ECA Update: July 18, 2012
Published: Wed, 07/18/12
Energy Department Announces New Nuclear Energy Innovation Investments
DOE Press Release July 17, 2012 WASHINGTON - Underscoring the Obama Administration's commitments to restarting the nation's nuclear industry and promoting education in science, technology, engineering and math, the Energy Department announced today nearly $13 million in new nuclear energy innovation investments.
"Today's awards will help train and educate our future nuclear energy scientists and engineers, while advancing the technological innovations we need to make sure America's nuclear industry stays competitive in the 21st century," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "These investments in U.S. universities, national labs and industry advance the Obama Administration's efforts to restart our nation's nuclear industry as part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy."
Reducing Costs, Improving Performance of Nuclear Reactor Technologies
Today, the Energy Department is announcing a $10.9 million investment across 13 projects to help solve common challenges across the nuclear industry and improve reactor safety, performance and cost competitiveness. These projects fall under two categories:
Find additional detail and project descriptions HERE.
Training the Next Generation of Nuclear Leaders
Additionally, the Energy Department announced today a $1.6 million investment in three university-led projects, helping to train and educate the next generation of nuclear energy scientists and engineers. Through the Advanced Test Reactor National Scientific User Facility Program (ATR NSUF) and the Nuclear Energy University Programs (NEUP), these projects will connect university teams with a national network of ATR NSUF partner research reactors and other unique research facilities. Today's awards, subject to final negotiations, include:
Since 2007, the ATR NSUF Program has invested over $57 million in more than 40 experiments at the program's research reactor facilities. Over the past four years, the Department's Nuclear Energy University Programs have invested $219 million in 220 research projects at 79 U.S. universities and colleges, demonstrating its strong commitment to training and educating the next generation of leaders in America's nuclear industry.
NRC Schedules Public Meeting to Discuss Mox Facility NRC Press Release July 16, 2012 The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a public meeting for Tuesday, July 24, to discuss the status of the Mixed Oxide or MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility construction project focusing on NRC inspection and oversight. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. at the Hydrogen Research Center on the Savannah River Research Campus, 301 Gateway Dr., New Ellenton, S.C. People attending the meeting will not be required to go through Savannah River site security. The NRC staff will available to answer any questions after the formal portion of the meeting.
The MOX facility, being constructed by Shaw Areva MOX Services, is located at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River site near Aiken, S.C. The facility will be owned by the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration and will convert supplies of surplus weapons-grade plutonium into more proliferation-resistant forms by blending it with uranium. Converting the plutonium into MOX fuel will enable it to be used in commercial reactors to generate electricity. The NRC issued a construction authorization for the facility in March 2005.
First of Hanford's Highly Radioactive Sludge Moved Away from River
DOE Press Release July 13, 2012 RICHLAND, Wash. - Workers have started moving highly radioactive material, called sludge, away from the Columbia River, marking a significant milestone in the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington State.
Today, DOE contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CH2M HILL) safely transferred the first large container of highly radioactive sludge from a basin next to a former plutonium production reactor to dry storage in the center of the site. Today's transfer is the first of six shipments this summer to remove the most radioactive material. At the same time, a separate system is being built to remove the rest of the sludge from the basin by the end of 2015.
"Removing the sludge reduces the risk from highly radioactive material being stored next to the Columbia River," said Matt McCormick, Manager, DOE Richland Operations Office. "This sludge has been stored underwater in the basin for more than 30 years, and today marks a turning point in our cleanup. This is a great step toward reducing risk to the Columbia River. My thanks go out to the Hanford workers who made sure the work was done safely."
Sludge is material less than a quarter inch in diameter that resulted from the corrosion of spent reactor fuel stored in the basin and other debris left from plutonium production operations. Currently, approximately 35 cubic yards of sludge is stored 17 feet underwater in a large basin adjacent to Hanford's K West reactor. The water keeps the sludge particles cool and acts as protective shielding to workers.
CH2M HILL is removing the highly radioactive portion of the sludge this summer in six shipments. This material was retrieved from containers, called knock-out pots, that were part of a system used to clean spent fuel as it was removed from the basin for dry storage in central Hanford.
"Today's shipment marks the first removal of highly radioactive sludge away from the river and is a major step forward in preparing the basin for eventual demolition," said John Lehew, CH2M HILL President and Chief Executive Officer. "This challenging work is going smoothly and safely thanks to months of hands-on training and preparation at a full-scale mock-up facility."
CH2M HILL engineers, operators and technicians developed innovative technologies, tools, and equipment for handling sludge in a non-radioactive environment. Crews trained together and provided input on equipment design and methods used to process the sludge before moving into the highly radioactive environment of the K West Reactor basin.
In the basin, workers transferred the sludge material into a storage container that was subsequently vacuum-dried at the nearby Cold Vacuum Drying Facility. The container was then shipped to a facility in central Hanford, the Canister Storage Building, for interim storage, consistent with the management of
spent nuclear fuel. Once all of the knock-out pot sludge is removed, CH2M HILL will begin removing the remaining sludge, which is stored large, underwater containers in the basin. Workforce reductions loom at MOX construction site Rob Pavey, The Augusta Chronicle July 12, 2012 Staffing reductions are under way at the construction site of the mixed oxide fuel facility at Savannah River Site.
"These reductions are being accomplished in cooperation with local union officials, primarily on evening shifts," said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for Shaw AREVA MOX Services, the main contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration's $4.8 billion nuclear project.
The number of workers at the site - which has averaged about 2,800 in recent weeks - will drop to about 2,700 soon, with more changes likely as portions of the project are completed and other phases begin. "Our employee numbers are always approximate and fluctuate based on construction needs," he said.
"Just recently, our technical support building has been completed, and the main process building's exterior will be finished later this year," he said. "Over the next three months, MOX Services plans to reduce its construction and support staff."
The plant is designed to convert plutonium from surplus nuclear bombs into fuel rods for commercial power reactors. So far, more than 19,000 tons of rebar have been installed along with 118,000 cubic yards of concrete poured at the MOX project.
The facility, which is expected to be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, should be complete in 2016 with operations expected to continue into the 2030s.
Once operation of the completed facility begins, the project will employ about 1,000 workers.
Oversight board: Los Alamos lab underestimated risk from possible radiation leak in disaster Associated Press July 11, 2012 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Los Alamos National Laboratory significantly underestimated how much radiation could leak from the nation's premier plutonium lab after a major earthquake and fire, a federal oversight panel concluded.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recently sent lab officials a report and letter saying board staff had identified a number of deficiencies in calculations that concluded any release would be below the threshold deemed safe to the public.
Board staff said its calculations indicate the potential for a radiation release from an earthquake-induced fire could instead be more than four times higher than levels considered safe for public exposure.
At issue are the lab's efforts to shore up the 1970s-era facility -- the nation's primary site for working with dangerous plutonium used in nuclear weapons.
The board has been working closely with the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration to upgrade the building's structure, fire suppression and ventilation systems since new studies in 2007 showed the potential for a major earthquake along area faults to be 300 percent greater than previously believed.
During a public hearing in Santa Fe last year, members of the safety oversight board expressed concerns that the planned structural fixes were inadequate to protect the public from a major radioactive release.
The new calculations are significant in determining what safety controls need to be put in place as work continues on the building, board Chairman Peter Winokur told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The board's current assessment is the "calculations were not done conservatively and the assumptions are not justified," he said. "This is an ongoing process."
James McConnell, NNSA's assistant deputy administrator for nuclear operations and safety in Washington, said public safety is the agency's highest priority, and it was working with the oversight board.
"If necessary or prudent, we will take appropriate actions to further improve the safety basis that documents the hazards and specifies the controls to ensure safety," McConnell said in a statement.
He also noted the current risk to the public from the facility remains small and it is operating well within established safety objectives.
Not all Hanford cleanup along river to be completed in 2015 Annette Cary, Tri-City Herald July 12, 2012 The public should not expect environmental cleanup along the Columbia River at Hanford to be entirely completed under the Department of Energy's 2015 Vision, said Hanford regulators Wednesday. Now Washington Closure Hanford's contract for cleanup along the river is set to expire in fall 2015, the end of the fiscal year, but DOE is considering extending it if work assigned to the contractor has not been completed, according to DOE. Gradual layoffs already have begun as work ramps down toward the end of its contract.
The discovery of additional contamination as cleanup has progressed will require more work by the contractor and has increased the cost beyond the budget that may be available. Plus, some cleanup along the river not assigned to Washington Closure was not intended to be completed as part of the 2015 vision, including finishing decontamination of ground water.
