Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

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. […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is requesting additional information from the owner of the Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant to better address concrete degradation issues that have plagued the New Hampshire facility’s foundation and vertical structures. NextEra Energy Resources has submitted a license amendment request for Seabrook Unit 1 that would revise the plant’s updated final […]

U.S. The Energy Department has released a draft report for public comment concerning its consent-based siting process for nuclear waste storage. From December 2015 to July, DOE garnered more than 11,000 public comments on its consent-based siting process, which is the Obama administration’s strategy for managing spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste. The draft report, […]

SHINE Medical Technologies announced Wednesday that its headquarters will later this year be relocated from Monona, Wis., to Janesville, Wis., where the company is preparing to build a medical radioisotope production facility. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February approved SHINE’s construction permit to build the its $100 million plant. The company is vying to become the first […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should uphold all emergency preparedness and response requirements at shuttered nuclear power plants until spent fuel is moved into dry storage, a host of lawmakers suggested in a recent letter to the agency. The NRC’s issuing of safety exemptions has drawn criticism from lawmakers and residents near closed nuclear power plants. […]

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has not adequately guarded against the appearance of improper relationships, State Auditor Elaine Howle concluded in a report released Thursday, recommending that CPUC members stop accepting gifts from utilities and parties with financial interest in commission proceedings. The CPUC is under criminal investigation for its role in a $4.7 billion […]

The cost to decommission Soviet-designed, first-generation nuclear reactors in Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia could total up to 11.4 billion euros ($12.7 billion), according to a report issued Tuesday by the European Court of Auditors. Additionally, financing is not keeping up with the rising costs. The gap between decommissioning costs and financing is now €1.56 billion […]

Even with U.S. use of molybdenum-99 dropping in recent years, the nation faces a possible shortage of the crucial medical radioisotope when Canada’s National Research Universal reactor halts regular production next month, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report also found that global efforts to minimize and ultimately […]

Congress adjourned for the week without passing a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government funded at 2016 levels until Dec. 9, leaving lawmakers only another week to put finishing touches on the bill or risk another government shutdown. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) began the week with hopes that the upper chamber by […]

A South Carolina-based venture capitalist backed by a board specializing in nuclear energy intends to submit an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build and operate an interim spent nuclear fuel storage and reprocessing facility in the Palmetto State. Mike Stake – owner of personal concierge and handyman service Everything at Stake and chairman […]

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. […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday it is accepting comments through Oct. 17 regarding the proposed transfer of the operating license for the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in New York from power company Entergy to anticipated new owner Exelon. Interested parties also have until Oct. 5 to request a hearing or petition to […]

An article in the Sept. 9 edition of RadWaste Monitor incorrectly stated that Exelon is a potentially responsible party at the West Lake Landfill. The article also incorrectly stated that B&K Construction illegally dumped materials at the site.

In its continued effort to apply lessons learned from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has awarded a research contract worth up to $2.2 million for two groups to analyze severe disasters at nuclear power plants. At Fukushima, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggered a 15-meter tsunami, cutting the plant’s power […]

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission rulemaking intended to streamline the agency’s decommissioning processes remains on schedule, an NRC official said last week. Reactor Decommissioning Branch Chief Bruce Watson, who appeared at the ExchangeMonitor’s 2016 RadWaste Summit in Las Vegas, said the NRC will look to issue a final rule in 2019. The next milestone is scheduled […]

Waste Control Specialists said Friday it has hired a new executive to manage its license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for development and operation of a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Mike Ford’s title will be vice president of licensing and corporate compliance. He replaces Scott Kirk, WCS’ former vice president […]

U.S. The Nuclear Regulatory Commision has scheduled a meeting for next week as part of its efforts to collect comments on the license termination program and partial site release for the shuttered La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor power plant in Wisconsin. “The license termination plan provides site radiological information, the planned demolition and decommissioning tasks, […]