NRC may allow ANO to use decommissioning funds for early disposal work

July 11, 2025, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
The Arkansas Nuclear One nuclear power plant in Russellville, Ark. (Photo: Entergy)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering allowing Entergy to use a portion of the decommissioning trust fund (DTF) for the Arkansas Nuclear One nuclear power plant to dispose of several major radioactive components (MRC) that have been taken out of service at the two-unit pressurized water reactor.

ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse

July 10, 2025, 3:02PMRadwaste Solutions

The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”

World Bank, IAEA partner to fund nuclear energy

June 30, 2025, 3:06PMNuclear News

The World Bank and the International Atomic Energy Agency signed an agreement last week to cooperate on the construction and financing of advanced nuclear projects in developing countries, marking the first partnership since the bank ended its ban on funding for nuclear energy projects.

Nagra publishes license applications for Swiss geologic repository

June 27, 2025, 7:06AMRadwaste Solutions
A rendering of Switzerland’s proposed deep geologic repository. (Image: Nagra)

Nagra, Switzerland’s national cooperative for the disposal of radioactive waste, has published its general license applications for a deep geologic repository and separate spent fuel encapsulation plant, making the documents publicly available on a digital platform.

West Valley completes teardown of Main Plant Process Building

June 20, 2025, 12:02PMRadwaste Solutions
Before and after demolition: (1) Workers take the “first bite” during the start of the Main Plant Process Building demolition in 2022. (2) The Fuel Receiving and Storage Facility is now visible from this vantage point following the completion of the building demolition this month. Workers have begun groundwork to install a protective cover over the Main Plant footprint. (Image: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and its cleanup contractor CH2M Hill BWXT West Valley (CHBWV) completed the on-time removal of the Main Plant Process Building at the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) in New York. Located 35 miles south of Buffalo, the 150-acre WVDP site is home to the only commercial spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility to operate in the United States.

Hanford teams prepare for first tank waste transfer

June 18, 2025, 12:16PMRadwaste Solutions
Hanford contractor teams rehearse procedures for the first transfer of waste from one of the site’s underground tanks to the WTP later this summer. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said that crews at its Hanford Site in Washington state are preparing for the site’s first-ever transfer of radioactive waste from one of its large underground tanks, Tank AP-106, to the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP).

Contractor selected for Belgian LLW/ILW facility

June 17, 2025, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions
Belgium will construct a surface disposal facility for low- and intermediate-level short-lived waste in Dessel. (Image: ONDRAF/NIRAS)

Brussels-based construction group Besix announced that is has been chosen by the Belgian agency for radioactive waste management ONDRAF/NIRAS for construction of the country’s surface disposal facility for low- and intermediate-level short-lived nuclear waste in Dessel.

Scientific mission to track radwaste barrels on Atlantic seabed

June 17, 2025, 7:01AMRadwaste Solutions
Greenpeace protest the dumping of barrels in the early 1980s. (Photo: Greenpeace/Pierre Gleizes)

A scientific mission led by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) set sail this past weekend in the Northeast Atlantic to investigate the long-term impacts of radioactive waste dumped at sea between the 1950s and 1990s.

“Today’s Challenge, Tomorrow’s Promise”

June 12, 2025, 7:04AMNuclear NewsCraig Piercy

Craig Piercy
cpiercy@ans.org

The title for this year’s waste management issue of Nuclear News is, in my opinion, the perfect framing to consider spent fuel and waste management as we know it now and how we imagine it could look in the future. So, let’s break it down.

What really is “today’s challenge”? It’s certainly not safety. Since 1955, we have conducted more than 2,500 cask shipments without a single radiological release or incidence of harm to a member of the public. Despite what antinuclear evangelists (in dwindling numbers) might shriek, the industry’s record of storing and transporting used fuel is unassailable.

The lack of progress on a geologic repository isn’t necessarily a challenge to new nuclear development. We already have systems capable of storing used fuel assemblies for more than a century, proven technology with no moving parts.

Argonne, Fermilab awarded $10M for spent fuel transmutation research

June 9, 2025, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
Argonne physicist Michael Kelly loads a superconducting cavity into a large furnace. (Photo: ANL)

Argonne National Laboratory said it has secured just over $10 million from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) for two research projects investigating the transmutation of spent nuclear fuel into less radioactive substances.

