Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

Senate Bill Funds Interim Storage, But Not Yucca Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/22/2015 While the Senate’s version of the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations bill this week included language that would enable interim storage at both a pilot plant and private facility, Sen. Tom Udall’s  (D-N.M.) public opposition to interim storage may […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/22/2015 AREVA TN has expanded its role in Waste Control Specialists’ pursuit of constructing an interim storage facility, the two companies announced this week. AREVA will serve as prime subcontractor for the project, providing the design, development, construction, operation and maintenance of the proposed consolidated storage facility, as well as […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/22/2015 House lawmakers and industry representatives agreed late last week that the Department of Energy is bound by the law to pursue Yucca Mountain as the nation’s repository for spent fuel, during a hearing in front of the House Environment and the Economy Subcommittee. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), one of […]

Mike Nartker RW Monitor 5/22/2015 Senate appropriators are looking to have the National Nuclear Security Administration come up with a plan to have new domestic sources of molybdenum-99 up and running in the next 18 months. In the report accompanying the Senate version of the FY 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, reported out of […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/22/2015 Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden will not sign off on the Department of Energy sending more spent nuclear fuel to the Idaho National Laboratory for research until DOE begins processing the remaining liquid waste at the site, a Wasden spokesman said this week. Controversy erupted earlier this year when […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/22/2015 Kurion has received a contract to design a water treatment system for the decommissioning of the Cimarron uranium fuel fabrication facility, located near Guthrie, Okla., the company announced this week. As part of the project, Kurion will leverage its Ion Specific Media technology to remove radioactive contaminants from groundwater, […]

Marks Improvement Over 2014 1Q Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/22/2015 International Isotopes reported a net loss of $171,548 for the first quarter of 2014, an improvement of approximately 62 percent compared to the $452,205 net loss in the same period of 2014, the company announced this week. International Isotopes attributed the decrease in net […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/22/2105 Congress should prioritize the disposal of defense waste before commercial waste, the Energy Community Alliance said in a letter late last week to House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders. The letter comes in response to Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz’s announcement earlier this year that the Department of Energy […]

RW Monitor 5/22/2015 IN CONGRESS The Senate’s Energy and Water Appropriations bill funds the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at $990 million, a decrease of $42 million from the NRC’s request amount. Because the NRC charges license fees, most of the money will be made back, resulting in net appropriation request of approximately $117 million. The budget […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/15/2015 The “time is now” to move forward on used nuclear fuel policy, Congressional lawmakers said this week in remarks at the Nuclear Energy Assembly conference in Washington, D.C. Members from both parties highlighted the issue as a major problem holding the nuclear industry from expanding in the future, but […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/15/2015 Despite an operating loss of $1.8 million for the first quarter of 2015, Perma-Fix Environmental Services expressed confidence late last week that it would obtain positive earnings for the full year. Perma-Fix Chairman and CEO Lou Centofanti warned last month that the company expected 2015 to experience some revenue […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/15/2015 A new round of sampling at the West Lake Landfill began this week as the Environmental Protection Agency Region Seven attempts to understand exactly where all the radiologically-impacted material at the site is located. According to the EPA, this effort is a continuation of the investigation performed in late […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/15/2015 Waste Control Specialists suffered an operating loss of $2.9 million in the first quarter of 2015, but WCS parent company Valhi Inc. expects the company to improve operating results for the rest of the year, the company announced late last week. Valhi blamed the operating loss on delayed disposal […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/15/2015 The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission late last week opened up to public comment its proposed rules update on importing and exporting waste,  initiating a 45 day public comment period before the Commission votes to finalize the rules. Should no action be taken by the public, the earliest […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/15/2015 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public comment on the draft environmental impact statement for SHINE Medical Technologies’ construction authorization permit application to build a molybdemun-99 production facility in Janesville, Wis., the NRC announced this week. The NRC found in its draft report that a construction permit could be […]

RW Monitor 5/15/2015 IN THE 2016 ELECTION Republican Presidential hopeful Marco Rubio voiced his support for opening Yucca Mountain, according to a report this week in the Greenville News. The Florida Senator was in South Carolina last weekend campaigning for the Republican nomination when local reporters asked him his thoughts on Yucca Mountain. Rubio reasoned […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/8/2015 The Joint Review Panel overseeing the environmental assessment of Ontario Power Generation’s planned deep geologic repository in Ontario has backed the safety and environmental case for the project, according to the environmental report submitted to Canada’s Minister of the Environment this week. The Panel recommended that with the proposed […]

Kenneth Fletcher RW Monitor 5/8/2015 Centrus Energy Corp. President and CEO Dan Poneman laid out a vision this week for the comeback of the uranium enrichment firm, emphasizing the need to be commercially successful in addition to fulfilling national security needs. Centrus, formerly known as USEC, has struggled to turn a profit in recent years. […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/8/2015 As EnergySolutions address issues in its Performance Assessment for the disposal of depleted uranium at its Clive, Utah facility, a new Utah activist group is advocating sending the material to Waste Control Specialists’ facility in Texas instead. Deadly Disposal, a group made up of private citizens, has launched an […]

The following interview with Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) was conducted April 29 by ExchangeMonitor Editor-in-Chief Mike Nartker. RW Monitor 5/8/2015 We’re right in the midst of appropriations season. As your subcommittee is working on its version of the FY 2016 energy and water bill, what are going to be […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/8/2015 NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes announced this week the successful first production-scale test run of molybdenum-99 from its system at the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) in Columbia, Mo. Following the test run at the reactor, NorthStar then shipped the material to its Madison, Wis., facility, another milestone for the […]

Kenneth Fletcher RW Monitor 5/8/2015 There is no evidence that former Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman broke any ethics rules while at the Department of Energy regarding his future post as CEO of uranium enrichment firm Centrus Energy Corp., DOE Deputy General Counsel Eric Fygi said in an April 30 letter to Sen. John Barrasso […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/8/2015 The United States will place $13.2 million into an environmental response trust that will pay for evaluations of 16 priority abandoned uranium mines located across Navajo lands, the Department of Justice announced late last week. Because the U.S. government could not identify responsible parties for these 16 sites, the […]

RW Monitor 5/8/2015 IN THE INDUSTRY AREVA TN announced this week that Exelon Nuclear awarded the company a contract to supply 30 additional NUHOMS HSM-H used fuel storage modules at the Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station in New York. According to the company, AREVA will construct the horizontal storage modules onsite to reduce the cost […]

Staff Reports RW Monitor 5/1/2015 The United States has an opportunity to start disposing of defense nuclear waste sooner and at less cost by abandoning a one-size-fits-all approach, said Mary Louise Wagner, senior adviser to the energy secretary, at a regional forum arranged by the Bipartisan Policy Center this week. But separate disposal of high-level […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/1/2015 Navajo Nation President Ben Shell called on the prompt completion of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license amendment that would enable the cleanup of the Church Rock uranium mine site near Gallup, N.M. to begin, according to a statement released late last week. The NRC staff issued last week in […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 5/1/2015 While the Eddy Lea Energy Alliance announced this week its intent to move forward with Holtec International to construct a spent nuclear fuel interim storage facility, backed by local and state officials in southeastern New Mexico, the state’s Senate delegation’s opposition to the project emerged as a remaining major […]