Waste Management


Argonne to work with Shine on cost-effective recycling technology

July 2, 2025, 1:12PMRadwaste Solutions
Argonne’s Peter Tkac (left) and David Bettinardi analyze results from lab experiments designed to isolate desirable products from spent nuclear fuel. (Photo: ANL)

The Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory will collaborate with Wisconsin-based fusion technology company Shine to design new chemical processes for separating valuable materials from used nuclear fuel.

Savannah River Site empties more waste tanks

June 27, 2025, 9:31AMRadwaste Solutions
The DOE and liquid waste contractor Savannah River Mission Completion completed waste removal at the H Tank Farm at the Savannah River Site. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy announced that waste from two more tanks at its Savannah River Site has been removed ahead of schedule. The tanks—numbers 11 and 15—are the fourth and fifth waste containers in 12 months to meet the milestone of preliminary cease waste removal (PCWR) regulatory approval, 7 and 19 months ahead of schedule, respectively, according to the DOE.

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.

WIPP’s SSCVS: A breath of fresh air

June 25, 2025, 12:00PMNuclear NewsTim Gregoire
WIPP completed the commissioning of a large-scale ventilation system, known as the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, this spring. The system will restore full ventilation to the underground repository. (Photo: DOE)

This spring, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced that it had achieved a major milestone by completing commissioning of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) facility—a new, state-of-the-art, large-scale ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the DOE’s geologic repository for defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste in New Mexico.

Sweden’s SKB awards early contract for repository construction

June 25, 2025, 9:30AMRadwaste Solutions
Early construction work on the Forsmark repository includes an access tunnel, three vertical shafts for ventilation and a lift, a central area and main tunnels, and transport tunnels to the first repository areas. (Image: SKB)

The Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (Svensk Kärnbränslehantering AB, or SKB) has signed a collaboration agreement with the multinational construction company Implenia to build the first underground section of a deep repository for radioactive waste near Sweden’s Forsmark nuclear power plant.

A Technology Leader in Neutron Measurement

June 24, 2025, 11:08AMSponsored ContentExosens

As the global energy landscape shifts toward safer, smaller, and more flexible nuclear power, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Generation IV technologies are at the forefront of innovation. These advanced designs pose new challenges in size, efficiency, and operating environment that traditional instrumentation and control solutions aren’t always designed to handle.

Take steps on SNF and HLW disposal

June 20, 2025, 3:08PMNuclear NewsMatt Bowen

Matt Bowen

With a new administration and Congress, it is time once again to ponder what will happen—if anything—on U.S. spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste management policy over the next few years. One element of the forthcoming discussion seems clear: The executive and legislative branches are eager to talk about recycling commercial SNF. Whatever the merits of doing so, it does not obviate the need for one or more facilities for disposal of remaining long-lived radionuclides. For that reason, making progress on U.S. disposal capabilities remains urgent, lest the associated radionuclide inventories simply be left for future generations to deal with.

In March, Rick Perry, who was secretary of energy during President Trump’s first administration, observed that during his tenure at the Department of Energy it became clear to him that any plan to move SNF “required some practical consent of the receiving state and local community.”1

Supreme Court rules against Texas in interim storage case

June 18, 2025, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions

The Supreme Court voted 6–3 against Texas and a group of landowners today in a case involving the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing of a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, reversing a decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to grant the state and landowners Fasken Land and Minerals (Fasken) standing to challenge the license.

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.

Hanford proposes “decoupled” approach to remediating former chem lab

June 13, 2025, 7:01AMRadwaste Solutions
Hanford’s 324 Building, circa 2015. (Photo: DOE)

Working with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy has revised its planned approach to remediating contaminated soil underneath the Chemical Materials Engineering Laboratory (commonly known as the 324 Building) at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The soil, which has been designated the 300-296 waste site, became contaminated as the result of a spill of highly radioactive material in the mid-1980s.

“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.

Novel waste analysis process approved for Hanford

June 11, 2025, 9:31AMRadwaste Solutions
Solomon Bairai of Navarro-ATL prepares a Twister Stir Bar sample for analysis at the Hanford Site's 222-S Laboratory. (Photo: DOE)

A new method has received Washington state’s approval for use at the 222-S Laboratory at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, improving how experts analyze tank waste and providing more precise data to support safe and efficient cleanup.

Studsvik launches inDRUM Waste Treatment Demonstration Facility

June 10, 2025, 12:08PMSponsored ContentStudsvik
Figure 1. inDRUM Demonstration facility at Studsvik for simulated waste (left) and a drum being loaded into the container treatment unit (right)

Studsvik AB has completed construction of the new inDRUM Demonstration Facility outside of Nykoping, Sweden. We can now demonstrate how the inDRUM technology will process a wide range of problematic and legacy wastes through the removal of all liquids, organics and other materials, resulting in a stable and reduced volume product that can be disposed of in a suitable repository.

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.

Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear

June 6, 2025, 2:59PMNuclear NewsChris Parker
Technical advisory committee members in front of a full-scale universal nuclear waste canister prototype developed through ARPA-E’s UPWARDS program. (Photos: Deep Isolation)

At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.

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.

What is next for Canada’s deep geological repository project?

June 5, 2025, 7:01AMNuclear NewsPaul Gierszewski

Gierszewski

In late 2024, Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization announced the selection of a site in northwestern Ontario for its deep geological repository for the country’s used nuclear fuel.

This is a major step in a plan that was first laid out in 2010. From the beginning, the plan had been clear that any selected site must be technically safe, must be accessible for fuel transportation, and must have informed and willing host communities.

By 2020, potential sites had been narrowed from an initial set of 22 communities that had indicated interest in learning more down to two specific sites.

My primary involvement was on the technical safety side. We wanted to know that we could safely build and operate the repository at the chosen site.

WMG FLTRSTOR™ System Overview

June 2, 2025, 11:08AMSponsored ContentWMG, Inc.

Introduction

WMG’s FLTRSTOR™ system provides a proven, practical solution for the efficient handling, storage, and shipment of irradiated filters and velocity limiters (VLs) in support of nuclear plant operations. With successful implementations at many sites, the system is recognized for saving time, reducing personnel dose, and cutting overall waste handling costs. Our satisfied and returning FLTRSTOR™ customers include: