Wrap Up: Oak Ridge dedicates K-25 center; PNNL director selected; 2024 good year for nuclear power; Hanford evacuation cited

The new William Wilcox Jr. K-25 Interpretive Center has been dedicated at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, the department announced this week. 

Visitors to the former Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant can view the entire footprint of what was once the world’s largest building, K-25. The 1940’s-era uranium enrichment facility helped the United States nuclear weapons work, DOE said. 

The late Wilcox, whom the center is named after, ultimately became the technical director for all research and development programs for the plant, DOE said. 

Debroah Gracio has been appointed to the next director of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at Richland, Wash., effective Oct. 1, Battelle announced Thursday.

Gracio currently serves as associate laboratory director for the national security directorate at PNNL and has been with the national laboratory for 35 years. Gracio succeeds Steven Ashby who announced his intent to step aside as director earlier this year.

Gracio earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Washington State University.

Nuclear power reactors worldwide cranked out a record 2,667 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity during 2024, according to a report released this week by the World Nuclear Association.

That is up slightly from the prior high of 2,660 TWh during 2006, according to the report released Monday Sept. 1.

The global reactor fleet ran at an average capacity factor of 83% in 2024, which is higher than coal and other electric power sources, according to the World Nuclear Association report. The nuclear capacity factor is also up from 82% in 2023, according to the report.

Two workers at the Department of Energy’s vitrification plant at the Hanford Site at Richland, Wash., were involved in a “near miss,” according to an August report more than a month after a jobsite evacuation triggered by a smoke alarm.

According to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) report dated Aug. 1, the Low-Activity Waste (LAW) Facility at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant had to be evacuated.

The smoke alarm was linked to the room that houses the uninterruptible safety power supply for one of the off-gas exhausters, according to the DNFSB report.  The Hanford Fire Department responded and, after the crew determined things were safe, facility access was restored.