Holtec International, Jupiter, Fla., and Ukraine’s national nuclear power company, Energoatom, announced this week that they signed an agreement in principle to build a factory in Ukraine that will make parts for the company’s SMR-300 small modular reactors.
The parties will create a “[j]oint Venture between Energoatom and Holtec for a Ukrainian manufacturing facility and technology center that will serve as the vehicle to infuse the latest manufacturing technology in Ukraine,” Holtec wrote in a Dec. 19 in a press release. Energoatom posted the news to its Telegram channel on Dec. 20.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission busted a control room operator at the Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Salem County, N.J., for playing a video game while working, the commission wrote in a notice of violation published online Dec. 15. There was, however “no safety impact,” the NRC wrote in the notice.
The operator “was observed playing the game for only a short period of time (4-5 seconds from the time observed to putting the phone away) and likely would have been able to respond to a plant event,” the NRC wrote.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy awarded seven companies vouchers that provide access to DOE national labs to aid with commercialization of nuclear-energy technology, the agency announced this week in a press release.
Awardees for the first round of fiscal year 2024 Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear vouchers are: ARC Clean Technology, Inc., Washington; Aalo Atomics, Austin, Texas; Boston Atomics, Boston; Energy Northwest, Righland, Wash.; Global Nuclear Fuel – Americas, Wilmington, N.B.; SHINE Technologies, Janesville, Wis.; Westinghouse Electric Co., LLC, Cranberry Township, Pa.
