Yucca Mountain Repository

The Donald Trump administration on Monday stuck to its guns about turning Nevada’s Yucca Mountain into a permanent nuclear waste repository, requested almost $170 million in fiscal 2019 for the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to work on the licensing the facility. The total 2019 request is just over 10 percent higher […]

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who has pledged to stop the Department of Energy from building a permanent nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain in his state, is still preventing the White House from filling a key nuclear regulatory in the U.S. government, Politico reported last week. The mostly silent blockade against Annie Caputo, a Republican whom […]

Appropriators in the House of Representatives are to blame for the failure to schedule a floor vote on legislation aimed at pushing forward development of the long-delayed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said Tuesday. Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 passed out of the […]

The Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission will remain frozen at fiscal 2017 spending levels through at least late March, under the stopgap spending bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump on Friday morning after an overnight government shutdown — the second of fiscal 2018. The bill is the fifth continuing resolution of […]

Appropriators in the House of Representatives are to blame for the inability to schedule a floor vote on legislation aimed at pushing forward development of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said Tuesday. Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017 passed out of the House […]

The Trump administration Department of Energy has failed to follow through on its commitment to take decisive action on permanent disposal of the nation’s ever-growing stockpile of nuclear waste, the head of a nuclear industry group said in a Jan. 23 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council Executive Director David Blee […]

The Nevada agency charged with leading the fight against the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the state has launched a new salvo, this time against federal legislation aimed at advancing the project. The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, introduced last June by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), has a number of negative […]

Utility company Exelon announced Friday that it would in October retire the Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey at the close of its current operational cycle. That is more than a year ahead of the December 2019 closure date mandated in a 2010 agreement with the state of New Jersey, according to a press […]

The Trump administration Department of Energy has failed to follow through on its commitment to take decisive action on permanent disposal of the nation’s ever-growing stockpile of nuclear waste, the head of a nuclear industry group said in a Jan. 23 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council Executive Director David Blee […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December spent $9,999 of its remaining balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund, leaving just under $514,000 for work on licensing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, according to the agency’s latest update to Congress. Three years after the Obama administration halted work on Yucca Mountain, a federal […]

The Nevada agency charged with leading the fight against the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in the state has launched a new salvo, this time against federal legislation aimed at advancing the project. The Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, introduced last June by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), has a number of implications […]

The first borehole has been fully drilled in Canada’s search for a location to dispose of radioactive spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear reactors, according to the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). Drilling began on Nov. 6, 2017, and wrapped up on Jan. 16 at the site roughly 22 miles west of the township of […]

Staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission aims by the end of February to determine whether to transition to a full technical review of Holtec International’s application to build a facility for interim storage of spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors. The pending completion of the NRC acceptance review of the 2017 application comes as […]

The U.S. Department of Energy remains committed to meeting its legal mandate for permanent disposal of spent nuclear reactor fuel, but is waiting on Congress to provide the funding needed to push that program forward, a senior DOE official said Tuesday. Resolving the decades-long impasse on the disposition of what is now more than 75,000 […]

The U.S. Department of Energy remains committed to meeting its legal mandate to permanently dispose of the nation’s spent nuclear reactor fuel, but is waiting on Congress to provide the funding needed to push that program forward, a senior DOE official said Tuesday. Resolving the decades-long impasse on the disposition of what is now more […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is waiting to see whether the Department of Energy will issue a topical safety analysis report (TSAR) on temporary storage of spent commercial nuclear reactor fuel, officials said last week. The TSAR would be expected to address technical issues with consolidated interim storage of used fuel, which could be important […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission just last month issued an updated contingency plan for a lapse in funding, fortuitous timing as the federal government appeared on the precipice of a shutdown Friday afternoon. The latest in a series of short-term congressional spending plans, which have kept the federal government open since the current fiscal year […]

The California Coastal Commission said it has effectively been forced to approve permits for spent fuel storage at three nuclear power plants because the federal government has yet to establish a permanent repository for the radioactive waste. Coastal Commission Chair Dayna Bochco emphasized the danger of coastal storage of radioactive material from the Humboldt Bay, […]

Members of the advisory panel for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s digital repository for documents on the license adjudication for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository have until Feb. 13 to submit recommendations on reconstituting the retired system. That is also the date for panel members to share their thoughts on the NRC staff’s […]

WASHINGTON — Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) wrung a renewed commitment from the Department of Energy to open a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., during a hearing here Tuesday. Shimkus, Congress’ chief advocate for Yucca, pinned down Dan Brouillette, deputy energy secretary, on the agency’s position during a three-hour House […]

Members of the advisory panel for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s digital repository for documents on the license adjudication for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository have until Feb. 13 to submit recommendations on reconstituting the retired system. That is also the date for panel members to share their thoughts on the NRC staff’s […]

The U.S. Department of Energy must be prepared to safely manage its 2,510-metric-ton stockpile of spent nuclear reactor fuel for decades until it can be placed in a permanent repository, according to new findings from a federal panel of experts. “While disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) in a deep […]

Three Trump administration nominees to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission remain in consideration by the Senate even many other would-be appointees to senior federal jobs were returned to the White House this week. Annie Caputo, David Wright, and Jeff Baran are on the “status quo list,” approved by unanimous Senate consent before the holidays, which […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has postponed until the end of February a meeting of the advisory panel on management of the Licensing Support Network, the repository of documents on the agency’s review of the license application for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Last month, the NRC announced a Jan. 30-31 meeting of the […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in November spent $16,743 of its remaining Nuclear Waste Fund balance, leaving it with just under $525,000 to spend, according to the agency’s latest update to Congress. The fund in total as of January 2017 had a balance of roughly $34 billion collected from nuclear power generators to fund development […]

The state of Nevada has requested that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission postpone an upcoming meeting of the advisory panel on management of the Licensing Support Network, the repository of documents on the agency’s review of the license application for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Last month, the NRC announced a Jan. 30-31 meeting […]

President Donald Trump on Friday signed a third short-term budget for fiscal 2018 to prevent a shutdown of the federal government, including the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. His approval came just a day after both chambers of Congress voted in favor of the continuing resolution through Jan. 19, 2018. The latest stopgap spending plan succeeds […]

The House of Representatives is expected early in the new year to vote on legislation aimed at advancing the long-planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Multiple informed sources said the floor vote on Rep. John Shimkus’ (R-Ill.) “Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act” could happen in the first couple months of 2018, possibly […]

The state of Nevada has joined the U.S. Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff in formally declaring its intention to participate in any resumed NRC review of the license application for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. On Friday, Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects Director Robert Halstead submitted the state’s response to […]

The Democratic Nevada congressman whose district includes the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository will not seek re-election in 2018, depriving the minority party of an incumbent in a battleground district that has flipped three times since it was created. Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-Nev.), a freshman lawmaker from the Silver State’s 4th Congressional District, announced […]