Captain Ed Mayer to Head Holtec’s ELEA CIS Program Envisioned to be World’s largest HI-STORM UMAX Facility
Fourteen years to the month, the technology that was inspired by the trauma of 9/11 was finally implemented at Ameren’s Callaway Nuclear Generating Station on September 2, 2015 when the first multi-purpose canister (MPC) was placed in a HI-STORM UMAX subterranean storage cavity. The loading of the first of six MPC-37s, the world’s highest capacity and heat load PWR canister made entirely of a corrosion-immune material (METAMIC-HT), in the HI-STORM UMAX storage cell by the Holtec site services team occurred in a smooth ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) operation. NRC personnel monitored the Ameren and Holtec team during the entire loading evolution noting no issues with the loading activities.
Callaway’s VP of Engineering, Mr. Tim Herrmann called this a milestone event and congratulated the entire team stating, “I appreciate the efforts of the whole team. And congrats on the first HI-STORM UMAX!” All of us at Holtec thank our colleagues at Ameren, especially Steve Ewens, Rich Lutz, Jim Mcinvale, Gary Roesner, Dave Shafer, Elizabeth Ptasznik, Corey Jutting, Tim Pettus, and Shannon Abel, whose cooperation and competence made this epochal success possible.
The HI-STORM UMAX subterranean storage system now installed and operational at Ameren’s Callaway is a successor of the facility designed, supplied, and loaded by Holtec at PG&E’s Humboldt Bay some 9 years ago. An ultra-high earthquake resistant stainless steel version of the HI-STORM UMAX system at Callaway has been designed for Southern California Edison’s San Onofre nuclear plant and is presently in fabrication at the Holtec Manufacturing Division in Pittsburgh, PA. The various embodiments of Holtec’s underground canister storage technology are disclosed in an array of patents, of which two designs have been thus far licensed by the NRC (Patent numbers: US9,001,958B2; US8,625,732; US8,351,562B2; US8,098,790B1; US7,933,374B2; US7,676,016B2; US7,590,213B1; US7,330,526B2; US7,068,748B2).
In a related development, Holtec has named United States Navy Captain (retired) Ed Mayer to head the Company’s ELEA Consolidated Interim Storage (CIS) program in New Mexico. In his final assignment after 28 years of patriotic service to the nation, Captain Mayer was commanding a nuclear submarine with 200 naval warriors prowling the depths of the oceans near and far in the sacred mission to safeguard our liberty and freedom from the forces of darkness that stalk the world. In the civilian role arrogated to him at our company, Captain Mayer will continue his lifelong calling to serve the nation by solving the used fuel management problem that has confronted America for some three decades.
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