Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not have the staff it needs to license new nuclear reactor designs and needs to take another look at its hiring programs before that can change, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. The agency, which regulates civilian nuclear power plants and the waste they produce, has […]

RadWaste Monitor will not be published on Friday Aug. 18, 2023 and Friday Aug. 25, 2023, as part of the Exchange Monitor’s annual August recess.  

The public is invited to a quick gold-cart tour of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station next week, the plant’s community engagement panel wrote in a press release this week. The tour is on the slate for Aug. 17, just ahead of the panel’s next scheduled briefing with plant owner Southern California Edison, which is […]

Two congressmen recently reintroduced a bipartisan bill to require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to keep a federal inspector at shuttered nuclear power plants until all fuel at the plants is in dry storage. Reps. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) and Mike Levin (D-Calif.) reintroduced their bill, the Increasing Nuclear Safety Protocols for Extended Canister Transfers (INSPECT) Act […]

Severe thunderstorms along the East Coast knocked out power and damaged property near Department of Energy nuclear sites from South Carolina to Washington, but much service was restored by Friday. Federal employees in the Washington region got an early dismissal on Monday as storms rolled in, but federal offices returned to normal operating schedules for […]

The Department of Energy said Friday it cleared a paperwork hurdle for a planned five-year extension of California’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant by adopting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s environmental reviews of the plant. DOE had a duty under federal law to do environmental diligence on Diablo Canyon after the department in 2022 agreed to provide […]

After almost four years on the job, Philip Strawbridge on Aug. 4 announced he would retire as Centrus Energy Corp.’s chief financial officer by the end of the month. Strawbridge, who was 64 when he took the job, has served as a senior vice president, chief financial officer, chief administrative officer and treasurer of Centrus since […]

Holtec International planned to meet with Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff Aug. 29 to discuss what the company says is the biggest regulatory hurdle to restarting the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station. The commission posted a notice of the meeting online Tuesday. Executives with Holtec International will join members of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and Office […]

Shine Technologies, Janesville, Wis., plans to start talking to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission soon about building a used nuclear-fuel recycling facility, the company said in a recent regulatory filing. “SHINE intends to begin regulatory engagement with the NRC in the 4th Quarter 2023,” reads a letter to the commission from Jim Costedio, the company’s vice […]

The Massachusetts legislature stripped a proposal to create a radioactive wastewater commission from the final version of the state budget sent to the governor this week. Lawmakers sent a compromise version of the state’s $56-billion budget proposal to Gov. Maura Healey (D) on Monday after a six-person conference committee of the state’s bicameral legislature hammered […]

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Monday signed into law a state budget that would conditionally provide $150 million to restart the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Covert county. The funding, about half of what plant owner Holtec International says it needs from the state, is contingent on the federal Department of Energy providing a […]

The Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant’s Unit 3 reactor, the newest nuclear reactor in the country, started delivering electricity to the grid in Georgia, Georgia Power announced this week. Unit 3 in Waynesboro, Ga., started generating electricity in April. It is the first reactor project to become operational under the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Part […]

Locals and activists this week renewed calls for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) to sign the legislature’s ban on radioactive wastewater discharges into the Hudson River, but the governor made no move. In a meeting this week of the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board, state officials got an earful from locals and activists who […]

WASHINGTON —Department of Energy properties used for nuclear weapons work could soon be tapped for development of new carbon-free energy under an effort unveiled Friday in Washington by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. The program, dubbed DOE’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, would repurpose parcels around the weapons complex for non-carbon-emitting electricity, potentially creating enough […]

Thomas Ashley will take over as the permanent director of the office of investigations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on July 30, the agency announced this week.  Ashley had been the acting director of the office since February, when Tracy Higgs, the previous director, retired. The offices of investigations investigates allegations of wrongdoing by NRC […]

EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, will acquire bankrupt construction company Williams Industrial Services Group, Atlanta, for about $60 million, the Utah-based company said Monday in a press release. Williams has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The company specializes in construction of heavy industrial infrastructure. EnergySolutions […]

Massachusetts on Monday forbade Holtec International from discharging irradiated wastewater into Cape Cod Bay from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant, but the company could still get a federal permit to do so. The state Department of Environmental Protection published the decision in a tentative determination to deny Holtec’s application to modify a discharge permit the […]

Using leftover appropriations, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s budget for fiscal year 2024 would be essentially what the agency requested, if a proposal approved last week by Senate appropriators becomes law. An energy and water appropriations bill passed Thursday by the Senate Appropriations would provide a net appropriation for the NRC of about $940 million. That […]

The Senate on Thursday passed its version of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which this year is loaded with policy reforms for federal nuclear-energy programs. The annual military policy bill passed 86-11. It already contained the full text of Sen. Shelly Capito’s (R-WVa.)  Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act of […]

Senate staffer Rory Stanley on Monday will become chief of staff of the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, the agency confirmed Thursday. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVa.) announced Stanley’s departure from Congress Thursday on the Senate floor during debate on the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. Stanley joined the staff of the Senate Energy […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy would get roughly the $1.6 billion the White House requested for it in fiscal year 2024, if a bill approved this week by the Senate Appropriations Committee becomes law. The full committee approved the bill 29-0 on Thursday, setting up both a floor vote in the full […]

The Department of Energy is still considering how and whether it will help bail out a shuttered power plant in Michigan, a senior agency official testified this week in Congress. Plant owner Holtec International, Jupiter, Fla., seeks a roughly $1 billion loan for DOE and said this spring that the federal agency could conditionally approve […]

Sixty four lawmakers called out what they said were six problems with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s draft rule for licensing advanced reactors and, in a July 14 letter, asked for a fix. Safety requirements in the NRC’s proposed rule are so strict that they will prevent commission staff from licensing new reactor designs quickly, said […]

The Senate’s 2024 National Defense Authorization Act includes the text of a bill that would extend nuclear-industry indemnity for catastrophic accidents and begin reforms at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The bill text was folded into the version of the 2024 defense policy bill introduced Wednesday by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), the majority leader. The Senate […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management intends to issue no-bid business to Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County, Texas to relocate containers of long-stranded transuranic waste to a new above-ground storage area at the commercial waste site. “The estimated value of the resulting order is not expected to exceed $16,500,000 ($16.5 million),” DOE’s […]

To net an investment from Hyundai, Holtec International, Camden, N.J., wanted to lie about its value and about the prospects for its proposed interim spent-fuel storage business, a former Holtec executive alleged. Kevin O’Rourke, Holtec’s former chief financial officer, said he was fired in 2022 after about a year on the job for refusing to […]