DOE, UAMPS and Battelle Energy Alliance announce memorandum of understanding on small modular reactor project

Multiple NuScale small modular reactors could make up a plant (Image: NuScale)

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy has issued a memorandum of understanding between itself, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) and Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA) concerning a small modular reactor project planned for Idaho National Laboratory.

Announced Friday, the memorandum highlights DOE-NE's intent to use two of the modules in UAMPS’ Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP), envisioned for construction at INL in the mid-2020s.

The plan announced in the MOU is for one of the 60-megawatt modules to be designated as strictly for research activities (referred to as the Joint Use Modular Plant or JUMP program). The research is expected to focus on integrated energy systems that support the production of both electricity and non-electric energy products such as process heat.

“This agreement will allow DOE to meet its needs in the form of resilient power to a national security mission-based lab while drawing from our nation’s newest class of advanced reactors,” said Ed McGinnis, DOE-NE principal deputy assistant secretary. “The JUMP program provides a unique opportunity for the nation’s leading nuclear laboratory to conduct nuclear energy research and contribute to the successful commercialization of the nation’s first SMR.”

The other module may be used in a power purchase agreement with Idaho Power to provide electricity to INL's operations west of Idaho Falls. INL forecasts needing up to 70 megawatts of electricity between 2025 and 2030. Idaho Power currently supplies electricity to the site through its Scoville substation.

Design plans for the project are being reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which in January ruled that the novel safety design approach eliminates the need for class 1E power. Currently, all nuclear plants in the U.S. are required to have class 1E power supplies to ensure safety. In its safety evaluation report, NRC approved NuScale Power’s “Safety Classification of Passive Nuclear Power Plant Electrical Systems” Licensing Topical Report, in which the company detailed how its design can be safe without reliance on safety-related electrical power.

For more information, visit FAQ: What is the Carbon Free Power Project?.

GIFAR names Chris Pelkola Lee Realtor of the Year

Chris Pelkola Lee

The Greater Idaho Falls Association of Realtors has named Chris Pelkola Lee of simpLEE HOME  as its Realtor of the Year for 2018. The award recognizes those who have served not only the real estate profession but also their communities. Qualifications include business and educational accomplishments, community spirit and leadership.

Originally from the Chicago area, Lee has been selling real estate in the Idaho Falls area since 2007, specializing is residential properties. After living and working in Manhattan, she was attracted to eastern Idaho by the slower pace of life and affordability, but most of all by the opportunities for outdoor recreation.

"I’ve come to find I have become quite passionate about guiding my clients through the transaction process and helping them avoid potential pitfalls and inherent risks along the way – both in the product and the process," she said. "My role is as a guide, trusted advisor and negotiator."

The association has also named its Affiliate of the Year for 2018, recognizing one affiliate member who has given exceptional service to the organization. The honor this year goes to Stephanie Hay of Idaho Central Credit Union.

Eastern Idaho company gets highlighted in Reuters labor market story

Sean Luangrath, CEO of Inergy Solar, outside the Center for Advanced Energy Studies in Idaho Falls. (Photo Reuters/Ann Saphir)

It looks like eastern Idaho is getting some international exposure, with a Dec. 8 story by Reuters News Service highlighting Inergy Solar of Pocatello.  Here's the link: Red-hot U.S. jobs market drives some to seek cooler options.

To summarize, the company's CEO, Sean Luangrath, was looking at moving his operations to Salt Lake City, but decided to stay in Pocatello because of the local workforce and nearby expertise at Idaho National Laboratory.

Inergy makes portable solar energy collection and storage systems. Its best-selling home system, the 1,100-watt-hour Kodiak, measures 14 inches by 7 inches by 8 inches and weighs less than 20 pounds. After two hours of charging with solar panels, the unit has enough power stored to keep a refrigerator running for 30 hours.

In 2017 the company received technical assistance from INL battery researchers. To learn more about that, follow this link: https://www.inl.gov/article/tech-assistance-program/ .

Smokin Fins opening set for today in downtown Idaho Falls

The kitchen at Smokin Fins, downtown Idaho Falls' newest restaurant, which officially opens today.

There is nothing like a new restaurant to start off the holiday season, and in Idaho Falls today all eyes are likely to be on Smokin Fins Grill, which officially opens at 11 a.m. today in the multi-million-dollar Broadway complex at Memorial Drive and Broadway. Training has been going on for the past month and, judging by the Facebook page, a soft opening happened this past weekend. A grand opening will be announced later.

Created by Fins Concepts out of Meridian, the first Smokin Fins debuted in 2015 in Littleton, Colo., before launching in Fort Collins and Chandler, Ariz. A sibling restaurant, Lucky Fins Seafood Grill, has been open in Greely, Colo., since 2015.

In Idaho Falls, Smokin Fins represents the first opening in The Broadway, which will also be home to Lucy’s New York Style Pizza, as well as other retail tenants.

The menu features shareable plates such as pork shank wings, Key lime calamari, and lobster tater tots, plus, a full range of popular sushi rolls, steak and seafood tacos, poke bowls and heartier entrees including a baked lobster mac and cheese, the Berkshire pork osso buco and a seafood paella. The restaurant also offers a kids’ menu and happy hour deals on sushi and tacos.

The menu for all six locations is the work of Chef Wiley, whose recipe features internationally acclaimed restaurants Nobu and Nygard Cay. According to the company’s website, every Fins brand of restaurant focuses on building relationships within its community, from hosting local business meetings, school fundraiser participation, donations and support for local non-profit organizations.

