SHINE Medical Technologies on Thursday broke ground on a production plant for the medical isotope molybdendum-99.
The 43,000-square-foot plant in Janesville, Wis., will ultimately house eight accelerator-based manufacturing systems that could meet more than one-third of worldwide need for the isotope, SHINE said in a press release. The company has said it hopes to reach commercial output levels by 2021.
The company must still receive a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate the facility. SHINE said earlier this year it would file the application by the end of June. An NRC spokesman said the agency had not received the application as of Friday.
Molybdenum-99 decays into the isotope technetium-99m, which is used extensively in nuclear medicine, including for diagnosing cancers and other diseases. SHINE and several other U.S. companies aim to re-establish the nation’s production capacity, which it has lacked since 1989.
U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty was among the officials to attend the groundbreaking. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency provided $25 million in matching funds to SHINE for development of its technology. SHINE and three other U.S. companies are also currently in talks with the NNSA on another round of funding, under which each would receive as much as $15 million in matching funds to further advance their isotope programs. SHINE has said it would use the funds for construction of its plant. It has not publicly discussed the cost of the facility.
The NNSA’s interest is to enhance use of isotope production technologies that do not require nuclear weapon-usable highly enriched uranium.
“Today’s groundbreaking is a win-win for our national security and the healthcare industry,” Gordon-Hagerty said in a press release. “Domestic production of ‘Moly-99’ without HEU reduces global proliferation threats and ensures a reliable supply to healthcare providers who need it every single day for diagnostic medical procedures.”
Holtec International said Monday it was beginning two months of final testing of the dry-storage facility for used nuclear fuel at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
“These functional dry runs follow a long series of exhaustive tests of the individual systems, structures and components within the spent nuclear fuel processing and storage complex called ISF-2,” the Camden, N.J., energy technology company said in a press release. “Over the next two months, we expect to complete stem-to-stern functional demonstrations of the spent fuel handling and storage processes before handing over the facility to Ukraine’s State-owned enterprise Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (ChNPP).”
The announcement arrived on the same day that HBO began its five-part miniseries on the 1986 nuclear disaster in the then-Soviet Union.
The Ukrainian organization will be in charge of commissioning the storage facility, which will ultimately hold over 21,000 spent fuel assemblies. The first step will be “hot” trials of the operation, Holtec said. It will subsequently cut up the fuel assemblies, place them into double-walled canisters, and move them from cooling pools into sealed storage containers.
Holtec since 2011 has completed the construction and repair of the dry-storage facility, which it said began in the 1990s under a separate contractor before being abandoned.
“We were handed a facility full of defective equipment that had deteriorated for lack of any maintenance for nearly a decade,” Holtec Project Manager Michael Pence said in the release. “Through the sheer commitment of our team and partners, this project, which looked nearly impossible given the poor condition of the building, shabby documentation and old equipment, with little or no hope of available replacement parts, has now reached the milestone we celebrate today.”
Holtec’s work was funded by Japan and a group of Western nations via the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Nuclear services firm EnergySolutions said Tuesday it has hired a former Fluor executive to manage its reactor decontamination and decommissioning business line.
As senior vice president of reactor D&D business development and commercial strategy, Mike Lackey “is responsible for development and execution of Win-Win strategies to secure new commercial D&D projects,” according to his LinkedIn profile. “His team is responsible for developing project specific, high confidence execution strategies by integrating Energy Solutions diverse capabilities with the strengths of strategic partners and supply-chain teammates.”
Lackey worked for Fluor for more than 15 years, including as a vice president for the company’s former contract for remediation of the Central Plateau at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. His last role before leaving in December 2018 was vice president of nuclear operations in Fluor’s nuclear business branch.
In a 35-year career in the nuclear industry, Lackey also served as general manager for the now-decommissioned Trojan Nuclear Plant in Oregon.
The senior VP position is new at EnergySolutions, a company spokesman said Tuesday. Lackey started on April 29.
Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions announced last week that it had been hired to support decommissioning of the Omaha Public Power District’s retired Fort Calhoun Station nuclear power plant in Nebraska. The company in April completed on-site cleanup for DOE of the Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor in Arkansas and is a partner or full owner of the decommissioning primes for retired nuclear power plants in California, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
George Vaughan has started a third stint at used nuclear fuel storage provider NAC International, now as vice president for business development.
In this role, Vaughan will lead “evaluation, analysis and advancement” of new business opportunities, both in the United States and abroad, the Atlanta-based company said in a press release on May 3.
Vaughan previously worked at NAC from 1996 to 2000 as director for business development, then from 2011 to 2015 as vice president for sales, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He began his career in the nuclear industry in 1979, starting as an engineer for Duke Energy. Vaughan has also worked as a manager and executive for ABB Impell, Cisco Systems, and Enercon Services. He rejoined NAC in April, his profile says.
Doug Jacobs has shifted from the position of vice president for business development to become vice president of projects, NAC said. In this role he “will be responsible for providing overall strategic direction and leadership for the Projects Business Unit to ensure the continued success of delivering on-time, high-quality projects to our customers,” according to the press release.
NAC on May 3 also updated its website and social media presence.
The company is a subsidiary of Hitachi Zosen Corp., providing vessels for transport and storage of used nuclear fuel, along with consulting services. It has joined an Orano-Waste Control Specialists venture to develop a facility for temporary consolidated storage of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power reactors until the federal government builds a permanent repository.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March spent just $128 of its remaining balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, according to its latest update to Congress.
That left the agency with $407,102 in unspent, unobligated funding for work on licensing a federal repository for disposal of spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear operations.
The George W. Bush administration Department of Energy in 2008 filed its license application with the NRC for a disposal site under Yucca Mountain, Nev., but the Obama administration defunded the proceeding two years later. A federal appeals court in August 2013 ordered the NRC to proceed with licensing activities, even though DOE was no longer pursuing the project.
The NRC has spent over $13.1 million of the $13.5 million it had on hand at the time of the court order. It used nearly $8.4 million to finish a safety evaluation report for the license application, along with over $1.5 million for a supplement to the environmental impact statement on the project.
Spending has slowed significantly in recent years after the major projects wrapped up and in the absence of renewed funding and authorization from Congress to restart licensing.
“While there are no significant actions to report for the month, the NRC provided limited program planning and support activities that resulted in nominal expenditures,” NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki wrote in an introductory letter to the senior members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The letter, dated April 26, was posted on May 3 to the NRC website.
Of the remaining fund balance of $437,023, $29,921 has been committed but not yet spent, according to the update.
The Trump administration has requested $38.5 million in the upcoming 2020 federal fiscal year for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to resume review of the DOE license application. Congress rejected requests in the prior two budget years for licensing funding at the two agencies.
From The Wires
From VTDigger: NorthStar Group Services proceeding with decommissioning of the retired Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
From the Brattleboro Reformer: Contaminated water from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant could be shipped by rail for disposal, rather than trucks.
From the BBC: Engineering services provider Wood snags £770 million contract for decommissioning work at the Sellafield nuclear site in the United Kingdom.
