May-June 2018 NPJ

Nuclear Plant Journal, May-June 2018 NuclearPlantJournal.com 23 5. What is the status of the ATMEA project? ATMEA, the joint venture between Framatome and Mitsubishi, is headquartered in Paris. Mostly, it’s European and Japanese resources working on that project. 6. What was the main objective of bringing Framatome’s Charlotte operations to Lynchburg? With the split of the company, we have a significantly reduced footprint in Charlotte now. Since most of our corporate offices and all of our services and engineering infrastructure are in Lynchburg, it just made sense to focus our North American headquarters there. 7. Will Lynchburg be a major town in Virginia because of Framatome? There are several companies that support the nuclear industry based in Lynchburg. BWXT has a large presence. There are other nuclear companies, such as Aerofin, Flowserve and Buffalo Air Handling. Lynchburg is a good community in which to live and do business. 8 . What are Framatome’s endeavors in partnering with research labs and universities? You’re asking a really interesting question because there are about 17 companies out there right now, including Framatome, Westinghouse and GE- Hitachi, that are advancing new reactor designs. The Department of Energy (DOE) is supporting the research and development of such reactor designs, and I do believe the future is in the advanced reactors. At Framatome, we work with the national labs. We have received and are applying for additional funding to further develop advanced reactor designs, such as the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor with the prismatic core. In France, we’re also researching and developing the sodium fast reactor. Secretary Rick Perry recently announced cooperation between the DOE and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) to further advance the sodium-cooled fast neutron reactor. We’re also supporting NuScale with fuel for its small modular reactor. In addition to these activities, we’re working with the national labs and DOE to develop accident tolerant fuel technologies. We’ve got three different types of fuel products that we’re working on right now, which includes adding chromium cladding to our existing fuel products with chromium-enhanced fuel pellets. We’re also working on a silicon carbide design. We’re also advancing solid metallic fuel as part of Enfission, a joint venture we launched in January 2018 with Lightbridge. I’m optimistic that around 2024, we’ll have lead test rods installed in a reactor. The Enfission fuel will operate at a center line temperature at about 1000°C degrees cooler than today’s fuel. You can imagine the benefit of being able to recategorize the risk significance of different systems and components. It will really be a game changer and provides the coping time that we want to strive for in our industry. Contact: Framatome Media Relations, telephone: (434) 856-6560, email: media. relations@framatome.com. • Custom Equipment Design & Manufacturing • On-Site Machining and Welding Services • Urgent Equipment and Workforce Response • Specialized Portable Machine Tool Rentals ©2018 888-345-5015 • 916-288-6100 • www.tritool.com Custom - Remote Operation Roller Tube Cutter (No Debris) Auto Clamp, Auto Feed, and Auto Retract Tri Tool is a trusted supplier of special equipment to the Nuclear industry. Through experience, advanced design and quality manufacturing we consistently deliver innovative, cost-effective and utterly dependable project solutions. TRI TOOL Custom Design/Mfg Portable Track-Mounted Mill Performing Critical On-Site Machining Operation