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New Energy News
Energy Research
Centers
Argonne National Laboratory will
be home to two of 46 new multi-milliondollar
Energy Frontier Research Centers
(EFRCs) announced by the White House
in conjunction with a speech delivered
by President Barack Obama at the
annual meeting of the National Academy
of Sciences. The EFRCs, which will
pursue advanced scientific research on
energy, are being established by the U.S.
Department of Energy Office of Science
at universities, national laboratories,
nonprofit organizations, and private firms
across the nation.
EFRC researchers will take advantage
of new capabilities in nanotechnology,
high-intensity light sources, neutron
scattering sources, supercomputing, and
other advanced instrumentation, much
of it developed with DOE Office of
Science support over the past decade, in
an effort to lay the scientific groundwork
for fundamental advances in solar energy,
biofuels, transportation, energy efficiency,
electricity storage and transmission, clean
coal and carbon capture and sequestration,
and nuclear energy.
DOE awarded Argonne’s Institute for
Atom-efficient Chemical Transformations
(IACT) $19 million over five years. The
funding award will allow IACT to use a
multidisciplinary approach to address key
catalytic conversions that could improve
the efficiency of producing fuels from
coal and biomass. IACT will focus on
advancing the science of catalysis for the
efficient conversion of energy resources
into usable forms.
Contact: Angela Hardin, telephone:
(630) 252-5501, email: ahardin@anl.
gov.
Wave Reactor
Burns and Roe Enterprises,
Inc. was awarded an architectural and
engineering contract for a conceptual
design of a Traveling Wave Reactor
(TWR) by TerraPower, LLC, Bellevue,
Washington. The conceptual design will
be for a nuclear electric power plant
with a 3000 thermal MW reactor using
a revolutionary core design. The value
of the contract is $1 million with an
estimated period of performance of eight
months.
The reactor core is based on a
proprietary breed-and-burn process that
yields very long core life and favorable
fuel cycle costs. The conceptual design
will be for a first generation (nth of a
kind), full-scale power plant with the
intent of seeking a U.S. NRC design
certification at the appropriate time. The
net electrical power output of the plant,
the overall plant layout, and the plant
site requirements will be determined
during the conceptual design. The
reference reactor design will be a liquid
sodium-cooled, pool-type reactor with an
intermediate liquid sodium heat transport
system. The reactor does not require
refueling for up to 60 years.
Contact: Donald Flood, telephone:
(201) 986-4623.
Manufacturing
Agreement
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH)
announced a strategic agreement naming
Spanish manufacturer Equipos Nucleares
SA (ENSA) as a key supplier of reactor
pressure vessel (RPV) fabrication for new
nuclear power plants.
The agreement strengthens GEH’s
global supply chain and ensures it will
have substantial RPV production capacity
to meet customer needs.
Building on the strengths of both
companies, GEH and ENSA will
collaborate under the new agreement on
RPVs for certain Advanced Boiling Water
Reactor (ABWR) and the Economic
Simplified Boiling Water Reactor
(ESBWR) power plant opportunities.
Contact: Ned Glascock, email:
Edward.glascock@ge.com.
Project Agreements
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy
announced the signing of two agreements
with the Nuclear Power Corporation
of India (NPCIL) and Bharat Heavy
Electricals Limited (BHEL) as the
companies prepare to collaborate on
building multiple GEH-designed nuclear
reactors to help meet India’s energy
production goals.
GEH signed separate agreements
with Mumbai-based NPCIL, India’s only
nuclear utility operating 17 reactors, and
New Delhi-based BHEL
The two government-owned companies
are helping lead India’s efforts to expand
electricity generation from nuclear
energy more than tenfold over the next
two decades, from 4.1 GW today to 60
GW by 2032.
Under the preliminary agreements,
GEH will begin planning with NPCIL
and BHEL for the necessary resources
in manufacturing and construction
management for a potential multipleunit
Advanced Boiling Water Reactor
(ABWR) nuclear power station.
Contact: Ned Glascock, email:
Edward.glascock@ge.com.
Memorandum of
Understanding
The advancement of the next
generation of nuclear reactors has
received a boost with the signing of a
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
in Beijing on March 26, 2009 between the
Chinese and the South African developers
of pebble bed technology.
Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty)
Ltd (PBMR) of South Africa has been
developing the pebble bed technology
in parallel with the Institute of Nuclear
and New Energy Technology (INET) of
Tsinghua University and Chinergy Co
Ltd of China, whose pebble bed concept
is based on a 10 MW (thermal) research
reactor that was started up in Beijing in
December 2000 and achieved full power
operation in January 2003.
The MOU, based on mutual respect
and appreciation for the developments
achieved by both countries to date, is
designed to facilitate cooperation on
identified areas of common interest.
South Africa and China hope to pursue
collaboration in a number of strategic
and technical areas relating to high
temperature reactor (HTR) projects in
both countries.
8 www.nuclearplantjournal.com Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2009