Interim Storage & Waste Disposal

A lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over a proposed Texas interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel sputtered back to life in the early days of 2022, recent court filings show. The suit, filed in February by a coalition of anti-nuclear groups including the Sierra Club, Beyond Nuclear and the Texas-based minerals company Fasken […]

One of the first big milestones in the frenzy of legal challenges to commercially operated interim storage sites for spent nuclear fuel is coming up in a few weeks in Albuquerque, where a federal judge was due to hear arguments for and against tossing a lawsuit against a proposed Holtec site in the state’s southeastern […]

Interested stakeholders should get a chance this month to chat with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about a recent staff report analyzing the agency’s ability to regulate large-scale transportation of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S., commission documents show. NRC staff plans to hold public meetings “beginning in January 2022” to discuss the results of its […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is drawing up more questions about Holtec International’s proposed interim storage facility in New Mexico, an agency spokesperson said this week. NRC staff are “still preparing” the agency’s third round of Requests for Additional Information (RAIs) for Holtec’s proposed interim storage site in Eddy County, N.M., a spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor […]

Happy New Year, nuke-watchers, and thanks for reading the year’s first issue of RadWaste Monitor. As we settle back into things after the holidays, here’s a rundown of a few stories we’ll be tracking across the civilian nuclear power space in 2022. A Second Private Interim Storage Site Inches Closer to Reality The Nuclear Regulatory […]

Interested stakeholders should get a chance this month to chat with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about a recent staff report analyzing the agency’s ability to regulate large-scale transportation of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S., commission documents show. NRC staff plans to hold public meetings “beginning in January 2022” to discuss the results of its […]

A lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over a proposed Texas interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel sputtered back to life in the early days of 2022, recent court filings show. The suit, filed in February by a coalition of anti-nuclear groups including the Sierra Club, Beyond Nuclear and the Texas-based minerals company Fasken […]

One of the first big milestones in the frenzy of legal challenges to commercially operated interim storage sites for spent nuclear fuel is coming up in a few weeks in Albuquerque, where a federal judge was due to hear arguments for and against tossing a lawsuit against a proposed Holtec site in the state’s southeastern […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is drawing up more questions about Holtec International’s proposed interim storage facility in New Mexico, an agency spokesperson said Monday. NRC staff are “still preparing” the agency’s third round of Requests for Additional Information (RAIs) for Holtec’s proposed interim storage site in Eddy County, N.M., a spokesperson told Exchange Monitor via […]

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) died Tuesday, according to a statement from his family. Reid, who was Nevada’s longest-serving member of Congress, died “peacefully” Tuesday afternoon following a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer, his wife Landra Reid said in a statement. He was 82 years old. Reid was best known to nuke-watchers as […]

A federal judge will review the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s request to block a Texas minerals company’s bid to get involved with a state lawsuit over a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, recent court documents show. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Dec. 21 agreed to consider NRC’s motion to dismiss Fasken […]

Wheels Down at Harry Reid International: Las Vegas Airport Renamed for Yucca-Slaying Senator Starting this week, travelers arriving in Las Vegas will land at an airport named for the U.S. senator arguably responsible for the demise of the nation’s only potential nuclear waste repository. During a Tuesday ceremony at the airport formerly known as McCarran, […]

A minerals company is fighting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over whether it can stay involved with Texas’ lawsuit against a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, court papers filed this week show. ISP, a joint venture between Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and Orano USA, plans to build an interim storage site […]

A minerals company is fighting to stay involved with Texas’ lawsuit against a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel and wants the suit to stay in the Fifth Circuit, court papers filed this week show. Texas-based Fasken Land and Minerals, a longtime opponent of Interim Storage Partners’ proposed site in Andrews, Texas, argued […]

Two state lawsuits challenging a proposed interim storage facility in Texas won’t see much more action until after New Year’s, according to court documents filed in both cases this week. New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas has until Jan. 18 to file the next brief in his lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over Interim […]

The Department of Energy’s recently-rebooted search for a federal interim storage site to store spent nuclear fuel is one step in the right direction, one of Congress’s foremost advocates for nuclear-waste management said in a recent op-ed. DOE’s Nov. 30 Request for Information (RFI) about using a consent-based process to site a federal interim facility […]

Although federal attempts to site an interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel have yet to succeed, the Department of Energy’s current nuclear power chief thinks that things will shake out differently this time, she said this week. “[T]here is something very different now than there has been in the past,” Kathryn Huff, […]

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an environmental watchdogs’ bid to stop the storage of spent nuclear fuel at a California nuclear power plant under decommissioning. The highest court in the land, an independent branch of the federal government, denied San Diego-based Public Watchdogs’ petition for review of a Ninth Circuit Court […]

The state of New Mexico will need to file its first supporting arguments early next year in its legal challenge to a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Texas, according to new court filings. State attorney general Hector Balderas has until Jan. 18 to file the next brief in his lawsuit against […]

The state of Texas wants more time to develop its legal argument against a proposed interim storage facility within its borders, according to a new court filing. Texas would have until Feb. 7 of next year, nearly five months from the day it sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals […]

Although federal attempts to site an interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel have yet to succeed, the Department of Energy’s current nuclear power chief thinks that things will shake out differently this time. “[T]here is something very different now than there has been in the past,” Kathryn Huff, DOE’s assistant secretary for […]

The Department of Energy’s recently-rebooted search for a federal interim storage site to store spent nuclear fuel is one step in the right direction, one of Congress’s foremost advocates for nuclear-waste management said in an op-ed Sunday. DOE’s Nov. 30 Request for Information (RFI) about using a consent-based process to site a federal interim facility […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is trying to get a Texas-based minerals holding company booted off the Lone Star State’s lawsuit against a recently licensed interim storage facility in the state’s western reaches.  The company, Fasken Land and Minerals, has long opposed the planned Interim Storage Partners site at the existing Waste Control Specialists facility in […]

By John Stang The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio this week approved a settlement that requires three FirstEnergy Corp. utilities to refund $306 million to its ratepayers.  The settlement is between the Ohio Consumer Counsel’s office and FirstEnergy on the Significantly Excessive Earnings Tests (SEET), in which FirstEnergy’s utilities received PUCO’s permission to collect higher-than-expected […]

The Department of Energy cannot build an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel before building a permanent repository, but it can canvass potential host communities for an interim site, the agency’s top nuclear energy official said this week. “Congress provided funding for DOE to move forward with establishing an interim storage program using its […]

The Department of Energy cannot build an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel before building a permanent repository, but it can canvass potential host communities for an interim site, the agency’s top nuclear energy official said Tuesday. “Congress provided funding for DOE to move forward with establishing an interim storage program using its existing […]

In the spirit of the season, groups representing the nuclear industry and nuclear professionals were perfectly courteous and appropriately thankful for the $6 billion in credits provided for struggling nuclear power plants by the bipartisan infrastructure deal signed into law on Nov. 15. Though buried amid a thousand pages of legislative text, details about the […]

About 100 people are already working at a new Kansas City National Security Campus satellite facility that opened in October just down the road from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main factory for non-nuclear nuclear weapon parts, a spokesperson said Tuesday. For the moment, however, Building 23 — also called Kansas City East — is […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will get a chance early next year to convince a federal judge to drop a lawsuit challenging a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel planned for New Mexico, according to a new court filing. The U.S. District Court for New Mexico will hold a hearing Jan. 20 on NRC’s […]

Texas skipped steps in the well-defined process for lodging disputes with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over a recently licensed interim storage site in the Lone Star State and should not be allowed to take its beef over the site to court now, the commission told a judge Tuesday. The NRC presented the argument, for the […]