Innovation & Infrastructure

Staff Reports NS&D Monitor 1/15/2016  Some of the World War II-era facilities at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., are on the verge of falling down, but the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Production Office (NPO) – which oversees Y-12 and its sister plant, Pantex – doesn’t have a structural engineer on its […]

Abby L. Harvey                        GHG Daily 1/15/2016 Today is the final day for interested parties to file comments with the California Energy Commission (CEC) regarding the Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) project’s application for certification. Late last year, CEC staff recommended the termination of the HECA application. The project’s developer, SCS Energy, in mid-July received a six-month […]

GHG Daily 1/13/2016 Regardless of a continued push by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the deployment of large-scale net-negative CO2 emissions technology, little has been done to scale up deployment of bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS), according to a new article by University of California, Berkeley researchers Daniel Sanchez and […]

Karl Herchenroeder RW Monitor 1/8/2016 SHINE Medical Technologies has raised $11.5 million of debt financing, bringing the total fundraising for its planned $100 million radioisotope production facility planned in Janesville, Wis., to nearly $50 million. Katrina Pitas, SHINE’s vice president of business development, confirmed Tuesday’s debt financing filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Daily 1/11/2016 The full opening of the much-delayed Kemper County Energy Facility might be pushed back yet again, according to site owner Mississippi Power. The plant, a new-build post-combustion carbon capture and storage project under development near the city of Meridian, was initially slated to reach full operation in 2013. The […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 1/8/2016 An information technology initiative intended to provide the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) with network security, identity management, cloud-based computing, and collaboration capabilities is years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget, the Department of Energy’s Inspector General’s Office (IG) found in an audit released last month. The NNSA began implementing […]

The European Union has awarded a $2.8 million grant to Perma-Fix Environmental Services for the development of a novel prototype generator for the production of technetium-99m, a medical isotope material used in cancer and cardiac imaging procedures, according to a press release from the company. Research for the project is expected to wrap up in […]

The European Union has awarded a $2.8 million grant to Perma-Fix Environmental Services for the development of a novel prototype generator for the production of technetium-99m, a medical isotope material used in cancer and cardiac imaging procedures, according to a press release from the company. Research for the project is expected to wrap up in […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)  said late last month that its Asset Management Program (AMP) completed a pilot to replace and repair infrastructure at the Core Library and Data Center at Mercury, Nev. The $520,000 pilot replaced the roof and heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) system at the library, a “repository for geologic, hydrologic, […]

An information technology initiative intended to provide the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) with network security, identity management, cloud-based computing, and collaboration capabilities is years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget, the Department of Energy’s Inspector General’s Office (IG) found in an audit released last month. The NNSA began implementing its Network Vision (2NV) initiative, […]

The Savannah River Site (SRS) recently hosted a gathering of robotics specialists from the United States and abroad for talks on the use of the technology in the Department of Energy’s nuclear site cleanup activities. The event was co-organized by the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM), the National Science Foundation, and Purdue University. It […]

The Savannah River Site (SRS) recently hosted a gathering of robotics specialists from the United States and abroad for talks on the use of the technology in the Department of Energy’s nuclear site cleanup activities.   The event was co-organized by the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM), the National Science Foundation, and Purdue University. […]

Karl Herchenroeder RW Monitor 12/18/2015 SHINE Medical Technologies moved one step closer this week to building its $100 million radioisotope production facility in Janesville, Wis., that is expected to satisfy more than half the U.S. demand for the medical isotope molybdenum-99. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff concluded during a hearing Tuesday that SHINE is both technically […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 12/18/2015 California Energy Commission (CEC) staff this week called for termination of the application for certification of the Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) project. The project’s developer, SCS Energy, in mid-July received a six-month extension to obtain its certification, essentially suspending the project. Certification by the CEC is necessary for the […]

