Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

Transmutex, Vernier, Switzerland, on Monday said it received $23 million in venture capital funding to help develop the company’s thorium-burning nuclear energy system. Transmutex announced the milestone in a press release. New York-based investment companies Union Square Ventures and Steel Atlas led this round, along with other investors including: At One Ventures, San Francisco. HCVC, […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and groups opposed to the licensing of a Holtec International-owned interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico will meet March in court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit scheduled oral arguments in the case for March 5 in Washington at 9:30 a.m. Eastern […]

A member of Hawaii’s House of Representatives last week introduced a bill that would create a state Nuclear Energy Commission, to include three experts on nuclear waste disposal who would be appointed by the governor. The bill, HB1516, was referred last week to the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee and the Consumer Protection and Commerce, […]

Holtec International paid $5 million to avoid criminal prosecution by the state of New Jersey, which said the Jupiter, Fla., company might have acted illegally in 2018 when it sought investment tax credits from the state.  Holtec and an affiliate company, Singh Real Estate Enterprise, have also agreed to give up a combined $1 million […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff need until August 2025 to review an application to keep California’s last nuclear power plant online for five more years according to a letter published online this week. That is according to a letter, dated Jan. 26, to Paula Gerfen, senior vice president of Generation  and chief nuclear officer for Diablo […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff need until January 2025 to amend Holtec International’s license for the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan, which the company wants to restart that August, commission staff said last week. “With respect to your requested completion schedule of January 31, 2025, the NRC staff believes that it will complete the safety […]

The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Waste Services identified South Holderness, in the county of East Riding of Yorkshire in east-central England between the Humber River and North Sea coast, as a candidate host community for a deep geologic disposal facility for nuclear waste. The government-owned company this week announced the formation of a Geological Disposal Facility […]

Among the many differences the House and Senate must settle before they can pass a permanent 2024 federal budget are competing policies about interim storage of spent nuclear fuel. Senate appropriators want to change the law to let the Department of Energy build a pilot interim storage site. House appropriators say nothing about a federal […]

The federal government, Holtec International and a coalition of mining and environmental groups this week filed final briefs in another big federal lawsuit over the company’s proposed spent nuclear fuel storage site in New Mexico. Not yet scheduled for oral arguments, the two-and-a-half-year-old case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia […]

Industry will wait at least until May before seeing the rationale Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff used to justify parts of a coming rule to expand disposal options for Greater-Than-Class-C radioactive waste, officials said Tuesday in an online public meeting. The two-hour, online-only meeting was the latest in a long string of opportunities for the public […]

Representatives of Holtec International and its ex-chief financial officer will not see each other in court until February because the former employee’s lawyer had a conflict, according to a filing last week in a New Jersey court. Kevin O’Rourke sued Holtec, Jupiter, Fla., in June, but the company in December said that news stories and […]

Media reported this week that the White House did not plan to renominate Jeffrey Baran for another term as a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Baran’s nomination was returned Jan. 3 to the White House, like all nominations that did not get a floor vote during the first of two year-long sessions of the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission started an environmental review of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s plan to keep California’s last nuclear power plant open until 2030, the agency announced Wednesday. The commission plans an online public meeting about the proposed review on Feb. 1 and an in-person meeting at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo, Calif., on […]

Funding for the Department of Energy’s effort to rebuild a commercial U.S. uranium refining industry is hung up in a debate over a supplemental spending bill between House Republicans and the White House.  In remarks to reporters this week before and after a meeting at the White House, Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Johnson […]

All of the active and shuttered nuclear power plants in the U.S. either had enough money in their decommissioning trust funds as of the end of 2023 or had a good explanation for why they did not, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission wrote in a report dated December and published online this week.  That’s according to […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday signed a spending bill to keep agencies including the Department of Energy open until March 1. The Senate passed the bill 77-to-18 on Tuesday afternoon. The House followed quickly after, approving the month-and-a-half stopgap budget 314-to-108.  The measure will keep DOE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other agencies funded […]

In a prelude to the main event a the nine-month old lawsuit against Holtec International, a state judge was to hold oral arguments Friday, after deadline for RadWaste Monitor, about whether the company can sue an ex-employee for defamation. Kevin O’Rourke, former chief financial officer of the Jupiter, Fla.-based company, sued Holtec in June, alleging […]

On Thursday, two Democrats on a House Oversight subcommittee forcefully condemned expanding nuclear power in the U.S. before the federal government builds a permanent repository for nuclear waste. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mich.), ranking member of the House Oversight economic growth, energy policy, and regulatory affairs subcommittee, used the hearing as a platform to again demand […]

Commissioner Annie Caputo on Thursday questioned whether it made sense for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue a blanket guidance for detecting buried low-level radioactive waste at power plants undergoing decommissioning. NRC staff plan to finish the guidance by Sept. 30, a commission spokesperson said. Staff opened comments on the draft guidance in December. The […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday solicited bids for a contract under which it could acquire up to 145 metric tons of high assay low-enriched uranium to help commercialize nuclear reactors that need the fuel. Under the contract, only U.S.-based companies will be allowed to perform the final step of enriching to the high assay […]

Congressional leaders over the weekend announced they had reached a sort of agreement in principle to fund the federal government for the nine months that remain in fiscal year 2024. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Johnson (R-La.) agreed to limit federal spending in the fiscal year that […]

In the first courtroom action for a lawsuit opposing a life extension of California’s last nuclear plant, federal judges on Wednesday asked if the case belonged in their court and whether keeping it there could unleash a tide of new environmental lawsuits. “I’m trying to decide the floodgate here,” said Circuit Judge Consuelo Callahan, an […]

Holtec International holds out hope that it will receive a major chunk of change from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office to help restart the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan by 2025, a spokesperson said Thursday. The company expects DOE to make a decision in “late January/Early February at the earliest,” the […]

Jeffrey Baran’s nomination for five more years at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was sent back to the White House on Jan. 3, leaving President Joe Biden’s (D) administration with the choice of repeating a hard fight to get Baran through the Senate again or moving on to another candidate. There are two sessions in each […]

Raymond Furstenau will temporarily become the Nuclear Regulatory Commission executive director on Jan. 27, when Daniel Dorman, the current director is set to retire, the commission announced Wednesday. Furstenau, who leads the NRC’s Office of Research, will act as the commission’s chief operating officer, managing personnel and delegating technical and regulatory work on NRC-licensed facilities […]

On the Friday before Christmas, President Joe Biden (D) signed the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, setting a year’s worth of spending limits and policy for national security programs, including those at the Department of Energy. The bill is separate from annual appropriations bills that fund government agencies. Agencies including DOE and the […]