Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

RadWaste Monitor will not be published on Dec. 29 in observance of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Please look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Jan. 5, 2018.

Having just completed its $3.27 billion buyout of CH2M, Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering released new information Monday about its business going forward as a $15 billion engineering and infrastructure heavyweight. “Today, we are celebrating the creation of a new Jacobs,” Chairman and CEO Steve Demetriou said in a news release. In the release, Jacobs praised CH2M’s […]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has authorized Waste Control Specialists (WCS) to store radioactive waste from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory for an additional two years, to nearly the end of 2018. The decision is one of a long list of updates to the company’s state radioactive material license approved […]

A second round of state depositions has been scheduled for January on the proposed sale of the retired Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Depositions were previously held in October as the Vermont Public Utility Commission considers whether to authorize transfer of ownership of Vermont Yankee from power company Entergy to nuclear decommissioning specialist NorthStar Group […]

The House of Representatives is expected early in the new year to vote on legislation aimed at advancing the long-planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Multiple informed sources said the floor vote on Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) “Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act” could happen in the first couple months of 2018, possibly […]

The Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff have both formally affirmed their intention to participate in any renewed adjudication of DOE’s license application for the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The parties’ easily anticipated confirmations were included in responses submitted in recent weeks to an Oct. 27 request for information […]

The House Appropriations Committee this week unveiled a peculiar budget bill that would provide full-year fiscal 2018 appropriations for the Pentagon, but keep other federal agencies including the Department of Energy funded at prior-year levels through Jan. 19. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) introduced the bill Wednesday. The Department of Energy (DOE), like […]

The Port Hope Project in Ontario, Canada, has begun moving radioactively contaminated soil from a decades-old storage facility in the municipality into a new above-ground engineered mound for long-term disposal. The Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) completed the first cell of the new disposal facility in late November and began trucking in waste from the […]

Members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday it has been years since any U.S. company has expressed interest in developing commercial spent fuel reprocessing or recycling capabilities. “I think in 2009, the agency received some expressions of interest from potential developers of reprocessing capability in the United States,” NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki told members […]

Colorado-based CH2M on Friday officially became a wholly owned subsidiary of Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering, CH2M announced in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. More details about the merger will be disclosed Monday, CH2M said at press time. CH2M shareholders voted Wednesday to approve the buyout. The preliminary results of the special meeting […]

The state of Colorado is restricting disposal of technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) waste within its borders while it advances potential legislation to regulate the material. Under Colorado’s 1963 Radiation Control Act the state is prohibited from developing regulations for managing TENORM prior to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency taking the same action […]

The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository will stay on hold and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will escape a proposed budget cut until at least Dec. 22, under a short-term continuing resolution Congress approved on Thursday. At deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor, President Donald Trump was expected to sign the stopgap budget bill before midnight, when federal […]

The current and prospective owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant believe they can count on additional legal wins against the Department of Energy to help finance decommissioning of the shuttered facility. Power company Entergy and nuclear decommissioning specialist NorthStar Group Services also say they should not need a new Nuclear Regulatory Commission exemption […]

The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled on Dec. 14 to vote on the proposal for closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant within a decade. Owner Pacific Gas & Electric in 2016 joined a number of labor and environmental groups in issuing a joint proposal under which the San Luis Obispo County facility’s […]

Waste Control Specialists is still seeing interest from other potential buyers in the wake of its foiled merger with rival EnergySolutions, a company spokesman said last week. “People and entities are still looking at it and we anticipate there will be new ownership at some point,” WCS spokesman Chuck McDonald said by telephone on Dec. […]

There was no word this week on when the three nominees to fill out the Nuclear Regulatory Commission might get confirmation votes from the U.S. Senate. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Oct. 25 sent the Trump administration’s Sept. 5 nomination of sitting Commissioner Jeff Baran for a floor vote by the full […]

A lawmaker from New York state has introduced legislation aimed at easing the way for placing spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste into interim storage until a permanent repository is built. The “Removing Nuclear Waste from our Communities Act of 2017” is one of three bills filed in November by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) that […]

The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps in 2015 denied that the California Coastal Commission had the authority to issue a permit for oceanside storage of additional spent reactor fuel from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), a newly disclosed letter shows. In the Oct. 1, 2015, letter to commission environmental scientist Joseph Street, Navy […]

Thomas Gardiner While the U.S. government seeks a permanent home for tens of thousands of tons of spent nuclear reactor fuel, the waste can safely be stored at the power plants that generated it, the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said recently. “The NRC has concluded that storage of spent fuel at reactor sites […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is weighing a request from the Omaha Public Power District that would exempt the utility from certain emergency planning requirements for the recently retired Fort Calhoun nuclear plant in Nebraska. The Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) says now that Fort Calhoun is permanently shut down and defueled it poses less risk […]

Thomas Gardiner The U.S. Court of Federal Claims in November awarded utility Duke Energy $68.5 million in damages over the Department of Energy’s failure to remove spent nuclear fuel from some four nuclear power plants. The court ruling cites the Energy Department’s actions as a partial breach of contract with Duke subsidiaries Duke Energy Progress […]

Northwest Medical Isotopes (NWMI) could be just a few months away from securing approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a plant for production of the medical isotope molybdenum-99. “Ninety-nine percent of the work is done, so now you’re just going through the procedural process in getting it approved,” NWMI Chief Operating Officer […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said its rulemaking for nuclear power reactor decommissioning will address both physical and cyber security, along with six other operational areas. The list is included in the final regulatory basis for the rulemaking, posted Nov. 20 on the NRC website. The commission in December 2014 mandated the rulemaking, which is aimed […]

The U.S. Department of Energy has thrown its support behind limiting compliance to 1,000 years in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s update to its Part 61 rule on storage of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW). “DOE is fully supportive of moving to a single 1,000-year time of compliance and sees no unintended consequences,” according to comments submitted […]

Congress has received the Department of Energy’s report on options for disposal of Greater-Than-Class C and Class-C-Like Waste, setting the stage for legislative approval of the department’s preferred alternative to potentially divide the material between commercial sites and DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The Energy Department projects the United States will hold […]

Thomas Gardiner While southeastern New Mexico has been a hub for nuclear business, and its leaders eagerly pursue new opportunities, there is some pushback against advancing plans to build an interim nuclear waste storage facility in the region. “We have a rather long nuclear history in New Mexico, we have a nuclear cluster,” said John […]