Happy Friday, nuke-watchers. Before we head off into the weekend, here are a couple of other stories that RadWaste Monitor was tracking from across the civilian nuclear power space this week.
Granholm talks ‘re-establishing U.S. leadership in nuclear energy’ at IAEA conference
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm spoke this week at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s annual conference, where she emphasized nuclear power as an avenue for achieving global climate goals.
“Nuclear offers our best source of carbon-free baseload power today,” Granholm said Monday at the IAEA assembly in Vienna. “It is safe, clean, and reliable. Advances in nuclear technology will help us increase global energy capacity to meet rising electricity needs without fossil fuels—clearing a pathway to a net-zero world.”
The U.S. supports “an expansion of civil nuclear power,” Granholm said, and touted the Joe Biden administration’s investment in the development of advanced nuclear technologies.
The energy secretary on Monday weighed in on international affairs, blasting Russia’s seizure of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The Zaporizhzhya plant has on more than one occasion become the target of shelling since Moscow invaded Feb. 24.
Russian hostilities at the nuclear plant “cas[t] doubt upon Moscow’s commitment to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and undermines its credibility as a nuclear energy supplier,” Granholm said.
Belgium to take first nuclear reactor offline Friday
Belgium was scheduled Friday to take its first nuclear power reactor offline, local media reported this week.
Doel Nuclear Power Station’s Unit 3 reactor, which has been in operation since 1982, is slated to shut down Friday, according to the Brussels Times. Plant operator Electrabel SA, a subsidiary of French utility company Engie, made the announcement Wednesday.
The reactor’s shutdown is the result of a 2003 law passed in Brussels aimed at phasing out nuclear power in the country. Doel 3 is the first reactor to go offline under that provision — Tihange Nuclear Power Station’s Unit 2, in eastern Belgium, is next on the chopping block in 2023.
The Belgian government Sep. 14 floated a plan to delay the reactor’s shutdown, but ultimately decided that it should move forward.
The Doel plant, located just outside of Antwerp, is a four-reactor facility with a total net capacity of nearly 3,000 MW. Doel 3, is a pressurized water reactor constructed by a Framatome-ACEC-Cockerill consortium.
Donald Ross (1923-2022)
Donald Ross, a Manhattan Project alumnus who helped develop radiation safety programs for the Atomic Energy Commission and later the Department of Energy, died Sep. 4, according to the Washington Post.
Ross, who started his career in the nuclear weapons complex in 1943 as a technical supervisor to the Manhattan Project at DOE’s Oak Ridge Site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., would later be part of the department’s response to the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania.
Ross also led a radioactive waste technology delegation to Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in 1989. He retired from DOE the same year, at which time he was chief of the agency’s occupational safety branch. He is the namesake for DOE’s Don Ross award, given to recognize employees and contractors for excellence in occupational safety.