Much work will be completed, but perhaps the 2015 Vision oversold what will be accomplished, said Larry Gadbois, scientist for the Environmental Protection Agency, a Hanford nuclear reservation regulator.
"It's a big bite out of the cleanup apple, but it will not consume the apple," he said at a Hanford Advisory Board committee discussion of what work along the river will be completed and what will remain at the end of fiscal 2015.
DOE has focused in recent years on cleaning up land contaminated along the river by the past production of plutonium for the nation's weapons program in order to reduce the active footprint of Hanford from 586 square miles to 75 square miles at its center by fall 2015.
Then the budget and cleanup focus could shift to difficult cleanup work in central Hanford, where irradiated fuel was chemically processed to remove plutonium, under DOE's plan.
"The vision has been a good thing. It has served DOE well," Gadbois said, even if the caveats about what could not be finished by fall 2015 gradually slipped from the message.
"It may not close out as ideally was we expected, but the river corridor vision was excellent," said advisory board member Pam Larsen. "It was optimistic, and it's always good to start with optimism."
The vision has served as a good marketing tool to persuade Congress of the need for cleanup money, said Nina Menard, project manager of environmental restoration for the Washington State Department of Ecology, a Hanford regulator.
But Hanford may have a more difficult time getting money for central Hanford cleanup, she said.
Congress may have had the impression that work basically would be done, said board member Maynard Plahuta. More extensive chromium contamination found near the former C, D and H Reactors is adding $27 million to the cost of completing cleanup along the Columbia River. The chemical was added to reactor cooling water, but spills and leaks are requiring some contaminated soil to be dug up to as deep as 85 feet.
In addition, Washington Closure discovered that highly radioactive cesium and strontium had leaked from a hot cell in the 324 Building just north of Richland into the soil beneath the building.
Difficult work also remains to clean up the 618-10 and 618-11 Burial Grounds, where containers of radioactive waste were dropped into vertically buried pipes and caissons.
DOE now plans to complete cleanup work at the 618-10 Burial Ground before moving the work crew to the 618-11 Burial Ground, which adjoins the parking lot of the Columbia Generating Station, the Northwest's only commercial nuclear power plant.
Interfacing with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates the power reactor, will be tough, said Jon Peschong, of the Department of Energy Richland Operations Office.
"If we have an upset it affects them and vice versa," he said.
DOE is putting its budget now into cleaning up chromium-contaminated soil and some of the least complicated work to clean up the 618-10 Burial Ground.
That puts not only cleanup of the 324 Building, which is acting as a shield over the contaminated soil beneath it, but also the cleanup of the 618-11 Burial Ground at risk of not being completed by fall 2015.
In addition, DOE expects to still be cleaning up ground water contaminated with chromium, strontium and uranium near the river past fall 2015.
Contaminated soil and piping near reactors that are being sealed up to let their radioactivity decay to more manageable levels also cannot be cleaned up while the reactors stand. And the eighth reactor planned to be sealed up, the K West Reactor, cannot be put in storage by fall 2015 because of work to remove radioactive sludge now stored in its cooling basin.
However, the 2015 vision still has focused efforts to perform significant environmental cleanup and reduce the longterm costs of cleanup, Peschong said.
The cleanup along the river now is more than 85 percent complete, according to DOE. Work completed so far includes sealing up, or "cocooning," six of eight reactors, removing about 900 tons of contaminated soil to a central Hanford landfill, shipping weapons-grade plutonium off Hanford, demolishing more than 100 facilities and removing more than 2,000 tons of irradiated fuel from the K Reactors' cooling basins.
Building costs rise at US nuclear sites Ray Henry, Associated Press July 10, 2012 ATLANTA (AP) -- America's first new nuclear plants in more than a decade are costing billions more to build and sometimes taking longer to deliver than planned, problems that could chill the industry's hopes for a jumpstart to the nation's new nuclear age.
Licensing delay charges, soaring construction expenses and installation glitches as mundane as misshapen metal bars have driven up the costs of three plants in Georgia, Tennessee and South Carolina, from hundreds of millions to as much as $2 billion, according to an Associated Press analysis of public records and regulatory filings. Those problems, along with jangled nerves from last year's meltdown in Japan and the lure of cheap natural gas, could discourage utilities from sinking cash into new reactors, experts said. The building slowdown would be another blow to the so-called nuclear renaissance, a drive over the past decade to build 30 new reactors to meet the country's growing power needs. Industry watchers now say that only a handful will be built this decade.
