Publications: Nuclear Energy & Radwaste Monitor

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is moving ahead with a set of updates to its oversight of storage pads for spent nuclear fuel, including downshifting the frequency for standard inspections to once every three years. The agency intends this year to complete the revisions to its independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) inspection program, with all […]

By John Stang The Montana Legislature’s Environmental Quality Council voted 12-2 on Wednesday to remove an informal objection to setting a state radionuclide-concentration limit of 50 picocuries per gram for its landfills to accept technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) waste. In April, the Environmental Council made that informal objection, which delayed the rulemaking […]

By John Stang Representatives of U.S. regional low-level radioactive waste compacts on Wednesday continued to discuss contingency plans for a financially ailing disposal facility in Texas. No conclusions came out of the teleconference, which was a follow-up to a similar session earlier this month on the state-owned, privately run Texas Compact Waste Facility (CWF). It […]

Remediation of radioactively contaminated municipalities in Ontario, Canada, has been knocked off schedule by the COVID-19 pandemic, but organizers hope to claw back time as work ramps up in coming months. In March, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories halted nearly all field operations under the Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI), just ahead of the program’s annual construction […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is making preparations for bringing staff back to their offices amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a spokesman said Tuesday. Ninety-eight percent of the federal regulator’s personnel have been working remotely since March to help prevent the spread of novel coronavirus 2019 during the national public health emergency. The agency’s “COVID Task Force […]

Senate leaders continued this week to work on liability protections for businesses that reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic, after the House’s Democratic majority pushed through a $3-trillion COVID-19 economic relief bill the White House has threatened to veto. The Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, H.R. 6800, passed the House in a 208-199 […]

Representatives of the nation’s regional low-level radioactive waste compacts have begun discussions on possible means for assistance to sustain operations at a financially troubled disposal facility in Texas. The talks on the state-owned, privately run Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact facility are being coordinated through the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Forum. Officials from all 10 […]

The Department of Energy, the manager of its Los Alamos National Laboratory, and an on-site contractor all shoulder some blame for a May 2019 incident that contaminated a University of Washington building in Seattle with cesium-137, according to a recent report. The “preventable” event during a radiological source recovery operation resulted from “weak and partially […]

There is no reasonable alternative to the full decommissioning and disassembly of the retired SM-1 nuclear power reactor at Fort Belvoir, Va., according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The Army Corps on Monday announced the release of the final environmental assessment, finding of no significant impact, and finding of no practicable alternative […]

International Isotopes in April secured a $495,500 bank loan via federal COVID-19 relief legislation to help pay its employees, according to a quarterly filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Paycheck Protection Program in the CARES Act, signed into law in March, is intended via forgivable loans to assist small businesses in meeting […]

FirstEnergy Corp. on Tuesday announced a long list of changes in its executive suite, starting with President and CEO Chuck Jones peeling off one of his titles. The Board of Directors for the Akron, Ohio-based power company on Tuesday approved executive Steven Strah’s appointment as president, with Jones remaining in the top spot at CEO […]

By John Stang The Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) in Nebraska on May 13 completed moving all spent fuel at the retired Fort Calhoun Station nuclear power plant into dry storage. Workers began moving the first of 30 canisters on Oct. 14, 2019. Overall, the 30 canisters hold 944 bundles of used fuel, according to […]

The Senate on Thursday confirmed two nominations that will return the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to its full five-person membership. Serving Commissioner David Wright and Senate Appropriations Committee staffer Christopher Hanson were both confirmed en bloc, via voice vote from the Senate floor. There was no word at deadline Friday regarding the schedule for Wright and Hanson […]

By John Stang No U.S. facilities licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have to date experienced safety hazards arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency said Monday in a report to Vice President Mike Pence. NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki submitted a two-page summary of measures taken by the regulator during the public health emergency to […]

The nominee for the No. 2 position at the Department of Energy on Wednesday affirmed the Trump administration’s intention to move ahead with a program for interim storage of nuclear waste rather than continuing to press for disposal under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. “Let me be very clear about this. The president has been very […]

Federal contractors would get leniency for missing deliverables because of their COVID-19 response plans, and prime contractors would be in line for quicker payments, under a Democratic-authored relief bill slated for a vote Friday in the House of Representatives – and which President Donald Trump has said he would veto. The Senate’s Republican leadership also […]

An article in the May 8 issue of RadWaste Monitor cited an incorrect figure for the goodwill impairment charges reported for US Ecology’s first-quarter earnings. The total amount was $300.3 million.

Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal reaffirmed Thursday her interest in finding a foreign provider of reprocessing for used fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. “We can collaborate with entities that currently recycle used fuel and not necessarily have to have our own recycling plant in-country, so that’s certainly an option that my […]

Perma-Fix Environmental Services on Tuesday reported a 112.3% increase in revenue for the first quarter of 2020, even as the COVID-19 pandemic began to bite into its business. Sales rose from $11.7 million in the first quarter of 2019 to $24.9 million in the three-month period ending March 31 of this year, according to a […]

Over the course of a decade, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has halved the amount of time needed to review and decide on applications for renewal of storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel. “My understanding is it used to take something like 48 months and now it’s taking something on the order of 24 months, which […]

The commonwealth of Pennsylvania has not proven its case to be allowed to intervene in the federal review of the license transfer application for reactor Unit 2 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, according to the reactor’s owner and prospective buyer. Subsidiaries of FirstEnergy Corp. and EnergySolutions on Monday filed their response with […]

By John Stang The 2019 sale of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts drove a major revenue drop that put Entergy Wholesale Commodities’ income into the red for the first quarter of 2020, parent company Entergy Corp. said Monday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the 10-Q filing, the New […]

The ExchangeMonitor’s 2020 Decommissioning Strategy Forum is being pushed back from June to September and relocated to Henderson, Nev. The continuing COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to stick to the original schedule to hold the conference on June 8-9 in Nashville, according to the ExchangeMonitor’s parent company, Access Intelligence. “Please note that out of concern […]

By John Stang The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week approved its first regulatory exemption of the COVID-18 pandemic for a spent fuel storage licensee, along with lifting work-hour limits for another nuclear power plant. As of Wednesday, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has been granted a two-month extension to file the license renewal application for its […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will next week consider Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes’ nomination to the No. 2 spot at the Department of Energy. The White House in March nominated Menezes as deputy secretary of energy. He would succeed Dan Brouillette, who became energy secretary in December. After a career on Capitol […]

US Ecology on May 8 said a freeze on all discretionary spending and reduced travel are among the cost controls instituted earlier this year as part of an effort to save tens of millions of dollars in annual expenses to blunt the business impact from the COVID-19 pandemic. The belt-tightening is part of a set […]

The state of South Carolina wants the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to prepare a full environmental impact statement before deciding whether to renew the license for Westinghouse’s Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility (CFFF). The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) made the request in an April 27 letter regarding the federal regulator’s 2019 draft […]