A recent American Nuclear Society webinar featured an extended one-on-one conversation between ANS CEO Craig Piercy and Marla Morales, the acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and high-level waste disposition at the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. The two discussed the future of the fuel cycle in the United States, especially as it relates to the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses program launched by the DOE earlier this year.

Several countries, including Canada, France, and the United Kingdom, recently have taken steps to accelerate the cleanup of nuclear waste. In a new report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said that these actions should serve as lessons for the United States.

According to the GAO, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management should “strategically engage with other countries to identify and evaluate alternatives that could help reduce risks and costs or accelerate its cleanup activities.” The report noted that DOE-EM agreed with the recommendation.

Idaho, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah are the finalists to potentially host Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses, the Department of Energy announced today.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright has signed memorandums of understanding with the five states to continue exploring opportunities to host these campuses, envisioned as federal–state partnerships to support work across the nuclear fuel life cycle, with a primary focus on fuel fabrication, enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing or recycling, separations, and radioactive waste management.

A new report released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office states that the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) has disposed of more than 16 million tons of radioactive and hazardous waste from the Moab Mill Site. While cleanup continues at the Cold War–era uranium ore processing site in southeastern Utah, a plan for the next phase of groundwater remediation is still needed, according to the GAO.

The Savannah River Site has completed all concrete construction on its “mega-size” Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) 11 at the Saltstone Disposal Facility in Aiken, S.C. The several SDUs at the site are designed to provide safe, permanent storage for decontaminated salt solution from the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) as production is ramped up. The SDUs are crucial components of SRS’s liquid waste program, allowing the site to meet the cleanup responsibilities of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management.

Continuing its breakneck pace of introducing new rules and proposals, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week announced that it was proposing to amend its regulations under 10 CFR Part 61 governing the land disposal of low-level radioactive waste.

The proposed rule, which introduces a new risk-informed framework for LLW disposal in which sites can develop waste acceptance criteria based on site-specific characteristics, is one of several rules the NRC is seeking to finalize and issue in response to Executive Order 14300, “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and cleanup contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge have surpassed their first-year target for processing legacy oxide waste at the site’s Transuranic Waste Processing Center (TWPC), reaching the milestone four months ahead of schedule.

Workers move a container of treated tank waste as part of Hanford’s Test Bed Initiative to grout around 2,000 gallons of LAW for off-site disposal. (Photo: DOE)

Grouting Hanford’s low-level radioactive liquid tank waste could cost between $480 million and $1.1 billion, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, which has repeatedly found that grouting (immobilizing waste in a concrete-like mixture) can accelerate cleanup at the Hanford Site and save billions of dollars when compared to mixing the waste with molten glass through the vitrification process.

A report by the Government Accountability Office has shown that the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management continues to face significant staffing shortages since the GAO first reported on the problem in 2024. This includes a shortage in workers considered critical to carrying out the office’s mission of cleaning up radioactive waste from decades of nuclear weapons production and research.

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are exploring methods of using artificial intelligence and machine learning to better optimize formulas for stabilizing low-activity radioactive waste in glass through the vitrification process.

The work is helping inform waste vitrification activities at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The DOE is currently commissioning the Low Activity Waste Facility at Hanford’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), which will be used to vitrify portions of the site’s nearly 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste.

The European Commission has begun an open public consultation and call for evidence to help shape European Union policy on radioactive waste and spent fuel for the decade ahead. The public consultation lasts until June 19, while the call for evidence ends April 24.

A clearer definition of what constitutes high-level radioactive waste could save the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management “tens of billions of dollars” in waste management costs and accelerate its cleanup schedule by decades, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

DOE-EM’s efforts to manage waste resulting from legacy spent nuclear fuel reprocessing have been hindered for decades by the ambiguity of the statutory definition of HLW as laid out in the Atomic Energy Act and Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the report states. While admitting that the DOE has taken steps to overcome this ambiguity, the GAO says that the department has not fully evaluated all available opportunities to treat and dispose of waste more economically as either transuranic or low-level radioactive waste.

The European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) awarded a framework contract worth $112 million (about €97.6 million) to an Amentum-led joint venture to lead the cleanup of nuclear research sites in four European countries.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management faces significant cost increases, schedule delays, and data management issues in completing nuclear waste cleanup projects, according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The Nuclear Scaling Initiative, a collaborative effort launched in 2024 to spur new nuclear energy development, announced a new campaign promoting the direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel as the safest, most secure, and least expensive pathway for managing U.S. nuclear waste.

The state of New Mexico is fining the Department of Energy for nearly $16 million, claiming the department has failed to prioritize the removal legacy nuclear waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory for disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the DOE’s deep geologic repository for defense-related transuranic waste near Carlsbad, N.M.

Nuclear waste technology company Deep Isolation Nuclear has launched a multiyear demonstration program of its deep borehole technology for disposing of nuclear waste. The full-scale, at-depth deep borehole demonstration program is being done in collaboration with Halliburton, Amentum, NAC International, and Occlusion Nuclear Solutions, along with the Deep Borehole Demonstration Center (DBDC).

The Department of Energy has issued a request for information inviting states to express interest in hosting Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses. According to the DOE, the proposed campuses could support work across the nuclear fuel life cycle, with a primary focus on fuel fabrication, enrichment, spent fuel reprocessing or recycling, separations, and radioactive waste management.

The DOE said the RFI marks the first step toward potentially establishing voluntary federal-state partnerships designed to build a coherent, end-to-end nuclear energy strategy for the country.

Pfluger

Levin

Rep. Mike Levin (D., Calif.) and Rep. August Pfluger (R., Texas) are urging Energy Secretary Chris Wright to establish a safe, effective, and long-term management program for spent nuclear fuel. In a January 15 letter to Wright, the two U.S. representatives asked the DOE to “break the current impasse over nuclear waste and develop a workable solution that encourages state collaboration.”

The letter was sent ahead of the DOE’s anticipated release of a new report that will recommend an updated national policy on spent nuclear fuel, as directed in Executive Order 14302, “Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base.”

Canada has formally initiated the regulatory process of licensing its proposed deep geological repository for spent nuclear fuel, with the country’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) announcing that it has submitted an initial project description to the Canadian government.

According to the NWMO, the initial project description is a foundational document, detailing the repository’s purpose, need, and expected benefits and explaining how the project will be implemented. It also provides a preliminary assessment of potential impacts and describes measures to avoid or mitigate them. The NWMO is the not-for-profit organization responsible for managing Canada’s nuclear waste.