Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is drawing up more questions about Holtec International’s proposed interim storage facility in New Mexico, an agency spokesperson said this week. NRC staff are “still preparing” the agency’s third round of Requests for Additional Information (RAIs) for Holtec’s proposed interim storage site in Eddy County, N.M., a spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor […]

Happy New Year, nuke-watchers, and thanks for reading the year’s first issue of RadWaste Monitor. As we settle back into things after the holidays, here’s a rundown of a few stories we’ll be tracking across the civilian nuclear power space in 2022. A Second Private Interim Storage Site Inches Closer to Reality The Nuclear Regulatory […]

A former in-house federal inspector at a Virginia nuclear plant is facing up to five years of prison time after he was found guilty of intentionally falsifying inspection reports, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s inspector general announced this week. Gregory Croon, NRC’s former resident inspector for the North Anna Power Station in Mineral, Va., pleaded guilty […]

In a development that could open the door for moving more federal radioactive waste to commercial disposal sites, the Department of Energy this week affirmed it would continue a 2019 that found certain less-risky high-level radioactive waste can be treated and disposed of as low-level waste. To that end, DOE on Wednesday issued a Federal […]

Wheels Down at Harry Reid International: Las Vegas Airport Renamed for Yucca-Slaying Senator Starting this week, travelers arriving in Las Vegas will land at an airport named for the U.S. senator arguably responsible for the demise of the nation’s only potential nuclear waste repository. During a Tuesday ceremony at the airport formerly known as McCarran, […]

A publicly-traded special purpose acquisition corporation is merging with NuScale Power, a developer of small modular reactors, in a move expected to turn NuScale, Portland, Ore., into a public company sometime in the first half of 2022. The acquirer is an Oregon-based subsidiary of Spring Valley Acquisition Corp., a special entity set up in the […]

Nearly all staff members at the nation’s top nuclear power regulator have been vaccinated against COVID-19, a spokesperson said this week. 2,684 of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 2,836 employees, around 95%, are fully vaxxed as of Wednesday, an agency spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor via email.NRC doesn’t track booster shots and isn’t required to, the spokesperson […]

A minerals company is fighting with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over whether it can stay involved with Texas’ lawsuit against a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, court papers filed this week show. ISP, a joint venture between Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and Orano USA, plans to build an interim storage site […]

The state of Illinois wants Washington to step up and save its economically-troubled nuclear power plants after the Prairie State’s multi-million dollar bailout bill expires, a state senator said this week. “[O]ur hope is that this issue will be taken on at the federal level and that it will have an answer at the federal […]

A private company’s plans to purchase and decommission two Michigan nuclear power plants took a step forward Monday, when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission provisionally approved the transaction, according to a new agency order. NRC staff approved the sale of Palisades Nuclear Generating Station and Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant to Holtec International from Entergy, […]

Nuclear power’s share of U.S. electricity generation should continue to fall throughout this year and into the next, the government’s independent energy research authority forecast recently. Just about 20% of the country’s electricity will have come from nuclear power in 2021, a figure that should remain stable in 2022, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicted […]

NRC Taking Comments on Church Rock Historical Preservation Agreement with Navajo Nation Members of the public have a little more than a month to submit comments on a proposed agreement between the federal government and the Navajo Nation aimed at mitigating the impacts of a former uranium mine and mill’s cleanup on indigenous artifacts in […]

The senior vice president of Pacific Gas & Electric’s generation business, and the head of its nuclear energy segment, will retire at the end of the year, the company said this week. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) Senior Vice President of Generation Jim Welsch planned to retire effective Dec. 31, according to a Monday press […]

Community members and other stakeholders gathered at a rally on the West Coast recently to show their support for California’s last nuclear power plant, slated to close in the coming years. Flying a small blimp with the phrase ‘save clean energy’ emblazoned on the side, demonstrators marched through San Luis Obispo, Calif., on Dec. 4 […]

The U.S. Supreme Court this week refused to hear an environmental watchdogs’ bid to stop the storage of spent nuclear fuel at a California nuclear power plant under decommissioning. The highest court in the land, an independent branch of the federal government, denied on Monday San Diego-based Public Watchdogs’ petition for review of a Ninth […]

Two state lawsuits challenging a proposed interim storage facility in Texas won’t see much more action until after New Year’s, according to court documents filed in both cases this week. New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas has until Jan. 18 to file the next brief in his lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over Interim […]

The Department of Energy’s recently-rebooted search for a federal interim storage site to store spent nuclear fuel is one step in the right direction, one of Congress’s foremost advocates for nuclear-waste management said in a recent op-ed. DOE’s Nov. 30 Request for Information (RFI) about using a consent-based process to site a federal interim facility […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission plans to approve the sale of two Michigan nuclear power plants to a decommissioning company by Dec. 13, the agency said in a letter last week. NRC will issue “an order approving the transfer of licenses” of both Palisades Nuclear Generating Station and Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant to Holtec […]

Although federal attempts to site an interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel have yet to succeed, the Department of Energy’s current nuclear power chief thinks that things will shake out differently this time, she said this week. “[T]here is something very different now than there has been in the past,” Kathryn Huff, […]

President Joe Biden signed on Friday compromise stopgap budget bill to avert a government shutdown and keep Department of Energy nuclear weapons and waste budgets at 2021 levels past Valentine’s Day and preserve a funding safety valve for uranium-enrichment cleanup. The Senate voted 69-to-28 Thursday evening to approve the continuing budget resolution to keep the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is trying to get a Texas-based minerals holding company booted off the Lone Star State’s lawsuit against a recently licensed interim storage facility in the state’s western reaches.  The company, Fasken Land and Minerals, has long opposed the planned Interim Storage Partners site at the existing Waste Control Specialists facility in […]

By John Stang The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio this week approved a settlement that requires three FirstEnergy Corp. utilities to refund $306 million to its ratepayers.  The settlement is between the Ohio Consumer Counsel’s office and FirstEnergy on the Significantly Excessive Earnings Tests (SEET), in which FirstEnergy’s utilities received PUCO’s permission to collect higher-than-expected […]

Enviros Push Senate Finance to Kill Nuke Subsidies in Federal Budget A coalition of environmental and citizens’ watchdog groups urged the Senate Finance Committee to drop millions of dollars in subsidies for nuclear energy from the budget reconciliation bill containing President Joe Biden’s signature domestic spending programs, according to a letter mailed this week. The […]

There won’t be any significant environmental or safety issues if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows Holtec International to dip into a Michigan nuclear plant’s decommissioning funds for nuclear waste management, the agency said recently. Granting Holtec an exemption to use Palisades Nuclear Generating Station’s decommissioning trust fund for spent fuel management and site restoration actiavities […]

If California wants to talk about keeping its sole surviving nuclear power plant online, the Department of Energy would listen, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said this week. During an interview with Reuters Tuesday, Granholm said that keeping the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in Avila Beach, Calif., open “may be something that [California] decide[s] to […]

As the Nuclear Regulatory Commission navigates some internal controversy surrounding a recently-approved decommissioning rule, its oversight of plant dismantlement came under fire this week at a hearing in the Senate. “[W]ith its recent approval of the proposed decommissioning rule, I fear the NRC now stands for not recognizing [public] concerns,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) […]

The Department of Energy is hoping to give economically-troubled nuclear power plant operators a little certainty by speeding delivery of subsidies recently signed into law as part of this year’s bipartisan infrastructure plan, a DOE official said this week at an industry conference. “[I]t can take a little while for tax credits to kick in, […]