The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has renewed the license of Honeywell’s Metropolis Works uranium source conversion plant in Illinois for 40 years.
The license now expires on March 24, 2060, according to an April 15 notice in the Federal Register.
Metropolis Works has been largely idled since November 2017, due to an oversupply in the product it supplies to the nuclear industry — uranium hexafluoride (UF6). When operational, the plant is the sole U.S. facility for conversion of uranium ore into UF6 for production of enriched uranium fuel for nuclear power plants.
Honeywell submitted its license renewal application to the NRC in February 2017, requesting continued authorization to hold and employ radiological source material and sources used in gauges as part of its conversion operation. No outside organization requested a hearing on the application, according to the Federal Register notice. The regulator issued its environmental evaluation of the application last October, finding it would generate no significant impact.
BWX Technologies said Monday it has appointed Robb LeMasters as senior vice president and chief strategy officer. He is scheduled to start work on July 13.
LeMasters, 42, was most since 2011 the managing director at hedge fund Blue Harbour Group, whose owner announced its closure in February. LeMasters since 2015 has served on BWXT’s Board of Directors — a position from which he resigned last week to take a full-time job that touches nearly all business units for the Lynchburg, Va.-based provider of nuclear naval fuel, reactor parts, and defense-uranium services.
In the newly created position, “LeMasters will be responsible for driving BWXT’s overall corporate strategy for growth in its various national security, clean energy, environmental remediation, nuclear medicine and space exploration markets,” the company said in a press release. “He will also oversee the company’s investor relations and mergers and acquisitions functions.”
Rex Geveden, president and chief executive officer of BWXT since 2017, said LeMasters has been “instrumental in helping our company unlock shareholder value through his role as a director of the corporation over the last half decade. His familiarity with our company and its strategic opportunities make him a perfect fit for this role.”
Regulators in Canada have requested additional detail on Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ environmental impact statement (EIS) for its planned near-surface disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste at the Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario.
The group of federal and provincial officials, headed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, submitted 37 information requests for the updated EIS filed in December 2019. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories expects it will take a few months to answer those additional questions.
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is a privately operated nuclear science and technology organization. Chalk River is its largest facility, conducting work in physics, metallurgy, chemistry, and other fields.
The near-surface disposal facility will be an engineered mound primarily intended to hold debris from decommissioning of over 100 buildings at the Chalk River Laboratories, along with a small amount of waste from other decommissioning jobs and material from separate sources such as hospitals and universities. The total projected holding would be 1 million cubic meters. The facility is expected to cost $475 million CAD to build, plus an additional $275 million life-cycle cost.
The EIS was initially submitted in 2017, followed by a first round of information requests.
The latest batch of notes and questions was filed earlier this month and announced Monday by the CNSC. Among them: Given that material from some legacy waste sites at Chalk River will not remain in place, clearly describe how the disposal facility will reduce environmental hazards to the property and Ottawa River, versus simply decommissioning each separate waste area; establish a system in rock blasting for the facility to manage potential malfunction of detonators; resolve discrepancies between the EIS and other documents on whether the radioactive waste would remain dry or come into contact with water following site closure; and evaluate the effectiveness of public engagement on the project.
The project can only proceed to construction upon approval of the final EIS and licensing by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. A decision is tentatively scheduled for spring 2021.
“Timeframes for the [environmental impact statement] and licensing hearings depend entirely on the quality and completeness of the submissions received from CNL,” a commission spokesperson said by email Thursday. “The CNSC will continue to review the information submitted by CNL and request additional information as needed.”
The commission would subsequently have to authorize operations at the facility.
From The Wires
From The Engineer: A Q&A on nuclear waste management in the United Kingdom.
From BusinessKorea: Construction set for 2021 on South Korean nuclear decommissioning research centers.
