Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

Responsive Non-Destructive Testing will carry out quality inspection and testing at the United Kingdom’s low-level radioactive waste disposal facility after winning a 12-month framework contract this week.  The 18-person U.K.-based company Responsive Non-Destructive Testing (NDT), a subsidiary of Responsive Ltd., has five bases across England and deals with destructive, non-destructive and mechanical testing as well […]

Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) is bidding farewell to Congress after a more than 20 year stint as an Illinois representative, and he says Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) could be one of the congressmen to replace him as the lower chamber’s main advocate for a permanent nuclear-waste disposal site. Shimkus credited Duncan for helping secure the […]

The NRC won’t fine International Isotopes for license and regulatory violations the company made last year that contributed to the release of cesium-137 last year at a Seattle hospital facility. In a letter of enforcement published on Tuesday, NRC staff dinged International Isotopes with two violations: failure to have appropriate administrative procedures to mitigate the […]

Anyone who opposes FirstEnergy’s plea for a protective order to block deposition of a company executive by an Ohio state government watchdog have until Nov. 2 to speak up,  Public Utilities Commission of Ohio attorney examiner Gregory Price ruled Tuesday.  FirstEnergy filed for the protective order last week. The company wants to block the production […]

The public comment period for a Nuclear Regulatory Commission rulemaking that would simplify the very low-level waste disposal process ended Wednesday with over 6,000 comments.  Announced in March, the interpretive rule would allow the waste to be disposed of at facilities without Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licenses. The NRC would grant “specific exemptions” overriding current […]

Japan, which lacks a permanent waste disposal repository, will move forward with plans for a nuclear fuel recycling program that would involve extracting plutonium from spent fuel, according to the Associated Press.  The plan has been highly criticized by China and Russia due to Japan’s huge plutonium stockpile and relatively few prospects for consuming it […]

The group overseeing the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts this week passed the only motion enough members were able to agree on: that current voting rules don’t allow the group to agree on anything.  In order to pass a motion, the 21-seat Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel (NDCAP) currently needs 11 members to vote […]

Soon after withdrawing its designation of Texas-based Waste Control Specialists as its long-term storage site for elemental mercury, the Department of Energy is seeking information about other potentially suitable sites. Responses are due by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Nov. 4 to DOE’s request for information (RFI) for a leased facility and services related to […]

Holtec won’t be able to continue with dry runs at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power station in New Jersey until the company obtains the proper construction permits from host site Lacey Township, a federal judge ruled Thursday afternoon.  Holtec’s dry runs involve mandatory demonstrations in which the company practices moving spent nuclear fuel from a […]

When Michael Pircio blew the whistle on FirstEnergy Corp., the electric utility allegedly involved with former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder’s $60 million racketeering scheme, the company filed a lawsuit to make an example out of him, Pircio said Monday in a court filing. When FirstEnergy found out that, days after his termination, Pircio downloaded […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff members will release a letter outlining how the commission plans to move forward with COVID-19-related work-hour and security inspection exemptions and other pandemic-related topics in late October.  The commission has granted 48 force-on-force exemptions since the start of the pandemic, nearly half of the exemptions granted overall, according to NRC spokesman […]

Energy Harbor has been subpoenaed in a criminal investigation into its involvement with former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, according to people close to the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.  Federal prosecutors are asking the company to turn over documents proving the legality of its lobbying on behalf of House Bill 6, the […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff plan to combine the “Part 61” low-level radioactive waste rulemaking and the Greater-Than-Class C rulemaking for efficiency, a senior official said this week. The highly anticipated NRC report will be released to the public by the end of November, Patricia Holahan, director of the NRC’s Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery, and […]

Exelon Corp. is considering selling its nuclear plants, Bloomberg reports.  The business wire reported Monday afternoon that sources close to the energy company say it’s considering selling some of its non-utility assets, but a final decision hasn’t been made. “As we most recently communicated on our second quarter earnings call, we regularly review our corporate […]

