The Department of Energy planned to show off its 12-axle Atlas rail car, designed for hauling spent nuclear fuel, at the agency’s National Transportation Stakeholders Forum next weekend in Denver.
Atlas in 2023 did a dry run over the rails, with no spent fuel aboard, to practice hauling nuclear material.
Former President Donald Trump (R), the presumptive nominee for the Republican ticket this election, told a local television station in Nevada that he has opposed storing radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain “for a long time,” according to a transcript of the interview posted this week by local CBS affiliate KVTN.
During his presidency, Trump thrice requested funding to license Yucca Mountain as a waste-storage site. In late 2019, with his reelection bid looming, he reversed coursed as said he would no longer seek funding for the project.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency this week visited Finland and participated in the Nordic Nuclear Forum hosted in Helsinki, the capital.
Of the countries that use nuclear power, Finland is the closest to opening a deep geological repository to store spent nuclear fuel. The facility, called Onkalo, or hiding place, could begin operating this decade, according to Posiva, the company building the facility.
The Utah Department of Environmental Quality is hiring a low level radioactive waste program manager, according to a post on governmentjobs.com.
The program manager “leads a team of scientists and engineers to license and regulate the Low Level Radioactive Waste facility in the State of Utah to protect human health, safety and the environment in accordance with the applicable laws,” according to the job post.
The job is based in Salt Lake City, according to the post.
The antinuclear activist Patty Ameno died May 10 in hospice care in Butler County, Pa., according to an obituary published Sunday in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
Ameno’s activism led to lawsuits against the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) – Apollo facility in Apollo, Pa., a commercially operated producer of nuclear fuel for civilian power plants and Navy surface ships and submarines.
