Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a July 12 meeting to discuss Exelon’s plans to close its Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear power plants in Illinois. “The purpose of this meeting is to afford Exelon, the licensee of Clinton Unit 1 and Quad Cities Units 1 and 2, an opportunity to discuss decommissioning plans and […]

The California State Lands Commission on Tuesday unanimously approved a lease update request from Pacific Gas & Electric as part of the utility’s plans to shut down the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. The staff-recommended update terminates two leases covering facility infrastructure on state lands that are due to expire in 2018 and 2019. They are […]

Waste Control Specialists has not provided sufficient information to enable the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to carry out a technical review of its license application to build an interim consolidated storage facility for spent nuclear fuel and reactor-related greater-than-Class C low-level waste, according to a senior NRC official. That was the finding of an acceptance assessment […]

Leadership at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant deliberately avoided disclosing the fact that three reactors had melted down at the Japanese facility during its March 2011 disaster, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said Tuesday. “It is extremely regrettable. People are justified in thinking it was a coverup,” TEPCO President Naomi Hirose said […]

Power provider Entergy made a major stride toward building a second independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station on June 17, after winning a certificate of public good from the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB). The board’s approval allows a 10-day window for stakeholders to file an appeal. Entergy […]

The Department of Energy is several years away from initiating a siting process for a defense-only repository, or disposal facility, for high-level nuclear waste, acting Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy John Kotek said Monday. Kotek, who is leading the department’s consent-based siting effort for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, appeared before the Nuclear […]

SHINE Medical Technologies, which plans by 2019 to open a medical radioisotope production facility in Janesville, Wis., said Tuesday it has reached a supply agreement with China’s largest distributor of radio-pharmaceuticals. SHINE will provide China’s HTA Co. Ltd. with molybdenum-99, a medical isotope that decays into technetium-99m, which is used in imaging procedures for cancer, […]

The premature closure of nuclear power plants is a detriment to U.S. climate change goals, former assistant energy secretary Susan Tierney said during a June 17 Democratic Party event in Phoenix. Tierney, who was set to become deputy energy secretary under President Barack Obama in 2009 before she withdrew her candidacy, appeared during a regional […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday denied two appeals from the state of Vermont, where officials have argued the federal agency wrongly approved emergency planning zone exemptions at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station without allowing state input. The NRC in December granted plant owner Entergy a license amendment and subsequent emergency planning exemptions, allowing Vermont […]

An article in the June 17 edition of RadWaste Monitor mischaracterized ownership of Areva SA and Areva New Co. The French state controls about 87 percent of Areva SA and is expected to control up to 67 percent of New Co. The article also wrongly attributed to Areva a cost overrun estimate for the construction […]

Diablo Canyon Power Plant Units 1 and 2 will shut down in 2024-25, when their operating licenses expire, operator Pacific Gas & Electric Co. announced Tuesday as the company shifts toward “greenhouse-gas-free resources.” Located about 12 miles southwest of San Luis Obispo, the Diablo Canyon nuclear units represent the last operating reactors in California. The […]

U.S. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed to implement five Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations for improving high-impact system controls, according to documents released Tuesday. High-impact systems are characterized as federal security systems that hold sensitive information, which if lost could cause “catastrophic harm” to individuals, the government, or the country, according to the documents. […]

Registration is open for the ExchangeMonitor’s newly revamped Global Environmental Management Forum & Showcase, formerly the Decisionmakers’ Forum. The event, scheduled for Nov. 1-3 at the Omni Shoreham in Washington, D.C., will offer decision makers in the nuclear industry an opportunity to discuss new markets and new technologies being developed to reduce nuclear dangers and […]

U.S. Advanced nuclear reactor work, light-water reactors, and the accident-tolerant fuel program are expected to be among the topics officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission discuss with Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy officials on June 20. Representatives from the two offices are set to meet at NRC headquarters. Bill Wicker, senior adviser for […]

The House Energy and Commerce Committee will not consider legislation that would transfer cleanup authority at the West Lake Landfill Superfund site in Missouri from the Environmental Protection Agency to the U.S. Army Corps’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), a committee aide told RadWaste Monitor on Monday. Residents near the Bridgeton, Mo., landfill have […]

In what many of the members described as the hardest decision of their tenures, the Omaha Public Power District’s (OPPD) Board of Directors unanimously agreed on Thursday to close the Fort Calhoun Station by December 2016. OPPD now faces a $1.2 billion decommissioning project at the Blair, Neb., nuclear power plant, which began operating in 1973. […]

An environmental group is asking the Vermont Public Service Board (PSB) to reconsider its denial of new evidence in reviewing Entergy’s plans to build an independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) at the closed Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. Entergy plans to transfer nearly 3,000 spent fuel assemblies into 45 dry casks by the end of 2020, […]

New York state Sen. Patty Ritchie (R) is trying to force power provider Entergy to sell its James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant to the state, the latest attempt to keep the Oswego County facility alive and save the jobs of more than 600 workers. Ritchie, who has championed zero-emission credits in the name of […]

Energy company Exelon said this week it will close its Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station Unit 1 and its single-reactor Ginna Nuclear Power Plant if New York state officials don’t approve nuclear incentives under the Clean Energy Standard (CES) by September. Gov. Andrew Cuomo in December directed the Public Service Department to create the […]

The Department of Energy has failed to secure another location for its proposed deep borehole field test, this time in South Dakota, where the Spink County Commission on June 10 sent a letter to lead contractor Battelle Memorial Institute opposing the $35 million nuclear waste storage experiment. This comes after the Pierce County Commission in March similarly thwarted […]

AREVA is selling its nuclear reactor manufacturing unit as it shifts its focus to nuclear fuel cycle services in forming a new spinoff called New Co, the French company announced Wednesday. The mass restructuring is expected to raise at least 5 billion euros for the company through government investment and asset sales, according to spokeswoman […]

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) doesn’t anticipate a resurrection of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada after he leaves office in January, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I can’t imagine Yucca Mountain’s going to come back,” Reid said Tuesday during a meeting with the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce […]

The Seabrook Station nuclear power plant in New Hampshire is “degraded but operable,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week in response to Massachusetts lawmakers’ continued calls to close the 26-year-old facility. State Sen. Kathleen O’Connor Ives (D), who first brought the issue up in 2013, and state Sen. Daniel Wolf (D) joined state Reps. […]

Cotter Corp. will pay the Environmental Protection Agency about $1 million for past and future contamination analysis at the company’s uranium mill at the Lincoln Park Superfund site, near Cañon City, Colo., according to an agreement EPA announced Wednesday. The agreement dictates that the uranium production company pay for EPA oversight costs incurred from 2012 to 2014, […]

Australia’s Greens political party wants to cancel resources minister Josh Frydenberg’s plan that has identified farmland in South Australia as the location for the country’s first permanent storage site for low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste, and instead maintain storage operations just outside of Sydney, allowing for an independent investigation into storage options. The Greens’ nuclear […]

Attorneys general in four northeastern states are weighing options after a defeat in federal court last week, in which the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied their request to vacate a Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule allowing indefinite storage of nuclear waste at American power plants. The court on June 3 rejected a petition from Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, […]

Southern California ratepayers are paying about $500 million less in premature shutdown costs at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) than the plant’s majority owner, Southern California Edison, had sought  in a settlement agreement, according to the company’s latest filing with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). CPUC announced in April the reopening of the […]