29, 2016

The city of Richland and Port of Benton will take possession on Monday of 1,341 acres of unneeded Hanford property released by the Department of Energy.

The land is classified as a “mega site” in industrial terms because of its size. Ideally, a major manufacturer looking for substantial acreage would be recruited to build a plant there.

The goal is to replace some of the Hanford jobs that will be lost as portions of environmental cleanup at the nuclear reservation are completed.

“We believe that once the property is developed it will have a far reaching impact on the region's economy,” said Carl Adrian, chief executive of the Tri-City Development Council.

The Department of Energy turned the land over to TRIDEC in fall 2015, after five years of work by TRIDEC and local governments to get the land released for economic development.

It was the first time since 1998 that DOE has returned land it seized for the Manhattan Project during World War II back to the Tri-Cities community.

TRIDEC received the land as the community reuse agency designated by DOE for unneeded Hanford property. But TRIDEC has planned from the outset to turn the land over to local government, saying it is not in the business of selling or leasing land.

The land is an irregularly shaped piece of property to the north and west of the Horn Rapids and Stevens intersection. Sections were carved out of the acreage originally requested by TRIDEC, including a site once used as a Hanford landfill for construction material, the site of a former homestead, an area near the Hanford firing range and a buffer area for some ongoing work at Hanford.

The transferred land was never used directly for Hanford’s work to produce plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program and has no radioactive contamination.

The land was designated under the Hanford Comprehensive Land Use Plan for eventual industrial development and is less than 1 percent of total Hanford land. Most of Hanford’s 586 square miles are planned to be used for conservation and preservation when no longer needed by DOE.

The 1,341 acres are positioned for development, with nearby roads, railroads, water and other utility service.

But the cost to fully industrialize it has been estimated by TRIDEC at about $40,000 an acre, possibly more because of the land’s unusual configuration. Proceeds from selling the land to industry are required by law to be used for the land’s economic redevelopment.

Aiken Standard

January 29, 2016

The Savannah River Site’s liquid waste contractor received $28.9 million out of a possible $30.2 million – or 95.8 percent – of its available award and incentive fee from the Department of Energy.

Savannah River Remediation, or SRR, was credited for, among other things, appropriately identifying unanticipated levels of mercury throughout the SRS liquid waste system.

“The contractor appropriately identified the issues and took the time necessary to properly evaluate and mitigate or resolve those items prior to proceeding with operations,” the Energy Department wrote on the SRR scorecard.

According to the scorecard, the fee is made available for the completion of certain work results, such as completing a task on time, showing credibility in cost-efficiency and other areas. Fees are earned based on an annual evaluation of work performance.

Specifically with the mercury issue, the Department of Energy and SRS officials have been monitoring the issue since May when tests conducted by the Savannah River National Lab showed unexpected trace levels of an organic mercury compound in Tank 50. The compound is a potential hazard to workers if it comes in contact with the skin, but there have been no reported exposure incidents.

Other positive performances noted by the Department of Energy include SRR’s work with the department in closing another liquid waste tank in September before the closure deadline and the contractor’s cost control while performing its duties.

The Energy Department also noted two opportunities for improvement, including a renewed focus on emergency preparedness and increased radiological contaminations.

“Prior reductions to the emergency preparedness staffing and focus manifested itself as a less than optimum program requiring significant management focus,” the department reported on the emergency preparedness issue.

The scorecard states that SRR responded in a timely manner and improvements have been made to staffing.

With radiological contamination, the department wrote that incidents resulted in no significant impact, but does call for enhanced management focus.

SRR said in a statement that it is pleased to be recognized with a score that reflects progress made in liquid waste program.

“We are confident that our performance and our efforts to find and implement efficiencies in our operations puts us on the right path to reduce the State’s single largest environmental risk in South Carolina – the liquid waste in SRS tanks,” the contractor said.

ABQ Journal

January 29, 2016

One big hurdle on the road to reopening the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in southeastern New Mexico was cleared last week when the state and the feds finalized a $74 million settlement to the state’s benefit.

Two agreements between the New Mexico Environment Department and the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors resolve violations that contributed to a Feb. 14, 2014, radiation leak at WIPP and a truck fire in the underground repository earlier that same month. The leak was caused by a chemical reaction in an improperly packed drum of mixed radioactive waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The $74 million negotiated agreement resolves past and potential future violations related to the leak, and sets out corrective actions LANL and WIPP must take to resolve permit violations.

State Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn said much of the settlement money is coming from a performance bonus that was withheld from LANL’s contractor – not additional money from the pockets of taxpayers.

Most of the money will be used for road and water projects, including $34 million for roads in southeastern New Mexico, $12 million for roads around Los Alamos, and $20 million to repair water infrastructure in Los Alamos and improve regional water quality.

WIPP, the nation’s only underground repository for nuclear waste from past weapons work, has been closed since the incidents. DOE officials have said it might be back in business by the end of this year after a cleanup estimated to cost U.S. taxpayers at least $500 million.

The state’s get-tough-with-the-feds stance was the right one to take, especially given the poor performance of the contractor and lack of effective oversight by the DOE – all stemming from an attitude that “it can never happen.”

This settlement should put the federal government on notice that, while New Mexico welcomes WIPP and the labs – and recognizes the critical roles they play in keeping the nation secure for all Americans – they should operate safely and competently in our backyard.

LA Times

January 30, 2016

The Energy Department has completed an exhaustive technical review of the plant designed to treat waste from the former Hanford nuclear weapons site and ordered the manager of the project to fix more than 500 problems that could compromise its future operation.

The government also told San Francisco-based Bechtel to comply with 10 major recommendations from the study, including some that would require design changes to the partially built plant in central Washington.

William Hamel, the federal project director overseeing the construction of the $12.2-billion cleanup facility, said the Energy Department is trying to identify any potential defects as early as possible and get them addressed before they cause further schedule delays or later problems.

The government is building a small industrial city on a plateau above the Columbia River to transform 56 million gallons of radioactive sludge into solid glass, which theoretically can be stored safely for thousands of years. The process involves a “melter,” which exposes the waste to extremely high temperatures.

The 586-square-mile Hanford site is generally considered the most contaminated place in the country. The sludge, a byproduct of the chemical process used to isolate plutonium, is stored in 177 underground tanks, a third of which have leaked.

But the complex job has been encountering problems for years, most recently when the Energy Department said it would delay full operation of the facility for another 17 years -- until 2039.

A draft of the review last summer identified more than 300 significant design vulnerabilities. The final review cites 519 vulnerabilities, some major but some minor.

The order to Bechtel on Friday involved a melter designed to handle lower-level radioactive materials, which would be solidified and buried at Hanford.

Hamel said the low-activity melter is a safe and well-designed facility, despite the seemingly large number of problems that the technical teams identified. He said that 95% of the vulnerabilities have already been recognized and that many of them are already being addressed.

The review team, which included experts from the Energy Department, Bechtel and outside organizations, found some systemic problems, asserting that they “observed recurring fundamental programmatic design process deficiencies.” Left unresolved, the team warned, the problems could affect how the entire facility operates.

Construction of the melter is 78% complete, so the fixes are coming somewhat late in the project.

A leaked draft version of the report, which the Los Angeles Times reported on last August, found that the plant had 362 significant design vulnerabilities. The larger number in the final report includes a broader range of vulnerabilities, Hamel said.

“Is there anything new that caused me grief? No,” Hamel said.

Among the 10 recommendations was a call for Bechtel to examine the plant’s ventilation system, which could allow contaminated air to leak into areas that are supposed to be isolated from radioactivity.

The matter is one that could result in design changes. Another key recommendation requires Bechtel to evaluate whether there could be overheating in the area where molten glass is poured into canisters.

The report also identified an O-ring on a tank, designed to withstand 1,250-degree gases, but which could fail at 250 degrees. Hamel said that the engineering teams are already evaluating the temperatures and that the fix would be relatively easy.

Hamel said that the fixes and implementation of recommendations would not affect the cost of the project and that Bechtel would handle them within the scope of its contract.

The action plan was “mutually agreed upon,” said Bechtel spokeswoman Staci West. “These corrective actions become part of the final set of steps we will take to begin safely treating Hanford’s tank waste.”

The Energy Department has been hoping to get the low-level melter operating as soon as possible, following even deeper technical problems at other parts of the waste treatment plant.

In 2013, then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu stopped most construction on the project when a research chief at the facility found it had flaws that could cause an explosion at a melter for high-level radioactive waste. The construction remains largely suspended, pending a major technical review of that part of the operation.

In an effort to get the cleanup moving again, Chu's successor, Ernest J. Moniz, ordered that some of the lower-level waste be solidified without any pretreatment and on a faster schedule at the low-level melter.

