Orano on Nov. 29 signed contracts to return radioactive waste to Japan from the company’s Orano La Hague plant in France.
The waste came from reprocessing Japanese uranium fuel, Orano wrote in a press release. The two contracts helped boost Orano’s financial outlook for 2024, the company said.
Orano separately this week said it will manufacture 64 mixed oxide fuel assemblies for Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
The total includes one contract for 40 assemblies for unit three of Kyushu Electric’s Genkai nuclear power plant, in Japan’s Saga Prefecture on the northwestern tip of the country’s southernmost main island, Kyushu, and a separate contract for 24 assemblies for unit three of Shikoku Electric’s Ikata nuclear power plant in the Ehime Prefecture on the southeastern tip of the main island of Shikoku, according to an Orano press release. Mixed oxide fuel uses both uranium and plutonium recovered from reprocessing.
Paul Ryerson, a administrative judge and member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel and administrative who was the presiding officer on the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board for the Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository, retired from federal service on Nov. 30, according to an NRC filing posted online this week.
Ryerson joined the NRC in 2008, according to his agency bio. Administrative Judge G. Paul Bollwerk will take Ryerson’s place on the Yucca licensing board, which although active has not done any substantial work since the proposed repository in Nevada was defunded in 2010 by President Barack Obama (D).
Jeff Kowalczik, a senior emergency response coordinator, left the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the week of Nov. 15, according to a note in a weekly information report from the agency’s Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer.
Kowalczik joined the agency in 2008, according to his LinkedIn profile, which as of deadline for RadWaste Monitor still showed the NRC as his current employer.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission extended the deadline to comment on its planned new licensing rules for advanced nuclear reactors, the agency said in November.
The deadline to comment on the proposed Part 53 licensing rule, or Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors, was extended to Feb. 25 from Dec. 31, according to a federal register notice.
Meta Platforms Inc., the Menlo Park, Calif., parent company of social media websites Facebook and Instagram, said it plans to issue a request for proposals (RFP) for between one and four gigawatts of nuclear-generated electricity to power the company’s data centers.
In a post on its website, Meta said it will consider small modular reactors and large nuclear reactors. Those interested in supplying reactor power must sign an NDA with Meta and express interest via a qualification intake form by Jan. 3.
“[I]nitial RFP proposals for participants are due on Friday, February 7, 2025. We will provide further details once the NDA is executed,” Meta wrote on its website.
