Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

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 […]

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 […]