We are pleased to announce the appointment of the Honorable Erin Byrnes to the Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (MRMTC) from the state of Michigan. Ms. Byrnes serves as a Member of the Michigan House of Representatives for the 15th district. She was elected to the House in November 2022 and assumed office on January 01, 2023. Ms. Byrnes was born and raised in Dearborn, Michigan and worked in Education prior to becoming involved in the political process. Please help us welcome Ms. Byrnes to the Committee!

MRMTC will be holding its Spring 2023 Meeting on Thursday morning, May 25th, in St. Louis, MO. This meeting will take place in conjunction with the 2023 Annual Meeting of the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum (NTSF). MRMTC Co-Chairs and staff have put together a riveting agenda for the three-hour meeting. Much of the time will be dedicated to an on-site training of the Stakeholder Tool for Assessing Radioactive Transportation (START). START is a web-based geographic information system (GIS) tool that enables users to visualize more than 50 data layers relevant to radioactive materials transportation planning including modal options, transportation infrastructure conditions, and emergency response assets.

Additionally, attendees will learn about the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Transport Security Unified Stakeholders Group (TSUSG), whose mission is to provide a forum for stakeholders to identify transport security concerns and identify best practices. Finally, the committee will receive an update on Southwest Research Institute’s (SwRI) progress made on the Community Preparedness and Planning Pilot Framework Tool project. Check out past newsletters to learn more about this project. 

Speaking of the SwRI, MRMTC members should have received a draft report from SwRI. Please review the draft and send comments, questions, and concerns to Mitch Arvidson or Melissa Shahzadeh before the next meeting.

On April 17th, MRMTC staff met with researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). PNNL is planning two tours of the Midwest this summer to gather information about the general public’s opinions and attitudes regarding nuclear power plants, their impacts on the communities, and the storage and transportation of radioactive waste. The PNNL staff will focus on areas that are near decommissioned and decommissioning nuclear power plants.   

On April 11th, a committee member and committee staff met with the Midwestern Transportation Emergency Preparedness Program (TEPP) coordinator to discuss the possibility of holding one or more future trainings in Missouri. The TEPP is a comprehensive emergency management system established by the U.S. Department of Energy and it integrates a basic approach to transportation emergency planning and preparedness. TEPP's goal is to ensure DOE, its operating contractors, and state, tribal, and local emergency responders are prepared to respond promptly efficiently, and effectively, to possible accidents involving DOE shipments of radioactive materials. 

This is the final reminder to register for the 2023 Annual Meeting of the NTSF. Meeting organizers will meet every Monday during the month of May to ensure the meeting is a great success. Organizers are particularly pleased that recent conversations held with staff at both the Weldon Spring Site and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) yielded great fruit: the Weldon Spring Site will host a tour for NTSF attendees that will cover the history of the site, examine the museum-like interpretive center, and explore the disposal cell pyramid and restored native prairie, and scientists at ANL will offer a live demonstration of the ARG-US Traveler remote monitoring system. You can only experience this tour and live demonstration by registering for the meeting, so register now! 

In other news, the NTSF hosted a webinar on April 25th entitled "Harborview's Breached Cs-137 Source: Packaging and Transportation" that feature speakers from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the DOE Carlsbad Field Office (CBFO), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On May 30, 2019, at the University of Washington Harborview Research and Training Facility in Seattle, a Cesium-137 source used in an irradiator that was being removed for disposal was breached, leading to a contamination event. Once the dust from the event had settled, the source still had to be disposed of, but with a new plan for its packaging and transportation due to the breach. This webinar told the story of this new packaging and transportation plan. If you are not subscribed to the NTSF Mailing List, you can do so here.  

In other news, the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum (NTSF) Planning Committee has announced its 2023 Newcomers Orientation webinar. The annual event will be held on Tuesday, May 09, 2023 at 1pm Central Time. The webinar will provide an introduction to the NTSF as an organization -- its mission, members, and activities to engage states and Tribes in transportation planning and preparedness. The webinar will also give attendees a preview of the 2023 Annual NTSF meeting held in St. Louis, Missouri on May 22-25, 2023. Please register for the webinar here.

Pathways to Liftoff & A Win for Terrestrial Energy

Last Month the DOE published a report entitled Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Advanced Nuclear. The Pathways reports are intended to catalyze coordinated growth within and across clean energy sectors by establishing a shared fact base. This report states that certain power system decarbonization models suggests that the U.S. will need ~550-770 GW of additional clean energy to reach net-zero, and the domestic nuclear capacity has the potential to scale from ~100 GW in 2023 to ~300 GW by 2050. However, this capacity hinges on the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies. 

The two major categories of advanced nuclear reactors are Generation III+ (Gen III+) and Generation IV (Gen IV). Whilst Gen III+ are similar to conventional reactors currently operating in the U.S. that use water as a coolant and low-enriched uranium (LEU) as fuel, the Gen IV reactors will use high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU), and unconventional coolants. Advanced nuclear reactors can also be grouped by size in to large, small modular, and micro. Large reactors have a ~1GW generation. Small modular reactors (SMR) generate ~50-300 MW, and microreactors generate 50 MW or less. 

