Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

Despite another burst of activity in Congress, it could be years or even decades more before the United States settles on a final strategy for disposal of its growing stockpile of nuclear waste, according to issue watchers. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are in 2019 again debating whether to restart the frozen licensing for the planned […]

A multi-bill appropriations package that includes fiscal year 2020 funding for interim spent nuclear-fuel storage — but not a permanent repository such as Yucca Mountain — is headed to the House floor on Wednesday. The package, or minibus, includes many spending bills for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1; it was not clear at […]

By John Stang The Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts was preparing to permanently shut down Friday, ahead of what its owner and prospective buyer hope will be a rapid decommissioning. “#FYI Tomorrow, Friday, May 31, control room operators at @PilgrimNuclear Power Station will shut down the reactor for the final time,” Entergy tweeted on […]

Duke Energy on Thursday said it had awarded a $540 million contract for expedited decommissioning of its retired Crystal River nuclear power plant in Florida. The Charlotte, N.C.-based power company now anticipates decontamination, disassembly, and teardown operations will wrap up by 2027, decades earlier than the prior projected end date of 2074. Pending state and […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants a subsidiary of nuclear services provider EnergySolutions to explain an apparent $15.2 million shortfall in the decommissioning trust fund for the Zion Nuclear Power Station in Illinois. ZionSolutions is the NRC licensee for the retired two-reactor facility while it carries out decommissioning for owner Exelon Generation Corp. In its […]

Staff at the California Coastal Commission are recommending approval of a permit needed for major decommissioning operations to begin at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County. However, approval by the commission’s voting members would be dependent on SONGS’ owners agreeing to nearly 20 special conditions, if the staff recommendations are […]

The Texas Legislature last week approved a bill that would delay by two years select charges and fees for operation of Waste Control Specialists’ (WCS) radioactive waste disposal facility. Two amendments from Rep. Alfonso Nevárez (D) were attached on May 22 to a state bill on domestic violence, which was passed in April by the […]

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) on Wednesday placed blame squarely on Democrats for the ongoing freeze in licensing and then building a nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev. “The project boasts support in Nye County, where Yucca Mountain is located. So why hasn’t it moved forward? Politics,” Barrasso wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. […]

A pair of contractors have started cleaning up a University of Washington building contaminated weeks ago by cesium-137, but there is no timetable for finishing the job or reoccupying the Seattle facility. The contractors are International Isotopes, of Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Chase Environmental, of Louisville, Ky. They are assisting the Washington state Department of Health, […]

The U.S. Senate is lining up a confirmation vote on the Trump administration’s nominee to lead the Energy Department’s Office of Nuclear Energy. Rita Baranwal’s confirmation as assistant energy secretary for nuclear energy was listed on the Senate’s executive calendar for Friday. “That at a time to be determined by the Majority Leader in consultation […]

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is among a growing list of presidential candidates voicing clear opposition to disposal of nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. “Trump is proposing to send our nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain,” Sanders tweeted on May 16. “That would be a disaster. We must stop building new nuclear power plants, and […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on May 17 announced it would collect $782.5 million in licensee fees for the current federal fiscal 2019 budget year, a slight bump up from the amount proposed earlier in the year. The final fee rule will take effect on July 16, according to a notice in the Federal Register. By […]

By John Stang The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave the green light Tuesday for resumption of loading used nuclear fuel into dry storage at the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California. The decision puts plant majority owner Southern California Edison (SCE) and fuel offloading contractor Holtec International on a direct path to […]

A new entrant into the U.S. medical isotope industry said Wednesday it has secured funding for construction of a 2-megawatt reactor facility for production of the medical isotope molybdenum-99. Albuquerque, N.M.-based Eden Radioisotopes plans in four years to begin production at the reactor and processing complex in the city of Hobbs, in southeastern New Mexico. […]

The House of Representatives Appropriations Committee on Tuesday passed federal funding legislation that would prohibit the Trump administration from transferring the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the Department of Energy. Appropriators did not discuss the White House proposal before voting 31-21 to send the fiscal […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday turned back an effort to resume licensing of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository as it approved legislation to fund the Department of Energy and other agencies for fiscal 2020. In the late minutes of a seven-hour markup of two appropriations bills, the Democrat-led panel voted 25-27 against approving […]

The Department of Energy is still waiting on action from Congress that would be necessary to carry out its legal requirement to dispose of the nation’s Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) low-level radioactive waste, a senior official said last week. The agency has largely been in a holding pattern since issuing a November 2017 report to Congress […]

By John Stang Holtec International’s founder and top executive lashed out earlier this month at a California citizens advisory panel that criticized its work at the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). President and CEO Kris Singh was responding to an April 8 memo by the three top members of the SONGS Community Engagement […]

The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled Tuesday to consider an energy and water funding bill that, for the first time in years, provides no money to resume federal licensing of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Instead, the legislation would offer an unspecified appropriation for initial interim storage operations for spent reactor fuel […]

The House Appropriations Committee appears ready to reject the Trump administration’s request to transfer a nuclear cleanup program from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the Department of Energy. In its spending legislation for fiscal 2020, released Tuesday, the panel’s energy and water development subcommittee proposed $155 million for the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial […]

International Isotopes on Wednesday confirmed its role in an accident two weeks ago that contaminated more than a dozen people with cesium-137 during the Department of Energy-funded removal of a blood-irradiation machine from a research facility at the University of Washington in Seattle. “[O]ur radiological services team was involved in a contamination event at an […]

By John Stang The majority of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission believes its updated nuclear power plant safety rules contain measure determined necessary to protect the public. Agency Chairman Kristine Svinicki offered the message in a May 3 letter to Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). She was responding to concerns the lawmakers raised in […]

By John Stang Perma-Fix Environmental Services has borrowed $2.5 million from one of its shareholders to be used for general working capital. The Atlanta-based nuclear services provider recorded the April 1 transaction in a May 9 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The unsecured loan is from shareholder Robert Ferguson, who is […]

A bipartisan duo on Tuesday reintroduced legislation in the House of Representatives intended to help the federal government finally build a nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev. The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2019 is a slightly updated version of legislation introduced in 2017 by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.). That bill advanced out […]

WASHINGTON — Plans for consolidated interim storage of spent fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors leave questions about the ultimate disposition of that radioactive material once a facility’s federal license expires, former Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said Monday. Speaking at a Capitol Hill event on nuclear decommissioning, Jaczko posited a scenario in which […]

By John Stang The proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada could conceivably end up receiving 150,000 metric tons of radioactive waste by the second half of this century, according to a Nevada state government analysis of a proposed U.S. Senate bill intended to advance the disposal project. The April 29 memo from […]