"People are looking at these things very carefully," said Richard Lester, head of the department of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Inexpensive gas alone, he said, "is casting a pretty long shadow over the prospects" for construction of new nuclear plants.
The AP's review of pending projects found:
-- Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia, initially estimated to cost $14 billion, has run into over $800 million in extra charges related to licensing delays. A state monitor has said bluntly that co-owner Southern Co. can't stick to its budget. The plant, whose first reactor was supposed to be operational by April 2016, is now delayed seven months.
-- The long-mothballed Watts Bar power plant in eastern Tennessee, initially budgeted at $2.5 billion, will cost up to $2 billion more , the Tennessee Valley Authority concluded this spring. The utility said its initial budget underestimated how much work was needed to finish the plant and wasted money by not completing more design work before starting construction. The project had been targeted to finish in 2012, but has been postponed until 2015.
-- Plant Summer in South Carolina, expected to cost around $10.5 billion, has seen costs jump by $670 million; but with lower interest rates and cheaper-than-expected labor; the owners assert the project is still on or under budget. A deadline to put the first new reactor online has been delayed from 2016 to 2017; the second reactor is now eight months ahead of schedule, targeted for early 2018.
Southern Co. and others in the nuclear business say cost overruns are expected in projects this complex, and that they are balanced out by other savings over the life of the plant. Southern Co. expects Plant Vogtle will cost $2 billion less to operate over its 60-year lifetime than initially projected because of anticipated tax breaks and historically low interest rates.
Regulators have been trying to make it easier to build, encouraging the use of off-the-shelf reactor designs that get approval in advance. New construction techniques are supposed to require less in-the-field assembly, making building quicker and reducing human error. Interest rates and labor costs have been down after a bruising recession.
"It's a down environment economically," said Steve Byrne, president of generation and transmission for SCANA's South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., one of the utilities building Plant Summer's reactors. "It's terrible for the country, but it's a great time to be building" a nuclear facility.
But the economy is also working against progress on new construction. The next company in line to build, Progress Energy, has pushed back construction plans for two reactors in Florida because of the economy, low demand and extremely cheap natural gas. It expects its first new reactor to be finished in 2024.
The plants burning natural gas are far cheaper to build than nuclear power plants. But utility executives say they need a diversified mix of power plants, including nuclear, because relying too heavily on a single fuel like natural gas backfires if prices go up.
The rising construction costs hit an industry already under financial pressure, after meltdowns last year at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant after a tsunami in Japan. NRG Energy wrote off a $481 million investment in two planned reactors in Texas shortly after the accident, citing uncertainties after the Japanese disaster. Other utilities still seeking to build have said they expect the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission will adopt new safety rules in response to the accident; they cannot predict the exact costs.
Industry leaders say the soaring costs could threaten projects that are worth the investment, and send the wrong message to the public.
"It's important to get this project done right because if every time we build a nuclear plant we go substantially over budget, ratepayers will begin to believe we can't do a nuclear project on budget," said Tim Echols, a nuclear power proponent who chairs Georgia's Public Service Commission.
An earlier push to expand the reach of nuclear power in the 1970s was thwarted by a number of obstacles: Electric companies overestimated demand and designed plants they didn't need. They had trouble managing massive construction workforces. Utilities designed nuclear plants as they built, leading to mistakes and slowdowns. Interest rates skyrocketed and the 1979 meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania forced plant operators to meet new rules at additional costs.
To win approval to build at Plant Vogtle, Southern Co. had to promise it would build its plant on budget, particularly as state officials remembered the massive cost overruns that occurred when it built the plant's two existing reactors, said Robert Baker, a former utility regulator who has criticized the project.
The utility has been authorized to spend just over $6.1 billion as its share of the estimated $14 billion project, which was tracking under budget at the end of last year.
Southern Co. is about seven months behind schedule, mostly because of the federal approval process for the reactor, according to company executives and filings. Southern Co. also faced delays in getting an important license allowing it to start building the guts of the plant.
