Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

Nuclear power company Oklo, chaired by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, started trading on the New York Stock Exchange last week, dropped 54% directly after going public and rebounded to more than half of its initial offering price by market close on Thursday. Shares opened the day May 10 at $15.50 each and fell to $8.45 […]

Before leaving the Department of Energy on May 3, Kathryn Huff briefly spotlighted the Joe Biden administration’s consent-based siting program for spent nuclear fuel in a recorded interview produced by the agency. “It’s what we owe to communities, it’s what we’ve promised the utilities, and trust that the U.S. government is moving forward rather than […]

By June, a special committee of the Township of Ignace’s local government will hear a consultant’s report about how much residents support, or do not support, the idea of becoming a host for a future Canadian nuclear-waste repository. The Pembroke, Ontario-based consultant With Chela on April 30 finished four days of feedback gathering from Ignace […]

Evergy gave Orano USA a contract to nearly double the size of the dry storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at the Wolf Creek Nuclear Generating Station site near Burlington, Kansas, the company said Wednesday in a press release. The contract, financial details of which Orano did not provide in its press release, calls for […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission planned a virtual public meeting to take comments about a planned redesign of its online public records system, the agency said Wednesday. The agency planned to host the Microsoft Teams meeting May 21 to discuss a replacement for its web-based Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). Members of the public […]

The House on Wednesday evening passed a bipartisan, bicameral package of nuclear-energy reforms, leaving the bill only a Senate concurrence away from the President’s desk. The  Fire Grants and Safety Act of 2023, which includes the compromise version of the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act, passed 393-13 on Wednesday evening. Twenty-three lawmakers […]

Members of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation, including both of its U.S. Senators, in April sent Holtec International CEO Krishna Singh a list of 13 questions, some of them with multiple parts, about the evaporation of irradiated wastewater at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Mass., which the Jupiter, Fla., company is decommissioning.  Locals in Plymouth, […]

Pierre Oneid, formerly with Holtec International, joined EnergySolutions as vice president of business development, the Salt Lake City company said this week. “Pierre’s focus will be to support the development of our new offerings in the nuclear services arena,” Ken Robuck, president and CEO of EnergySolutions, said in a press release announcing the hire. At […]

Friday was to be Kathryn Huff’s last day on the job as the Department of Energy’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy. Huff, who has led the office since 2022 and joined DOE in 2021, planned to return to academia, she wrote last month in a farewell email to colleagues.   A Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia […]

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have shipped the old reactor vessel from the Low Intensity Test Reactor, also known as Building 3005, to Utah for disposal, the agency said this week. Crews loaded the 37,600-pound, 30-foot-long vessel onto a truck last week and shipped it to Clive, Utah, […]

On Tuesday, the Senate voted unanimously to ban imports of Russian uranium by 2028, setting the stage to wean U.S. power plants off the imported fuel this decade. The Senate approved a bill that the House passed in December and which would make Russian uranium illegal in the U.S. by Jan. 1, 2028. U.S. utilities […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission can let the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant operate past the expiration of its federal license while the plant owner applies for a license renewal, a federal court ruled Monday. Pending a rehearing of the full Ninth Circuit or an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, an independent […]

The Senate Environment and Public Works committee on Wednesday morning approved Christopher Hanson’s nomination for five more years on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The committee voted 18-1 to approve Hanson, the current chairman of the NRC, and send his nomination to the floor for a vote by the full Senate. Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.), the […]

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will vote Wednesday on whether to give the current Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman five more years at the agency, the committee said Friday. In a press release, the Senate Environment and Public Works committee said it will consider Christopher Hanson’s renomination as part of a business meeting scheduled […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will host a virtual public meeting on April 29 to hear about Holtec International’s quality assurance plan for the planned restart of the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan. Holtec will submit the plan after the meeting, according to a notice the NRC filed online this Tuesday. During the virtual gathering, to begin […]

There are lots of new workers joining the nuclear industry these days, but Baltimore-based Constellation Energy has perhaps the only one to list “former Miss America” on her resume. Constellation announced in a Monday press release it hired former Miss America Grace Stanke as a full-time employee working as both an engineer and a spokesperson for nuclear […]

Holtec International last week sued New York over a law the state passed in 2023 that would fine anyone who discharges irradiated wastewater into the Hudson River, a court filing shows. The law constitutes “blatant infringement on the federal government’s exclusive right to regulate the discharge of radioactive materials from nuclear power plants,” Holtec wrote […]

The “long-term policy solutions” for spent nuclear fuel “will require many difficult conversations,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) wrote in an op-ed published Sunday in the local Orange County Register. Levin’s district includes the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which shut down in 2013 and which plant owner Southern California Edison is now decommissioning. In his op-ed, […]

The local government of South Bruce, Ontario, Canada, on Tuesday voted to let its citizens decide this fall whether they want to host a deep geologic repository for nuclear waste. The seven-member South Bruce council voted in support of the question, which now is eligible to appear on ballots during a by-election to be held on […]

In a regulatory filing made public this week, Holtec International gave itself a little wiggle room and said it would restart the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan by the end of September 2025. Holtec, Jupiter, Fla., in late March got the Department of Energy to conditionally agree to loan the company $1.5 billion for the […]

Tennessee-based Boston Government Services said Monday it has hired a Leidos executive, Darrell Graddy, as chief strategy officer. Graddy spent eight years in Leidos involved in business development and project management and also spent 30 years in management roles at Lockheed Martin, Boston Government Services said in the press release. According to the release, Graddy […]

The Legacy Mine Cleanup Bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), passed the Senate this week in a voice vote. The legislation would make permanent a special Western office with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help coordinate reclamation of abandoned hardrock mines, including legacy uranium sites, according to online data […]

Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.) brought a list of old grievances to NRC Chair Christopher Hanson’s renomination hearing on Wednesday, setting the stage for a contentious process with time running short. Hanson’s term runs through June 30, and his quickest road to renomination, unanimous consent on the Senate floor, might prove impassable if Capito and all […]

A Canadian municipality this week planned another step towards letting its citizens choose whether to host a deep geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel. On Tuesday, the seven-member Council of the Corporation of the Municipality of South Bruce heard a staff report about the last procedural step needed to include a ballot question about the […]

Kathryn Huff will leave the Department of Energy on May 3, only days before what would have concluded her third year at the top of the Office of Nuclear Energy. Huff shared the news in an email, which the Exchange Monitor saw on Monday. Her departure was first reported by Politico. Mike Goff, Huff’s deputy, will become acting […]

Party-line divisions about future spent nuclear fuel policies emerged in a Wednesday House hearing, during which one lawmaker said work on the issue could stretch into the next Congress. “I’m not for interim storage,” Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said during the hearing of the House Energy climate, and grid security subcommittee, which he chairs. “I […]