Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has rescheduled for next week its confirmation hearing on Jeff Baran’s reappointment to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Baran will now appear before the committee at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, alongside four nominees for assistant administrator positions at the Environmental Protection […]

The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) on Friday said it had filed an official notice of termination for the Cavendish Fluor Partnership’s contract to decommission the nation’s 12 Magnox reactor sites. The contract will now end on Aug. 31, 2019, nine years earlier than planned when it was awarded in 2014. Cavendish Fluor will […]

The Energy Department said Tuesday that it had awarded a $19.3 million task order to Waste Control Specialists for continued storage in West Texas of transuranic and Greater-Than-Class-C waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The Dallas-based waste storage specialist said the agreement includes research into ultimate disposal of the waste at […]

Lawmakers are piling on to co-sponsor a House bill that would smooth the way to open Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., as a permanent nuclear waste repository. This week alone, 32 additional representatives associated themselves with Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 (H.R.3053): a 45-page bill officially introduced in the […]

A subcommittee of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards met Thursday to discuss the licensing progress for Northwest Medical Isotopes’ (NWMI) planned production facility. Northwest is one of several U.S. companies aiming to provide a domestic supply of molybdenum-99, which decays into technetium-99m, an isotope used in a variety of forms in […]

The Vermont Public Service Department has scheduled a number of depositions as part of the state’s ongoing review of the sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. The sale of the shuttered facility from power company Entergy to NorthStar Group Services for decommissioning requires approval both from the Vermont Public Utility Commission and the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has requested additional information from the Department of Energy regarding its request for a two decade-year extension to the license for storage of waste from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory. The Energy Department currently has NRC authorization to hold waste from the Pennsylvania plant’s […]

Officials from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce are headed to Washington, D.C., next week to visit with Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.): architect of a bill that would help clear the way for the federal government to turn Yucca Mountain in Nevada into a permanent storage facility for nuclear waste. The Las Vegas Chamber — like […]

Thomas Gardiner The majority owner of the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California this fall plans official outreach to the potential new off-site home for its used reactor fuel, according to a senior executive. Late last month, Southern California Edison (SCE) announced the settlement of a lawsuit challenging its current plan to […]

Thomas Gardiner An amendment to a U.S. House spending bill passed last week added another layer of open opposition to plans for an underground nuclear waste repository across the border near Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada. The House on Sept. 14 approved government-wide appropriations legislation for fiscal 2018. Included in that bill was an amendment […]

Holtec International is committed to its plan to build and operate an interim storage facility for used nuclear fuel in New Mexico, no matter what route Congress eventually selects for managing the nation’s nuclear waste, according to the chairman of the organization partnering on the project. “If there is not a bill passed, Holtec and […]

The Energy Department’s Environmental Management Field Office at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is studying potential strategies for dealing with combustible radioactive waste held at a private facility in West Texas. Between 300 and 400 drums of waste from Los Alamos have been kept at Waste Control Specialists storage complex in Andrews […]

Perma-Fix Environmental Services President and CEO Lou Centofanti on Monday formally stepped down from the top spot he has held for more than two decades, replaced by the company’s chief operating officer. Centofanti founded the Atlanta-based nuclear services and waste management provider in 1991, and served two extended stints as president and chief executive officer: […]

When ENERCON Federal Services last year became one of four teams bidding to dig a 16,000-foot deep borehole as a test for a potential means of radioactive waste disposal, Outreach Manager Francis “Chip” Cameron thought of it as a mere research effort. “We made the mistake of walking into this, thinking it was going to […]

By Thomas Gardiner Two Florida nuclear power plants shut down at least parts of their operations this week as Hurricane Irma approached and then tore through the state, but are once again operational. Florida Power and Light (FPL), which operates both plants, said public safety is a top priority. Both reactor units at the Turkey […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued five “substantive revisions” to the draft final rule revising the federal regulation on disposal of low-level radioactive waste. The updated rule will be published as a supplemental proposed rule for 90 days of public comment, according to a Sept. 8 memo from Annette Vietti-Cook, secretary of the commission, to […]

Nevada on Tuesday extended a contract with a Texas-based law firm to continue fighting the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository for another six months at a cost of roughly $1 million. Extending the contract of Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch & Lawrence, which also has an office in Washington, D.C., was one of many business items considered […]

The primary obstacle to opening Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a nuclear waste-disposal site could be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the House’s top Energy Department appropriator said Thursday. “[I]n the Senate they have a two-vote Republican majority,” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said during the Energy Department-sponsored National Cleanup Workshop in Alexandria, Va. “One of […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has formally closed an August 2016 confirmatory action letter to Cameco Resources — indicating the U.S. uranium producer has met the agency’s expectations in addressing problems with its radioactive waste transport procedures. The NRC opened an investigation of Cameco Resources last year following the discovery that an intermodal container of barium sulfate sludge […]

By Thomas Gardiner The Nuclear Regulatory Commission member called “relatively unknown outside Capitol Hill” when he was confirmed for the post in 2014 was nominated Tuesday by the White House for another term. Jeff Baran joined the commission on Oct. 14, 2014, for a term that ends June 30, 2018. If approved by the Senate, […]

New York City has agreed to reimburse the Environmental Protection Agency $659,037 in response costs for the radioactively contaminated Wolff-Alport Superfund Site in Queens. The city owns part of the site, which encompasses the former property of the Wolff-Alport Chemical Co. and businesses, sidewalks, streets, and sewers in the surrounding area. The company, over a […]

SUMMERLIN, Nev. — Disposal of spent fuel is crucial to the domestic nuclear industry and will be among the Trump administration’s priorities in this sector, acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy Edward McGinnis said Tuesday. “The back end is a key pillar of our nuclear sector,” McGinnis said in the opening plenary to the […]

SUMMERLIN, Nev. — The state of Nevada plans to submit 30 to 50 new contentions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission against building a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, the state’s point man on the project said Wednesday. Should the NRC ultimately approve a license for construction of the underground storage site, state lawsuits […]

Workers have cut three of six planned holes in the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo, a nuclear waste storage facility at the United Kingdom’s Sellafield site, the U.K. National Decommissioning Authority announced Tuesday. The holes will be the means by which the waste material will be extracted from the silo on its way to permanent disposal. […]

The drive to restart the Energy Department’s application to license Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., as a permanent nuclear-waste repository has stalled at least for another three months under a stopgap budget bill expected to become law soon. Both chambers of Congress by Friday had approved a continuing resolution that funds the federal government for […]

Power company Entergy has notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its plan to withdraw up to $4.5 million from the trust fund for decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. The disbursement from Bank of New York Mellon would occur 30 days after the date of the Aug. 15 letter from Entergy, which was posted […]