The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) have finished fieldwork and have begun monitoring groundwater elevations for a study at the Environmental Management Disposal Facility (EMDF) project site in Tennessee.

The Department of Energy’s Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP) has improved transuranic waste operations to address aging waste containers being stored at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) at the Idaho National Laboratory Site, the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management announced on December 10.

Finland’s regulatory authority, the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK), announced that it was further delaying issuing a statement on the safety case for the Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository until 2025, saying that Posiva’s license application material is not yet ready.

While the United States was celebrating Thanksgiving Day, Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) announced that it has selected a site in northwestern Ontario for a deep geologic repository to hold the country’s spent nuclear fuel

DeepGeo, a Rhode Island–based company seeking to develop multinational spent nuclear fuel repositories, and Denmark-based thorium reactor developer Copenhagen Atomics have signed a collaboration agreement that will see the companies work together on the management of nuclear fuels and waste streams associated with a thorium breeder reactor.

As of last week, crews with Department of Energy cleanup contractor Idaho Environmental Coalition (IEC) processed more than 142,000 gallons of radioactive sodium-bearing tank waste at Idaho’s Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) this year.

The Department of Energy’s estimated overall liability for failing to dispose of the country’s commercial spent nuclear fuel jumped as much as 10 percent this year, from a range of $34.1 billion to $41 billion in 2023 to a range of $37.6 billion to $44.5 billion in 2024, according to a financial audit of the DOE’s Nuclear Waste Fund (NWF) for fiscal year 2024.

The Solid Waste Management Facility (SWMF) at the Savannah River Site saw a large reduction of transuranic (TRU) waste in fiscal year 2024, achieving the highest volume of TRU waste shipped out of state by the facility in the past 10 years, according to the Department of Energy.

TRU waste typically consists of protective clothing, tools, rags, equipment, and miscellaneous items contaminated with small amounts of plutonium and other heavy elements.

A five-year, $17.8 million contract has been awarded to Waste Control Specialists for the long-term management and storage of elemental mercury, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced on November 21.

Orano completed the 13th and final rail shipment of vitrified high-level nuclear waste from France to Germany. The company announced that the four casks of vitrified HLW arrived at Germany’s intermediate storage facility at Philippsburg in the early evening of November 20.