Decommissioning

The United Kingdom’s Sellafield site for the first time has moved 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 moved the first batch of sludge from the Pile Fuel Storage Pond to its encapsulation plant. The material there […]

The Vermont Public Service Board has released a public meeting schedule concerning Entergy’s sale of the shuttered Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. Entergy in November agreed to sell Vermont Yankee, which closed in 2014, to New York-based decommissioning specialist NorthStar Group Services. The deal is expected to shorten the timeline to fully decommission the facility […]

The San Onofre Community Engagement Panel (CEP) on Thursday will hear from the retired California nuclear plant’s decommissioning general contractor and consider fresh research on the seismic situation in the region. Southern California Edison in December selected SONGS Decommissioning Solutions, a partnership of AECOM and EnergySolutions, to lead the dismantlement of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is tentatively scheduled to conclude its special inspection of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station on March 21 with a public meeting in Massachusetts, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Tuesday. An NRC report will be due 45 days after that date to detail findings of the inspection at the 44-year-old facility, which […]

Public tours are being offered again this year at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, the shuttered facility’s cleanup contractor announced Monday. “We are pleased to continue these special tours for the public to get a close-up view of the former uranium enrichment facilities while they are being addressed under the […]

Wary that his village will become known only for the pile of radioactive waste the Energy Department plans to leave behind after it cleans up the nearby Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, the mayor of Piketon, Ohio, is pitching the agency on a plan to reinvent the former uranium enrichment site as a DOE technology hub. […]

The village of Piketon, Ohio, wants more time to respond to the Energy Department’s plan to lease or sell substantially all of the land now occupied by the agency’s Portsmouth Site following cleanup of Cold War-era uranium enrichment facilities there, according to a village resolution dated Feb. 6. The village is seeking a 60-day extension to respond […]

Public tours are being offered again this year at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, the shuttered facility’s cleanup contractor announced Monday. “We are pleased to continue these special tours for the public to get a close-up view of the former uranium enrichment facilities while they are being addressed under the […]

Demolition of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant is expected to resume next week following a radioactive contamination spread found last week at the Energy Department facility once used to shape plutonium for insertion into nuclear weapons. At about 4:45 p.m. Jan. 27 a radiation monitor issued an alarm near the demolition area of the […]

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth has pushed back by up to six months the date for rendering the Energy Department’s 60 year-old X-326 uranium enrichment building cold and dark, according to a senior company executive. “[O]ur goal in the X-326 is to be ‘cold & dark’ by the end of this calendar year,” Dennis Carr, Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth’s program director, […]

The U.S. branch of French multinational AREVA and decommissioning specialist NorthStar on Wednesday announced the formation of a joint venture for decommissioning and dismantlement of closed U.S. nuclear power facilities — beginning with plants now owned by Entergy. Accelerated Decommissioning Partners (ADP) will offer the D&D expertise of both companies: the nuclear component dismantlement and […]

The spread of radioactive contamination outside the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant has stopped demolition, but work is expected to resume later this week. At about 4:45 p.m. Friday a radiation monitor issued an alarm near the area of the plant now undergoing demolition. About 10 minutes later the spread of radiation near the demolition site […]

The Energy Department may reclassify its West Valley Demonstration Project as a defense nuclear site, upping the federal funding for which the former spent fuel reprocessing facility is eligible, a local New York newspaper reported last week. Former Energy Sec. Ernest Moniz notified Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) of the possibility Thursday, the Olean Times Herald […]

The Energy Department and contractor Fluor Idaho have decided to delay by several years the demolition of an iconic nuclear reactor dome at the Idaho National Laboratory. Officials planned to tear down the dome of the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II last fall — one of the final steps of the EBR-II facility decontamination and decommissioning process […]

The onetime switch house for uranium enrichment facilities at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge site in Tennessee has been fully demolished, cleanup contractor URS-CH2M Oak Ridge said this week. Elimination of Building K-731 is another step in restoration of the 2,200-acre former enrichment complex now known as the East Tennessee Technology Park. “The former switch […]

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has reaffirmed its intention to pay $72,289 to the nongovermental Friends of the Earth for its “substantial contribution” to the commission’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station shutdown settlement, despite the environmental group’s request for $483,503. The commission offered $72,289, 85 percent under the requested amount, to the group in […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing on Monday described Nuclear Fuel Services Inc., the former spent nuclear fuel reprocessor at what is now the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state, as defunct. The business continues to operate as a BWX Technologies subsidiary that produces nuclear fuel for the U.S. Navy.