The Energy Department has been missing a series of legal deadlines that were part of an agreement with Washington state officials.

Tri-City Herald

January 30, 2016

Tri-City-area residents can give early input on plans for a new Manhattan Project National Historical Park at an open house Feb. 4 in Richland.

Residents may share their thoughts about key stories and topics the park should address with officials from the National Park Service and the Department of Energy from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the gallery of the Richland Public Library, 955 Northgate Drive.

The new park includes Hanford’s B Reactor and other historic areas, including the former town sites of White Bluffs and Hanford on land that was seized to produce plutonium during World War II.

Grand Forks Herald

January 28, 2016

BISMARCK – Plans to drill a 3-mile-deep hole near Rugby to test whether certain rock formations are suitable for storing radioactive waste bumped into a thick layer of skepticism Thursday from state and county officials who fear the federal government is grooming North Dakota to become a nuclear waste disposal site. 

“It seems to me that normally you would test where you are thinking you might someday actually do something,” said Gov. Jack Dalrymple, who chairs the state Board of University and School Lands that must approve a lease for the proposed drilling on state-owned trust land.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced Jan. 5 that it had selected Battelle Memorial Institute of Columbus, Ohio, to drill the test borehole more than 16,000 feet deep on 20 acres of land about 15 miles south of Rugby in north-central North Dakota. The University of North Dakota’s Energy & Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks is one of three Battelle partners for the project.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz called it an important first step in understanding potential uses for the crystalline rock formations that underlie much of the continent, “including the feasibility of boreholes as an option for long-term nuclear waste disposal.”

John Harju, vice president for strategic partnerships at the EERC, stressed that the five-year, $80 million project will involve no nuclear waste, noting that the type of disposal being studied isn’t allowed under current law.

But he said it will produce valuable core samples and information about the state’s geology, potential new mineral wealth and geothermal possibilities. The Department of Energy has committed $35 million for the first phase of the project.

“This is an extremely rare opportunity to learn a great deal about the deep subsurface under our state,” he said.

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, who sits on the five-member land board, said if the study finds the site suitable for nuclear waste disposal, “then we’ll go through that turmoil.” He questioned whether it’s an alternative to the stalled Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository in Nevada, which has faced intense public and political opposition.

“This isn’t something that I’m all that thrilled to see,” he said. “We’re contributing plenty to the energy needs of this nation, and I don’t know if I even want to start with this.”

Harju reiterated that the project isn’t about selecting a disposal site and that the hole will be plugged and abandoned at the end of the project.

“This is about technology development and deep science understanding,” he said.

But Dalrymple said Moniz “made no effort to hide the fact that this is something they’re very hopeful about, so let’s not kid ourselves here.”

Pierce County Commissioner David Migler, who lives 12 miles from the proposed site, said news of the proposal “really threw us for a loop” and has generated a lot of calls to local officials. Harju said the EERC learned it had been selected the same day Moniz released his statement.

“It is a deep concern for us,” Migler said, adding, “I don’t see any benefit to the county.”

The project timeline calls for drilling to begin in September. The first phase will consist of drilling and testing a hole 8.5 inches in diameter. If that’s successful, the second phase will involve drilling a 17-inch-diameter hole, conducting simulated waste handling and retrieval operations and testing storage canisters without radioactive waste in them, Harju said.

“We might discover that this is a horrible location, in which case all those fears are gone,” he said.

No decision was made Thursday. Dalrymple said the Land Board needs to figure out the proper steps going forward, saying the entire state has an interest in the decision.

“I think the whole state Legislature is ultimately the place you’re going to wind up,” he told Harju.

Knox Blogs

January 28, 2016

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a notice of violation to the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant for shipping Canadian-origin enriched uranium to Jamaica for use in a reactor there.

According to the notice, Y-12 is not allowed to export non-U.S. nuclear materials unless specifically requested in advance and authorized by the NRC.

In this case, Y-12 apparently did not have the advance approval of the NRC or permission from the government of Canada.

Asked for a response to the notice of violation, Steven Wyatt, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Production Office at Y-12, said Thursday, “We do not have any comment at this time.”

Y-12 is required to prepare a response to NRC.

 The low-enriched uranium was shipped to Jamaica last September for use as fuel in the SLOWPOKE (Safe Low-Power Kritical Experiment) research reactor.

It was part of a celebrated effort to eliminate the use of highly enriched uranium at the reactor and reduce concerns about materials being diverted for use in nuclear weapons.