Another, less exotic problem at Vogtle: At one point, workers built metal bars straight rather than curved, as regulators had directed, so Southern Co. had to rip them out and replace them. Crews in South Carolina, watching the progress at Vogtle, have halted the construction of those bars.
Plant Vogtle's designers and builders -- Westinghouse Electric Co. and The Shaw Group Inc. -- want Southern Co. to pay an additional $400 million for the licensing delays, according to a May report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power, which owns nearly half the new plant, denies responsibility for those costs and is negotiating on behalf of all the owners. Financial information divulged by three companies who own 98 percent of the project show $838 million in potential charges.
It is unclear how much this could cost the utility's 2.4 million customers. Southern Co. earlier estimated typical residential customers would see a $10 increase in their monthly bills when both reactors are producing power in 2018. Utility regulators ultimately set the rates.
Similar issues have played out in central South Carolina, where SCANA Corp. and Santee Cooper won permission to build two reactors at Plant Summer, about 25 miles north of Columbia. SCANA agreed to pay $138 million in March to settle claims over licensing delays raised by the companies designing and building the reactor. Santee Cooper will pay nearly $113 million as its share of those costs, company officials said.
In May, SCANA asked utility regulators to raise its base spending on the project by $283 million, which includes the settlement related to licensing delays and extra costs for cyber security and staffing. However, the company said it will stay within its existing budget because it expects other expenses to be lower.
Supplying parts efficiently for the new reactors has also proved difficult. William Jacobs Jr., the state monitor hired by Georgia utility regulators, has publicly questioned whether a factory run by The Shaw Group can master quality control rules and deliver parts on time. NRC inspectors have faulted the facility for failing to maintain accurate records on the qualifications of workers. SCANA Corp. raised similar concerns.
Shaw spokeswoman Gentry Brann said the company has addressed the NRC's concerns.
In Tennessee, internal reviews faulted the Tennessee Valley Authority for not providing enough oversight on the project and for allowing a culture to develop that discouraged the sharing of bad news, for example, site problems that led to delays. Not enough engineering work was finished before construction started, meaning construction workers sometimes did not have enough work to do.
In an embarrassing episode, the TVA temporarily stopped work at the site in January after two mishaps revealed safety problems. No one was injured, and the operating plant did not experience any problems. In one case, workers removed a cable connected to equipment in the working reactor. In another, they cut out valves before getting proper clearance and verifying the system was safe.
Changes have been made to bring the project under control, said Mike Skaggs, who became the authority's senior vice president of nuclear construction in October. He said the TVA has carefully evaluated the remaining work on the reactor, slimmed down its workforce and made instructions to work crews easier to understand.
Skaggs has been involved in building two other nuclear plants and said the project requires constant monitoring.
"If you've got a good estimate, you use the estimate as a roadmap to complete the project," Skaggs said. "What I'm most worried about is the assumptions we've made in the estimate -- are they ringing out true?"
Closure of 2 SRS nuclear waste tanks ahead of schedule Rob Pavey, The Augusta Chronicle July 9, 2012 The operational closure of two of Savannah River Site's high-level radioactive waste tanks will be completed in September, well ahead of a Dec. 31 deadline imposed by the South Carolina Department of Health & Environmental Control.
The site includes 49 underground storage tanks - some of which are leaking - that contain up to 1.3 million gallons apiece of waste generated by nuclear weapons programs housed there since the 1950s.
The cleanup process includes removing and processing the waste from the tanks, then filling them with a thickened, custom-made grout that will permanently seal them in place.
Work began April 2 to fill two of the emptied tanks - tanks 18 and 19 - with more than 3.2 million gallons of grout.
Remaining steps include grouting of related equipment and capping of the tanks, including grouting of the tanks' two-foot wide service entrances used to place equipment inside the tanks during cleanup.
"We have some work remaining to completely fill and cap the tanks, but, with bulk grouting complete, we have eliminated considerable risk for our workers and the environment," said Dave Olson, president of liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation.
Although the U.S. Energy Department agreed to complete the grouting by Dec. 31, the work will be finished in September, said Terrel Spears, the department's SRS assistant waste disposition manager.
Savannah River Site was the first Energy Department facility to close waste tanks when Tanks 17 and 20 were closed in 1997.
The only other high-level waste tanks were closed at the Idaho National Laboratory in 2007. |
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