SHINE Medical Technologies moved one step closer Tuesday to building its $100 million radioisotope production facility in Janesville, Wis., that is expected to satisfy more than half the U.S. demand for the medical isotope molybdenum-99. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff concluded during a hearing Tuesday that SHINE is both technically and financially capable of carrying out […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 12/11/2015 Summit Energy, developer of the Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP), has finalized a consortium engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract with China Huanqiu Contracting (HQC) & Engineering Corp. and SNC-Lavalin Engineers and Constructors Inc. The contract covers engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, and performance testing of the chemical and carbon […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 12/11/2015 PARIS — As negotiators debated whether the world should strive to limit global warming to 2 or 1.5 degrees Celsius, supporters of carbon capture and storage technology have a universal message: neither goal can be reached if CCS is not brought to scale. “If we want to achieve the […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 12/11/2015 Nuclear waste cleanup technology specialist Kurion on Tuesday announced its third acquisition in four years – Oxford Technologies, a robotic systems  maker based in the United Kingdom. Oxford Technologies provides expertise and technology for remote handling, complex plant assembly, and operations in irradiated areas. Its remote tools have been used […]

Chris Schneidmiller WC Monitor 12/11/2015 Nuclear waste cleanup technology specialist Kurion on Tuesday announced its third acquisition in four years – Oxford Technologies, a robotic systems  maker based in the United Kingdom. Oxford Technologies provides expertise and technology for remote handling, complex plant assembly, and operations in irradiated areas. Its remote tools have been used […]

Nuclear waste cleanup technology specialist Kurion on Tuesday announced its third acquisition in four years – Oxford Technologies, a 15-year-old robotic systems  company based in the United Kingdom.   Oxford Technologies provides expertise and technology for remote handling, complex plant assembly, and operations in irradiated areas. Its remote tools have been used in decommissioning projects […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 12/4/2015 In response to the United Kingdom’s decision to ax a £1 billion carbon capture and storage commercialization competition, Royal Dutch Shell has announced that it will not proceed with its Peterhead carbon capture and storage project. The project, one of two that remained in the competition, would have been […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 12/4/2015 Mississippi Power this week announced another cost estimate increase, this time totaling $62 million, for the Kemper County Energy Facility, a new-build post-combustion carbon capture and storage project under development near the city of Meridian. Such overages are not new to Mississippi Power, a subsidy of Southern Co.: The […]

Brian Bradley NS&D Monitor 12/4/2015 A Mission Impossible-like, self-destructing file is one of several potential options for safe 3-D printing of nuclear weapons while limiting the spread of additive-manufactured bomb components abroad, experts said Tuesday as policymakers and nuclear experts wrestle with an ever-evolving array of global risk scenarios surrounding the technology. Matthew Kroenig, a […]

Physicists at the Energy Department’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory want plasma-based centrifuges to process nuclear waste, PPPL announced on Tuesday. Known as “plasma mass filtering,” the new mass separation techniques would supplement chemical techniques, and stakeholders hope the two-pronged approach would decrease disposal costs and the number of byproducts produced, according to the PPPL press […]

A Mission Impossible-like, self-destructing file is one of several potential options to safely 3-D print nuclear weapons while limiting the spread of additive-manufactured bomb components, experts said Tuesday as policymakers and nuclear experts wrestle with an ever-evolving array of global risk scenarios surrounding the technology. Matthew Kroenig, Georgetown University associate professor and nuclear expert, ?during […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 11/20/2015 SaskPower’s Boundary Dam Unit 3 carbon capture and storage project has come under fire recently by members of the Saskatchewan provincial government, who claim that the company was not forthcoming about issues at the plant. These issues were no secret, SaskPower CEO Mike Marsh said in a telephone interview […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 11/20/2015 Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) this week introduced revised legislation on technology transfers from Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories to the private industry for commercialization after incorporating input from New Mexico businesses with experience in the transfers. The Accelerating Technology Transfer to Advance Innovation for the Nation Act is intended […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 11/20/2015 Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have developed a porous liquid that, displaying the benefits of both a porous solid and a liquid solvent, could find future use in carbon capture systems. The material was developed by dissolving rigid organic cage molecules at a high concentration in a solvent too […]

Alissa Tabirian NS&D Monitor 11/20/2015 The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Inspector General (IG) in a report Thursday added infrastructure modernization to its fiscal 2016 list of management challenges facing the department. The new addition signals a need for DOE to focus on the issue, along with existing challenges in contract management, cybersecurity, safeguards […]

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) this week introduced revised legislation on technology transfers from Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories to the private industry for commercialization after incorporating input from New Mexico businesses with experience in the transfers. The Accelerating Technology Transfer to Advance Innovation for the Nation Act is intended to “cut bureaucracy and better […]