The White House on Nov. 22 announced its intention to nominate David Wright to a full term on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Wright has served on the commission since May 2018. He assumed a seat vacated by Commissioner Jeff Baran, which expires on June 30, 2020. Baran, a commissioner since 2014, last year was confirmed to a full five-year term through June 30, 2023.
Prior to joining the nuclear industry regulator, Wright was an energy and water consultant in South Carolina. He previously held various positions on the South Carolina Public Service Commission from 2004 to 2013, including as vice chairman and chairman. During that period he also served as president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners from 2011-2012.
Wright has been a member of the Advisory Council for the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Nuclear Waste Initiative, according to his official NRC biography. He was also an ex-officio member and chairman emeritus of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, which represents power companies, utility commissions, and other entities in 18 states.
The state of Nevada in 2018 filed a petition in federal court seeking to force Wright to recuse himself from any NRC decision-making on the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Wright’s previous actions and statements showed an unfair bias in favor of the repository that would be built about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the state argued after unsuccessfully requesting that he voluntarily recuse himself. Wright denied any pro-Yucca bias, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the petition last December.
There was no word as of Friday regarding when Wright would be formally nominated.
The commission nominally has five members, who serve staggered terms ending June 30. There are currently four members: Chairman Kristine Svinicki and Commissioners Wright, Baran, and Annie Caputo.
The fifth spot has been vacant since the retirement of Stephen Burns in April. An industry source last week said Christopher Hanson, a Democratic staffer on the Senate Appropriations Committee, is still expected to be nominated.
No more than three commissioners can represent the same political party. Wright, Svinicki, and Caputo are Republicans. Baran is a Democrat.
Perma-Fix Northwest accepted a $23,275 fine for its failure in 2013-2014 to ensure it had sufficient third-party liability coverage for its Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) radioactive waste facility in Richland, Wash., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.
Representatives for the federal agency and the company signed a consent agreement on Aug. 12.
The 35-acre Perma-Fix Northwest facility provides treatment and management of low-level and mixed-low-level radioactive wastes. Much of that involves mixed waste from the Department of Energy’s nearby Hanford Site, the most complex and expensive of the agency’s nuclear cleanup projects, the EPA said.
Perma-Fix Northwest’s RCRA permit, issued by the Washington state Department of Ecology, directed that the facility have third-party bodily injury and property damage “liability coverage of at least one million dollars per occurrence with an annual aggregate of at least two million dollars, exclusive of legal defense costs,” according to the consent agreement.
The EPA said it determined that Perma-Fix Northwest did not meet that requirement between Sept. 1, 2013, and Sept. 1, 2014. That could have led to a $37,500 daily fine from the EPA for breach of the RCRA mandate, the agreement says.
In the settlement, Perma-Fix Northwest neither admitted nor denied the EPA claim. But it agreed to pay the fine within 30 days of the final order, dated Aug. 13.
Perma-Fix Environmental Services, based in Atlanta, acquired the Richland facility in 2007 from Pacific EcoSolutions. The company declined to discuss the EPA agreement.
Washington state Department of Ecology Director Maia Bellon said Monday she would retire at the end of this month.
Bellon announced her pending retirement after 25 years as a state employee and nearly seven as head of the environmental agency.
“Arriving at this choice has been bittersweet, but I’m confident that it’s the right time for me to make a professional and personal change,” she said in a press release. After reconnecting with family and friends, “I then intend to dust off my law degree” and go into private practice focusing on environmental and policy issues, she added.
Prior to becoming director in 2013, Bellon managed Ecology’s Water Resources Program. She joined Ecology in 2010 as deputy director for the water program.
She previously served as a state assistant attorney general for 15 years, focusing on water law and other environmental legal issues.
“Maia has been a resolute leader who has made decisions based on science and data, listened to impacted communities and worked tirelessly to protect our state’s water, air and lands,” Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said in the press release.
At some point, the governor will appoint either a new director or an acting director, said Ecology spokesman Randy Bradbury. Polly Zehm is the agency’s deputy director. Cabinet appointments are made with the advice and consent of the Legislature.
Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program employs between 70 and 80 staffers. For the agency’s 2017-2019 biennial budget, the program accounted for $28 million the agency’s $496 million in funding.
