Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Southern California Edison has put in a new top manager for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) following an August mishap in transfer of spent fuel at the retired power plant. In a statement Tuesday, the utility said Vice President of Operational Services Doug Bauder would take over on Nov. 12 as chief nuclear […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory in September spent $11,645 of its remaining balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund on federal court litigation, according to the latest expense report to Congress. The September expenses, totaling $12,564, leave the nuclear industry regulator with access to $430,746 in unobligated money from the federal fund intended to pay for licensing, […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday denied two groups’ petitions for dismissal of license applications for interim spent fuel storage facilities in Texas and New Mexico. “The NRC’s regulations allow interested persons to file petitions to intervene and requests for hearing in which they can raise concerns regarding a particular license application. These regulations do […]

Nevada and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission through Thursday continued to wrangle over against a state request that a federal judge block Commissioner David Wright from participating in adjudicating the license application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Lawyers for both sides in recent days filed counter-claims and counter-counter-claims in the U.S. Court of Appeals […]

Cost overruns for core cleanup projects at the United Kingdom’s Sellafield nuclear site are expected to total £913 million ($1.16 billion), the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee said Wednesday. In a report on the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s efforts to reduce the risk left by former nuclear weapons and power operations at the complex […]

By John Stang Entergy and Holtec International are at least a couple weeks behind schedule in submitting the license transfer application and associated paperwork for the proposed sale of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts. In late September, the two companies said they anticipated they would in October deliver to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission […]

Parties to a settlement agreement and memorandum of understanding for the planned sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant are allowing another month to secure final regulatory approval necessary for the deal. The new date at which parties are authorized to withdraw from the settlement, if the Vermont Public Utility Commission has not ruled […]

Entergy expects the license transfer application for its Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts to proceed through review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission more quickly than the recently wrapped process for the Vermont Yankee power plant, an executive said Wednesday. In both cases, the New Orleans-based energy provider wants to sell the facility to […]

Parties to a settlement agreement and memorandum of understanding for the planned sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant are allowing another month to secure final regulatory approval necessary for the deal. The new date at which parties are authorized to withdraw from the settlement, if the Vermont Public Utility Commission has not ruled […]

Three managers at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are receiving promotions effective Dec. 23. Daniel Dorman will succeed the retiring Michael Johnson as deputy executive director for reactor and preparedness programs. K. Steven West will assume a job Dorman currently holds on an acting basis: deputy executive director for materials, waste, research, state, tribal, compliance, […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved Exelon’s request for an exemption to federal regulations so the power company can use part of the decommissioning trust for its Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station for related but otherwise prohibited cleanup operations. However, the exemptions will be effective only so long as Exelon owns the single-reactor plant in […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday denied two groups’ petitions for dismissal of license applications for interim spent fuel storage facilities in Texas and New Mexico. “The NRC’s regulations allow interested persons to file petitions to intervene and requests for hearing in which they can raise concerns regarding a particular license application. These regulations do […]

Democratic Party lawmakers from Nevada are urging President Donald Trump to follow through on his apparent pledge to re-evaluate plans for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, after Energy Secretary Rick Perry said the administration continues to support the project. “These contradictory remarks from Secretary Perry underline why the White House must follow through on […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Nov. 8 will conduct an online public meeting to discuss its preliminary findings on a spent fuel handling error at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California. In an initial report issued earlier this month, NRC staff cited “multiple performance deficiencies” by Southern California Edison, majority owner […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday gave interested parties just over two additional weeks to file requests for hearings and intervention on a license application for temporary storage of spent nuclear reactor fuel in West Texas. The deadline has been pushed back from Monday to Tuesday, Nov. 13, according to an order from Annette Vietti-Cook, […]

Nevada last week rebuffed the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s assertion that it is covered by the federal government’s sovereign immunity against a state request that a federal judge block Commissioner David Wright from participating in adjudicating the license application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Sovereign immunity was one aspect of the federal agency’s […]

A panel of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality on Thursday rejected a request for an exemption to state rules to enable EnergySolutions to move ahead with potential disposal of depleted uranium at its facility near the unincorporated community of Clive. The Waste Management and Radiation Control Board voted against the Salt Lake City-based nuclear […]

Nearly a week after President Donald Trump suggested his administration could rethink its efforts to license a nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada, there were no details on what such an approach might look like. Any new plan would run counter to the Trump White House’s efforts in its first two budget requests […]

The Department of Energy said Tuesday it is considering sending the nation’s entire stock of Greater-Than-Class C and GTCC-like low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) for disposal at a specialized facility in West Texas. The proposal is addressed in a site-specific assessment of the potential environmental effects of shipping and holding the material at the Federal Waste […]

Perma-Fix Environmental Services has applied for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ship low-level radioactive waste back to Mexico after treatment. The two-reactor Laguna Verde nuclear power plant near Veracruz is expected to send radioactively contaminated metals, wood, paper, concrete, and other materials for treatment and processing at Perma-Fix facilities in Richland, Wash., and […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided to move ahead with completing a key document on disposal of Greater-Than-Class-C (GTCC) low-level radioactive waste rather than waiting on an upcoming milestone in another proceeding. The regulator had previously planned to issue a draft regulatory basis for a potential rulemaking on GTCC waste disposal six months after publishing […]

The Department of Energy said Tuesday it is considering sending the nation’s stock of Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) and GTCC-like low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) for disposal at the Waste Control Specialists facility in West Texas. The proposal is addressed in a site-specific environmental assessment of shipping and holding the waste at the Federal Waste Facility on […]

Representatives from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Holtec International are scheduled to meet Tuesday to discuss the energy technology company’s license application for a planned spent nuclear reactor fuel storage facility in New Mexico. The meeting will specifically address the regulator’s request for additional information (RAI) following Holtec’s initial application filing in March 2017. On […]

President Donald Trump on Saturday suggested his administration could rethink its efforts to license a nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain in Nevada, the Washington Post reported. “I think you should do things where people want them to happen, so I would be very inclined to be against it,” Trump told Reno radio station KRNV. “We […]

“Multiple performance deficiencies” contributed to a mishap in transfer of spent reactor fuel at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California, and could have led to a storage container being dropped nearly 20 feet, according to initial findings from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Agency personnel are investigating the incident, including a site […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is suspending its search for sites in Nevada that could host hearings on the license application for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository until the agency knows whether it will again need such a facility. Commissioners unanimously concurred with a staff recommendation to defer further work on siting the hearing space, […]

The state of Nevada has jumped the gun in seeking to force a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to recuse himself from any ruling over the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, so its petition in federal court should be dismissed, the NRC argued this week. Case law has shown that a recusal request […]

By John Stang The fact that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission tweaked the conditions for transferring the licenses for the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is cause for the state Public Utility Commission to reject the plan as it currently stands, an environmental group argued in a new filing Wednesday. Among the organizations authorized to […]

By John Stang The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is taking public comments through Nov. 19 on the proposed license transfer for the newly closed Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey. Parties also have until Nov. 8 to request to intervene and a public hearing on the proposed sale of the plant, according to an NRC […]

The state of Nevada has jumped the gun in seeking to force a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to recuse himself from any ruling over the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, so its petition in federal court should be dismissed, the NRC argued this week. Nevada in August filed the dismissal motion in […]