Decommissioning

The United Kingdom as of April 1, 2016, held 4.6 million cubic meters of radioactive waste and expects to produce at least another 170,000 cubic meters through the year 2125, according to the government’s latest accounting. The current and projected future stockpile of 4.77 million cubic meters, covering all wastes after packaging, does not include […]

SC&A Inc. of Vienna, Va., will help the Energy Department prepare a supplemental environmental evaluation the agency must conduct to finalize its two-phase plan to tear down a former commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in upstate New York, under a five-year contract worth nearly $17 million, including options, DOE announced late Thursday. The Contract for the West […]

Centrus Energy Corp. will shave a full year off its schedule for tearing down the canceled American Centrifuge advanced uranium enrichment technology demonstration in Ohio by starting the work sooner, a company spokesperson said Friday. “Our revised plan increases the packaging and shipping work being performed in the near term,” the Centrus spokesperson wrote in […]

  The Hanford Site’s infamous McCluskey Room, the site of the 1976 explosion that injured worker Harold McCluskey, has been demolished. CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. workers finished the project Wednesday, making it the first section of the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) to be taken down to slab on grade. “Completing demolition on this building […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is still reviewing Centrus Energy Corp.’s plans to ship radioactive waste from the canceled American Centrifuge plant in Piketon, Ohio, to the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site, throwing a wrench into the company’s plan to start moving waste by the end of March. Centrus has also managed to lop a […]

Westinghouse Electric Co., the U.S. nuclear arm of financially imploding Japanese conglomerate Toshiba, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Wednesday, raising questions about the storied company’s staying-power in the nuclear decommissioning business even as it pledged continuity of operations during the reorganization. “We are focused on developing a plan of reorganization to emerge from Chapter 11 […]

The Vermont Public Service Board has authorized 11 entities, from a labor union to several state agencies, to intervene in Entergy’s proposed sale of the shuttered Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station to a New York company for expedited decommissioning. The latest, and seemingly last, approved intervenor is the Abenaki Nation of Missisquoi, on March 24. […]

The United Kingdom on Monday announced the early termination of the 2014 contract for management and decommissioning of its 12 Magnox nuclear sites, and an over $120 million settlement with two companies that partnered on an unsuccessful bid for the work. The planned £6.1 billion ($7.7 billion) contract to the Cavendish Fluor Partnership will expire […]

Cleanup of the former uranium enrichment facilities at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, would slide into the 2030s under a new demolition plan DOE and site remediation contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth are discussing internally. According to the plan obtained by Weapons Complex Monitor, the agency and Fluor-BWXT would delay demolition of Portsmouth’s three […]

  Work is proceeding quickly to extract the last, but toughest, of the vertically buried pipes filled with waste at the 618-10 Burial Ground at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “We’re currently making good progress. We are approaching 50 percent completion with no unplanned events,” said Mike Jennings, director of the 618-10 Burial Ground […]

Entergy and the trustee for the decommissioning trust fund for the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station expect to withdraw $5.5 million from the account by mid-April, according to a March 13 notice to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “This letter provides the NRC written notification of The Bank of New York Mellon’s intent, upon receipt of […]

Bechtel and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy on Wednesday announced a partnership to provide decommissioning services for nuclear power plants in Germany and Sweden. In a joint press release, the two companies’ highlighted their decades of experience in decommissioning operations, covering advance planning, licensing, project development and management, dismantlement, demolition, waste management, and site closeout. “Our […]

Bechtel and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy on Wednesday announced a partnership to provide decommissioning services for nuclear power plants in Germany and Sweden. In a joint press release, the two companies emphasized their decades of experience in decommissioning, covering advance planning, licensing, project development and management, dismantlement, demolition, waste management, and site closeout. “Our companies […]

Cleanup of the former uranium enrichment facilities at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, would slide into the 2030s under a new demolition plan DOE and site remediation contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth are discussing internally. According to the plan obtained by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, the agency and Fluor-BWXT would delay demolition of Portsmouth’s […]

During a public meeting tonight, Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff can expect continued calls to shut down Entergy’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts. Cape Downwinders — a group of residents from Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket who have long protested operation of the beleaguered plant – said they plan to “come out in full […]

