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Nigeria, and Sudan have already engaged with the IAEA to assess their readiness to embark on a nuclear programme. Construction of Egypt’s first NPP is already underway. Algeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zambia are also moving ahead with plans to develop nuclear power.


United States Vogtle 3 achieves criticality Unit 3 of Georgia Power’s Vogtle NPP has achieved initial criticality. In February Georgia Power’s parent company Southern Company said unit 3 may now begin commercial operation in May or June 2023. Georgia Public Service Commission approved the new reactors for the Vogtle expansion in early 2009 and construction activities began the same year. At that time, the two 1,117 MWe Westinghouse AP1000 reactors were expected to cost about $14bn and to enter service in 2016 and 2017 but suffered a series of delays. Now unit 4 is expected to begin commercial


operation sometime between November 2023 and March 2024. The total cost of the project to build Vogtle 3&4 is more than $30bn. Georgia Power owns 45.7% of the project; Oglethorpe Power Corp owns 30%; the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG) owns 22.7%; and the city of Dalton owns 1.6%. “We remain focused on safely bringing this unit online, fully addressing any issues and getting it right at every level,” said Chris Womack, Chairman, President & CEO of Georgia Power. He noted that Vogtle NPP would soon be a four-unit site making it the largest of its kind in the USA.


Southern Nuclear and Georgia Power, both subsidiaries of Southern Company, took over management of the construction project in 2017 following Westinghouse’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A partnership of Cameco Corporation and Brookfield Renewable Partners is currently in the process of acquiring Westinghouse. Units 1 & 2 – both 1,215 MWe reactors supplied by Westinghouse – were completed in 1987 and 1989. In 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) renewed their licences for an additional 20 years.


United Kingdom Urenco ends U-Battery support Urenco says it is withdrawing its support for the U-Battery advanced modular reactor (AMR) project. The decsion came “having exhausted its attempts to secure the commitment of new commercial investors”. The U-Battery project was initiated by Urenco in 2008 based on a concept design developed by the University of Manchester and Dalton Institute in the UK and Technology University of Delft in the Netherlands. The design is for a 4 MWe high- temperature gas-cooled micro-reactor using high-integrity TRISO fuel. It is intended to produce local power and heat to replace diesel for a variety of applications, including remote communities and other off-grid locations such as mining operations.


In 2022, U-Battery Developments Ltd in Slough was one of six next generation reactor projects awarded funding by the UK government. It was selected to receive £499,845 (US$610,000) for a study to determine the optimum size, type, cost, and delivery method for a U Battery suitable for UK demonstration. U-Battery also received support from BWXT


Technologies Inc, Cavendish Nuclear, Costain, Kinectrics, Jacobs, the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory, Nuclear AMRC, Rolls-Royce and the University of Manchester. In January this year, U-Battery was granted


a patent for the design of its high temperature gas-cooled reactor fuel element and core. Urenco said: “We can no longer continue our support of the U-Battery Advanced Modular Reactor project, having exhausted our attempts to secure the commitment of new commercial investors.” Its intention is to preserve the public investment in U-Battery by transferring its intellectual property to the National Nuclear Laboratory, subject to necessary due diligence and governance approvals.


Belgium CYCLADE partnership launched Five Belgian companies have set up CYCLADE (CYCLotrons Advanced DEcommissioning) as a centre of expertise for decommissioning accelerators and cyclotrons. CYCLADE is necessary because most of the first accelerators installed in the medical field 30-40 years ago are now reaching the end of their life span and decommissioning is imminent. There will be an estimated 50 decommissioning projects by 2030 and 200 by 2040, according to one of the partner companies SCK-CEN. “And it doesn’t stop there. In 2021, the global medical cyclotron market reached a value of $192.6m. This figure is expected to rise to $323m by 2027, showing that the demand for decommissioning is far from reaching its peak,” says SCK-CEN Senior Business Development Manager Guido Mulier. “In addition, we are looking together for better dismantling techniques, for example by testing whether we can recycle radioactive materials with melting furnaces.” It is estimated that with 200 medical


cyclotron facilities worldwide awaiting dismantling by 2040 this will require processing 18,000 tonnes of steel and other metals. The other partner companies are IBA,


Interboring, IRE and Transrad. They are all specialists in dismantling and nuclear medicine and will offer operators a circular solution for increasing the amount of waste recycled. The consortium will provide a turnkey decommissioning solution from the study phases to the final management of materials. “There are many constraints associated with the operation of a building where patients are treated, such as a hospital. Add to this the still open questions about the optimal recycling of all decommissioned materials, and you have a huge challenge,” explains Gilles Degauque, General Manager of Transrad. ■


round up


NUCLEAR FUEL URENCO USA (UUSA) has signed an enrichment services supply agreement with Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) as part of a programme for USNC’s Micro-Modular Reactor (MMR.). UUSA is operated by Louisiana Energy Services, the only US commercial producer supplying uranium enrichment services.


REGULATION AND LAW FRANCE’S AUTORITÉ DE Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) has issued a draft decision which should allow EDF to use the current reactor pressure vessel head of the 1650 MWe EPR at unit 3 of the Flamanville NPP until the end of the reactor’s first operating cycle. Previously ASN had ruled that it should be replaced by the end of 2024 after an anomaly was discovered in the steel.


THE US NUCLEAR Regulatory Authority has authorised the restart of the research reactor at the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) Centre for Neutron Research (NCNR) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The facility had been shut down following damage to a fuel element.


KOREA HYDRO & Nuclear Power’s (KHNP’s) APR1000 reactor design has been certified as compliant by the European Utility Requirements (EUR) organisation. In November 2019, KHNP, Kepco E&C, Kepco NF, and Doosan Enerbility jointly applied for EUR certification.


POLICY


FROM 2024, THE Belarus NPP will be able to supply electricity to the Russian market, according to the chairman of the Energy Committee of Russia’s State Duma Pavel Zavalny. He said a wholesale electricity market has been created in Russia. “As part of the integration of our markets, from the beginning of next year it will be possible to supply electricity …to Russia”.


BELGIUM’S TRACTEBEL (PART of French energy company Engie) and Dutch research and production organisation NRG|PALLAS have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate in support nuclear newbuild in the Netherlands.


IN MEMORIAM DR. ANDREAS HAVENITH, who co-founded AiNT GmbH in 2011 and was managing director of the International Conference on Nuclear Decommissioning (ICOND), has died. Just 40 years old, Andreas suddenly passed away during a vacation. The whole of the NEi team extends our sympathies to Andreas’ family, friends and all his colleagues.


www.neimagazine.com | April 2023 | 13


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