The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has launched an agency-wide reorganization to streamline decision-making in an effort to create more efficient licensing procedures.
NRC said it will reorganize around core business lines of new reactors, operating reactors and nuclear materials and waste, according to the agency’s Wednesday press release.
Within the overhaul, “licensing and inspection functions will be integrated within each business line to create a single point of accountability and improve coordination between licensing and inspection teams from the onset of projects,” NRC said.
Deep Isolation launched a multi-year full-scale demonstration program this week for its nuclear waste disposal technology.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held Jan. 28 at the Deep Borehole Demonstration, located at the Haliburton Drilling Technology Facility near Cameron, Texas. Deep Isolation said stakeholders across the nuclear industry, Texas state officials and Department of Energy (DOE) representatives attended.
The demonstration program, which will not use radioactive waste, will serve the purpose of providing data and operational experience to advance the company’s commercialization strategy for its disposal technology, Deep Isolation said in its Monday press release.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has established a categorical exclusion from certain National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures for approving and constructing advanced reactors.
The exclusion is a “category of actions that the agency has determined, as established in its agency NEPA procedures, normally does not significantly affect the quality of the human environment and therefore does not require preparation of an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement,” according to DOE’s Monday notice published in the Federal Register.
Under the new exclusion, certain advanced nuclear reactors might not be required to prepare an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement, according to the notice. Public comments on the change are due by March 4.
Sean Musick, formerly a general manager at Chalk River within the Canadian National Laboratories, has taken a new post at Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) in South Carolina.
At SRNS, the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, Musick will be deputy senior vice president for strategic planning and integration. Musick, who has been at Canadian National Laboratories for nearly five years, announced his new job over the weekend via LinkedIn.
Musick has been in and around the nuclear sector since 2007 and has spent over 11 years with Atkins spread across a couple of separate tenures. In December, a Canadian regulatory board approved a BWX Technologies-led group to go and and take over as the prime contractor for Canadian National Labs, succeeding the prior management team, led by AtkinsRéalis.As is typical with contractor turnover, there has been turnover in top management jobs.
AVANTech has appointed Nick Despain, based in Ogden Utah, as the Department of Energy contractor’s new director of sales and business development.
AVANTech announced the move recently over LinkedIn. Despain has worked closely in the past with DOE sites, national laboratories and prime contractors, AVANTech said.
Allied Power has hired Chinmay Patel this week as its senior vice president of its newly established engineering division.
In Patel’s role, he will oversee the growth of the engineering division through organic and strategic and reinforcing coordination between engineering, nuclear and other teams, according to Allied Power’s Tuesday press release.