Republican Illinois State Rep. Tom Demmer, determined to save Exelon’s Byron Generating Station from closure, launched a website last week to gin up support for state subsidies to stop the plant from closing next fall.  Exelon announced plans to close the Byron and Dresden Generating Stations in late August, calling them “uneconomic” and plagued by […]

Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization will begin preparing borehole sites this year at the South Bruce site in the province of Ontario and plans to begin drilling next spring, according to a recent update to the South Bruce Community Liaison Committee. South Bruce is one of two sites the organization is considering to build a […]

AECOM has closed the sale of its power construction business to CriticalPoint Capital, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm that most recently acquired WalMart’s “Shoes.com.” Los Angeles-based AECOM, a multinational engineering, design and construction company, has been mulling a selloff over the past nine months, according to public filings in which it acknowledged interest in […]

By John Stang Transportation, potential terrorism and environmental justice were among the concerns voiced Thrusday at web-based public hearing on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s draft environmental impact statement on Interim Storage Partners’ proposal to build a spent nuclear fuel storage site in western Texas.  “We don’t want high-level radioactive wastes dumped in our home,” said […]

A defeated 2018 Republican candidate for the Ohio House of Representatives is suing FirstEnergy, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and others for subsidizing “defamatory” campaign ads against him in a blatant attempt to get one of Householder’s preferred candidates elected instead. Bobby Mitchell alleges First Energy pushed money through a non-profit called Generation Now […]

Voters in Eastham, Massachusetts, the site of the decommissioned Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, voted overwhelmingly in favor of asking Gov. Charlie Baker to amp up security at the plant.  The NRC “hasn’t heard anything” from Eastham, spokesman David McIntyre wrote in an email Thursday. He added that the Atomic Energy Act gives the NRC — […]

A California activist group wants federal money to fund cancer research in communities living near power plants — an effort suggested by the National Academy of Sciences years ago but ultimately dropped by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission due to cost. The petition is organized by the Samuel Lawrence Foundation, a Del Mar, Calif., nonprofit that’s […]

Framatome, a French nuclear reactor company, has opened a brand-new $20 million uranium recovery facility at its 50-year-old fuel manufacturing site in Richland, Washington. The 11,000-square-foot recovery site will recover uranium from the fuel manufacturing process.  Framatome signed multimillion-dollar contracts with the Tennessee Valley Authority earlier this year for work at the Browns Ferry Nuclear […]

Eletronuclear, Brazil’s state-run utility, gave Westinghouse Electric Company a contract to extend operations by 20 years at the country’s only functioning nuclear power plant. The duo will conduct engineering analyses to prolong the life of the Angra 1 plant to 2044 from 2024. The analyses will be facilitated to maintain the plant’s safety and longevity […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Buffalo District submitted a proposed plan and launched the public comment period for the further decontamination of the Niagara Falls Storage Site in Lewiston, New York. The Corps has already finished the decision-making process for the 10-acre Interim Waste Containment Structure (IWCS), an engineered landfill dating to the 1980s […]

US Ecology will post expected sales of $237.85 million this quarter, MarketBeat reports. Zacks analysts project the company’s earnings — expected to come out Nov. 4 — will hit at least $235 million and at most $240 million in the third quarter, around 42% more than the same quarter last year.  AECOM Chief Operating Officer […]

By John Stang Since a COVID-19 outbreak during a reactor outage in May, social distancing and wearing masks to slow the spread of the disease have cut down on colds and other communicable illnesses among temporary workers used for reactor maintenance, an industry expert said this week.  ”We’ve seen a much healthier population on an […]

A New York congresswoman announced a $3 million relief package for the site of the soon-to-be-decommissioned Indian Point Energy Center in New York to help revitalize the local economy on Wednesday. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) plans to use the funding to create a new educational recreation facility on the Hudson River, roads and a water […]

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Democrat New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham may come from ideologically opposite sides of the spectrum, but now they have at least one gripe in common: neither is interested in hosting a nuclear waste storage facility in their state.  Abbott wrote a letter to President Donald Trump on Wednesday […]