Bill Mohl, president of Entergy’s nuclear power segment, will retire in February after 35 years in the utility business, the company announced last week. Mohl’s departure comes as Entergy continues its exit from the merchant power business, which is operated by Entergy Wholesale Commodities: the company’s nuclear business. Entergy has shifted its focus to growth […]

The Energy Department may reclassify its West Valley Demonstration Project as a defense nuclear site, upping the federal funding for which the former spent fuel reprocessing facility is eligible, a local New York newspaper reported last week. Former Energy Sec. Ernest Moniz notified Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) of the possibility Thursday, the Olean Times Herald […]

Despite a few unplanned days off due to wicked winter weather in Washington state, the Energy Department still expects to tear down the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site to the concrete slab on which it was built by a Sept. 30 regulatory deadline, a DOE official said Monday. “Right now, we still think we […]

Despite a few unplanned days off due to wicked winter weather in Washington state, the Energy Department still expects to tear down the Plutonium Finishing Plant at the Hanford Site to the concrete slab on which it was built by a Sept. 30 regulatory deadline, a DOE official said Monday. “Right now, we still think we […]

French multinational nuclear company AREVA on Wednesday announced the formation of a new subsidiary to manage its operations in the United States. The move is part of the troubled company’s broader restructuring, in which it is focusing on nuclear fuel cycle work and selling off its reactor business. Sam Shakir, an executive with AREVA for […]

The Energy Department on Jan. 6 released a draft environmental impact statement for soil and groundwater cleanup and building demolition at the former rocket and atomic test site at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley, Calif. The overdue draft — DOE once thought it would finish the site’s environmental impact process last year — examines a range […]

French multinational nuclear services provider AREVA on Wednesday announced the formation of a new subsidiary to manage its operations in the United States. The move is part of the troubled company’s broader restructuring, in which it is focusing on nuclear fuel cycle work and selling off its reactor business. Sam Shakir, an executive with AREVA […]

The Energy Department late Friday released a draft environmental impact statement for soil and groundwater cleanup at the former rocket and atomic test site at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley, Calif. The overdue draft — DOE once thought it would finish the Santa Susana environmental impact process last year — examines a […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Dec. 29 issued a white inspection finding at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, confirming that operator Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) failed to “adequately maintain the (plant’s) emergency core cooling system.” Located about 12 miles southwest of San Luis Obispo, Diablo Canyon is the last operating nuclear plant in California […]

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy said Tuesday it has won a three-year contract to support disassembly of two reactors at Sweden’s Oskarshamn Nuclear Power Plant. The work, expected to start in January and wrap up by the end of 2019, involves segmentation of the reactor pressure vessel internals for reactor Units 1 and 2 at the […]

A lawsuit seeking to reverse the controversial San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station settlement agreement is moot, given that state regulators have addressed issues that led to the unbalanced deal, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) argued in a court filing Tuesday. SONGS majority owner Southern California Edison (SCE) retired the plant’s unit 1 in 1992, and […]

The main cleanup contractor at the Hanford Site’s central plateau started tearing down the infamous “McCluskey Room” at the Plutonium Finishing Plant on Dec. 30, the Energy Department said Wednesday. The room, officially called the Americium Recovery Facility, is where Hanford worker Harold McCluskey was exposed to a massive dose of americium by a glove box […]

In a paperwork move that officially marks the end of an era, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has removed uranium enrichment from the list of activities permitted under Centrus Energy Corp.’s license for the American Centrifuge project in Piketon, Ohio. The order came down just before Christmas in a Dec. 23 letter to Stephen Toelle, Centrus’ […]