Tom Clements, an activist with Savannah River Watch in South Carolina, was the first to report on the notice of violation.

“Unauthorized export of Canadian-origin LEU from Y-12 is of concern as the NNSA has ignored regulations concerning consent rights over foreign obligated nuclear materials,” Clements said. “The violation cited by the NRC should prompt more in-depth reviews of all NNSA export licenses involving both HEU and LEU from Y-12.”

In a Sept. 22, 2015 news release, the National Nuclear Security Administration hailed the Jamaican project for “making the Caribbean region completely free of HEU.”

The reactor at the University of West Indies is used for a number of experiments, including neutron-activation analysis that bombards materials with neutrons to assess their chemical makeup.

The Obama administration has been promoting reactor conversions around the globe, typically providing new fuels for research reactors that contain less than 20 percent U-235 — the cut-off point for weapons-making capability.

NRC records, including the original export license application, indicate that Y-12’s shipment to Jamaica contained about 6.62 kilograms of uranium, with an enrichment level of 19.95 percent.

The enrichment level is the amount of fissionable U-235 in the uranium fuel.

Nick Hilton, chief of NRC’s Enforcement Branch, notified the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Oak Ridge office in a Jan. 14 letter to Becky Eddy, a federal official at Y-12.

“Based on its review, the NRC has determined that a Severity Level IV violation of NRC requirements occurred,” Hilton wrote to Eddy. Level IV is a low-level citation, and there was no indication that Y-12 will be fined or otherwise penalized.

Earlier reports indicated that new fuel for SLOWPOKE would be made in Canada using U.S. uranium. But the fuel apparently included uranium from both the U.S. and Canada.

Las Vegas Sun: Opinion

January 31, 2016

Next month, about 200 of the most gifted engineers and scientists you can squeeze into a single meeting room will be sharing PowerPoints at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory near Knoxville, Tenn.

They will not be rocket scientists, but they might as well be. They will be nuclear engineers, physicists, chemists and entrepreneurs advocating new designs for reactors that will make electricity and medical isotopes and burn up nuclear waste.

When you get away from the politics and other restraints that have so arrested traditional reactor deployment in the United States in recent years, wonderful ideas spring forth. Scientists, I assure you, when gathered together can generate as much enthusiasm as any other creative cohort for planning wondrous things for the future.

Creative people are not just those who work with paint, musical notes and words, but those who pour over complex calculations, look at the atomic nature of matter and design wondrous machines that will make electricity, create medicines, clean the air and purify the water.

Invention is narcotic. Yes, call them mad scientists, but new ideas, as yet untrammeled, are stimulative — and even aphrodisiacal.

That is why one of the most exciting places I will go to this year will be the new reactor conference at Oak Ridge on Feb. 10-11. For several years I have attended this conference, organized by the U.S.

Nuclear Infrastructure Council, in other places, including Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. I can report that nuclear engineers are as boyish in their enthusiasm for the possibilities of bending the atom to human need as college football coaches are when they survey the new recruits. Possibility lifts the spirits.

In Oak Ridge there will be schemes, dreams and some very creative engineering. There will be designs for fast reactors that can burn nuclear waste as fuel; molten salt reactors; thorium reactors; and small modular reactors. Some will be incremental improvements on old ideas; others will be concepts created from whole cloth. All will strive for safety through design.

But the creators assembling in Oak Ridge do so against a background that is sorrowful for them and their industry.

The United States — the crucible of nuclear invention — looks to be losing its place as the leader in nuclear energy. American utilities are not lining up to build nuclear plants, and old ones are likely to keep going out of service.

Edward Davis, president of the Pegasus Group, talks about a “nuclear cliff” — a time around 2030, when most of the U.S. nuclear fleet will be retired. Then nuclear — which produces no carbon and has a life cycle of up to 80 years — will dwindle to a handful of reactors, just when our promises under the Paris COP21 climate conference agreement call for big reductions in carbon.

Brilliant men and women are designing reactors that might change everything to do with electricity generation and isotope production.

But they doubt that their first-of-kind reactors will be built and licensed in the United States. Nuclear design is almost limitless, the parameters are very flexible and the future is tantalizing.

These engineers, to a person, are looking overseas to build and demonstrate their machines — mostly in China, India and the United Arab Emirates. Even Bill Gates, who is supporting a revolutionary traveling wave reactor, is working with the Chinese.

That is a sadness and a bitterness that will also be present at the advanced reactor conference in Tennessee.

