Interim Storage & Waste Disposal

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) wants to ensure the Department of Energy’s application to license Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., as a permanent nuclear waste repository is judged in the state, according to the latest published missive in a long-running letter-writing campaign. “[W]ill you commit to holding key substantive portions of the Yucca Mountain proceeding […]

The House of Representatives on Wednesday took the final step needed for floor debate today of legislation intended to push forward the long-delayed construction of a radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. In a nearly party-line vote of 224-184-1, with Republican lawmakers almost uniformly in support and all but three voting Democrats in opposition, […]

The House Rules Committee late Tuesday afternoon approved the rules of debate for a policy bill that would make it easier to send radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada for permanent disposal. The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018 is now slated for a floor vote Thursday. Lawmakers proposed 17 amendments to the […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the end of March had $464,544 remaining in its available balance from the fund that pays for its licensing activities for the planned Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository in Nevada, according to the latest update to Congress. The agency spent $42,506 of its Nuclear Waste Fund carryover during the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not set a schedule or a budget for rebuilding a database of documents crucial to the Department of Energy’s application to license Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., as a permanent nuclear waste repository, NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki told Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) on May 1. Svinicki was replying to […]

About a year after it was introduced in the chamber, a bill that would smooth the way to send nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., will get a vote on the House floor Thursday. Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments (H.R. 3053) cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee last […]

After nearly a year, the full House of Representatives is expected next week to debate and vote on legislation intended to strengthen the federal government’s ability to build a radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments (H.R. 3053) cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee last June […]

The federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board has scheduled a June 13 meeting in Idaho to consider key technical issues to be dealt with prior to transport of radioactive waste from around the country for interim storage or permanent disposal. The meeting could lead to recommendations to Congress and Energy Secretary Rick Perry as they […]

SAVANNAH, Ga. – Waste Control Specialists and Orano USA plan within the next two months to formally request that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission resume its review of a stalled license application for consolidated interim storage of spent fuel in West Texas, according to the executive leading their partnership. The companies expect in the second quarter […]

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Proponents of advancing disposition of the U.S. stockpile of used nuclear reactor fuel must make their voices heard in Congress, speakers said Tuesday at an industry conference here. The need for advocacy on Capitol Hill was a common refrain during the first day of the Nuclear Energy Institute’s Used Fuel Management Conference […]

SAVANNAH, Ga. – Waste Control Specialists and Orano plan within the next two months to formally request that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission resume its review of a stalled license application for consolidated interim storage of spent fuel in West Texas, according to the executive leading their partnership. The companies expect in the second quarter to […]

The federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board has scheduled a June 13 meeting in Idaho to consider key technical issues to be dealt with prior to transport of radioactive waste from around the country for interim storage or permanent disposal. The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires the Department of Energy to establish a permanent […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should establish a new classification for radioactive waste – “Class D” – to replace the more nebulous Greater-Than-Class C designation, according to disposal provider EnergySolutions. “The NRC should designate a new waste category specifically defining what it is. It should not be defined by what it is greater than, or […]

By John Stang Transporting spent nuclear reactor fuel across the country and through New Mexico topped public concerns during a public event Wednesday on plans for an interim storage facility in the state. That included wondering which routes would be used. “An accident with this material will take decades, if not centuries, to deal with,” said […]

After reviewing a reply from the Energy Department this month, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is still not satisfied the agency and contractor Bechtel National are doing enough to verify the safety of structural steel used in construction of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “It’s completely unacceptable that the […]

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) this week expressed concerns about the potential dangers climate change could pose to long-term storage of used nuclear reactor fuel on-site at nuclear power plants around the country. In an April 23 letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki, Markey drew attention to what he said were plans by […]

Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who is running for the Senate seat now occupied by Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), this week introduced legislation to turn Yucca Mountain into a non-nuclear economic hub. The text of the measure, which Rosen calls the Jobs, Not Waste Act, had not been published at deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor. In […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sufficient funds in its current budget and proposed spending plan for the next fiscal year to review license applications for two interim spent nuclear fuel storage sites proposed for New Mexico and Texas, NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki told a U.S. Senate subcommittee Wednesday. “We have sufficient resources for two spent […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should establish a new classification for radioactive waste – “Class D” – to replace the more nebulous Greater Than Class C designation, according to disposal provider EnergySolutions. “The NRC should designate a new waste category specifically defining what it is. It should not be defined by what it is greater […]

The Sierra Club intends to intervene in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s technical review of Holtec International’s application for a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear reactor fuel, an attorney representing the environmental organization said Monday. The intervention request would be filed when the regulatory agency releases its schedule for that process, Wallace Taylor, of […]

The three current members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are scheduled to appear before the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee Wednesday to testify on the agency’s fiscal 2019 budget proposal. The nuclear industry regulator has requested $971 million for the budget year starting Oct. 1. That would be up from the $911 […]

By John Stang Entergy said this week it has not determined yet when it will restart moving spent nuclear fuel at its retired Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The power company halted spent fuel transfer from wet to dry storage on March 10 after a broken bolt was found in a Holtec International spent fuel […]

The management and operations contractor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., is reviewing three bid proposals from companies hoping to build a new permanent underground ventilation system for the deep-underground disposal site. Bid proposals were received March 21 and are now under review, Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) spokesman Donavan […]

Utah-based EnergySolutions and Texas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS) have been awarded Energy Department contracts to dispose of low-level radioactive waste (LLW) and mixed-low level radioactive waste. The contracts are indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) agreements, DOE said in a press release. It did not provide dollar values for the contracts. The two vendors will compete for […]

The Australian government on Tuesday issued the outlines of its approach to management of what is expected to be at least 13,500 cubic meters of low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste. The Australian Radioactive Waste Management Framework is intended to “guide the principles, policies and institutional arrangements of radioactive waste management” in the nation, according to […]

WASHINGTON — After the first wave of hearings on the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget, key House members still want to turn Yucca Mountain in Nevada into a permanent nuclear-waste repository as soon as possible, while key senators continue to hedge their bets. On Thursday, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee […]

In a wonkishly detailed descent into the weeds of Yucca Mountain policy, a U.S. congressman on Thursday asked Energy Secretary Rick Perry who is to blame for the continued lack of an Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management: a moribund bureaucratic organ for managing the Energy Department’s work on the proposed nuclear waste repository. The […]

Senate appropriators on Wednesday did not forbid the Department of Energy from turning Yucca Mountain in Nevada into a permanent nuclear waste repository, but they also did not promise to give the agency funding for the project in fiscal 2019. As it did last year, the department has requested $120 million for paper and preparatory […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled four public meetings in late April and early May to receive input on the scope of its environmental impact statement for Holtec International’s application for a license to build an interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility in southeastern New Mexico. “At the meeting, the NRC will receive comments […]

The U.S. Energy Department has officially supported keeping millions of documents related to licensing of its planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., in their current home in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s public electronic records database. Other parties, though, said this month more consideration is necessary before a final decision is made. The Licensing […]