Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/21/2014 Two environmental activist groups in the state of Ohio filed a lawsuit this week against Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for the alleged illegal approval of at least 23 fracking waste handling, storage, processing and recycling facilities. The groups, the Fresh Water […]

RW Monitor 11/21/2014 IN THE NRC The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Staff has recommended the Commission approve the exemptions requests for reduced emergency preparedness and security at Duke Energy’s Crystal River Nuclear Plant, according to a Staff paper released this week. Citing the decreased risk of a shutdown reactor in comparison to an operating one, the […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/14/2014 AUSTIN, Texas—The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission needs to fill “some gaps of knowledge” in its rule update before bringing the drafts up for a vote, Commission Rules Committee Chair Linda Morris said at a public meeting held here this week. The Commission hopes to have a working […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/14/2014 Republican House lawmakers this week called on Democrats to resume funding for the Yucca Mountain project and make progress on solving the nation’s nuclear waste problem. Although the Obama Administration shuttered the project in 2010, deeming it “unworkable,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s release of the Volume Three Safety Evaluation […]

Kenneth Fletcher RW Monitor 11/14/2014 The reorganization of USEC into Centrus Energy has been a boost for the company, with Centrus reporting this week a net income of about $419 million for the third quarter of 2014 compared to a net loss of $44.3 million the same quarter last year. The company’s costs have dropped […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/14/2014 The National Nuclear Security Administration will add an additional $8 million to its cost-sharing agreement with two companies trying to establish a domestic supply of the medical isotope molybdenum-99, the agency announced late this week. The NNSA entered into a cost-sharing agreement with the two companies, NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/14/2014 A robust third quarter from Waste Control Specialists helped alleviate some of the operating loss experienced in the first half of the year, Valhi Inc., parent company of WCS, announced in its third quarter earnings report late last week. The company reported $6.9 million in operating income for the […]

Kenneth Fletcher RW Monitor 11/14/2014 While Honeywell restarted operations at its Metropolis uranium conversion facility this week after a recent release of uranium hexafluoride, the company’s initial response to the event has been questioned and the plant remains embroiled in a dispute with the United Steelworkers labor union. The Oct. 26 leak originated at a […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/14/2014 Entergy and the state of Vermont are at odds over Vermont Yankee’s emergency preparedness plan, especially the shutdown of the emergency response data system (ERDS), but a resolution arbitrated by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will not occur until December, Board Chairman E. Roy Hawkens […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/7/2014 While Perma-Fix Environmental Services has experienced a string of poor quarterly performances dating back to last year, the company is on “an uphill ride” following its profitable third quarter results, Perma-Fix CEO Lou Centofanti said this week during the company’s third quarter earnings call. Perma-Fix reported an operating income […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/7/2014 The Army Corps of Engineers Buffalo District issued a solicitation this week for remediation services at its Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program site in Luckey, Ohio. The contract for environmental remediation services and ancillary construction to support the cleanup is worth up to $100 million over 10 years, […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/7/2014 U.S. Ecology announced better than expected third quarter financial results this week, with positive net income and operating income. During the third quarter, the company’s net income was $13.3 million, up from $10.3 million earned in the same period in 2013. Operating income was $26.8 million, up from $15.5 […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/7/2014 The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management late last week issued a draft Request for Proposal for new contracts to provide low-level waste and mixed-low level waste treatment services. The current set of Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity-type contracts for waste treatment services ends in June 2015. DOE intends to […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/7/2014 Natural Resources Canada has extended the deadline for submittals to the Request for Response Evaluation on the government’s procurement to manage Atomic Energy of Canada Limited’s nuclear laboratories, the agency said last week. The deadline of Sept. 9, an extension from the previous Aug. 6 deadline, and the Oct. […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/7/2014 A lack of an Environmental Impact Statement for the Army Corps of Engineers’ decommissioning of the Sturgis barge in Galveston, Texas, has the local city council up-in-arms over the Corps’ handling of the project. The Corps issued a contract to CB&I Federal Services earlier this year for the dismantlement […]

TEPCO Making Progress on Water Contamination Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/7/2014 The Tokyo Electric Power Company this week completed the transfer of spent fuel assemblies from the Fukushima Daii-chi Unit 4 spent fuel pool.  In what TEPCO deemed “a sold step forward” in decommissioning the plant, the company moved 1,331 fuel assemblies to a […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 11/7/2014 While EnergySolutions had asked for a two-month extension back in September before the public comment period began on Utah’s review of the company’s performance assessment for the disposal of depleted uranium at its Clive, Utah, disposal site, it appears that public comment period will not begin until the new […]

RW Monitor 11/7/2014 IN THE NRC Stephen Burns was officially sworn in as a new member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week. Burns previously worked at the NRC for more than 30 years, rising to General Counsel under then-Chairman Gregory Jaczko, but left in 2012 for a position with the Nuclear Energy Agency. Burns […]

Kenneth Fletcher RW Monitor 10/31/2014 The Department of Energy is paying the vast majority of surveillance and maintenance costs for former commercial uranium mill sites that are supposed to be covered by fees charged to the mill operators, the DOE Inspector General ‘s Office said in a report released this week. The “Title II” uranium […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/31/2014 Waste Control Specialists received approval late last week from the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality to store the transuranic waste containers it currently is hosting from Los Alamos National Laboratory in its Federal Waste Facility, according to a posting in the Texas Register. WCS had already moved the containers […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/31/2014 U.S. Ecology has withdrawn a request to the state of Michigan that would have enabled its hazardous waste landfill outside Detroit to increase its radiation limits by 10 times the current limit. The Wayne Disposal landfill has been at the center of local outcry against the importation of radioactive […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/31/2014 A flurry of lawsuits aimed at curtailing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s ‘Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel’ rule, formerly known as Waste Confidence, emerged this week, with four separate appeals appearing in a federal court. The challengers include many of the parties involved in the original suit that required […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/31/2014 As the nuclear industry fights against a wave of premature shutdowns,  Exelon, the operator of the nation’s largest commercial nuclear fleet, has been vocal in the past year about the consequences that pre-mature shutdowns of its reactors in Illinois and New York could cause to local economies and grid […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/31/2014 Perma-Fix Environmental Services is attempting to pivot its design for the production of molybdenum-99 into a larger-scale version of its technology, Perma-Fix CEO Lou Centofanti said this week. The company announced earlier this year the successful demonstration of its technology to produce the medical isotopes used in millions of […]

Kenneth Fletcher RW Monitor 10/31/2014 In one of the first demolition jobs to help prepare Southern California Edison’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station for decommissioning, Clauss Construction has completed ahead of schedule demolition of a group of buildings on the site’s east mesa. The contractor finished the job in September, focusing on a group of […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/31/2014 The Department of Energy’s Idaho Operations Office is looking for a host community to conduct a Field Test to demonstrate of the feasibility of the Deep Borehole (DBH) disposal concept, according to a Request for Information issued late last week. Deep borehole disposal for smaller packages of DOE-managed waste […]

Company Seeking to Purchase and Restart Nuke Plant Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/31/2014 Any potential discussion on a path to restarting the Kewaunee Power Plant with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must go through Dominion, the owner of the site license, the NRC responded last week to RGA Labs, the engineering company looking to purchase […]