Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

There has been no apparent movement by the Trump administration over the last year to fill vacant and expired terms on the federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB). The only change to the board in that time was the departure last May of another member, Linda Nozick, a civil and environmental engineering professor at […]

Engineering and construction giant AECOM has completed the $2.4 billion sale of its Management Service business to an affiliate of two New York investment firms. Sale of the subsidiary to American Securities LLC and Lindsay Goldberg LLC closed on Jan. 31, according to an AECOM press release Monday. The new company, called Amentum, is now […]

Comprehensive Decommissioning International (CDI) has secured the contract for decommissioning the retired Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, one of the company’s owners said Monday. The deal is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin stated in a press release. It was signed on Jan. 31, CDI spokesman Pat O’Brien said by […]

The Department of Energy and the state of Idaho on Tuesday sealed a deal that would allow some spent nuclear fuel to remain at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) past the deadline set under a 1995 agreement. The 25-year-old Settlement Agreement between the state, the Energy Department, and the Navy requires that all federally managed […]

By John Stang FirstEnergy Corp. plans to pay $225 million in cash this year to the creditors of soon-to-be-former subsidiary FirstEnergy Solutions. FirstEnergy Chief Financial Officer Steve Strah mentioned that cash payment in a Friday morning teleconference with analysts to discuss the Akron, Ohio-based corporation’s 2019 annual and fourth quarter financial picture. He did not […]

Canadian utility Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has formally terminated its plan to build a deep-underground nuclear waste disposal facility near Lake Huron after a First Nation group voted against the project. The company will now begin a new siting process that could last more than a decade and theoretically end with significant changes to the […]

By John Stang Arguing that a worst-case scenario could result in geysers of radioactive water erupting on the California coast, an advocacy organization filed a new petition Tuesday to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to stop the decommissioning of the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. (SONGS). SONGS majority owner Southern California Edison countered that the […]

The White House said late Thursday it would not seek any funding in its upcoming budget proposal for licensing a nuclear waste disposal facility under Yucca Mountain, Nev. The brief emailed statement from an administration official – “The President’s 2021 budget will not have funding for the licensing of Yucca Mountain in it” – came […]

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) in Canada said on Jan. 24 that just two communities, both in the province of Ontario, remain in contention to host an underground disposal facility for spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear power plants. The locations are the township of Ignace in northwest Ontario and the municipality of South […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The Trump administration does not plan to request any funding in fiscal 2021 for licensing the planned nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev., issue experts said at an industry conference here Tuesday. That would reverse the White House’s efforts in its last three budget proposals to persuade Congress to appropriate money […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is giving the state of South Carolina more time to submit new data and input on the license renewal of Westinghouse Electric’s Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility. The formal 30-day comment period on the federal agency’s draft environmental assessment for the renewal application ended on Nov. 27, 2019. On Jan. 13, the […]

Interactions between processed high-level radioactive waste and stainless-steel containers could undermine long-term safe geologic disposal of the material, researchers at Ohio State University said in a study published this week. “The corrosion that is accelerated by the interface interaction between dissimilar materials could profoundly impact the service life of the nuclear waste packages, which, therefore, […]

By John Stang The current and would-be owner of the infamous Three Mile Island reactor Unit 2 in Pennsylvania believe almost $300 million and 16 years can be trimmed from the prior decommissioning plan for the facility. In a package submitted Dec. 12, 2019, to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, GPU Nuclear and TMI-2 Solutions said decommissioning […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Energy Department’s Office of Nuclear Energy has begun a limited program to explore opportunities for recycling used nuclear fuel, a senior official said Tuesday. “We are starting a small effort to look at some of these options, but it’s early in development and there’s no clear outcome on where it’s going […]

International engineering and construction provider AECOM appears poised to complete the $2.4 billion sale of its government contracting division to a joint venture of two New York investment firms, a company official said Tuesday. Eric Knox, AECOM vice president for strategic development for nuclear and environment, cited the impending change during a panel discussion at […]

The Department of Energy should expand its use of underground research laboratories (URLs) for research on geologic disposal of nuclear waste, including establishing facilities in the United States, a federal panel of experts said in a report Tuesday. That would include establishing one or more underground research laboratories, potentially using existing underground facilities, according to […]

By John Stang US Ecology said Friday it agreed to a $50,000 federal fine for safety violations related to a Nov. 17, 2018, explosion in Idaho that killed one employee and injured eight others. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration had originally proposed a fine of $66,300 for five “serious” safety-related violations that led to […]

Legislation introduced Wednesday in the New Mexico Senate would update the responsibilities of the state’s Radioactive Waste Consultation Task Force to include oversight of commercial spent nuclear fuel storage. The task force was established in the 1978 state Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Act, largely to act as the New Mexico government’s negotiator for siting, licensing, […]

Decommissioning trust funds for 119 operational and retired nuclear power reactors in the United States together held $64.7 billion at the end of 2018, according to the latest update from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Two power providers initially failed to demonstrate “decommissioning funding assurance” for a handful of reactors, though those issues were all […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday formally rejected a petition from a California advocacy group to update federal regulations to require toughening of dry-cask storage of spent fuel at nuclear power plants. The agency said the regulatory infrastructure already in place obviates the need for the Hardened, Extended-Life, Local, Monitored Surface Storage (HELMS) approach […]

The White House on Jan. 6 nominated Nuclear Regulatory Commission member David Wright to a full five-year term, through June 30, 2025. The move came as no surprise – the Trump administration had stated in November it intended to reappoint Wright. Wright’s nomination was referred to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. As of […]

By John Stang Two California advocacy organizations pitched their cases this week to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission against on-site storage of all spent reactor fuel at the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). This was essentially both groups — Public Watchdogs and Oceansiders Against San Onofre Corruption— trying to persuade the federal regulator […]

New York state’s elected leaders are leaving no doubt that they have questions and concerns about the planned sale of the soon-to-close Indian Point Energy Center. As the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday began accepting requests for hearings on the federal license transfers needed for the deal to proceed, New York Attorney General Letitia […]

The Louisiana branch of power company Entergy last week filed another lawsuit seeking to recoup ongoing expenses for management of spent reactor fuel that the federal government is legally obligated to remove from the River Bend Station nuclear power plant. This is the third such lawsuit filed by Entergy Louisiana and its predecessor, Entergy Gulf […]

By John Stang A proposed settlement agreement contends that decommissioning of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California later this decade can be done for $900 million less than previously estimated. On Jan. 10, plant owner Pacific Gas & Electric Co., San Luis Obispo County, and five other entities filed a proposed settlement agreement […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week it has reduced the liability insurance requirements for both on-site and off-site damage at the retired Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts. The agency issued the regulatory exemptions to subsidiaries of plant owner Holtec International on Jan. 6, according to separate notices Monday and Tuesday in the […]

In a New Year’s boon for Belgium’s Institute for Radioelements, the U.S. Department of Energy has postponed by two years a ban on exporting U.S.-origin, weapon-usable uranium for the production of medical isotopes. “[C]urrent global supplies of Mo-99 [Molybdenum 99] produced without the use of HEU [highly enriched uranium] are not sufficient to meet U.S. […]