KNOXVILLE, TENN. — The Department of Energy looks forward to a future with miniature power reactors springing up around cleanup sites, but first it must deal with headaches such as brain drain and rising commodities costs: a few of the recurring themes from a two-day conference here this week.
Re-industrialization of Cold War and Manhattan Project sites “begins with cleanup,” Chris Caldwell, communications manager at the Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), said during a Thursday panel on advanced reactors at the Energy, Technology and Environmental Business Association gathering.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission planned to hold a public meeting Nov. 16 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., on Kairos Power’s permit application to build a test version of its Hermes advanced reactor design, said Kairos Power vice president Lou Martinez Sancho.
Kairos Power has some DOE advanced reactor funding lined up and hopes to build the test reactor by 2026, on land outside the Oak Ridge Site, Martinez Sancho told the gathering. Kairos expects its 140-megawatt electric power design can be built affordably and safely to help compensate for a wave of mostly fossil fuel power plant retirements over the next 10 years, she said.
Likewise, the Knoxville-based Tennessee Valley Authority, the federal utility that powers parts of seven states, planned to slash its carbon footprint 70% by 2030 and more as time goes on, said the utility’s senior consultant Joe Shea.
As part of its planning, the Tennessee Valley Authority and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy are exploring plans to site a small modular reactor at the Clinch River site near Oak Ridge, Shea said.
The federal utility is seeing electric load demands grow in much of its service area and is taking its time to see how small modular reactors might fit into the puzzle, Shea said.
Some scenarios envision hundreds of mini-nuclear plants popping up in the United States by mid-century, Shea said. He questions “whether that’s real or not.” But if such projects do spread, it will require development for a supply chain for a wide variety of materials, some of which are currently hard to find, Shea said.
More immediately, supply chain problems and workforce shortages are already bedeviling the existing nuclear cleanup industry near where mini-reactors might be built, various speakers said. Costs are rising at the same time DOE and its contractors are seeking to attract a diverse group of young new hires to compensate for a wave of retirements.
The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has meant the waiting time for companies to receive everything from stainless steel pipes to specialized electric components has increased by weeks, Tess Klatt, supply chain manager for UCOR. The price for many key commodities in the nuclear weapons complex has risen about 25%, Klatt said, pointing to a chart she compiled for an industry group.
But the biggest obstacle facing cleanup sites overseen by the DOE Office of Environmental Management remains luring qualified new blood into an organization that senior adviser William (Ike) White said only has 15 federal staff aged 30 or younger. As he did recently at the National Cleanup Workshop in Arlington, Va., White cited that figure and the fact half of Environmental Management’s workforce will qualify for retirement within five years.
At federal agencies, this is made more complicated by a cumbersome hiring process that often takes more than 100 days, said Katrina Porter, who heads the office of acquisition management for DOE at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The DOE is also hamstrung because federal pay tends to lag the private sector and full-time telework, or working from remote location, is rare for jobs in nuclear remediation. “You can’t oversee liquid waste operations from your house,” said Porter. Currently, Porter said she is responsible for about 50 openings for new feds at Savannah River.
But Porter said the upside to federal employment includes serving the country, ensuring steady employment during good times and bad, and the opportunity to move and travel often. Porter added she loves to travel and has lived and worked abroad during her government career.
