U.S.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recorded zero major security incidents and 29 minor security incidents in fiscal 2016, according to a recent agency report to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
NRC Chairman Stephen Burns detailed the findings in a Dec. 1 letter to OMB Director Shaun Donovan, which was released publicly last week. According to the letter, all 29 incidents were attempts to attack NRC staff through social engineering, which is regarded as psychological manipulation aimed at persuading people to divulge confidential information or perform acts harmful to security.
Agency spokesman David McIntyre said these threats were essentially phishing scams. The scams were attempts to get NRC employees to click on phony links and enter passwords or other sensitive information.
Burns said NRC staff detected each of these incidents and reported them to the agency’s computer security incident response team. The Department of Homeland Security’s United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team was also notified.
“None of these attacks resulted in any compromise of (personally identifiable information), sensitive agency information, or information systems,” Burns wrote in the letter.
The NRC has participated in DHS’ high-value assets risk and vulnerability assessments, and continues to perform mitigation and remediation activities tied to this effort, Burns wrote. The incident details were included in NRC’s fiscal 2016 Federal Information Security Management Act and Privacy Management reports.
Fiscal 2016 ended on Sept. 30.
The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded $10 million in Phase II funding to SHINE Medical Technologies as part of the agency’s program to promote a domestic supply of molybdenum-99 (mo-99).
The funding is part of a cooperative agreement, which involved a 50-50 cost-sharing arrangement between SHINE and DOE. The recent award brings the total value of the agreement to $50 million, with DOE contributing $25 million.
Mo-99 decays into technetium-99m, which is used in imaging procedures for cancer, heart disease, bone disease, and kidney disease. With Canada’s shutdown of the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, in November, the medical isotope industry fears a shortage in the market in the coming years, as the NRU is one of the world’s largest suppliers of the isotope. DOE established the program to help establish a domestic commercial supply of the isotope.
The funding will help SHINE to design and construct a radioisotope production facility in Janesville, Wis. The company received a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February following a four-year process of safety and environmental data collection and review. SHINE hopes to begin production at the $100 million facility in 2019.
“We are grateful to the DOE/NNSA for its financial and technical support through the construction permit approval process, and for its continued commitment to SHINE as we take the next steps toward securing access to isotopes critical to the accurate diagnosis of disease,” SHINE CEO Greg Piefer said in a statement. “Their assistance has contributed to our success so far, and the on-going partnership will help ensure the timely startup of our production facility—a national asset that will provide life-saving materials for a billion people over its lifetime.”
These cooperative agreements are part of DOE’s larger effort to reduce, and eliminate when possible, the use of nuclear weapon-usable highly enriched uranium (HEU) in civilian applications. DOE/NNSA holds four cooperative agreements with three commercial entities: SHINE, NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes LLC, and General Atomics.
NNSA spokeswoman Francie M. Israeli said SHINE is developing an accelerator with low-enriched uranium fission technology. NorthStar is developing two non-HEU-based technical pathways — an accelerator technology and a neutron capture technology. General Atomics is developing an LEU target fission technology.
Each project can earn up to $25 million in federal funding. The department funds each agreement incrementally and expects to fully fund all four projects by the end of fiscal 2018, according to Israeli.
INTERNATIONAL
Canada’s top environmental official has once again extended the timeline for an approval decision on Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) plans to build a deep geologic repository for low- and intermediate-level waste near Lake Huron.
Canadian Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna said her office needs more time to “take into account circumstances that are specific to the project.” McKenna’s office will once again gather information from Ontario Power Generation, and after that will have at least 243 days to make a decision, according to Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency spokeswoman Anita Szerze.
“The extension is necessary to allow sufficient time for the review of the additional information to be submitted by Ontario Power Generation and for the Minister to issue the decision statement for the project,” Szerze wrote in an email Tuesday.
The Ontario government-owned corporation had expected to deliver by the end of the year additional findings that McKenna had already requested supporting the plan to build a storage site at its Bruce nuclear power facility in Kincardine, Ontario, near Lake Huron. That information included: alternate locations for the project, cumulative environmental effects of the facility, and an updated list of mitigation commitments for each identified adverse effect under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act of 2012. The extension allows the company additional time to respond to all three requests.
The deep geologic repository (DGR) would be built 680 meters underground for permanent storage of 200,000 cubic meters of waste from three OPG nuclear power plants. The plan has proven controversial on both sides of the border due to fears of radioactive contamination of one of the Great Lakes. This is the third timeline extension for a decision on the project.
A large majority of the lower house of the German parliament voted Thursday to adopt a draft bill meant to ensure the country’s four major nuclear energy utilities shoulder €23.3 billion ($26 billion) in national nuclear decommissioning costs, according to news reports.
Germany’s “big four” utilities were put on notice in April, when a 19-member commission recommended that E.ON, RWE, EnBW, and Vattenfall shoulder liabilities associated with decommissioning.
According to World Nuclear News, the state will resume responsibility for the storage and disposal of radioactive waste, but the utilities will transfer more than €23 billion into a state-owned fund for managing the waste.
Germany began phasing out nuclear power in 2011, following the Fukushima-Daiichi disaster, immediately shutting down eight of its 17 nuclear reactors and scheduling closure dates for the rest by 2022. Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the time that the nuclear phase-out was Germany’s chance to become the first industrialized nation to switch over to electricity of the future.
French waste management group Veolia announced Wednesday that it’s consolidating its nuclear cleanup businesses into a single entity called Nuclear Solutions.
Nuclear Solutions will be made up of Veolia’s Kurion, Alaron, and Asteralis businesses, which offer services in facility restoration, decommissioning, and the treatment of low-and intermediate-level radioactive waste. The entity will focus on site investigation and characterization, the use of advanced robotics, and the separation and stabilization of nuclear waste, according to Veolia.
The company announced the move to “confront the unique environmental challenges faced by this and future generations.” Bill Gallo, former Kurion CEO, will lead the business segment.
“By developing and unifying our activities in the nuclear restoration market under a single name Nuclear Solutions, we are solidifying our position as the pioneer in addressing extremely difficult environmental challenges around the world,” Veolia’s Director of Global Enterprises Claude Laruelle said in a statement.
Nuclear Solutions operates in the U.S., France, the U.K., Japan, and Canada, and is the only international operator serving the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on behalf of operator Tepco, according to Veolia. The company also has a collaborative agreement in France with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).
Finnish nuclear power company Fennovoima is expected to deliver a detailed timetable for its final disposal plans for spent nuclear fuel by Jan. 31, 2018, according to Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.
Fennovoima submitted its environmental impact assessment (EIA) in June to the ministry in June, which formally responded with a statement Friday, suggesting the company continue cooperation with parties involved in waste management plans.
Fennovoima in 2015 submitted its construction application for its Hanhikivi 1 nuclear power plant, which is proposed to be built in Pyhäjoki, and the government is expected to reach a decision in 2018 at the earliest. Final disposal of spent fuel is scheduled to begin in the 2090s, according to the statement.
The ministry believes the “most desirable solution” for the final disposal of Fennovoima’s spent nuclear fuel is Posiva’s final disposal facility, which will be located in Eurajoki near Olkiluoto and is scheduled to begin operation in the early 2020s.
Alternative final disposal locations in Fennovoima’s EIA program are Pyhäjoki and Eurajoki. The company is collaborating with Posiva in studying potential impacts that an encapsulation plant and Fennovoima-run final disposal facility would have on the surrounding area.
