Radwaste Solutions on the Newswire

Report touts lessons from era of nuclear waste negotiator

As the Department of Energy embarks on its consent-based process for siting a geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, a new report from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA highlights relevant lessons from the federal government’s now defunct Office of the Nuclear Waste Negotiator.

Established under Title IV of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the office, an independent agency within the executive branch, was primarily active from 1990 to 1995. Its role was to engage with state and tribal governments to find an acceptable and suitable host site for a repository.

The full report, Lessons from the Nuclear Waste Negotiator Era of the 1990s for Today’s Consent-Based Siting Efforts, is now available online. Its executive summary is available here.

Go to Article

NextEra Energy selected for WIPP solar power project

Juno Beach, Fla.–based NextEra Energy Resources Development has been selected to enter realty negotiations for a large-scale solar electricity generation project at the DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southeastern New Mexico as part of the department’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative.

Go to Article

Tank waste operations resume at Idaho’s IWTU

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced yesterday that waste processing operations have resumed at the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory Site. The resumption of operations follows the completion of two maintenance campaigns at the radioactive liquid waste treatment facility.

Go to Article

Pennsylvania DEP pleased with TMI-2 D&D progress

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) expressed its confidence in the decommissioning work taking place at the damaged Three Mile Island Unit 2 during a recent meeting of the TMI-2 Community Advisory Panel (CAP). “We cannot be more pleased with the progress being made,” said Dwight Shearer, director of the DEP, during the meeting, held on September 13 in Middleton, Pa.

Go to Article

Hanford completes glass transfer test

According to the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, two contractors at its Hanford Site in Washington state have finished a first-time relay of test glass as the site prepares to vitrify—or immobilize in glass—millions of gallons of radioactive and chemical waste from its large underground tanks.

Video: Watch an “instant replay” of the test glass relay here.

Go to Article

IAEA: Fukushima soil and waste plans meet standards

The International Atomic Energy Agency has found that Japan’s planned approach for recycling and disposing of soil and radioactive waste from decontamination activities after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident is consistent with the agency’s safety standards.

Go to Article

ECA warns of delay to DOE’s interpretation of HLW

The Energy Communities Alliance (ECA), which advocates for communities adjacent to or impacted by Department of Energy sites, is asking the department to conduct an independent analysis evaluating the impacts of delaying the implementation of its statutory interpretation of high-level radioactive waste, which holds that some waste from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel may be classified as non-HLW.

Go to Article