Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, planned to open a manufacturing facility in southeastern Tennessee to make parts for nuclear power plants, the company announced this week. For the task, the company plans to “immediately” begin refurbishing a 200,000 square-foot building it owns in Roane County, Tenn., according to the press release, which hit the wire less […]

An environmental coalition’s “last-ditch attack” on California’s only operating nuclear plant is riddled with legal errors and willfully disregards the state’s plans for the plant, Pacific Gas and Electric wrote in a recent court filing. The lawsuit does not belong in court in the first place and the anti-nuclear groups’ argument rests on a faulty […]

Holtec International is creating a new subsidiary to switch back on the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan in less than two years, company executives told Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff Tuesday at agency headquarters in Rockville, Md. The new operating company will eventually employ about 500 people, including more than 200 who are working on […]

Environmentalists say their plea to shut down Diablo Canyon’s Unit 1 reactor is too important to be treated like a routine Nuclear Regulatory Commission proceeding and should be sent directly to the commission immediately. The environmental groups, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth, say Unit 1’s reactor pressure vessel is […]

Still deadlocked over whether to spend the maximum allowed by a law passed this spring, Congress on Friday still had not passed a bill to keep federal agencies open in the new government fiscal year that begins Sunday. On Friday, even before it failed by a 198-232 vote to pass in the chamber in which […]

A citizens group heard this week that the Department of Energy plans to release by year’s end Orano’s plan for removing spent nuclear fuel from the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Vernon, Vt. The company has been decommissioning Vermont Yankee in earnest since 2019, four years after its shutdown. In slides briefed Monday to […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should not vote on environmentalists’ requests to shut down one of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s two reactors until agency staff weigh in on the request, staff said Monday. It is the latest in a series of attempts by the groups to have Diablo Canyon shut down prior to 2030, the […]

Antinuclear activists suing the U.S. government to stop a life extension for the Diablo Canyon Power Plant could present oral arguments to a federal court in Pasadena, Calif., in early 2024, a recent court filing shows. In an order last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said it might order the parties to court […]

Holtec Decommissioning International plans this fall to demolish water tanks at the shuttered Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant that held radioactively contaminated water and, by mid-winter, package much of the radioactive waste from the plant’s reactor vessel. Members of the Massachusetts Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel heard that and more Monday from Dave Noyes, Holtec’s compliance […]

By Oct. 24, the government could ask a federal court to revisit a ruling that essentially killed commercial consolidated interim storage of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Justice, plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by Texas to stop an interim storage site in its territory, need that […]

Lawmakers left town this week without passing a short-term budget bill to keep federal agencies open beyond Sept. 30, but media reported on Friday that congressional leaders are considering moving full-year spending bills that include budgets for civilian nuclear programs. The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy only stands to gain if House Republicans […]

The annual must-pass defense policy bill that sets spending limits for nationals ecurity programs is headed for its final debate in Congress after the House this week voted for a conference with the Senate. But in a twist this year, those negotiations will include debate about substantial policy reforms proposed by the Senate for the […]

A day after an all-hands meeting at NRC headquarters, which largely focused on remote work, Dan Dorman, the agency’s executive director for operations and chief steward of its latest remote work rules, faced questions from a House committee about post-pandemic telework policies. Congress this year has grilled the NRC about reported dips in employee morale. […]

EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, completed its acquisition of Williams Industrial Services Group, the company announced Monday in a press release. EnergySolutions operates a low-level waste facility in Clive, Utah, and is decommissioning the partially melted-down Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor in Pennsylvania. The company said in July it was buying Williams out of chapter 11 […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has launched its market research for up to $40 million worth of environmental restoration work around the Superfund site in Maywood, N.J., according to a procurement notice published online Friday. A sources sought notice was issued online Friday in the Systemwide Awards Management website (SAM.gov) for small businesses to […]

Most Nuclear Regulatory Commission commissioners are open to taking control of the agency’s telework rules, teeing up yet another shift in remote-work policy at an agency that has struggled to settle on one. The issue is now “a voting matter” for the commissioners, who “agreed that October 31 was the date in order to prompt […]

ARLINGTON, VA — Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) this week prodded hundreds of people here for the National Cleanup Workshop to urge their congressional representatives to avoid a federal government shutdown but stopped short of predicting a stopgap agreement before fiscal 2023 ends Sept. 30. “Reach out to your member of congress,” said Fleischmann, who chairs […]

Waste Control Specialists filed a permit renewal application for its low-level radioactive waste disposal site in West Texas, David Carlson, the president of the company told the Exchange Monitor this week at the annual National Cleanup Workshop in Arlington, Va.  Waste Control Specialists operates a state-owned low-level radioactive waste disposal facility alongside its commercial facilities […]

In a court filing this week, Holtec International’s ex-finance chief said he neither disclosed corporate secrets nor violated a nondisclosure agreement by publicly suing his former employer. Kevin O’Rourke sued Holtec, Jupiter, Fla., June 1 in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Camden County, alleging the company overvalued itself in an effort to get […]

On Tuesday, SNC-Lavalin, the Montreal-based engineering and project managing company, rebranded itself AtkinsRéalis, company officials said this week. The company’s chief U.S. subsidiary, Atkins Nuclear Secured is now AtkinsRéalis Nuclear Secured. The parent company, which is involved in the nuclear industry and trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange, will officially change its stock ticker Monday […]

The Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy and Grid Deployment offices got new chiefs of staff, the agency announced this week. Emily Doran, a former campaign staffer for President Joe Biden (D), will be the staff chief at the Grid Deployment Office while Rory Stanley, most recently a staffer on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources […]

California waded into a lawsuit filed by environmental groups opposed to a life-extension for the state’s last nuclear power plant, writing in a legal filing last week that the plan “presents no undue risk” to the public. In a friend-of-the court brief uploaded Friday and dated Sept. 5, California asked the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court […]

Two electric cooperatives would purchase electricity generated by the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan if the plant restarts, plant owner Holtec International said this week in a statement. If Palisades restarts, something Holtec has said could happen in August 2025, if everything goes according to the company’s unprecedented plan, Wolverine Power Cooperative will purchase […]

With less than a month left until fiscal year 2024 begins, the White House has asked Congress for a short-term continuing resolution to freeze federal budgets at 2023 levels. Media reported last week that leaders in the House and Senate have remained open to the requested stopgap bill, which may be necessary due to an […]

Dominion Energy South Carolina applied with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the life of the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station’s Unit 1 nuclear reactor for another 20 years, to Aug. 6, 2062.  The commission posted the plant operator’s application online on Tuesday. The application is dated Aug. 17. Located in Jenkinsville, S.C., Unit 1 […]

Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., said Wednesday it will begin enriching energy-dense uranium fuel at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, in October. Centrus is in the prove-it phase of a contract, awarded in 2022 and worth up to $1 billion over 10 years, to operate a cascade of 16 AC100M centrifuges the […]