Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

Environmentalists suing the North Dakota Health Council over rules it improperly adopted in 2015, which boosted landfill radiation-level allowances, have asked the court for attorney’s fees and $1,000 in damages. The nongovernmental Dakota Resource Council and North Dakota Energy Industry Waste Coalition sued the council in an attempt to vacate the rules, which were first […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday accepted NextEra Energy Resources’ license amendment request as the company addresses concrete degradation issues, known as alkali-silica reaction (ASR), that have long plagued the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire. The NRC can now conduct a detailed technical review of the application. Agency spokesman Neil Sheehan stated by email […]

A watchdog group fired back at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s staff on Tuesday, saying it would be wrong for the regulator to deny a hearing over potentially relaxing post-Fukushima safety rules at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts. NRC’s staff last week recommended the commission deny Pilgrim Watch and seven other petitioners’ request for […]

A location near Nara Visa, N.M., is in the running with a handful of other sites for the Energy Department’s deep borehole nuclear waste storage field test. A group led by Georgia-based Enercon Federal Services, Inc. and DOSECC Exploration Services presented plans this week for a potential test site in Quay County, N.M., about 300 […]

Consumer rights group Public Citizen is asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reject Entergy’s application to sell its James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant to fellow power provider Exelon, arguing that the utilities failed to address the impact the $110 million deal would have on New York state’s power market. If the deal […]

A venture capitalist behind new plans for interim spent nuclear fuel storage and reprocessing in South Carolina said Wednesday he is reaching out to state utilities to further develop the concept. Mike Stake, who is leading the Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Group, plans to reprocess spent fuel from the state’s nuclear reactors at a facility […]

The United Kingdom’s Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) as of Wednesday has complied with a 2015 regulatory demand that it improve management of higher-active radioactive waste at its Aldermaston site in Berkshire. The U.K. Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) issued the improvement notice in July 2015 because the Defense Ministry contractor had not met the terms […]

Progress must be made on both Yucca Mountain licensing and consolidated interim storage in order for the U.S. to reach a permanent solution for nuclear waste management and disposal, incoming Nuclear Energy Institute President and CEO Maria Korsnick said Friday. “I do believe it (all) needs to move together,” Korsnick said at a media briefing. “We have […]

U.S. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Inspector General’s Office said in a new report the agency has an opportunity to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) oversight program through centralizing regulatory guidance documents. Guidance documents aid NRC licensees and applicants in implementing specific regulations, NRC staff techniques for evaluating specific problems […]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Nuclear industry representatives voiced concerns Monday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 2019 decommissioning rulemaking could force unnecessary burdens on current facility decommissioning projects. Southern California Edison (SCE) has received everything it needs from NRC’s exemption process to proceed with decommissioning of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, but the company will require […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has identified a “white” inspection finding, or low to moderate safety issue, concerning an emergency cooling system at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California. The agency detailed the Sept. 12 finding in a letter to operator Pacific Gas & Electric on Monday. Located about 12 miles southwest of San Luis […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering action against Waste Control Specialists for an apparent license violation in 2014 in which the company improperly moved some 70 waste box containers of transuranic waste between two facilities at its storage complex in Andrews, Texas. According to NRC documents, WCS moved the containers from a storage pad outside […]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Entergy is moving forward with decommissioning paperwork for its James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant, despite the tentative $110 million sale of the facility to Exelon, a senior executive said Monday. “We submitted all the regulatory submittals that we need for the early items that you need for decommissioning: post-shutdown plan, the […]

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A Holtec International executive said Monday that the company is reviewing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s communication with Waste Control Specialists to make sure Holtec’s eventual application to operate a consolidated interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility in New Mexico does not lack the additional information WCS is now relaying to the regulator. […]

U.S. The Nuclear Energy Institute on Tuesday announced the selection of Chief Operating Officer Maria Korsnick as the industry lobbyist’s next president and chief executive officer. Korsnick will take over for Marvin Fertel upon his retirement on Dec. 31 of this year. Fertel has led NEI for nine years. “Maria is well known throughout the […]

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump skirted questions on the canceled plans for a nuclear waste repository Yucca Mountain in Nevada during an interview with local television station KSNV this week, saying he’s going to “take a very strong look at it.” Trump was asked why Nevada should have to store nuclear waste at a repository planned about […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff on Monday recommended the agency deny a watchdog group’s call for a public hearing on Entergy’s request to forgo certain NRC Fukushima lessons learned program requirements at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. The utility is asking the agency to relax requirements for installing a hardened containment venting system (HCVS) at the Massachusetts […]

U.S. Holtec International said last week its HI-STAR ATB-1T cask design for nuclear waste transport successfully passed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 30-foot “free drop” test. According to Holtec, the HI-STAR ATB-1T is the first “large, rectangular” cask for high-level waste to pass the test without any breach of containment boundary. The tests require that casks […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to make a decision late this winter on whether to exempt the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station from certain Fukushima program initiatives, NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said this week. In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, the NRC implemented its Fukushima Lessons Learned program, an initiative meant […]

Conservation groups are speaking out against a venture capitalist’s plan to build and operate an interim spent nuclear fuel storage and reprocessing facility in South Carolina. Savannah River Site Watch, the South Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club, and the League of Women Voters of South Carolina issued a press release Tuesday ripping Mike Stake’s plan […]

President Barack Obama on Thursday signed a stopgap budget bill that freezes federal spending at fiscal 2016 levels and leaves the Energy Department with an annualized budget of $29.5 billion through Dec. 9. Under the continuing resolution for fiscal 2017, which Congress approved Wednesday after weeks of partisan bickering unrelated to nuclear programs, DOE’s program […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs to establish clear and consistent expectations for staff when completing its significance determination process (SDP) for nuclear reactors, the agency’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) recommended in a report released Monday. The NRC uses SDP in determining the significance of safety or security concerns identified during inspections at nuclear power […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s third and final increased oversight inspection at Entergy’s downgraded Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station is tentatively set to begin Nov. 28, NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Wednesday. The agency in September 2015 moved the 44-year-old Massachusetts facility to column 4 of its Action Matrix, the lowest safety rating a plant can have while […]

Power provider Entergy estimates it will need to withdraw about $5 million from the shuttered Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant’s $581 million decommissioning trust fund to cover September expenses, Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents show. Entergy spokesman Marty Cohn said Wednesday by telephone the estimate is part of an ongoing dialogue with the regulator. Each month Entergy […]

Congress should create a new agency, separate from the Department of Energy, to manage American nuclear waste, the Bipartisan Policy Center recommended in a report released Tuesday. “The failures of the past decades are widely acknowledged and have been extensively documented,” former U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), co-chair of the think tank’s Nuclear Waste Council, […]

Entergy’s Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station returned to full power early Monday morning, after a nearly two-week shutdown brought on by excessive water levels in the plant’s reactor vessel. The Massachusetts facility, which is scheduled for closure by 2019, was reconnected to the electrical grid Saturday and returned to 100 percent power at about 3 a.m. […]