New consortium to address industry need for nuclear heat and power

Hoping to tackle a growing global demand for energy, The Open Group, a vendor-neutral technology and standards membership organization, has announced the formation of the Industrial Advanced Nuclear Consortium (IANC) to collaborate on finding advanced nuclear energy solutions to serve industrial customers.

According to the organization, whose more than 900 members include Shell, Aramaco, Fujitsu, Intel, and IBM, IANC will help encourage competition, lower costs, decrease regulatory risks, and reduce schedule uncertainties around nuclear energy by uniting industrial users and suppliers around open standards and business guidelines.

The benefit to the industrial end-users will be diversification of their energy sources with reliable, safe, and carbon-free heat and power, The Open Group said.

Consortium activities: According to The Open Group, the IANC will address industry needs through several near-term activities. These include aggregating and amplifying calls for nuclear deployment in industrial applications, compiling use cases and industrial user requirements, and generating the applicable technical standards and process guides to stimulate nuclear development.

Working together with technology providers, engineering, procurement, construction companies, and the wider industry, the IANC plans to advocate for "aligning and streamlining nuclear regulatory approval and permitting processes with industrial facility project timelines, collaborate across the nuclear ecosystem to standardize interfaces between nuclear and industrial facilities, and promote business models for the delivery of nuclear generated heat and power to reduce costs and improve schedules."

Quotables: "There is an urgent need to better leverage nuclear energy to address the application of heat and power solutions," said Steve Nunn, president and CEO of The Open Group. "By bringing together large industrial end users and the supplier community, we can draw on the huge amount of industry expertise in project delivery, reduce cost and schedule uncertainty, and effectively deliver nuclear projects that serve the needs of the industry."

Mike King, acting NRC executive director for operations, commented, "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission looks forward to engaging with the Industrial Advanced Nuclear Consortium to embed appropriate nuclear safety concepts in their standardization work and better understand their business needs and plans. IANC's input should inform the NRC's efforts to modernize our regulatory framework, enable innovation, and ensure the safe and timely deployment of advanced nuclear technologies."