Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

By John Stang NuScale Power Corp. hopes to add three new clients 2023 to the two that it already has. The small modular reactor developer pinned down its second client in 2022, RoPower Nuclear S.A, which will build six reactors at a decommissioned coal-fired power plant site in Romania. “2022 was a year of increased […]

The budget for the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy would fall about 12% to around $1.56 billion in fiscal year 2024 if the White House’s latest federal spending request became law. That’s about $210 million less than the 2023 appropriation Congress provided in December in an omnibus spending bill for the part of […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would wind up with close to a flat budget in 2024 if a request sent to Congress Monday becomes law. The independent federal civilian nuclear power regulator seeks some $979.2 million for fiscal year 2024, about $52 million million more than the roughly $927 million Congress approved for fiscal year 2023 […]

Consent-based siting, or securing support at all levels of government for a nuclear-waste repository, “won’t be fun,” a Nuclear Regulatory Commission commission said Wednesday at an agency conference. “Even a consent-based process is going to take time and it’s not going to be fun, but it’s the only way that’s going to be lasting,” NRC […]

Nevada’s senior senator last week expressed skepticism about the safety of spent-nuclear-fuel casks, which the director of the Idaho National Laboratory touted during a hearing about nuclear energy and waste. The Thursday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee veered into a discussion of a Feb. 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, […]

A bill that would broadly prohibit storage of spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico was set up for a final vote in the New Mexico legislature on the final day of the session. On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee of the New Mexico House of Representatives passed an amended version of Senate Bill 53, “Storage […]

The Nuclear Waste Administration Act is all set and ready to go for this session of Congress, the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said Thursday in a hearing — it just hasn’t been filed yet. “We have a text ready to go,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVa.) said during the hearing, in […]

An environmental group continued to raise objections with a regional water authority about the decommissioning of the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission effectively rejected the groups concerns last week. The NRC, through the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, on March 1 rejected Three Mile Island Alert’s contention to a […]

In offering California’s last nuclear power plant a new lease on life, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sidestepped a legal argument from antinuclear activists who said the agency might be illegally extending the plant’s operating license. The NRC on Wednesday published a roughly five-page explanation in the Federal Register explaining the agency’s decision to conditionally let Pacific Gas […]

WASHINGTON — It will still be another decade or so before the Department of Energy identifies a willing host community for a federal interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel, a senior official said here. “We probably won’t have constructed interim storage acceptance for 10 years, 15 years,” Kathryn Huff, the agency’s assistant secretary for […]

PHOENIX — It’s still unclear whether the final version of a proposed rule change aimed at streamlining nuclear power plant decommissioning  will require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to okay licensees’ plans for dismantling their sites, officials said here this week. NRC staff, who are currently putting together the agency’s final decommissioning rulemaking, “are looking at” […]

Editor’s note. Benjamin S. Weiss is leaving the Exchange Monitor to pursue another opportunity. RadWaste Monitor will continue to cover civilian nuclear waste programs.  Happy Friday, nuke-watchers. It’s a bittersweet one: it’s your RadWaste reporter’s last day on the job before he moves into a new role covering Congress full-time. I’m happy to have begun […]

PHOENIX — The Department of Energy has yet to select a candidate to lead its ongoing effort to find a willing community to host a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, the agency’s nuclear power head said here this week. Although DOE is no longer accepting applications for its vacant deputy assistant secretary […]

Even as the Department of Energy this week opened the door for a shuttered Michigan nuclear plant to qualify for its billion-dollar bailout program, the company aiming to restart the facility said it would look for federal funding elsewhere. Holtec International, which owns Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, applied for a DOE loan last week with […]

PHOENIX — When it comes time to search for a potential host for a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, the Department of Energy could offer financial incentives to move things along, the agency’s top nuclear waste official said here this week. Once DOE finishes up its ongoing information-gathering activities among interim storage […]

PHOENIX — Opening a federally-run interim storage facility for the nation’s stranded spent nuclear fuel inventory might not be the only way the Department of Energy could declare victory in its most recent effort to build one, the agency’s nuclear waste lead said here this week. DOE’s consent-based approach for siting a federal interim storage […]

Sam Shakir, president of Westinghouse Electric Company’s operating nuclear power plant services, has left the company, the company said in a press release this week. Shakir’s departure was effective immediately, the company said. He had been head of Westinghouse’s operating reactors division for about eight months but has “decided to pursue opportunities outside of the […]

The former site of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant is officially safe to use for other activities, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced in a press release last week. NRC released the site of the decommissioned  La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor for “unrestricted public use,” the agency said in the Friday press release. Such a designation […]

PHOENIX — Thanks to an updated agreement between the federal government and a nuclear power plant operator, owners of advanced nuclear reactors will likely have to foot the bill for spent fuel storage at their facilities, an industry expert said here this week. For advanced reactors, the new spent fuel management contract between the Department […]

PHOENIX — An executive with an industry trade group thinks that the U.S. could have a geologic repository for its nuclear waste inventory by mid-century, he said here this week. Rod McCullum, senior director of decommissioning and used fuel at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), said Monday during a panel at the Waste Management Symposium […]

PHOENIX — A New Mexico bill could put Holtec International’s proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in that state in jeopardy, a company official said here this week. “Despite all the efforts and resources used to inform and educate the public and organizations [on the proposed HI-STORE interim storage site], there is currently […]

California’s energy policy and planning agency said this week that the Golden State should take action to keep its last operating nuclear power plant online through the end of the decade, according to a press release. The California Energy Commission’s (CEC) staff analysis of Diablo Canyon Power Plant, published Tuesday, recommended that Sacramento pursue keeping […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow California’s last operating nuclear power plant to remain online after the facility’s federal license expires while the agency considers a 20-year extension, the commission said Thursday. The exemption, which NRC announced in a Thursday press release, allows Diablo Canyon Power Plant operator Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to ignore […]

During a congressional visit to Japan this week, one of the House’s most politically-progressive members took to social media to talk about the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle — in particular, recycling spent nuclear fuel. “When we discuss the risk and controversial parts of nuclear, a lot of it centers on nuclear waste […]

Although its 2022 losses were less severe than a year ago, Constellation Energy, Baltimore, was still in the red thanks to higher operating costs and lower revenues, the utility said in earnings reports published last week. Net losses for Constellation, the company that spun off from Exelon’s generation business in February 2022 and which manages […]

The company in charge of decommissioning a shuttered New York nuclear power plant has finished packing spent fuel from one of the facility’s three reactors into storage canisters, a senior official said last week. Holtec International wrapped up fuel loading operations at Indian Point Energy Center’s Unit 2 reactor Feb. 1, site vice president Rich […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission can allow California’s last nuclear power reactor to operate with an expired license, the plant’s owner wrote in a recent regulatory filing  Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) was rebuffing claims by a coalition of anti-nuclear groups who told the NRC the utility was asking the government to break the law in […]