SMRs are identified in the Pathways report as being of particular note: "they can provide more certainty of hitting a predicted cost target and are likely to play an important role in the early scale-up of nuclear power." However, on April 18th, the Canadian-based Terrestrial Energy announced that they had achieved a breakthrough in the commercial development of its Integrated Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) power plant. The IMSR is a Gen IV reactor that uses molten salt as a coolant and fuel carrier, and is notably designed to use standard assay LEU civilian nuclear fuel enriched to less than 5%. This obviates the need for HALEU, the production of which remains vexed.  

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) completed Phase 2 of the Vendor Design Review (VDR) involving a comprehensive and systematic review of engineering management processes, confirmatory testing program for IMSR components and systems, and reactor control and safety systems among others. After the protracted multi-year review, the CNSC concluded "there are no fundamental barriers to licensing the ISMR plant." Robert Rapier, writing in Forbes, proclaims this a significant step forward in the commercialization of IMSR technology. 

Whilst the current zeitgeist may still imagine a connection between nuclear energy and the environmental crisis, the IMSR and other innovative nuclear technologies represent a clean, safe, and efficient pathway toward the decarbonization of the economy. Terrestrial Energy's recent success and the Pathways report suggest that the headwinds opposing nuclear expansion may be shifting. The inherent safety features of the Gen IV reactors that prevent the release of radioactive materials in the event of malfunction may help militate against the public's fear of expanded nuclear energy.

Nuclear News

Note/Correction: In April’s newsletter, we incorrectly stated that DOE’s “Summary of Consolidated Interim Storage Advantages and Disadvantages” says there would be a decrease in transportation costs associated with the creation of one or more consolidated interim storage facilities (CISF). In fact, there would be a slight increase in the transportation costs due to potentially moving spent nuclear fuel (SNF) twice.

Michigan should be "Nuclear Friendly," opines State Representatives.

Last month the Detroit Free Press featured an article advocating for the expansion of nuclear energy throughout the state. Penned by Michigan State Representatives Graham Filler (Clinton County) and Samantha Steckloff (Farmington Hills) the article suggests that innovative reactor designs represent a safe and affordable bridge to Michigan’s clean energy future whilst also catalyzing job growth and economic competition. The authors urge the State to ensure that the regulatory framework is “’nuclear energy friendly’ for future investments.”

Additionally, the Michigan Senate recently introduced a cornucopia of policy proposals collectively called the Clean Energy Future Plan (CEFP) that includes the nuclear energy friendly language Steckloff and Filler urge. The proposal identifies nuclear energy as a clean energy source and a part of Michigan’s clean energy future. The CEFP may impact the success of Holtec International’s, current owner of the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, request for $300 million in funds to transition away from decommissioning the facility and toward restarting operations.  

Read more about these developments here and here. 

A 1987 Moratorium on Nuclear Construction in Illinois Moves to the House Floor.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker indicated his support for lifting a 1987 moratorium on nuclear construction within the state and denied that such support was contradictory of the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act he signed in 2021. Senate Bill 76 passed on a 39-13 bipartisan roll call and, if passed by the House and approved by the governor, will delete language in state statute banning construction of new nuclear power plants. On April 18th, the Illinois House Committee approved the bill on a 20-1 vote, which now propels it to the House floor for further consideration. If passed by the House, the bill will land on Governor Pritzker's desk. 

Illinois environmental groups oppose the bill citing concerns about the disposal of radiological waste and regulation of nuclear reactors. In contrast, many downstate Illinoisans have urged the state lawmakers to revitalize the State's nuclear industry by bringing more plants online to replace coal and natural gas facilities. 

Although Illinois is currently one of 12 states with a moratorium banning future nuclear construction projects, the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) announced the state’s selection to join the Advanced Nuclear State Collaborative (ANSC). Per the ANSC Commissioner Michael Carrigan, it is understood that the state’s participation in the Collaborative will prove a boon for “the development of use cases and innovate regulatory treatment models for advanced nuclear reactors.”  

Read more here and here. 

Rehabilitated Capito Bill Requires DOE Annual Report on Accumulated Nuclear Waste. 

Sen. Shelley Capito (West Virginia) and a bipartisan group of 10 senators rehabilitated a 2021 bill that had stalled in committee. The new bill will require that the Department of Energy report annually on the total accumulation of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste languishing at nuclear plants around the country, as well as the cost borne by the federal government for failing to permanently dispose of that waste.  

Read more about Sen. Capito's bill here. 

DOE-EM Exploring Options for Reusing Nickel Sourced from Ohio's Gaseous Diffusion Plant. 

Last month, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) took an additional step in its efforts to clean up the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio. It is now exploring options for the reuse of 6,400 tons of radiologically surface-contaminated nickel that was removed from the Cold War-era facility during the decommissioning process. On April 12th, the DOE-EM issued an expression of interest (EOI) to industry professionals to determine whether technologies are available to recover the nickel. The information gathered from the EOI will be utilized in the development of an acquisition strategy for commercial-scale recovery and processing of materials.  

You can read more about this effort here. 

photo courtesy of rootsofprogress.org