Canada prepares for second geologic repository search

June 9, 2025, 7:01AMRadwaste Solutions
The NWMO has launched a two-year engagement process as it begins plans for a second deep geological repository to manage radioactive waste in Canada. (Photo: NWMO)

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization, which is mandated by law to develop an approach for the long-term care of Canada’s spent nuclear fuel, has begun collecting feedback from Canadians and Indigenous people to help refine its process for selecting a second deep geologic repository site.

U.K. community withdraws from disposal facility siting process

June 5, 2025, 12:00PMRadwaste Solutions

The community of Lincolnshire in eastern England voted on June 3 to withdraw from consideration to host a deep geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste. Lincolnshire was one of three communities the U.K. government’s Nuclear Waste Services identified in January as possible hosts for a repository.

Hanford advances WTP cold commissioning with introduction of waste simulants

May 28, 2025, 12:00PMRadwaste Solutions
Workers offload nitrogen into the LAW Facility at Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. The nitrogen, mixed with other materials, will simulate tank waste as the facility prepares for waste operations later this year. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that it has introduced waste simulant chemicals to the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) as part of the cold commissioning testing of the plant’s Low-Activity Waste Facility.

New simulator will train Savannah River’s remote crane operators

May 21, 2025, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
Simulator instructor Marc Widener at the controls of a new crane simulator for the Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management said it will use a new simulator to help train operators on the safe and efficient movement of a remotely operated crane at the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The DWPF, where Savannah River’s liquid high-level radioactive waste is vitrified and placed into storage containers, uses an unmanned bridge crane system to install and replace equipment in the high-humidity, high-radiation, and harsh chemical environment of the facility’s processing cells.

Deep Isolation validates its disposal canister for TRISO spent fuel

May 15, 2025, 12:00PMRadwaste Solutions
Deep Isolation’s Universal Canister System. (Photo: Deep Isolation)

Nuclear waste disposal technology company Deep Isolation announced it has successfully completed Project PUCK, a government-funded initiative to demonstrate the feasibility and potential commercial readiness of its Universal Canister System (UCS) to manage TRISO spent nuclear fuel.

NWMO chooses vendors for Canadian repository

May 15, 2025, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
NWMO vice president and chief engineer Chris Boyle addresses vendors at the NWMO’s Discovery and Demonstration Center. (Photo: NWMO)

Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization has selected five companies it is to work with to design and plan the organization’s proposed deep geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel. As the owner of the project, the NWMO will be working with WSP Canada, Peter Kiewit Sons (Kiewit), Hatch Ltd., Thyssen Mining Construction of Canada, and Kinectrics.

NNSA to conduct NEPA review of plutonium pit production

May 13, 2025, 12:01PMNuclear News

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it will prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) to ensure National Environmental Policy Act compliance for the administration’s production of plutonium pits. The NNSA is inviting the public to participate in the PEIS process and to comment on the scope, environmental issues, and alternatives for consideration in drafting the document.

Hanford completes 2,000-gallon TBI waste shipment

May 5, 2025, 7:00AMRadwaste Solutions
Hanford workers move a 330-gallon double-wall transport container of treated tank waste. (Photo: DOE)

As part of its Test Bed Initiative (TBI) demonstration project, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management completed two shipments of treated, low-activity tank waste from the Hanford Site near Richland, Wash. The approximately 2,000 gallons of TBI waste will be solidified in grout and permanently disposed of at Waste Control Specialists’ (WCS) federal disposal facility in Andrews County, Texas, and at EnergySolutions’ disposal facility in Clive, Utah.

Sellafield waste vault yields 1960s-era finds

May 2, 2025, 7:01AMRadwaste Solutions
A 1960s Electrolux vacuum cleaner was discovered in Sellafield’s Pile Fuel Cladding Silo. (Photo: Sellafield Ltd.)

A 1960s Electrolux vacuum cleaner was among the more unusual items workers removed from one of the world’s oldest nuclear waste stores at the United Kingdom’s Sellafield nuclear site.