Interim Storage & Waste Disposal

About a year after acquiring the company for about $2 billion, Republic Services, Phoenix, has nearly integrated the operations of the old US Ecology with its own, according to Republic’s latest earnings report. US Ecology operates radioactive waste disposal sites in Idaho, Michigan, and Washington state. The Richland, Wash. site accepts low-level radioactive waste from […]

If New Mexico and the Department of Energy do not soon resolve starkly different ideas about the long-term future of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the agencies may try to bridge the gap in a public hearing this summer. The public hearing, if necessary, would take place in August or September, a spokesperson for the […]

About a year after acquiring the company for about $2 billion, Republic Services, Phoenix, has nearly integrated the operations of the old US Ecology with its own, according to Republic’s latest earnings report. US Ecology operates radioactive waste disposal sites in Idaho, Michigan, and Washington state. The Richland, Wash. site accepts low-level radioactive waste from […]

Construction continued on an expanded fuel storage facility at New York’s shuttered Indian Point Energy center, where a subcontractor started building a vehicle barrier system to protect 127 casks of spent fuel, decommissioning lead Holtec International said late last week. Holtec International, Jupiter, Fla., briefed the local Decommissioning Oversight Board about the development on Thursday […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday published a new report about the agency’s plans for finding a willing host for a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. The document, which puts a federal interim storage site some 10 or 15 years in the future, assuming Congress changes existing law to make such a […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday published a new report about the agency’s plans for finding a willing host for a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. The document, which puts a federal interim storage site some 10 or 15 years in the future, assuming Congress changes existing law to make such a […]

An April 19 Weapons Complex Morning Briefing article [ECA opposes WIPP restrictions sought by New Mexico regulators] should have reported the Mayor of Carlsbad, N.M. Nuclear Task Force in its public comments said the New Mexico Environment Department engaged in “chest thumping” by certain restrictions included a draft permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. 

The Los Alamos National Laboratory over 16 years sent almost 50 containers of incorrectly labeled radioactive waste to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the site’s prime contractor recently told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The lab assigned the containers codes that indicated they should have been able to generate less combustible hydrogen during […]

The Department of Energy’s former prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico and an employee who filed suit in 2021, claiming he was wrongly bypassed for promotion because of his race, have agreed to dismiss the federal court case. As a result, a status conference set for April 12 in the […]

During fiscal 2023, the Department of Energy expects to make 15 shipments of transuranic defense waste from down-blended plutonium stocks to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, a contractor executive said last week. Look for the level of such transuranic waste shipments, from the Surplus […]

News about the Department of Energy’s $26-million program to define consent-based siting of nuclear waste could drop next week, the agency’s top nuclear-energy official hinted Wednesday. DOE is putting together what it calls a consent-based siting consortia to help the agency decide not which spots could be suitable for a federally operated interim storage site […]

News about the Department of Energy’s $26-million program to define consent-based siting of nuclear waste could drop next week, the agency’s top nuclear-energy official hinted Wednesday. DOE is putting together what it calls a consent-based siting consortia to help the agency decide not which spots could be suitable for a federally operated interim storage site […]

The Department of Energy’s former prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico and an employee who filed suit in 2021, claiming he was wrongly bypassed for promotion because of his race, have agreed to dismiss the federal court case. As a result, a status conference set for April 12 in the […]

Holtec Decommissioning International wants the state of Michigan to provide $300 million to restart the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, a state lawmaker confirmed Tuesday. State Rep. Pauline Wendzel (R), first reported as one of two sources of the information by the local Herald-Palladium, confirmed the figure in an email Tuesday to the Exchange Monitor. State Rep. Joey Andrews […]

Holtec Decommissioning International wants the state of Michigan to provide $300 million to restart the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, a state lawmaker confirmed Tuesday. State Rep. Pauline Wendzel (R), first reported as one of two sources of the information by the local Herald-Palladium, confirmed the figure in an email Tuesday to the Exchange Monitor. […]

