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 and board member, according to a press release.
The change is being made under FirstEnergy’s “succession planning strategy,” though the company played down the likelihood of Jones soon stepping away entirely from the leadership position he has held since 2015.
“We are not announcing Chuck’s retirement at this time,” a spokesperson said by email. “During our 1Q earnings call, Chuck said he hasn’t made any decisions about his retirement and doesn’t plan to leave this year.”
Strah has since March 2018 been FirstEnergy’s chief financial officer and senior vice president, following a stint as senior vice president and president of subsidiary FirstEnergy Utilities. Starting May 24, he will lead a number of business segments, including utilities, corporate services and information technology, finance, product development. The new president will report to Jones, who will remain in charge of all human resources and legal functions.
Succeeding Strah as chief financial officer will be another longtime FirstEnergy executive, Jon Taylor, who last year was named vice president for utility operations. In his new role, Taylor will manage the company’s accounting, treasury, and investor relations operations.
Also on May 24, FirstEnergy will get a new senior vice president and chief legal officer: Robert Reffner, currently senior vice president and general counsel.
The press release notes six other executive updates at FirstEnergy and its subsidiaries.
FirstEnergy Corp. branch GPU Nuclear owns reactor Unit 2 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa., which operated for just a few months before its partial meltdown in March 1979. The company hopes this year to sell the reactor to nuclear services firm EnergySolutions for decommissioning.
A former subsidiary, FirstEnergy Solutions, had planned by October 2021 to close three nuclear power plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania. It reversed its plans for the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio, and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio, after receiving a state bailout in 2019. FirstEnergy Solutions became a fully separate company, Energy Harbor, upon emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February. Energy Harbor in March also said it would not close the two reactors at its Beaver Valley Power Station near Shippingport, Pa.
The United Kingdom’s privately operated Low-Level Waste Repository Ltd. (LLWR) on Monday said it would award as much as £65 million ($79.8 million) among six companies for radioactive waste services.
The “framework contract” has a four-year ordering period, according to an LLWR press release. The participating companies are: Active Collection Bureau, Augean Treatment, Cyclife UK, Tradebe Inutec, URENCO Nuclear Stewardship, and Westinghouse.
“The scope of the new framework is to provide expertise across the full metallic radioactive waste lifecycle including: project management, expert advice, characterisation, site preparations, dismantling, transport, segregation, treatment, and disposal,” the release says.
The suppliers would compete for specific task orders or project, David Rossiter, LLWR head of waste management services, said by email Wednesday. Competitions are expected to begin this summer, he wrote.
While Rossiter said he could not discuss particular upcoming projects, he said they would be spread around the United Kingdom’s Sellafield, Dounreay, and Magnox nuclear facilities. “These work packages will support progression of their decommissioning and site restoration programmes. We expect that most work packages will use multiple aspects of the services available in combination e.g. project management, expert advice, characterisation, treatment, and disposal.”
Low-Level Waste Repository Ltd. operates the U.K.’s Low-Level Waste Repository in Cumbria as part of its broader mission to manage the nation’s lower-activity waste. The facility, established in 1959, takes waste from commercial and defense nuclear operations, along with other industries, academia, and research activities. The waste largely consists of contaminated paper, cardboard, plastic, protective clothing, soil, debris, and metal, according to LLWR Ltd.
The facility itself is owned by the U.K. government’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Low-Level Waste Repository Ltd. is a fully owned subsidiary of Nuclear Waste Management Ltd., a joint venture of nuclear and environment specialist Amentum, nuclear waste management provider Studsvik UK, and nuclear services company Orano.
The existing metal treatment framework, established in 2016 with a maximum value of £50 Million, is scheduled to end in June. The suppliers for that framework are Cyclife, Tradebe Inutec, and Doosan Babcock
From The Wires
From NBC Los Angeles: Environmental organizations oppose Nuclear Regulatory Commission consideration of updating rules for disposal of very low-level radioactive waste in landfills.
From The Salt Lake Tribune: Radioactive waste from Estonia could be shipped to an Energy Fuels Resources facility in Utah.
From Thunder Bay News Watch: Over 100 nongovernmental groups expressed concerns about Canada’s nuclear waste disposal plans.
From World Nuclear News: Decommissioning of research reactors in Norway projected to cost nearly $2 billion over up to 25 years.
