Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

The New Mexico’s state Senate Conservation Committee did not debate as scheduled this week on a proposed bill that would create a statewide  “radioactive waste consultation task force.” The committee adjourned Thursday without discussing the proposed legislation, SB 82. The committee is scheduled to reconvene Tuesday, a week after the measure first appeared on a […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will resume force-on-force inspections in March with new COVID-19 guidelines for social distancing during exercises and advance notice about virus conditions on site two weeks prior to inspections, the agency said in a Wednesday webinar. NRC officials from the agency’s security operations division said during the webinar that the agency will […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission won’t reconsider a minerals company’s objections to the licensing of Interim Storage Partners’ proposed consolidated interim storage site in West Texas, according to a recent agency filing. According to last Friday’s filing, the commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board threw out the most recent of three motions filed last year by […]

A team of environmental interest groups is petitioning a federal to reverse the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s December rejection of two separate requests to delay the licensing of Interim Storage Partners’ proposed consolidated interim storage facility, according to a legal filing this week. The environmental groups asked the court of appeals for the D.C. circuit to […]

Ohio State Sen. Mark Romanchuk (R) has introduced a bill to nullify part of a controversial law that, according to the state’s attorney general, would allow FirstEnergy Corp. to reap more than $100 million in profit from financially troubled nuclear power plants operated by a former subsidiary. The company is allowed to collect the money […]

The cost to dispose of low-level waste fluctuated in 2020, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimated in an annual report, increasing at some sites due to higher waste volumes or radioactivity and decreased at others as a result of streamlined procedures. The agency’s 2020 estimates were informed by a sample group of nuclear plants and four […]

The construction of Interim Storage Partners’ consolidated interim storage facility won’t pose a threat to indigenous peoples’ historical sites, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday. In a letter to the Comanche Nation chair William Nelson, dated Jan. 26, the Commission said that the proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in Andrews, Texas will have “low […]

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released their subcommittee assignments Thursday, including picks for the energy and environment panels with jurisdiction over nuclear waste agencies and programs. In a full committee organizational meeting Thursday afternoon, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the chair, reviewed the assignments, which revealed no major change in Democratic leadership for either subcommittee. […]

New York state is suing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over its refusal to delay the sale of Indian Point, according to a legal filing from last Friday. New York state attorney general Letitia James submitted the filing to the D.C. circuit court of appeals, after the NRC denied the state’s request to intervene on the […]

The Biden administration selected Commissioner Christopher Hanson to become the 18th chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency announced last week.  Hanson, one of the four current commissioners, is chairman effective immediately, according to an agency press release. He replaces former chair Kristine Svinicki, who left the commission on Jan. 20. “I look forward […]

The Department of Energy should use consent-based siting to find a permanent geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel, Jennifer Granholm, President Biden’s energy secretary nominee, said Wednesday. The former Michigan governor told Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee at her confirmation hearing that “site-based consensus strategies” are […]

The Ohio Attorney General’s office is seeking an injunction against FirstEnergy Corp. and Energy Harbor from being guaranteed an income of $102 million annually — a guarantee stashed away in the fine print of the scandal-plagued nuclear bailout legislation, Ohio House Bill 6. Signed into law in 2020, House Bill 6 provides a $150 million […]

As of Friday morning, the Biden administration had not nominated either a fifth Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair or a fifth commissioner to replace the recently departed chair. So, while we wait, here’s where things at the nation’s nuclear rulemaking agency stand, and what’s at stake for the industry during Biden’s first 100 days. Former NRC […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the process of implementing new inspection procedures that will standardize a more streamlined protocol across all of its standalone spent nuclear fuel storage facilities, the agency said Thursday. In a Tweet, the NRC said their enhanced guidelines for oversight of independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs) focus on “the […]

Former Department of Energy official Dr. Rita Baranwal broke a year of social media silence this week to announce that she is filling a senior position at the Electric Power Research Institute, her new professional home post-Trump administration. Baranwal joined the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) as the chief nuclear officer and vice president of […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a blanket denial recently of four hearing requests and three motions filed respectively by the state of New York and environmental watchdog groups that sought to delay the sale of Indian Point Energy Center, according to a recent agency memorandum. According to the memo dated Friday, the state of New […]

Nuclear services company Orano projects it will double its output of dry-storage canisters, relative to 2020, after consolidating its heavy manufacturing in the United States, the company said in a statement.  In 2020, Orano fulfilled all of its customer contracts for its NUTECH horizontal modular storage system (NUHOMS) dry-storage canisters while operating at two-thirds manufacturing […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied a nuclear watchdog’s request for a hearing regarding the sale of Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant’s Unit 2 reactor, according to a memorandum published by the agency Friday. The watchdog, Three Mile Island Alert, Inc., wanted the NRC to take a closer look at the transfer of the Three Mile […]

Rita Baranwal, who made headlines in her Department of Energy tenure as a voice for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, resigned last Friday as President Donald Trump’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy. Baranwal announced the decision on the official twitter account for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, which by Monday she no longer controlled. […]

Nuclear plant closures will represent the majority of generating capacity retirements in 2021, the Energy Information Administration forecast Tuesday. The loss of nuclear generating capacity — a total of 5.1 gigawatts — amounts to 56% of the expected capacity loss for the coming year, the Department of Energy organization said.  Exelon’s Dresden and Byron nuclear […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission asked a federal court to throw out industry’s request for judicial review of the commission’s claim that the federal government is the ultimate decision-maker about low-level waste disposal. In a brief filed last Friday with the D.C. Circuit Court, the commission both refuted the Nuclear Energy Institute’s (NEI) legal basis for […]

The incoming Biden administration should designate a senior official reporting to the White House to negotiate both long-term and interim radioactive waste storage with Congress, an Obama-era Department of Energy official said this week. “A senior negotiator representing the administration would provide focus, leadership, and momentum for legislative action that puts the United States on […]

Judges this week declined to second-guess the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to proceed — over an environmental group’s objection — with decommissioning of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, writing that the federal government’s plan would not violate the law. The NRC last year declined a petition by Public Watchdogs to halt decommissioning of the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Thursday that Andrea D. Veil will become acting director of the Reactor Regulation program following Ho Nieh’s departure.  Veil previously served as the deputy office director for the program and has served in various positions throughout the Commission’s Office of Regulatory Research since 1992. Nieh, the former director of the […]

Kristine Svinicki will retire from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Jan. 21, more than a year before her five-year term is up, after serving under three presidents and leading the nuclear-power-plant regulator as chair since 2017. Svinicki, first nominated to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2007 by then-President George W. Bush, has been commissioner since […]

A federal judge denied Holtec’s plea for oral arguments in a lawsuit the company filed against Lacey Township in September this week. The company’s request for a temporary restraining order allowing it to resume a dry run and practice demonstrations for its spent fuel campaign at the shuttered Oyster Creek power plant will be decided […]