Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

The former head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office is headed to the C-Suite of Westinghouse Electric, the company announced this week. Rita Baranwal, assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) from July 2019 to January 2021, was appointed chief technology officer at Westinghouse, according to a press release dated Tuesday. […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s chief executive manager is retiring from the agency after nearly 40 years of service, the commission said in a press release last week. Annette Vietti-Cook, who became NRC’s secretary in 1982, is retiring from her role effective this spring, according to a press release dated Jan. 11. Brooke Clark, NRC’s deputy […]

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission team tasked with reviewing the agency’s environmental justice efforts plans soon to submit its recommendations to the commissioners, a spokesperson said this week. NRC’s environmental justice task force, spearheaded by head of the agency’s operating reactor licensing division, Gregory Suber, is “busy drafting its recommendations in a staff paper,” a spokesperson […]

Kathryn Huff is a step closer to removing ‘acting’ from her title as assistant secretary of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office, as the Joe Biden administration nominated her to take over the position full-time this week. If confirmed by the Senate, Huff will take over the Office of Nuclear Energy’s (NE) head chair, […]

The Department of Energy is planning this year to award cash to communities exploring the prospect of hosting a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, the agency said this week. “We expect to announce a funding opportunity for interested groups and communities later this year,” a DOE spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor in an […]

Happy Friday, nuke-watchers. Here are some other stories from around the civilian nuclear power space that RadWaste Monitor was tracking this week. NRC Conference to go All-Virtual Amid Omicron Surge After the COVID-19 Omicron variant spread rapidly across the country this winter, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided to host an annual spring conference virtually, […]

The Department of Energy is planning to soon take some initial steps to nail down a process for allocating several billion dollars in federal funds to economically-troubled nuclear power plants, an agency spokesperson said this week. A Request for Information (RFI) and notice of intent from DOE related to the civil nuclear credits program greenlit […]

Sam Brinton will join the Department of Energy’s nuclear power office as the agency’s second-in-command of nuclear waste issues, the nuclear-waste policy expert and current global political director for Deep Isolation announced this week. Brinton, who currently serves as global political affairs director at aspirant nuclear-waste services company Deep Isolation, will become the Office of […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow its employees to work remotely on a limited basis after the recent spike in omicron-variant COVID-19 cases, according to a recent memo from the agency’s operations department. NRC extended “additional flexibilities for project-based telework” to Feb. 26 from Jan. 15, according to a Jan. 6 memo to staff from […]

Holtec International has agreed to pay a six-figure fine for unspecified security violations at a nuclear power plant the company is decommissioning in New Jersey, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week. Holtec told NRC Jan. 7 that it intends to pay the $150,000 fine proposed in December for security violations at Oyster Creek Nuclear […]

Attempts by New Mexico’s attorney general to pit a federal nuclear waste law against a proposed commercial interim storage facility for spent fuel in Texas don’t pass legal muster, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told an appeals court last week. State Attorney General Hector Balderas’s December argument that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) is “inextricably […]

Towing a popular line among industry and nuclear power advocates, executives at Exelon’s recently-named spin-off company Constellation said this week that the federal government can’t achieve its climate objectives without giving nuclear energy a hand. “[I]f we bring in new renewables, and all they do is replace lost nuclear generation, we will be running in […]

In the latest rallying cry for an issue now back-burnered for a decade, the federal government’s independent technical experts on nuclear waste called on the Department of Energy to help forge a “long-term political commitment” to site a nuclear waste repository. “Successful repository implementation needs a legal framework that clearly describes the roles of the […]

As the Department of Energy inches towards the March deadline for its federal interim storage information request, the agency’s nuclear energy chief is impressed with some of the responses already rolling in, she said this week. “We’re coming into this with a pretty open mind as to what [a federal interim storage site] should look […]

The company in charge of decommissioning a nuclear power plant on the Massachusetts shoreline should pursue “alternative methods of disposal” for the site’s spent fuel pool instead of releasing the irradiated wastewater into the Cape Cod Bay, the state’s Senate delegation said in a letter this week. Although Holtec International has delayed plans to discharge […]

Vermont’s citizen-led nuclear waste advisory committee would support “immediate action” by the federal government to site an interim storage facility for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel, if a draft opinion presented to the committee is finalized. The draft opinion included alongside a Dec. 6 meeting of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens’ Advisory Panel (NDCAP) proposed […]

In a blow to advanced nuclear company Oklo, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week denied the company’s proposed modular reactor project, saying that it failed to properly address several key topics during the application process. Oklo’s application for its Aurora fast reactor “continues to contain significant information gaps in its description of Aurora’s potential accidents […]

Despite the still-raging pandemic, Holtec International’s decommissioning and advanced nuclear business lines had a pretty good year, the nuclear services company said in a roll-up press release this week. The Camden, N.J., based Holtec moved 207 casks of spent nuclear fuel into dry storage at 21 plants around the world in 2021, the company said […]

A lawsuit against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over a proposed Texas interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel sputtered back to life in the early days of 2022, recent court filings show. The suit, filed in February by a coalition of anti-nuclear groups including the Sierra Club, Beyond Nuclear and the Texas-based minerals company Fasken […]

One of the first big milestones in the frenzy of legal challenges to commercially operated interim storage sites for spent nuclear fuel is coming up in a few weeks in Albuquerque, where a federal judge was due to hear arguments for and against tossing a lawsuit against a proposed Holtec site in the state’s southeastern […]

New Jersey’s economic development commission can’t stop Holtec International from receiving an annual tax incentive payout, a state court ruled recently. The New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) must grant Holtec a $26 million payment from 2018 that is one part of a roughly $260 million state tax incentive the Camden, N.J.-based nuclear services company […]

After nearly 30 years in Congress, Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) won’t seek another term in the House, he announced this week. “After nearly three decades in Congress, I have been reassigned,” Rep. Rush, who has served Illinois’s 1st district since 1992, said in a statement Tuesday. “Let me make it clear that I am […]

Interested stakeholders should get a chance this month to chat with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about a recent staff report analyzing the agency’s ability to regulate large-scale transportation of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S., commission documents show. NRC staff plans to hold public meetings “beginning in January 2022” to discuss the results of its […]

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 […]