Holtec will delay decommissioning work at the shuttered Oyster Creek Generating Station in Ocean Township, N.J., citing financial and operational factors, the company told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently. In an annual decommissioning funding report, posted online Wednesday by NRC and dated March 31, Holtec, Jupiter, Fla., said it would delay cutting up the shuttered […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week invited four senior managers of companies decommissioning nuclear power plants to share their experiences with the commission in May at agency headquarters in Rockville, Md., near Washington. “On May 2, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be holding a public meeting to discuss Decommissioning Lessons Learned from the past and […]

With the exception of a couple of projects at Europe’s largest and most complex nuclear site, the United Kingdom’s short-term cleanup goals for radioactive waste cleanup remain largely on target, the country’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority said in its mid-2023 fiscal year report, published Friday. Timelines for certain cleanup projects at Sellafield Limited, a Nuclear Decommissioning […]

The chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was preparing a response to a request by the governor of New Mexico that the commission stop working on a license for a proposed interim storage site in the state. That’s according to a letter the NRC sent to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) on Friday. The NRC […]

By John Stang The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board is working on reports about transferring spent fuel from five storage near power plants to a temporary repository, the board said this week in a meeting held in Florida. These upcoming reports will address the commercial reactor sites at Crystal River, Fla., La Crosse, Wis., Rancho […]

The chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was preparing a response to a request by the governor of New Mexico that the commission stop working on a license for a proposed interim storage site in the state.  That’s according to a letter the NRC sent to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) on Friday. The NRC […]

It will take about another $1.1 billion to completely decommission the Three Mile Island Unit-1 reactor in Pennsylvania, Constellation Energy Generation told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a new detailed cost estimate published Wednesday. The roughly 40-page updated site-specific decommissioning cost estimate for Three Mile Island Nuclear Station Unit-1 (TMI-1), appended to a letter signed […]

New Mexico on Friday legalized a ban on the storage of spent nuclear fuel in the state, potentially complicating Holtec International’s proposal to build a spent-fuel storage depot there. On Friday, the state House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 53 by a margin of 35 to 28. Gov. Michelle Lujan (D) signed the bill the […]

Citing a lack of resources, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday delayed its decision to license a proposed commercial interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel by up to two months. NRC delivered the news in a letter to Kimberly Manzione, Holtec International’s director of licensing, from the agency’s Bernard White, who signed the missive […]

Citing a lack of resources, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday delayed its decision to license a proposed commercial interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel by up to two months.  NRC delivered the news in a letter to Kimberly Manzione, Holtec International’s director of licensing, from the agency’s Bernard White, who signed the missive […]

New Mexico on Friday legalized a ban on the storage of spent nuclear fuel in the state, potentially complicating Holtec International’s proposal to build a spent-fuel storage depot there. On Friday, the state House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 53 by a margin of 35 to 28. Gov. Michelle Lujan (D) signed the bill the […]

The budget for the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy would fall about 12% to around $1.56 billion in fiscal year 2024 if the White House’s latest federal spending request became law. That’s about $210 million less than the 2023 appropriation Congress provided in December in an omnibus spending bill for the part of […]

Consent-based siting, or securing support at all levels of government for a nuclear-waste repository, “won’t be fun,” a Nuclear Regulatory Commission commission said Wednesday at an agency conference. “Even a consent-based process is going to take time and it’s not going to be fun, but it’s the only way that’s going to be lasting,” NRC […]

Nevada’s senior senator last week expressed skepticism about the safety of spent-nuclear-fuel casks, which the director of the Idaho National Laboratory touted during a hearing about nuclear energy and waste. The Thursday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee veered into a discussion of a Feb. 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, […]

A bill that would broadly prohibit storage of spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico was set up for a final vote in the New Mexico legislature on the final day of the session. On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee of the New Mexico House of Representatives passed an amended version of Senate Bill 53, “Storage […]