CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 4, 2024--
Westinghouse Electric Company announced today that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved the state-of-the-art eVinci™ Advanced Logic System ® (ALS) Version 2 (v2) instrumentation and control (I&C) platform through a Final Safety Evaluation Report on two topical reports. The groundbreaking approvals make the eVinci microreactor the first and only microreactor with an NRC-approved I&C system, opening a path to autonomous operation.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241203369401/en/
ALS v2 is a universal, logic-based platform that controls safety-critical systems using hardware instead of software or a computer chip. This transformational approach to operating a microreactor minimizes the need for operator oversight allowing for more automation and greater safety. In addition, the approvals allow the ALS v2 control system to be used by any reactor currently in the U.S. fleet.
“NRC approval of these first topical reports for the state-of-the-art eVinci control system is a major licensing milestone,” said Jon Ball, President of eVinci Technologies at Westinghouse. “This will advance our future goal of autonomous operation, as the eVinci control system minimizes operator input, even during operations like load-following.”
The eVinci microreactor builds on decades of industry-leading Westinghouse innovation to bring carbon-free, safe and scalable energy wherever it is needed for a variety of applications, including providing reliable electricity and heating for data centers, the oil and gas industry, mining operations, remote communities, universities, industrial centers, and defense facilities, and soon the lunar surface and beyond. The resilient eVinci microreactor has very few moving parts, working essentially as a battery, providing the versatility for power systems ranging from several kilowatts to 5 megawatts of electricity, delivered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for eight-plus years without refueling. The technology is factory-built and assembled before it is shipped in a container.
Westinghouse Electric Company is shaping the future of carbon-free energy by providing safe, innovative nuclear and other clean power technologies and services globally. Westinghouse supplied the world’s first commercial pressurized water reactor in 1957 and the company’s technology is the basis for nearly one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants. Over 135 years of innovation makes Westinghouse the preferred partner for advanced technologies covering the complete nuclear energy life cycle. For more information, visit www.westinghousenuclear.com and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and X.
The Westinghouse eVinci™ microreactor is now the first and only microreactor with an NRC-approved I&C system, opening a path to autonomous operation. (Photo: Business Wire)
Jewish settlers mounted a string of attacks on Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank overnight, burning homes and clashing with Israeli troops.
There were no immediate reports of any Palestinian casualties.
The Israeli military said Jewish settlers attacked the village of Beit Furik after troops arrived in the area to dismantle an unauthorized farming outpost they had built nearby. It said the settlers hurled stones, wounding two members of the paramilitary Border Police, and one group entered the village and burned property.
The West Bank has seen a surge in settler violence since the start of the war.
In Lebanon, a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has held despite Israeli forces carrying out several new drone and artillery strikes on Tuesday, killing a shepherd in the country's south. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed keep striking “with an iron fist” against perceived Hezbollah violations of the ceasefire.
Hezbollah began launching rockets, drones and missiles into Israel last year in solidarity with Hamas militants who are fighting in the Gaza Strip. The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.
Israel’s blistering retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war in Gaza has destroyed vast areas of the coastal enclave and displaced 90% of the population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
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BERLIN — A Syrian photographer working for the German news agency dpa was killed by a fighter jet attack near the Syrian city of Hama, dpa reported on Wednesday.
The news agency couldn’t immediately give more details about when 32-year-old Anas Alkharboutli was killed. But the agency’s editor-in-chief, Sven Gösmann, said “all of us at dpa are in shock and infinitely saddened by the death of Anas Alkharboutli.”
“With his pictures he not only documented the horrors of war, he always worked for the truth,” Gösmann said. “In recent days in particular, his photos were seen around the world as he reported on the civil war that flared up again."
Alkharboutli joined dpa as a photographer in the Middle East in 2017. He mainly reported from the Syrian civil war zone.
Alkharboutli’s photography was recognized internationally. In 2020, he received the Young Reporter Trophy of the French Prix Bayeux for war reporting. At the 2021 Sony World Photography Awards, he won the Sports category with a series of images of children training in karate, the news agency said.
BEIT FURIK, West Bank — Jewish settlers mounted a string of attacks on Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank overnight, burning homes and clashing with Israeli troops.
There were no immediate reports of any Palestinian casualties.
The Israeli military said Jewish settlers attacked the village of Beit Furik after troops arrived in the area to dismantle an unauthorized farming outpost they had built nearby on land privately owned by Palestinians. It said the settlers hurled stones, wounding two members of the paramilitary Border Police.
Adel Hanni, a resident of the village, told The AP that a group of roughly 70 settlers gathered on the village lands early morning as the troops took down the outpost. The settlers burned Hanni’s son’s home, a car, a village shop and smashed the windows of several more homes. An Associated Press reporter saw a blackened home and a destroyed car on Wednesday morning.
"Some settlers started to break into the house, while others carried incendiary materials,” said Hanni, 57.
Settlers also attacked the village of Huwara, which has been the target of several previous attacks — even before the outbreak of the war in Gaza — and clashed with troops near Rujeib, another Palestinian village, the military said.
Israeli police and the Shin Bet security agency said in a statement that they were investigating the settler attacks. They said they arrested eight Israelis for suspected property damage and assaulting security forces.
The West Bank has seen a surge in settler violence since the start of the war, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack into Israel. Settlers have also raced to establish new farming outposts that rights groups say are among the biggest drivers of the violence.
The UN’s humanitarian office said settler attacks on Palestinian farmers during the recent olive harvest season “at least tripled” in 2024 compared to the last three years.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for an independent state.
The West Bank is home to some 3 million Palestinians who live under Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in cities and towns. Some 500,000 Jewish settlers with Israeli citizenship live in more than 100 settlements across the West Bank, many of which resemble suburbs or small towns.
Most of the international community considers the settlements to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Palestinian medics said Israeli airstrikes in Gaza on Wednesday killed eight people, including four children.
The Awda Hospital, which received the bodies from one strike, said five were killed as they gathered outside of shelters in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
The hospital said another 15 people, mostly children, were wounded in the strike.
Also in central Gaza, the Al-Aqsa Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah said it received the bodies of three people who were killed in what it says were two separate Israeli strikes early Wednesday.
The three dead include a man and a woman who were killed in a strike in Deir al-Balah, and another man killed in the urban refugee camp of Bureij, the hospital said.
The Israeli military said it struck a “terrorist target” in Nuseirat, without elaborating. It had no immediate comment on the other strikes.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 people. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 44,500 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said Wednesday it had returned the bodies of two militants who crossed into Israel from Jordan in October and shot two soldiers.
The militants entered Israeli territory south of the Dead Sea on Oct. 18, shooting and wounding two soldiers before being shot dead by Israeli troops. Hamas praised the incursion but not claim responsibility for it.
The Israeli military did not release the names of the militants who carried out the attack.
A burnt house following a settler attack that damaged vehicles and houses in the village of Beit Furik, in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Mohammed Hanani looks at his burnt car following a settler attack that damaged vehicles and houses in the village of Beit Furik, in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Mohammed Hanani looks at his burnt car following a settler attack that damaged vehicles and houses in the village of Beit Furik, in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
A man carries a sack of donated flour distributed by UNRWA at the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A man grabs a sack of donated flour at a UNRWA distribution center in the Nuseirat refugee camp, Gaza Strip, Tuesday Dec. 3, 2024.(AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli armoured vehicles move on in an area at the Israeli-Gaza border, seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)
