Artificial Intelligence “could touch every single part of the fuel cycle” one day, Luis Betancourt, an official with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week on a conference call with reporters.
Betancourt, NRC’s chief of the accident analysis branch, is one of several officials who has become part of a lean commission team to investigate the current and possible future uses of the technology known as artificial intelligence by the NRC and its licensees. Officials on the call, including Victor Hall, NRC’s deputy director of the division of systems analysis in the office of nuclear regulatory research, said the commission planned to publish a “gap analysis” in about one month to show where NRC regulations do not cover the use of artificial intelligence in regulated activities.
Current regulations could cover these activities, officials said on the call and it is possible NRC may need to issue new staff guidances, or update existing guidances, to explain to industry how to comply with regulations when using AI. NRC planned to begin conversations with industry in fiscal year 2025, which begins Oct. 1, Betancourt said. Meanwhile, NRC planned next week to host a series of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Regulatory Applications Workshops.
Ex-Idaho National Laboratory director Mark Peters in August joined MITRE Corp. as its new president and CEO, according to his LinkedIn profile.
MITRE, McLean, Va., announced the appointment in a September 3 press release. MITRE manages federally funded research and development centers. It also manages the JASON group of scientists, which since their dismissal from Pentagon rolls has worked almost exclusively for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., signed a 10-year agreement to provide low-enriched uranium to Korea Hydro & Nuclear using a new facility the company plans to build at the site of its existing enrichment plant at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, according to a Cenrus press release.
The deal is “contingent upon the parties entering into definitive agreements and also upon Centrus securing the substantial public and private investment necessary to build the new capacity,” Centrus wrote in the release.
Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, spoke at a reception this week “celebrating the civil nuclear cooperation between Poland and the United States, according to a post by the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw on the website X.
Also in attendance was Patrick Fragman, chief executive officer of nuclear supplier Westinghouse, and Craig Albert, chief operating officer of contractor Bechtel. Both Bechtel and Westinghouse were contracted to develop Poland’s first nuclear power plant with three AP1000 reactors, U.S. ambassador to Poland Mark Przezinski said on X.
“There are abundant opportunities for further growth in our civil nuclear cooperation, and we are excited to explore them together,” Przezinski said.
French-owned utility EDF said this week it issued bonds valued at €1.15 billion £500 million to help finance the life extension of its existing power plants in Europe.
“This transaction enables EDF to finance its strategy and objective to contribute to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050,” the government-owned company wrote in a press release.
Fukushima-region peaches are for sale at the high-end London retailer Harrods for a little more than $100 for a box of three, the BBC reported this week.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., owner of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant that melted down in 2011 after getting hit by a tsunami, is behind the effort, the BBC said. The majority-government-owned company is trying to burnish the region’s image as it cleans up after the meltdown, BBC said.