Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

In observance of Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, RadWaste Monitor will not publish on Friday, Dec. 27 or Friday, Jan. 3. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Jan. 10.

Reps. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) and Scott Peters (D-Calif.) last week introduced a bill that they said would “streamline” licensing requirements for nuclear fuel recycling facilities. Latta, the Republican, took the lead on the bill, announcing the filing Dec. 6 in a press release that linked to the text of what he has titled the Nuclear […]

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) will chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the 119th session of Congress, beginning in January, the committee announced Monday. The Energy and Commerce committee authorizes and oversees civilian nuclear programs at the Department of Energy. Guthrie has represented Kentucky’s second congressional district since 2009. The western edge of the […]

An antinuclear group got a free pass to press its case against interim storage in a court it should have been locked out of, Holtec International wrote Monday in a Supreme Court brief. The company’s friend-of-the-court brief is part of a landmark case about commercial storage of spent nuclear fuel, set for arguments March 5 […]

Congress informally discouraged storage of radioactive waste near the Great Lakes in an annual defense policy bill the House approved Wednesday. The Senate had yet to vote on the bill as of deadline for RadWaste Monitor. The compromise National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2025 was negotiated behind closed doors by House and […]

The Department of Energy said Monday it added half a dozen companies to an indefinite-quantity, indefinite contract to supply low-enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power generation. The contract has a total value of $3.4 billion over 10 years. Each company will get at least a task order worth $2 million, DOE said in its solicitation for […]

A bill that would cap the amount of radioactive waste allowed Michigan awaits floor consideration this week in the state Senate after a committee vote. The state Senate’s Energy and Environment Committee last week approved an amended version of Senate Bill 1052 10-4. Michigan Sen. Darrin Camilleri (D), whose 4th Michigan Senate District is just […]

The Senate on Thursday narrowly approved President Joe Biden’s (D) nominee to fill the last open spot on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The nominee, Matthew Marzano, made it through 50-45, with five Senators not voting. He needed the support of a majority of voting Senators and got it, ensuring that for most of the second […]

EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, will consider putting nuclear reactors under development at Terrestrial Energy, a Charlotte, N.C., on some of the Utah-based company’s sites, the companies said Wednesday. In a joint press release, the companies said they signed a memorandum of understanding “to collaborate on the siting and deployment of Integral Molten Salt Reactor (IMSR) plants […]

Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation and the Township of Ignace will host a deep geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel, Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization announced Thursday. The Canadian agency made the announcement on the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday only a few days after the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation gave its consent to host the repository. The […]

In a sort of paperwork anti-milestone, the Department of Energy last week asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to terminate a materials license for an unbuilt nuclear fuel handling facility once planned for Butte County, Idaho. “The decision has been made that the facility will not be constructed and therefore the License should be terminated,” reads a […]

A 2023 ban on commercial interim storage was a judicial power grab that flouted the law and ignored the authority of other courts, according to a Monday Supreme Court brief. In its final brief before oral arguments scheduled for March, Interim Storage Partners (ISP) told the Supreme Court that the U.S. Fifth Circuit engaged in […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this month gave the formal go-ahead for stranded transuranic waste from the Los Alamos Laboratory to remain in commercial storage for another two years. NRC cleared Waste Control Specialists to hold on to the waste until Dec. 31, 2026, according to a letter dated Nov. 22 and posted online by the commission […]

Orano on Nov. 29 signed contracts to return radioactive waste to Japan from the company’s Orano La Hague plant in France.  The waste came from reprocessing Japanese uranium fuel, Orano wrote in a press release. The two contracts helped boost Orano’s financial outlook for 2024, the company said.   Orano separately this week said it […]

WASHINGTON — Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chair of the energy and water appropriations subcommittee in the House, told the Exchange Monitor he does not know when a vote on the federal budget would be. “I have not been privy to that,” Fleischmann said here Wednesday in the U.S. Capitol. “But I sure wish we could’ve come up […]

Derek Merrin (R) a member of the Ohio legislature has formally conceded his race in Ohio’s 9th congressional district against Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), a member of the House Appropriations Committee and one of the longest serving incumbents in congress. “The vote is we came about 2,300 votes short” after the provisional votes were counted in Northeast […]

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in March about the constitutionality of commercial interim storage of spent nuclear fuel, according to the court’s docket. Arguments were scheduled for March 5 in a consolidated case that will also give the high court a chance to consider the constitutionality of methods the state of Texas used […]

Lower disposal costs mean nuclear reactor operators will not need to keep as much cash on hand to cover the cost of end-of-life plant cleanup, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last week. Two of the four U.S. disposal sites for low-level radioactive waste, the two used by most NRC licensees, are charging “moderately lower” rates […]

The Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation gave its consent to host a deep geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel in the township Ignace, the nation of indigenous people announced last week. The potential repository, one of two under consideration by Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization, would be in the township of Ignace in the Canadian province […]

Holtec International, Jupiter, Fla., planned to host on Dec. 4 another open house in Michigan about its effort to restart the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, local radio station WSJM 84.9 reported.  The meeting was scheduled for 5:00 p.m. Eastern time to 7:00 p.m. Eastern time at the Palisades Joint Information Center in Benton Harbor, Mich., […]

In observance of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, RadWaste Monitor will not publish on Friday, Nov. 29. The next issue will be published on Wednesday, Nov. 27.

In observance of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, RadWaste Monitor will not publish next Friday, Nov. 29. The next issue will be published on Wednesday, Nov. 27.

Republicans on Wednesday turned against President Joe Biden’s (D) nominee to fill the last vacancy on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but the lame-duck Democratic majority got the President’s man to the floor. On a vote of 10-9, with all Democrats in favor and all Republicans against, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved Matthew […]

The federal government will pay $145 million for failing to remove spent nuclear fuel from three shuttered New England power plants over five years, court papers filed this week show. The payment, jointly agreed to last week by the plant operators and federal officials, was approved Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The […]

Multiple national news organizations reported last week that President-elect Donald Trump intends to nominate Chris Wright, CEO and founder of Liberty Energy, a Denver-based oilfield services company, to be the next secretary of energy. According to his Liberty biography, Wright is a self-described “tech nerd” who previously founded Pinnacle Technologies in the 1990s, a company involved […]

In the only mention of high-level waste in a 72-page report a year in the marking, a state-chartered group on Monday said Texas should consider building a “nuclear recycling facility.” “Texas should contemplate and discuss a state position on the development of a nuclear recycling facility to reduce high level radioactive waste in the U.S.,” […]