July-August 2019 NPJ

Nuclear Plant Journal, July-August 2019 NuclearPlantJournal.com 13 Energy University Program (NEUP), the Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) program, and crosscutting research projects. DOE is awarding more than $28.5 million through its Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP) to support 40 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects in 23 states. NEUP seeks to maintain U.S. leadership in nuclear research across the country by providing top science and engineering faculty and their students with opportunities to develop innovative technologies and solutions for civil nuclear capabilities. Additionally, seven university- led projects will receive more than $1.6 million for research reactor and infrastructure improvements providing important safety, performance and student education-related upgrades to a portion of the nation’s 25 university research reactors as well as enhancing university research and training infrastructure. Five research and development projects led by DOE national laboratories and U.S. universities will receive $4.5 million in funding. Together, they will conduct research to address crosscutting nuclear energy challenges that will help to develop advanced sensors and instrumentation, advanced manufacturing methods, and materials for multiple nuclear reactor plant and fuel applications. DOE has selected two university-, one national laboratory- and three industry-led projects that will take advantage of NSUF capabilities to investigate important nuclear fuel and material applications. DOE will support three of these projects with a total of $1.5 million in research funds. Contact: DOE, telephone: (202) 586-4940. Corporation SMR Development Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), a Canadian nuclear science and technology organization, is pleased to announce the launch of the Canadian Nuclear Research Initiative (CNRI), a new program that enables research and development to accelerate the deployment of small modular reactors in Canada. The announcement was made during the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council’s New Nuclear Capital industry meeting in Washington, D.C. CNL will issue an annual call for proposals inviting organizations to submit projects that fall within a list of designated focus areas, including market analysis, fuel development, reactor physics modelling, transportation, and more. Among the many benefits of the program, participants will be able to optimize resources, share technical knowledge, and have access to CNL’s expertise to help advance the commercialization of SMR technologies. For submission details, or to learn more about CNRI, please visit www.cnl. ca/CNRI . Contact: Patrick Quinn, CNL, telephone: (866) 886-2325. Acquisition Hayward Tyler , a global leader in performance-critical pumps and motors for the energy sector, announced that it has acquired US-based Energy Steel & Supply Co. (Energy Steel), an established manufacturer of machined products and components for the civil nuclear power industry. A division of Avingtrans PLC, Hayward Tyler has more than 40 years of experience in the nuclear power market, with over 600 pumps in active service in nuclear applications across the world. This acquisition expands the company’s nuclear capabilities and product lines for new and existing customers. Based in Lapeer, Michigan, Energy Steel will retain its location and brand identity. Contact: Amber Granger, Hayward Tyler, telephone: (802) 655-4444, email: Amber.Granger@haywardtyler.com . Oyster Creek Holtec International’s subsidiaries completed the ownership transfer and acquisition of the Oyster Creek Generating Station from Exelon Generation. This follows the recent approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to transfer the plant’s operating license to Holtec subsidiaries Oyster Creek Environmental Protection, LLC (“OCEP”), as owner, and Holtec Decommissioning International, LLC, as operator (“HDI”), for decommissioning. As the NRC license holders, OCEP and HDI will be responsible for decommissioning the plant and conservatively managing the plant’s decommissioning trust fund (DTF), which will cover the cost of decommissioning. With the announcement, OCEP formally takes ownership of the site, real property and used nuclear fuel. Part of decommissioning is moving the spent nuclear fuel from storage in the spent fuel pool to an onsite dry storage facility called an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI), which used to take five or more years after reactor shutdown. Holtec has dry storage systems that allow the transfer to be done in 2.5 years. Within 10 years, OCEP and HDI plan to complete the plant decommissioning process, allowing the land to be returned to productive use. Rendering the site free of all radioactive materials could be realized by shipping the site’s used nuclear fuel to Holtec’s consolidated interim storage (CIS) facility called HI-STORE that the company is presently licensing in New Mexico on land owned by its partner, the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA). In the meantime, the storage canisters containing the spent nuclear fuel will be safely and securely stored at the Oyster Creek site. Contact: Erika Grandrimo, Holtec International, telephone: (856) 797- 0900, ext. 3920, email: e.grandrimo@ holtec.com . Stable Salt Reactor Wasteburner Moltex Energy announced that it has been awarded $2.55M in funding by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Project Agency- Energy to develop Composite Structural Technologies (COST) for the Stable Salt Reactor (SSR). These technologies will be capable of shortening the construction timeline for plants to below three years – bringing the Stable Salt Reactor Wasteburner (SSR-W) even closer to market and quickening its global roll out to help mitigate the effects of climate change. This award follows a promising year for Moltex Energy Canada, which is leading the project to build a first-of- a-kind (FOAK) SSR-W in collaboration with New Brunswick Power. Contact: Moltex Energy, website: www.moltexenergy.com (Continued on page 33)