Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

Sen. Dean Heller’s (R-Nev.) Las Vegas office was burglarized Sunday morning, the Las Vegas Sun newspaper reported. An aide to Heller confirmed the apparent break-in but declined to comment further about the ongoing investigation by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The Sun, citing a source, said the burglar or burglars might have left a […]

The University of Arkansas hopes Congress will soon come through with the last $10.1 million needed to complete cleanup of the long-disused Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) facility. The university aims in October to begin the third and final phase of the nearly decade-long remediation program, which would involve removing the plant reactor and […]

The U.S. Transportation Department would receive the $3 million it requested for fiscal 2018 to continue storing a retired nuclear-powered freighter in Baltimore Harbor as part of a $56.5-billion Transportation, Housing and Urban Development spending bill the House Appropriations Committee approved Monday. The merchant ship NS Savannah, now moored at Canton Marine Terminal’s Pier 13, was launched in […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission as of Wednesday had not received word on whether Waste Control Specialists intends to move ahead with its suspended application for a spent nuclear fuel storage site in the wake of the company’s foiled merger with rival EnergySolutions. “We have not heard of any change from WCS,” NRC spokesman David McIntyre […]

By Wayne Barber The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday easily passed a fiscal 2018 energy and water spending bill that includes a $25 million cut to the budget request for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The nuclear industry regulator requested $952 million for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, encompassing all salaries and expenses and funding […]

The Energy Department would get no money to turn Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., into a permanent nuclear-waste disposal site under a roughly $30-billion agency budget the Senate Appropriations Committee approved Thursday. The committee signaled its intention in draft legislation that leaked earlier in the week before appropriators released the language of their bill and […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a “white” safety finding to the Columbia Generating Station in Washington state after completing an evaluation of a waste shipping incident to US Ecology on leased land at the Hanford Site. Energy Northwest, operator of the nuclear power plant near the city of Richland, was notified of the decision on […]

NorthStar Group Services is filling out its team for decommissioning of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, even as it faces continued questions about its capacity to carry off the project. The New York City-based decommissioning specialist hopes by the first quarter of 2018 to secure state and federal regulatory approval to acquire the plant that […]

The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday advanced a $37.6 billion energy and water funding bill that would give the Nuclear Regulatory Commission slightly more money than it requested for fiscal 2018. The appropriations legislation passed on a voice vote following a markup session that featured no discussion of the nuclear industry regulator. The full House […]

By Wayne Barber The Environmental Protection Agency continues to believe that people living and working near the West Lake Landfill Superfund Site in Missouri are not being exposed to radiological contaminant levels that pose health concerns. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported this week that a stormwater sample, collected April 30 following a period of heavy […]

By Wayne Barber The Trump administration’s remaining two nominees to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were approved Wednesday, with significant Democratic resistance, by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. David Wright, an energy consultant and former head of the South Carolina Public Service Commission and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, squeaked by […]

The federal judge who blocked the merger of EnergySolutions and Waste Control Specialists accepted the U.S. government’s argument that the deal would drastically reduce competition in the market for disposal of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW), according to the court’s newly released opinion. Judge Sue L. Robinson, of U.S. District Court for Delaware, issued the order […]

By Wayne Barber Computer systems used in management of spent fuel at U.S. nuclear power plants are not connected to the Internet or business networks, a key line of defense against cyber threats, representatives for industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week. Nonetheless, a U.S. senator is seeking information from the NRC and […]

Lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee this week approved a fiscal 2018 energy budget that “fully supports” the Department of Energy’s plan to create a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada — though in a slightly different way than the White House imagined. “The Committee fully supports the Administration’s position to move forward […]

Adams Natural Resources Consulting Services of Carson City, Nev., will aid Nevada’s legal efforts to oppose the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository for another year, under a contract modification approved Wednesday. Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt, Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) and Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske approved the extension during a state Board of […]

By Wayne Barber The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not impose fines against U.S. uranium producer Cameco Resources for nine violations of federal regulations identified in the agency’s November 2016 inspection of the company’s radioactive waste transportation program. The regulator determined after the inspection that Cameco had committed five Severity Level III violations, along with four […]

Stephen Kadenacy on June 30 formally ended his nearly two-year tenure as president and chief operating officer of global engineering firm AECOM, one of the major contractors at Department of Energy nuclear sites around the country. Kadenacy has been with AECOM for nearly a decade, starting as senior vice president for finance in 2008 and […]

Montreal-based global engineering company SNC-Lavalin as of Monday is the new owner of British engineering and project manager provider WS Atkins, an increasingly significant player in cleanup of the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear complex. The $3.6 billion (CAN) deal brings the 18,000-employee Atkins, and its $3.5 billion (CAN) in annual revenue, under the SNC-Lavalin […]

The state of Texas’ lawsuit demanding that the U.S. government end the years-old impasse on permanent storage of the nation’s nuclear waste has already been overtaken by events under the Trump administration, federal attorneys argued in new filings. For that and other reasons, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals should reject the state’s lawsuit, according […]

By Wayne Barber In keeping with a 2013 federal court order, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has now spent most of its unobligated Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF) money on efforts related to licensing the Energy Department’s planned geologic repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The NRC recently reported to Congress that of the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a regulatory conference for Thursday, July 13, to discuss a preliminary “Greater than Green” safety finding at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts. Plant operator Entergy requested the meeting to provide its perspective on the finding, which involves its apparent failure to monitor or maintain a valve installed in […]

By Wayne Barber The two largest utility owners of the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California this week said they should not be required to stop collecting ratepayer revenue in the contested 2014 settlement for the plant’s early closure. Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) both filed […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission must bill $805.9 million to its licensees for operations in the current fiscal year, the large majority of its annual budget. The nuclear-industry regulator has a total budget authority of $940.1 million for fiscal 2017, under the omnibus appropriations budget signed into law on May 5, according to the NRC’s final […]

Policy-makers across the political spectrum must shoulder the blame for failure to establish a permanent solution to the United States’ nuclear waste quandary, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Tuesday. “This is a failing of both Republicans, Democrats, Independents, all lumped together, that nuclear waste has set idle in 120 sites in 39 states for decades, […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday issued a notice of violation against the owner of the shuttered Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station for a onetime employee’s repeated failure to check radiation detection systems. The NRC’s Office of Investigations found that a senior radiation protection technician, who is no longer working at the Entergy plant, from […]

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved legislation that would allow the Energy Department to contract for interim storage of spent nuclear reactor fuel even as it waits on a ruling on a permanent repository. The amended version of the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 reverses language in the draft […]

By Wayne Barber Dominion Energy and contractor NAC International have finished moving spent fuel at the retired Kewaunee Power Station in Wisconsin into dry storage, the utility announced last week. That included transporting nearly 900 fuel assemblies this year alone from the spent fuel pool to the nuclear power plant’s dry-cask storage pad, a Dominion […]