Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

The impending closures of four nuclear power plants across the country could “give away years of progress” in decarbonizing the U.S. energy sector, the head of the industry’s biggest trade group said this week. “Our climate plans can’t work if we go backwards by shuttering our nuclear plants, but that’s exactly the possibility we face,” […]

A California Democrat is taking another shot at legislation that would create the framework for a federal interim storage program for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel inventory. Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Ca.) reintroduced the Storage and Transportation of Residual and Excess (STORE) Nuclear Fuel Act this week, according to a Tuesday press release . The measure […]

The energy market “doesn’t value” nuclear power plants which results in their premature decommissioning, industry executives told a Senate panel this week. Utility companies don’t “recognize the full value” of nuclear power as a long term source of energy, Jeffery Lyash, president of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the companies involved in the sale of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station have a little over three weeks to respond to an environmental group’s request to hold off on the transaction, according to an agency filing. The NRC, the FirstEnergy companies and the EnergySolutions subsidiary responsible for decommissioning the […]

A bill to ban storage of high-level nuclear waste in Texas passed in a state House committee Wednesday, setting it up for a floor vote. The measure, proposed by state Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R), passed in the Texas House Environmental Regulation Committee on a 6-2 vote. Landgraf chairs the committee. The panel reported the bill […]

By John Stang The Ohio General Assembly unanimously voted this week to repeal the $1.1 billion subsidy it approved almost two years ago for the financially struggling Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear reactors. The Ohio Senate passed House Bill 128 33-0 on Wednesday, and the House passed it 89-0 on Thursday. The bill, sponsored by Republican […]

An environmental watchdog group that previously raised concerns about environmental law violations in the sale of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station formally asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week to pump the brakes on the transaction, according to new documents. In a motion dated Monday, Three Mile Island Alert (TMIA) argued that until the […]

New Mexico is one step closer to getting the inside baseball on proposed spent fuel repositories after a bill that would expand the mandate of a radioactive waste task force won approval in the state House’s environmental committee this week. Senate Bill (SB) 82, proposed by state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D), is now scheduled for […]

The former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is joining the University of Michigan as an adjunct professor, according to a press release. The university’s Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Science (NERS) department announced that Kristine Svinicki would join the faculty in a March 8 statement. Svinicki will help to “define the new directions for twenty-first-century […]

The final version of the next volume in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s long-awaited reactor decommissioning guidance is expected to be published “sometime next year,” an agency official said this week. The NRC’s second of three rulemakings for decommissioning nuclear reactors is currently in the public comments phase, said Cynthia Barr, a senior analyst at the […]

In a policy and organizing blitz this week, the co-owners of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station released a voluminous new report this week about the logistics of relocating the plant’s spent fuel and formed a new stakeholders group focused on the federal government. Action for Spent Fuel Solutions Now, spearheaded by Southern California Edison […]

As a legal battle continues over the decommissioning of Indian Point Nuclear Generating Station, the company in charge of dismantling the plant took to local media last week to plead their case. Decommissioning the Buchanan, N.Y. power plant could lead to a “rebirth and re-use” of the land it’s located on, bringing new jobs and […]

Next week, a committee of the Texas state House of Representatives will consider a bill that would ban storage of high-level nuclear waste, including spent fuel from power plants, in the Lone Star state. H.B. 2692, proposed earlier this month by state Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R), will hear debate in the state’s House Environmental Regulation […]

Nuclear energy was the second-largest source of electricity in the United States in 2020 amid losses in coal generating capacity, according to a new federal report. Nuclear power plants produced 790 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity last year — 16 million MWh more than coal generation, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Thursday […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff want to cancel a proposed rulemaking for spent fuel reprocessing, citing lack of interest and stakeholder concerns, according to a recent policy issue. NRC operations director Margaret Doane submitted the March 5 commission request to discontinue the rulemaking, which was introduced in 2013 and would have laid groundwork to help companies […]

By John Stang FirstEnergy Corp.’s acting chief executive officer Steve Strah is now the permanent CEO, the corporation announced this week.  Strah had been acting CEO since October and president, a position he retains, since May 2020. He has replaced Chuck Jones, who was fired last October in the wake of a $60 million bribery […]

The acting director of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s reactor regulation office will become the official head of the program, the agency announced this week. Andrea Veil, who had been serving as interim head of the Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) office since former director Ho Nieh’s departure in January, was selected to take on the position […]

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission study recommending updates for disposal of very low-level radioactive waste is scheduled to wrap up this spring, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission staffer said this week. The commission’s very low-level waste (VLLW) scoping study is supposed to finish up in April, Stephen Koenick, NRC low-level waste project chief, said Wednesday in a […]

The total volume of waste disposed of at the EnergySolutions facility in Utah was cut in half in 2020, a site executive said Tuesday. Vern Rogers, regulatory affairs director at EnergySolutions, said at a panel during the Waste Management Symposium that the roughly 100,000 cubic yard decrease in waste volume was due to the effects […]

A federal judge last week put an indefinite hold on a coalition of environmental groups’ petition against a proposed interim spent fuel storage site in west Texas, court filings show. The D.C. circuit court of appeals also agreed to consolidate the complaints filed by Don’t Waste Michigan, Beyond Nuclear and the Sierra Club against the […]

For newly minted Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Christopher Hanson, it’s good to be back in the office.  “I’m here a couple of days, mostly because I just have to get out of my house,” Hanson told RadWaste Monitor this week from NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md. “I’ve got a dog and two teenagers at home […]

A big nuclear industry trade group plans to jump into the ongoing controversy surrounding the decommissioning of Indian Point Nuclear Generating Station to “help educate and inform” policy makers, an industry executive said this week. The Nuclear Energy Institute will step in “as requested by our member companies,” Bruce Montgomery, the industry group’s director of […]

Reactor decommissioning sites could become prime locations for future advanced nuclear technology, an executive at the nation’s foremost nuclear industry group said this week. “In the past, I think many viewed decommissioning as a sign of the end of the commercial nuclear industry that’s inexorably approaching,” said Bruce Montgomery, director of the Nuclear Energy Institute’s […]

The president of a company in charge of a proposed interim storage facility in Texas told state lawmakers this week that it wouldn’t build the site unless it got the green light from the governor’s mansion. David Carlson, president and chief operating officer at Waste Control Specialists (WCS), told members of the Texas House Environmental […]

President Joe Biden’s nominee for deputy secretary of energy, David Turk, pledged Thursday to work with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), over concerns a new DOE approach toward subcontractors might hurt small businesses around the Hanford Site in Washington state. “I know it is a priority for you, it will be a priority for me if […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission resumed anti-terrorism exercises at nuclear power plants with additional COVID-19 guidelines in February, the agency said this week. Force-on-force inspections started up again last month, NRC spokesperson David McIntyre told RadWaste Monitor in an email Monday. The agency had previously said in a February webinar with industry that exercises would resume […]

Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee unveiled a proposed climate bill this week that would classify nuclear energy as a “clean energy project.” The CLEAN Energy Act, introduced by committee chairman Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) alongside Reps. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) and Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), considers nuclear to be a zero-emissions energy source. As […]