Nueron Bytes

January 31, 2016

The organization SMR Smart is designed to help accelerate the commercialization of SMRs by creating an industry-driven entity in which potential reactor owners/operators would be a unified voice in a variety of policy and regulatory issues and in creating cost-share funding structures.

“This is an exciting day for the nuclear energy industry as SMR Start will bring together the best minds and leading advocates of this technology to capitalize on its potential applications at home and abroad,” said Dan Lipman, NEI vice president of suppliers and international programs.

“SMRs can be the best option in some markets and countries not suited to large reactors while providing the same reliable, carbon-free electricity.”

The Energy Information Administration forecasts an 18 percent growth in electricity demand by 2040. In light of this forecast and nuclear plant retirements, the U.S. market will need more than 100 new nuclear plants by mid-century to maintain the benefits of a diverse electricity portfolio. Nuclear power plants supply around one-fifth of America’s electricity and nearly 63 percent of its carbon-free electricity.

Initial SMR Start members include BWX Technologies Inc., Duke Energy, Energy Northwest, Holtec, NuScale, PSEG Nuclear, Southern Co., SCANA and Tennessee Valley Authority. The organization will represent these companies in interactions with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Congress and the executive branch on small reactor issues.

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) is assisting in the formation of SMR Start and will work closely with the organization on policies and priorities relating to small reactor technology. SMR Start will focus on light-water reactor based SMR designs and will serve as a demonstration to the public and private sectors of small reactor customers’ commitment to the market.

NEI’s actions follow by three months the creation of an independent nonprofit Nuclear Innovation Alliance to promote the interests of advanced nuclear reactor developers.

According to the organization’s web site, the group is motivated by the urgency of reducing carbon emissions from the global energy industry, the NIA brings together diverse nuclear energy stakeholders, including technical experts, nuclear technology companies, investors, environmental organizations and academic institutions.

Collectively, the NIA and these stakeholders will be striving to improve the policy, funding and market environment essential for rapid commercialization of innovative nuclear technology.

Third Way, in partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, today hosted the first ever Advanced Nuclear Summit The event brought together policymakers, innovators and investors who are developing advanced nuclear technology. Held at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., these experts participated in a series of panel discussions about the latest breakthroughs.

Full details including the agenda and list of speakers is available at the conference web site.  A video of the entire three hour meeting is available on YouTube.  A photo album from the event is posted on Flickr.

“The Advanced Nuclear Summit symbolizes the monumental progress that has been made over the last decade to develop affordable, reliable, safe, and clean advanced nuclear technology. If commercialized, advanced nuclear can strengthen our grid, help address climate, and maintain a robust domestic nuclear sector,” said Josh Freed, Vice President for the Clean Energy Program.

Balancing climate concerns and the growing energy demands of the developing world is one of the great challenges of the 21st century.

“Advanced nuclear provides a path where we can both lift billions people around the world out of energy poverty and cut carbon emissions at the same time,” said Rachel Pritzker, Founder and President of the Pritzker Innovation Fund, and Third Way Board Member.

In North America, 48 companies, backed by more than $1.6 billion in private capital, represent a new sector for the research, development and design of advanced nuclear reactors. Several companies were on hand at the Showcase (link to photos) to share the latest news related to their projects.

Speakers noted the progress that has been made in recent years to increase the support, development and commercialization of advanced reactors on the part of Congress, the National Regulatory Commission, the Dept. of Energy and the White House.

In November 2015, the Obama administration announced its 2017 budget plan includes $900 million in new funding to support the federal research, development and demonstration efforts in nuclear energy. Much of this work will be conducted under the U.S. Dept. of Energy Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear or GAIN initiative. The Idaho National Laboratory will serve as private industry’s main point of access to federal experts and facilities.

“There are several different concepts and classes of advanced reactors being pursued and the GAIN initiative helps to create a thriving ecosystem for innovation that fosters private investment and activates the government’s investment in our national labs,” said Mark Peters, Idaho National While these and other announcements illustrate the support around the technology, panelists acknowledged the great deal of work that needs to be done to provide a clear path forward for advanced nuclear innovation in the U.S.

“What the Advanced Nuclear Summit demonstrates is that there is a robust advanced nuclear sector being developed by private companies and research institutions,” said Freed. “The next step, which Washington is already beginning to address in a rare bipartisan moment, is to modernize how the federal government supports private innovation and regulates new nuclear technologies.”