ECA Update: April 13, 2012
Published: Fri, 04/13/12
US NRC should consider work on new repository regulation: chairman
Platts April 10, 2012 US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said Tuesday he believes the agency should begin looking at how to proceed with the development of a generic repository licensing regulation to replace those tailored to a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
Jaczko's comment came during a Blue Ribbon Commission for America's Nuclear Future and NRC staff briefing on recommendations the BRC issued in January on how the US should revamp its nuclear waste program.
Jaczko said he did not know when the agency might be able to begin work on a new regulation, but it could take the agency years to complete that work, based on the amount of time it has taken NRC to develop a repository licensing regulation in the past.
CH2M Hill plans up to 400 job cuts at Hanford before late September Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald April 13, 2012 The Department of Energy's central Hanford contractor plans to cut up to 400 positions between now and late September, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. told workers Thursday afternoon.
The layoffs will come in two phases with the first reduction in late June and the second in late September, said CH2M Hill President John Lehew in a memo to employees. Now CH2M Hill and its main subcontractors employ 1,807 people.
Layoffs will include union and nonunion employees. They also will include workers who are employed directly by CH2M Hill and those employed by the 11 subcontractors who have been with CH2M Hill since it took over the central Hanford environmental cleanup contract.
Workers had been waiting for information since last week when Lehew addressed rumors of coming layoffs, saying he would tell workers more as more information became available.
The staff reductions are needed in part because some work with federal economic stimulus money that carried over into the current fiscal year that began Oct. 1 now is finished, Lehew told employees.
NuScale Power has partnered with NuHub - an economic development initiative in South Carolina - to pursue the deployment of a demonstration unit of its small modular reactor (SMR) at the Savannah River site.
The partners propose to team up with one or more utilities to assist NuScale in its design certification process with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and development of the reference application for a combined construction and operating licence. As part of the agreement, NuScale will support efforts by NuHub to use this opportunity as a vehicle for economic development in South Carolina. In return, NuHub will participate in NuScale's application for an award under the Department of Energy's (DoE's) cost-sharing program with private industry to support SMR design and licensing activities.
NuScale is developing a 45 MWe self-contained pressurized water reactor and generator set, which would be factory made and shipped for deployment in sets of up to 12. These could result in scalable nuclear power plants with capacities from 45 MWe to 540 MWe.
DOE IG Audit Report: Use of Noncompetitive Procurements to Obtain Services at the Savannah River Site DOE Inspector General April 10, 2012 Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC (SRNS), assumed management and operating responsibility for the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site located near Aiken, South Carolina, in August 2008. Under its contract, SRNS is responsible for environmental cleanup, national security activities and operation of the Savannah River National Laboratory. SRNS is a limited liability corporation whose parent companies include Fluor Federal Services, Inc.; Newport News Nuclear, Inc.; and, Honeywell International, Inc. The Savannah River Operations Office provides Department oversight for all Office of Environmental Management operations for the site.
To help ensure that procurements from affiliates are free from conflicts of interest, adequately competed and reasonable in cost, the Department's contractors are required to obtain approval of related party procurements from Federal officials. For the SRNS contract, the Department established a requirement that procurements from the parent or an affiliate, regardless of type or amount, be submitted for approval prior to award. As we reported in our Inspections report on Organizational Conflicts of Interest Program at Sandia National Laboratories (DOE/IG-0853, July 2011), such reviews are essential to ensure that potential or actual Organizational Conflicts of Interest (OCI) are identified, prevented, and/or mitigated.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions' board of directors has provided $1.5 million to enable the Savannah River National Laboratory access to several high speed research and university computer networks, the most noteworthy being the National Lambda Rail, all part of a $30 million commitment by SRNS' parent companies to reinvest profits that will benefit SRNL and SRNS site operations at the Savannah River Site.
"The $1.5 million invested in the high-capacity connection to these research networks for SRNL is just one example of the financial support SRNS and its parent companies are willing to spend to ensure we have state-of-the-art resources to support our missions at SRS," said Dwayne Wilson, SRNS president and CEO.
This $1.5 million investment will also provide for computer network connections to universities throughout the world frequently make use of these same high-speed networks enabling SRNL to make use of collegiate-level research, as well. Power struggle at watchdog agency could undermine nuclear-plant safety Olga Belogolova, National Journal April 10, 2012 Until the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan and a very public internal feud late last year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was a fairly obscure federal agency with primary responsibility for regulating the nation's 104 nuclear power plants.
But when the other four NRC commissioners--two Democrats and two Republicans--ganged up on Chairman Gregory Jaczko last year, accusing the Democratic appointee of bullying and intimidating his fellow commissioners and agency staff, the backwater agency based about 15 miles outside of Washington was suddenly in the spotlight with a good old-fashioned, inside-the-Beltway melodrama.
Six months later, things have settled down at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md., at least on the surface, but the bitterness caused by the controversy still seems to linger and many lawmakers overseeing the agency continue to raise questions about whether NRC is functioning effectively at a critical time for the nuclear industry.
In a recent interview with National Journal, Jaczko spoke calmly about the debacle. Sitting in his office on the top floor of the agency's headquarters, the embattled chairman's words were measured. Reiterating what he has now said many times about the blowup, Jaczko argued that disagreements at an independent commission like NRC are the sign of "a healthy culture."
Timothy A. Frazier, the former Designated Federal Officer for the U.S. Department of Energy's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, has retired from the Department of Energy. He previously served at the Department of Energy as Director of the Office of Policy, Integration, and Communication in the Office of Nuclear Energy; Senior Technical Advisor to former Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis R. Spurgeon; and Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fuel Cycle Management, under which the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership was managed. With more than 22 years of experience at the U.S. Department of Energy, Mr. Frazier has managed nuclear programs and nuclear operations both in the field and from headquarters. He will join a Washington DC law firm Dickstein Shapiro to work on nuclear energy policy issues.
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