![]() ![]() It is what some have called the “grave to cradle” model. Hickman was preparing for his plant to expand into a new product line: Holtec’s very own brand of nuclear reactor. Rising temperatures were a big part of the reason a portion of the factory was undergoing renovations last fall, with workers raising the ceiling and rerouting part of the tracks that connect to a national rail line. was just one palpable sign of climate change, along with the sweltering weather persisting well into September. Their colonization of the newly subtropical Northeastern U.S. The bugs swarmed the parking lot, giving the appearance from one story up that the asphalt was moving. Everywhere you looked were spotted lanternflies, an invasive species whose arrival last year exacted such a devastating toll on vital crops and native trees that scientists compared the Southeast Asian insect to a plague. Outside the factory that hot day nine months ago, the ground was squirming. 13, 2022.īut so, too, is demand for the zero-carbon electricity that nuclear reactors generate. has closed 13 reactors in just the past decade.Īllen Hickman, vice president of manufacturing at Holtec International, describes the company's systems for the dry storage of used nuclear fuel at the Holtec facility in Camden, New Jersey, on Sept. ![]() The market for managing and disassembling defunct nuclear plants is growing the U.S. In fact, Holtec recently became a customer for its own storage casks as the company bought up four shuttered nuclear power plants, taking over the decommissioning process. Inside the cavernous, warehouse-like facility on the eastern bank of the Delaware River, sparks flew as welders turned sheets of steel into cylindrical containers designed to seal and store spent fuel from nuclear reactors until the radioactive material can be recycled or buried. ― On a bright, humid afternoon last September, Allen Hickman made the rounds on the floor of a factory that embodies the past, present and future of the nation’s atomic energy industry perhaps more than any other site in the United States.įounded the same year as the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl catastrophe ― the only major nuclear energy accident in history with an established death toll ― Hickman’s employer, Holtec International, built a business helping utilities from New York to Ukraine to Japan manage nuclear waste. ![]()
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