Fall River Electric Co-op hosting 'Stuff the Truck' food drives

Fall River Electric Cooperative will be hosting several holiday food drives called “Stuff the Truck” throughout its service territory this holiday season. Each event will benefit the local food bank where the drive is being held. In addition to non-perishable food items, our local food banks are especially in need of pasta, cold cereal, peanut butter and canned fruit and chicken.

“Stuff the Truck” will be held at Broulim’s Fresh Foods in Rexburg on Dec. 7 from noon to
4 p.m. Donations made there will be given to Eastern Idaho Community Action Partnership for
families in need in the Rexburg and Sugar City areas.

If you are unable to attend this food drive, you can call Fall River Electric at 800.632.5726 and
make a tax-deductible monetary contribution to the food bank of your choice. Office hours are
Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Rexburg Startup Weekend starts Thursday

There is still time to sign up for Startup Weekend, a 54-hour entrepreneur workshop hosted by the city of Rexburg, which starts Thursday at the Madison Business Incubator, 35 N. 1st East. The workshop's purpose is to help entrepreneurs pursue business ideas with help from business mentors and experts.

“The Startup Weekend has helped start four tech companies here in Rexburg,” Daniel Torres, Rexburg’s assistant economic director, said in a news release. “With the help of local experts and great mentors, we have seen business ideas go from just an idea, to a real business making money almost overnight. It is an incredible opportunity for the community.”

The three-day event starts Friday with a dinner and networking event. Participants will pitch their business ideas and they will form teams around the most popular ideas. Teams then develop business models based on the ideas, with help from mentors, throughout the remaining two days.

Judges will award prizes to the best business models, after a presentation from each team, on Saturday, the final day of the event.

Startup Weekend tickets are $25 between now and Thursday. For people who do not want to participate in the event but want to watch the final presentation of business ideas on Saturday, tickets are available for $5.

For information, visit startupweekendrexburg.com.

INL takes four R&D 100 Awards at annual banquet

ACT Film, developed by RedWave Energy from Idaho National Laboratory research, uses tiny nano-rectennas embedded in flexible plastic sheets that can be applied nearly anywhere to transform low-temperature industrial waste heat into electricity.

Idaho National Laboratory received four R&D 100 awards at the annual banquet, held Friday night in Orlando, Fla.

Since they were started by R&D Magazine in 1963, R&D 100 Awards have identified and celebrated the top technology products from the public and private sectors. The U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratories typically have dozens of finalists every year. This year, there were 60 finalists from 13 national labs, with 11 coming from INL.

Researchers Todd Vollmer, Craig Rieger and Milos Manic won with Autonomic Intelligent Cyber Sensor (AICS), an artificial intelligence breakthrough that can protect the nation’s critical infrastructure from devastating cyberattack. AICS works autonomously to give industries the power to quickly identify and divert hackers, using machine learning to identify and map industrial control systems. It can identify anomalous network traffic, alert operators and deploy virtual decoys to slow or halt hacking attempts. Following installation on an industrial control system and an initial learning phase, AICS automatically updates what it knows about a control system, adapting and remapping as it goes. AICS sets up and continually updates decoy virtual hosts – honeypots – to distract attackers from targets, giving asset owners the ability and time to gather information that can help identify both a hacking threat and a potentially compromised system.

INL received co-developer credit with RedWave Energy for Antenna Coupled Thz (ACT) Film, capable of harvesting low-temperature waste heat at power plants. Each sheet of ACT Film is made of tiny, square, gold-wire rectennas embedded in polyethylene, plastic sheeting that can be used nearly anywhere. The ACT Film absorbs heat between 70 and 250 degrees Celsius and converts it to electricity. Conceivably, composite stacks of ACT Film could be engineered to be compatible with existing power plant designs and used to replace cooling towers. By recovering 20 percent of low-temperature waste heat at a typical power plant, the electricity generated would equal the amount produced by burning 112,000 tons of coal in a year.

Researchers Gus Caffrey, Kenneth Krebs and Jayson Wharton received a Special Recognition Award (Corporate Social Responsibility) for On-Site Inspection RadioIsotopic Spectroscopy (OSIRIS), a portable, rugged gamma ray spectroscopy and laptop computer system for nuclear explosion detection that can be taken anywhere in the world to perform precise on-site inspections. Since the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996, the vision has been that all nations would one day eventually ratify it to guarantee the world’s collective safety and security with regard to nuclear weapons. The world is still waiting for full ratification, but when that happens – as millions hope it will – there will be a need for advanced tools to ensure compliance with treaty obligations. To satisfy the security concerns of treaty signatories – various countries may disagree about which radioisotopes at a test site raise security concerns – OSIRIS uses a “data filter” to limit the information it collects to 17 fission-product radioisotopes agreed upon by international technical experts.

OSIRIS is a portable, rugged gamma ray spectroscopy and computer system that can be used for nuclear explosion detection nearly anywhere across the globe without revealing sensitive information.

Jack Law, Troy Garn and Mitchell Greenhalgh with Steve Hammon of Global Phosphate Solutions received a Green Tech Special Recognition Award for their Phosphate Sponge, which provides an environmentally safe solution for remediating freshwater algae blooms caused by phosphate pollution from sewage treatment plants, animal feeding operations and fertilizer runoff. Filled with a proprietary powder developed by Rocky Mountain Scientific Corp., the beads in the Phosphate Sponge are made of an INL-developed sorbent material. When contaminated water is passed through a column or bed containing the beads, contaminants are absorbed by ion exchange. This reduces phosphate levels in water to merely a few parts per billion, sometimes even nondetectable levels. Like a sponge, the beads can also be “wrung out” and reused indefinitely, and the phosphates extruded from the beads can be recycled as fertilizer feedstock ingredients.