The Department of Energy and its environmental contractor broke ground last week on a major new expansion to more than double the capacity of the low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Idaho National Laboratory.
The current 390,000 cubic meters of capacity at the Idaho Comprehensive Disposal Facility is 80% filled, DOE said in a Tuesday news release. The facility is on pace to be filled in 2025. Once the expansion is finished, the landfill f will have a total capacity of more than 1 million cubic meters, DOE said.
The federal agency’s Jacobs-led contractor, Idaho Environmental Coalition, plans to open the new disposal cell in 2026. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality signed off on the landfill expansion last November. The Joe Biden (D) administration requested $46.5 million for the Idaho expansion project in fiscal 2024, far more than the $8 million approved in Congress’s fiscal 2023 budget.
A federal safety watchdog for the Department of Energy continues to look for someone to fill its vacant executive director of operations post and discussed the search in closed session last week.
On Sept. 26, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) held a “nonpublic collaborative discussion” on candidates for the position, according to a meeting notice posted afterwards. The discussion touched on the needed experience and qualifications; expectations for the director and challenges the new hire might face, according to the notice.
“Specific information regarding the potential candidates is covered by Exemption 6 to the Sunshine Act,” which covers personal privacy, according to the notice. DNFSB hopes to fill the post this year, the board said in a March report to Congress. In August 2022, Joel Spangenberg, who served for less than two years as the board’s first executive director of operations, left to become deputy director of the Selective Service System, where had worked previously.
Orano USA, the U.S. arm of the French-majority-owned nuclear services company, this week announced three executive changes that the company says will hone its focus on the emerging market for advanced nuclear reactors and the fuel that powers them, the company wrote in a press release this week.
Armand Laferrere, previously with Orano predecessor company Areva, will be Orano USA’s senior executive vice president, secretary general and partnerships, leading business development with U.S. companies. Jean-Luc Palayer, already at Orano USA, will be the company’s USA vice president of business operations, with a focus on nuclear fuel. Brad Beard, joining the company from Smart Wires, will become Orano USA’s chief operations officer.
