Reactor Licensing & Regulation

The White House sent Jeff Baran’s nomination for another five years on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the Senate, where the chair of the committee in charge of vetting the commissioner has vowed swift advancement, if possible. The Joe Biden administration officially nominated Baran on Tuesday, according to a White House press release, fulfilling the […]

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission board in May plans to decide whether a citizen’s group can contest a utility’s plan to renew a license for storing the spent fuel of California’s last nuclear power plant, the commission said Monday. An NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board planned to hear arguments on May 24 from the San […]

Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) came out against allowing the nuclear industry to tap into power plant decommissioning trust funds to pay for major equipment replacements during a plant’s lifetime. The reliably tough-on-nuclear Markey took his stand Wednesday during a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. He told the five members of the […]

WASHINGTON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a morale problem and needs to do something about it, a senator representing the state where agency headquarters is located said in a hearing Wednesday. “It needs to be first acknowledged that you have a problem,” Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) told Christopher Hanson, the NRC chair. “You then […]

President Joe Biden has nominated Jeff Baran to serve another term on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the White House announced this week. Baran has been on the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) since October 2014, after first being nominated by President Barack Obama and then confirmed by the U.S. Senate, according to the Biden administration’s […]

WASHINGTON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a morale problem and needs to do something about it, a senator representing the state where agency headquarters is located said in a hearing Wednesday. “It needs to be first acknowledged that you have a problem,” Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.) told Christopher Hanson, the NRC chair. “You then […]

The five members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were scheduled to testify in the Senate Wednesday about the agency’s fiscal year 2024 budget request. The testimony, in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, was scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m., according to the committee’s website, where there was to be a video stream of […]

The Department of Energy is seeking new members to join its federal advisory board for the Office of Environmental Management, according to a Monday Federal Register notice. The deadline for nominations to the Environmental Management Advisory Board is May 15. Customarily DOE draws the advisory board members for the $8-billion-plus Office of Environmental Management from […]

An environmentalist group on Tuesday sued the operator of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, seeking to keep the facility’s recently bailed-out reactors from operating beyond 2025. If it keeps Diablo Canyon open until at least 2030, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) would violate a 2016 contract with Friends of the Earth which stipulated […]

A man who tried to resurrect commercial imaging services at a shuttered, 1960s-vintage reactor recently threatened to sue the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for allegedly ruining his business plans. In a letter to NRC, David Slaughter, the current president of Aerotest Operations in San Ramon, Calif., said he wanted to restart the imaging business in 2018 […]

In late May, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will publish draft guidelines for power plant owners who wish to use decommissioning funds to replace plant equipment, an agency official said Thursday. When the interim guidance from NRC staff appears, the public, including the nuclear industry, will be allowed to comment on it and suggest changes that […]

An environmentalist group on Tuesday sued the operator of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, seeking to keep the facility’s recently bailed-out reactors from operating beyond 2025. If it keeps Diablo Canyon open until at least 2030, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) would violate a 2016 contract with Friends of the Earth which stipulated […]

A man who tried to resurrect commercial imaging services at a shuttered, 1960s-vintage reactor recently threatened to sue the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for allegedly ruining his business plans. In a letter to NRC, David Slaughter, the current president of Aerotest Operations in San Ramon, Calif., said he wanted to restart the imaging business in 2018 […]

A bipartisan group of 10 senators, led by Sen. Shelley Capito (R-WVa.), on Monday published the text of a nuclear policy bill that among other things would extend a cap on industry liability for catastrophic nuclear accidents. The bill would extend the $13-billion liability cap known as the Price-Anderson Act by 20 years to 2045, […]

Howard Osborne will leave IBM to become chief financial officer of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on April 23, the agency said Monday in a press release. As chief financial officer, Osborne is responsible for the management and auditing of the agency’s finances and is the five-member commission’s top financial policy adviser. Osborne was most recently […]

A bipartisan group of 10 senators, led by Sen. Shelley Capito (R-WVa.), on Monday published the text of a nuclear policy bill that among other things would extend a cap on industry liability for catastrophic nuclear accidents. The bill would extend the $13-billion liability cap known as the Price-Anderson Act by 20 years to 2045, […]

Howard Osborne will leave IBM to become chief financial officer of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on April 23, the agency said Monday in a press release. As chief financial officer, Osborne is responsible for the management and auditing of the agency’s finances and is the five-member commission’s top financial policy adviser. Osborne was most recently […]

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 […]

Xcel Energy this week finished replacing leaky pipes at the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant in Minnesota, which had shut down to deal with the leaks, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesperson said Thursday. The commission sent three inspectors to Monticello, about 50 miles northwest by road from Minneapolis near the Mississippi River, to witness “critical steps […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is headed out to the Xcel Energy’s Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, which the operator shut down on Saturday after water containing tritium leaked into the groundwater at the plant. “The amount of leakage is still being quantified,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a notice posted online Monday. “Monitoring of groundwater […]

With infusions of federal funding shifting industry’s focus to recapitalizing nuclear power plants from decommissioning them, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission plans next week to conduct more public comment about proposed revisions to the environmental paperwork associated with renewing reactor licenses. The NRC in March proposed changes to the generic environmental impact statement the agency conducts whenever a […]

With infusions of federal funding shifting industry’s focus to recapitalizing nuclear power plants from decommissioning them, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission plans next week to conduct more public comment about proposed revisions to the environmental paperwork associated with renewing reactor licenses. The NRC in March proposed changes to the generic environmental impact statement the agency conducts […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would wind up with close to a flat budget in 2024 if a request sent to Congress Monday becomes law. The independent federal civilian nuclear power regulator seeks some $979.2 million for fiscal year 2024, about $52 million million more than the roughly $927 million Congress approved for fiscal year 2023 […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would wind up with close to a flat budget in 2024 if a request sent to Congress Monday becomes law. The independent federal civilian nuclear power regulator seeks some $979.2 million for fiscal year 2024, about $52 million million more than the roughly $927 million Congress approved for fiscal year 2023 […]

In offering California’s last nuclear power plant a new lease on life, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sidestepped a legal argument from antinuclear activists who said the agency might be illegally extending the plant’s operating license. The NRC on Wednesday published a roughly five-page explanation in the Federal Register explaining the agency’s decision to conditionally let Pacific Gas […]

In offering California’s last nuclear power plant a new lease on life, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sidestepped a legal argument from antinuclear activists who said the agency might be illegally extending the plant’s operating license. The NRC on Wednesday published a roughly five-page explanation in the Federal Register explaining the agency’s decision to conditionally let […]

PHOENIX — It’s still unclear whether the final version of a proposed rule change aimed at streamlining nuclear power plant decommissioning  will require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to okay licensees’ plans for dismantling their sites, officials said here this week. NRC staff, who are currently putting together the agency’s final decommissioning rulemaking, “are looking at” […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow California’s last operating nuclear power plant to remain online after the facility’s federal license expires while the agency considers a 20-year extension, the commission said Thursday. The exemption, which NRC announced in a Thursday press release, allows Diablo Canyon Power Plant operator Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to ignore […]

California’s energy policy and planning agency said Tuesday that the Golden State should take action to keep its last operating nuclear power plant online through the end of the decade, according to a press release. The California Energy Commission’s (CEC) staff analysis of Diablo Canyon Power Plant, published Tuesday, recommended that Sacramento pursue keeping the […]

In a new rulemaking action this week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that it had is considering an extension on design certifications for a spent fuel storage cask design used at nuclear power plants, according to a Federal Register Notice. The 40-year Certificate of Compliance (CoC) renewal amends Holtec International’s cask design certification to include […]