Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

The Secretary of Energy will head off to Europe next week to lead the U.S. delegation at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference, the Department of Energy announced Thursday. At the annual conference in Vienna, Austria, Secretary Jennifer Granholm will give a speech “underscoring the use of nuclear to combat climate change, advance medical […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission told a federal judge in New Mexico this week that it was ready for judgement in a court case over a proposed interim storage facility in the state, according to a new court filing. NRC told the U.S. District Court for New Mexico in a Tuesday filing that it had sent […]

A budget markup of the Joe Biden administration’s Build Back Better Act made its way through the House’s energy panel Tuesday, with the majority shaking off a couple of attempts by Republicans to get more nuclear energy in the mix. The energy subsection of Congress’s budget reconciliation recommendations passed on a 30-27 party-line vote during […]

Nuclear power in Illinois is getting a new lease on life after the state’s governor signed a law this week approving subsidies for two economically-troubled power plants. Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) on Wednesday signed a bill that provides around $700 million in credits for the Byron and Dresden nuclear power plants. The subsidies, which are […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission opened the door for history this week when it approved a private company’s application to build what would be the only consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the U.S.. In a much-anticipated decision Monday, NRC greenlit Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in Andrews […]

While the Joe Biden administration in its appropriations request floated the idea of moving a military cleanup program to the Department of Energy from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, lawmakers seem inclined to keep things as they are, according to a recent analysis from the Congressional Research Service. The White House budget request in […]

Working closely with would-be opponents of nuclear waste repositories is important to getting such sites built, a panel of international nuclear experts said at a conference last week. “I think it’s very important to have informed critics [of nuclear waste],” Arne Kaijser, professor of technology and history at Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, said […]

A New Jersey power plant undergoing decommissioning needs to shore up its spent fuel inventory security procedures, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found in a recent site inspection. NRC logged three physical security violations at Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station during an August inspection of the plant’s independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI), according to a […]

A Louisiana nuclear plant that shut down as Hurricane Ida battered the state last week will soon resume normal operations, the utility company that owns the site said this week. Entergy Nuclear has “completed all necessary internal readiness reviews and has received recommendations and approvals” from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart Waterford Steam Electric […]

The head of Texas’s environmental regulation agency is staying for another term, the governor’s office said this week. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Tuesday reappointed Jon Niermann to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), according to a press release. Now in his second term on the commission, Niermann can remain in his post until […]

The governor of Texas drew a line in the sand this week on commercial interim storage, signing a law banning storage of high-level nuclear waste in the Lone Star State. House Bill (HB) 7, which Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed into law Thursday, went into effect immediately. The law prevents anyone from storing or transporting […]

The federal government needs to do more than just prop up existing nuclear reactors to achieve its climate goals, executives of a major nuclear non-profit and a labor union said in an op-ed this week. Though the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) both “welcome” the Joe Biden administration’s […]

The sale of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant is getting more scrutiny, as a second decommissioning company got permission this week to get involved in a review of the transaction. Dominion Energy already agreed to sell the Kewaunee Power Station to EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, for decommissioning, but the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (WPSC) is […]

A new vaccine mandate from the White House will force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s federal workforce to get the jab, while the agency says the majority of its staff are still working from home. The Joe Biden administration’s Thursday evening executive order directed federal agencies like NRC to develop a “program to require COVID-19 vaccination […]

A candidate for Nevada’s first congressional district got two endorsements from environmental groups this week as she seeks to unseat one of the Silver State’s staunchest Yucca Mountain opponents. The Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund gave its support earlier this week to Amy Vilela’s primary campaign against incumbent Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.). “Amy has […]

Members of the public are getting even more time to leave comments on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s planned agency-wide environmental justice review, according to a notice published this week. The new deadline for community input on NRC’s review is Oct. 29, according to a Federal Register notice published Friday morning. This is the agency’s second […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week sought to allay the concerns of the Texas county slated to host a commercial interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, according to a letter to the county’s chief executive. “NRC staff is conducting a detailed review of the license application from Interim Storage Partners, LLC, to determine whether […]

Washington is making a bad investment with proposed legislation providing tax credits to financially-struggling nuclear power plants, a coalition of anti-nuclear groups told members of Congress in a letter last week. Proposed bailouts for nuclear plants, which includes around $6 billion in the Joe Biden administration’s trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, “misdirects resources while perpetuating climate injustice,” […]

A Louisiana nuclear power plant that shut down as Hurricane Ida passed through has site power back online, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week. Waterford Nuclear Generating Station, located about 25 miles from New Orleans, got its offsite electrical power back Tuesday evening, NRC said in a statement published Wednesday morning on Facebook.  The […]

An anti-nuclear watchdog’s agency-level effort to halt the sale of a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant is dead to rights after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted it down this week. The three NRC commissioners voted unanimously during a Tuesday meeting to nix Three Mile Island Alert’s petition to reconsider the sale of Three Mile Island Nuclear […]

The Exchange Monitor’s Decommissioning Strategy Forum has been rescheduled to Nov. 1-2 at the J.W. Marriott Las Vegas Resort and Spa in Summerlin, Nev. For more information, please contact Beth Wagner, associate brand director for the Decommissioning Strategy Forum.

In mid-August, with his former colleagues enjoying a week of recess back home, a self-described “nuclear-waste guy” with nearly a quarter of a century on Capitol Hill worked on lesson plans for his new teaching gig, watching nuclear-waste history repeat itself. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) ended a 24-year career representing Illinois’s 15th congressional district in […]

Second time’s the charm for a proposed bill aimed at banning the storage of high-level nuclear waste including spent fuel in Texas, which cleared both houses of the state legislature this week in a parliamentary blitz. The measure, co-sponsored by state Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R) and state Sen. Brian Birdwell (R), passed in its second […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced late last week that it was extending the comment period for its Environmental Justice review through September 22.  The commission is seeking “input on how the agency is addressing environmental justice, considering the agency’s mission and statutory authority,” according to a Federal Register notice published August 10. The agency has […]

San Diego’s county commission this week joined a group lobbying the federal government to remove the shuttered San Onofre Generating Station’s spent fuel from the California coast. The San Diego County board of supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to use as much as $100,000 to hire a contractor that would manage the county’s participation in […]

An unused spent fuel storage canister that arrived at Oak Ridge National Laboratory Wednesday will be used to investigate long-term storage solutions for the nation’s nuclear waste, according to a press release. The 22-ton empty canister will boost a research team at the Tennessee-based Oak Ridge (ORNL) that is “​​investigating methods to help the nation […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday offered a strongly-worded rebuke to the New Mexico attorney general’s claim that a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel violates federal law, according to a new court filing. NRC has the right to license commercial facilities under the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), the agency argued in the […]