Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
4/24/2014
IN DOE
The Department of Energy saved $412 million in cost avoidance by shuttering the Yucca Mountain geologic nuclear waste repository in 2010, according to a DOE Inspector General’s audit report released last week. The report examined the Department’s management of unneeded real estate. DOE calculated the cost avoidance by using Yucca Mountain’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget request of $160 million as a baseline, and found that for FY 2010 DOE had a $92 million cost avoidance, with $68 million actually being spent. For FY 2011 and 2012, DOE claimed the full $160 million in cost avoidance. The IG report, though, said the savings were only temporary. “We believe the Yucca Mountain cost avoidance, while generally associated with OMB guidance, only provided a temporary savings to the Government as the requirement for the Department to safely dispose of nuclear waste material has not been suspended,” the report said.
IN THE INDUSTRY
Perma-Fix Environmental Services announced this week that its subsidiary Perma-Fix Environmental Services UK received a contract to dispose of mercury streams from a site in Scotland. The contract, worth approximately $2.2 million, calls for the treatment of wastes generated from the decommissioning and demolition activities currently underway at the Dounreay site, which is being performed by Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL). “We are pleased to provide our mercury treatment technology to DSRL for treatment of this former orphan waste stream,” Perma-Fix Chairman and CEO Lou Centofanti said in a statement. “We have successfully used this technology in the United States for treatment of radioactive mercury wastes for over ten years. Our UK office has been working with DSRL on a number of waste challenges and it is gratifying that we have our first opportunity to assist DSRL with waste treatment.”
Holtec International announced this week that it has received a contract from the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) to design, license, and supply a Type B transport cask. The cask will be used to transfer segmented waste currently stored in rectangular packages at Swedish nuclear power plants to interim storage facilities and eventually a final repository, when it becomes available. “We are pleased to support SKB with the development of a new transport cask to support their proven processes for segmenting and packaging waste,” Rick Springman, Holtec’s director of International Projects, said in a statement. “Our cask will provide SKB, for the first time, the ability to transport this waste offsite to a central storage facility or final repository, enabling maximum flexibility in SKB’s backend management plans.” Holtec plans to license the cask in both Sweden and the United States.
EnergySolutions announced late this week plans to sell its Oak Ridge-based subsidiary Manufacturing Sciences Corporation (MSC) to Global Medical Isotopes Systems LLC. The terms of the agreement have not yet been publicly disclosed, and a closing date will be established once state and federal regulatory approvals are received, EnergySolutions said. MSC is a specialty metal processing and manufacturing company that works with depleted uranium. According to the company’s website, depleted uranium is a key component in the production of some biomedical isotope shields, calorimeters, and radiographic cameras. Global Medical Isotopes produces medical isotopes for the nuclear imaging and medical treatment industry.
