Happy Friday, nuke-watchers, and happy holidays. Thanks for your attention to the world of civilian nuclear power this year (and congrats to Argentina’s Lionel Messi for securing his GOAT status last week). Before we head off to close out 2022, here are some other stories RadWaste Monitor was tracking from across the industry this week.
Nuclear services company Holtec International announced this week that it had applied with the U.K. government to build one of its small modular reactors, according to a press release.
Holtec Britain is “poised” to enter the U.K. government’s Generic Design Assessment (GDA) program for new nuclear power with its SMR-160 advanced reactor design, the company said in a statement dated Monday. Under the GDA process, beginning in the new year, Holtec could start construction on an SMR-160 on the British Isles “as early as 2028,” the company said.
Stateside, the SMR-160 is one of 10 advanced reactor designs receiving support from the Department of Energy under the Advanced Reactors Demonstration Project. Camden, N.J.-based Holtec is angling to build some of its reactors at some of its decommissioning sites — the company has floated New Jersey’s Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station and Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Generating Station as possible candidates.
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog announced last week that it would establish an indefinite presence at Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, according to a press release.
According to a statement dated Dec. 13, Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal agreed that IAEA should “establish a continuous presence of nuclear safety and security experts” at the country’s nuclear power facilities. Such an action is aimed at preventing a nuclear accident resulting from ongoing combat between Kyiv and invading Russian forces, the statement said.
IAEA is ramping up its monitoring of Ukraine’s nuclear fleet as several sites in the country’s eastern reaches, most notably Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, have come under fire on several occasions since Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion. Zaporizhzhya, which Russian forces seized in early March, has had its off-site power grid connection severed several times, forcing the facility to rely on backup generators for essential functions such as reactor cooling.
A University of Wisconsin student studying nuclear engineering was crowned Miss America last week, according to reports.
Grace Stanke, 20, who represented Wisconsin in the 2023 Miss America Pageant, told People in an interview Dec. 16 that she wanted to promote “all forms of clean energy” during her time as Miss America. “This industry has so much to offer and I know that zero-carbon energy has so much to offer to the world,” said Stanke, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying nuclear engineering.
Congratulations to ANS member and @UWMadEngr nuclear engineering student @Grace_Stanke for winning #MissAmerica2023! As @misswis the past year, Grace took over our Instagram to showcase how awesome #nuclear is!
Check out Grace’s video explaining #fusion: https://t.co/hRUY15QBZp https://t.co/C3oJkq2uXQ
— American Nuclear Society (@ANS_org) December 16, 2022
Nuclear utilities and industry groups took to social media over the last week to congratulate Stanke. “[W]e’re STILL gushing over Grace Stanke winning Miss America 2023,” Constellation Energy’s clean power division said in a Tweet Wednesday. Nuclear professional organization the American Nuclear Society also offered its congratulations in a Dec. 16 Tweet.