By Dennis Carr Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth (FBP) prefers to operate DOE’s Portsmouth, Ohio, site with 100 percent appropriated funds from Congress. But that has not been the reality during the last six years when up to 75 percent, currently 30 percent, of funds to support the Ohio site’s 2,000 jobs carrying out the Energy Department’s D&D […]

Demolition has resumed on the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, more than a month after a radiation spread was discovered on Jan. 27. In another key step forward toward demolishing the Department of Energy plant, external power was shut off on March 5. “It’s the first time in 60 years that the PFP Facility has […]

Demolition has resumed on the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, more than a month after a radiation spread was discovered on Jan. 27. In another key step forward toward demolishing the Department of Energy plant, external power was shut off on March 5. “It’s the first time in 60 years that the PFP Facility has […]

French waste and water management provider Veolia announced Monday that its Nuclear Solutions branch has secured a contract to treat water contaminated with radioactive materials at four U.K. nuclear power plants being decommissioned by Magnox Ltd. Veolia will design, construct, and deploy its Modular Active Effluent Treatment Plants (MAETPs) to remove radioactive material from effluent and pond […]

PHOENIX — John “Rick” Dearholt, a former Jacobs Engineering hand who has worked on uranium enrichment complex demolition at the Oak Ridge Site, could soon become the Energy Department’s assistant secretary for environmental management. Reached by phone late Wednesday, Dearholt confirmed one of the biggest rumors circulating at the annual Waste Management Symposium here: that […]

Demolition of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant might stretch beyond a Sept. 30 regulatory deadline, the manager of the Energy Department’s Richland Operations Office told a citizens group Wednesday. While there is a “high probability we can get it done by the end of this year,” the project might only be “near-done by the […]

Demolition of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant might stretch beyond a Sept. 30 regulatory deadline, the manager of the Energy Department’s Richland Operations Office told a citizens group Wednesday. While there is a “high probability we can get it done by the end of this year,” the project might only be “near-done by the […]

The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on Wednesday named former Fairfield Energy CEO David Peattie as its new chief executive officer. As of Tuesday he leads the agency’s decommissioning and cleanup of 17 legacy nuclear sites across the United Kingdom. With the blessing of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Secretary of State Greg Clark, the NDA Board approved […]

A £100 million ($124 million), 350-metric-ton silo emptying plant is now in place at the Sellafield nuclear site, the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced Tuesday. The system will be used to extract radioactive waste from the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo, a storage facility built in the 1960s that is known as one of the most […]

The commissioner of the Ohio county south of the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site has taken a local mayor to task for his resistance to the waste disposal facility DOE intends to build at the former uranium enrichment facility. Earlier this month, Mayor Billy Spencer of Piketon, the village of 2,000 adjacent to the Portsmouth cleanup, petitioned DOE to […]

The commissioner of the Ohio county south of the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site has taken a local mayor to task for his resistance to the waste disposal facility DOE intends to build at the former uranium enrichment facility. Earlier this month, Mayor Billy Spencer of Piketon, the village of 2,000 adjacent to the Portsmouth cleanup, petitioned DOE to […]

Edison International said Tuesday it recorded net income of $345 million, or $1.06 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2016, compared to a net loss of $79 million, or $0.24 per share, in the same period for 2015. Based in Rosemead, Calif., Edison International is the parent company of Southern California Edison (SCE), majority […]

The United Kingdom’s Sellafield site has started placing sludge from one of its two legacy fuel storage ponds into an interim holding site, the nuclear facility’s operator said Tuesday. Sellafield Ltd. in mid-December transported the initial batch of sludge from the Pile Fuel Storage Pond to the Cumbria nuclear site’s waste encapsulation plant (WEP). The […]

Reps. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Feb. 10 toured the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California while discussing solutions for managing American nuclear waste. Shimkus, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which holds congressional jurisdiction over nuclear waste management, has long voiced his support for the planned […]

The Department of Energy is taking steps to catch up lost time on demolition of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant after an unusually cold and snowy winter delayed work by several weeks. As of Tuesday, the demolition project had lost the equivalent of 23 10-hour days this winter, or more than a month of […]