While much of the program focuses on the U.S. Energy Department’s Hanford Site, it also regulates other sites with radioactive and hazardous chemical waste in Washington.
It regulates temporary storage of mixed waste and ultimate closure of the Framatome nuclear fuel production facility in Richland. The plant provides fuel products and related components for nuclear power plants.
The Ecology Department regulates, under a state permit, treatment, storage, and disposal of mixed waste at Perma-Fix Northwest, located on 35 acres next to Hanford. Its jurisdiction also extends to US Ecology’s 100-acre waste landfill site in the center of Hanford that can take low-level radioactive waste.
It also permits and regulates storage and disposal of dangerous and mixed waste the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bradbury said.
At the end of the last federal fiscal year on Sept. 30, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was overseeing decommissioning of 23 nuclear power and early demonstration reactors.
Of those reactors, 11 were undergoing active decommissioning and the remaining 12 were in SAFSTOR, or safe storage, in which final cleanup can be delayed for up to 60 years, according to the agency’s 2019 report on its decommissioning program.
Also in decommissioning or SAFSTOR were three research and test reactors, 12 complex materials facilities, five Title II uranium recovery facilities, and sections of one fuel cycle site, the report says.
During fiscal 2019, NRC staff approved license transfers that enabled the sale of three retired nuclear power plants to new owners that accepted full responsibility for decommissioning, site restoration, and spent fuel management on the properties. They were: the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, from Entergy to NorthStar Group Services; the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey, from Exelon to Holtec International; and the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, from Entergy to Holtec.
Last May, agency staff also signed off on the license termination plan for the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor in Wisconsin, then in September OK’d the license transfer from decommissioning provider EnergySolutions back to plant owner Dairyland Power Cooperative. The Salt Lake City-based nuclear services firm in November announced the completion of decommissioning.
Completion of decommissioning and license termination are expected in the current fiscal 2020 at the Humboldt Bay plant in California and the two reactors at the Zion facility in Illinois, the NRC said. Another eight reactors are expected to be retired no later than 2025: Duane Arnold in Iowa in 2020; Indian Point reactor Units 2 and 3 in New York state, respectively in 2020 and 2021; Beaver Valley Units 1 and 2 in Pennsylvania, respectively in 2021 and 2022; Palisades in Michigan in 2022; and Diablo Canyon Units 1 and 2 in California, respectively in 2024 and 2025.
Nuclear power plant operator FirstEnergy Solutions (FES) said on Nov. 25 it will be renamed Energy Harbor when it comes of out Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring as a stand-alone company.
The company will continue to be headquartered in Akron, Ohio. It will employ roughly 2,800 people, according to a press release. The bankruptcy proceeding is expected to conclude by the close of 2019, Crain’s Cleveland Business reported.
“The company will be a financially secure, independent power producer and a fully integrated retail energy provider with a competitive suite of products for its growing customer base,” FES CEO John Judge said in a prepared statement. “We will emerge well positioned for long-term value creation and competitiveness in a low-carbon future.”
FirstEnergy Solutions and FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co., both owned by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp., filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2018.
Among their assets are three nuclear power plants: the single-reactor Perry Nuclear Power Plant and Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Ohio, and the two-reactor Beaver Valley Power Station in Pennsylvania. Shortly before the bankruptcy filing, FirstEnergy Solutions said it would close all three “uneconomic” facilities by Oct. 31, 2021, if it did not receive financial assistance from the state or federal governments.
The company said in July it would keep its Ohio plants operating after the state legislature and governor approved a $150 million annual bailout funded by a rate increase. The Pennsylvania and federal governments have to date declined to enact any corresponding plans.
Critics have sought to undo the Ohio legislation through a statewide referendum in November 2020. They failed to secure the minimum number of signatures for the referendum by the deadline, but have taken their case to state court. In late November, the Ohio Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit from FirstEnergy Solutions aiming to prevent the referendum, The Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday said it had approved the transfer of the reactor and spent fuel storage licenses for the three nuclear power plants from FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co. and First Energy Nuclear Generation Co. to Energy Harbor Corp. and two nuclear subsidiaries.
The transfer will happen once the bankruptcy proceeding wraps up, according to an NRC press release.
“The NRC staff’s review of the license transfer application concluded that Energy Harbor Nuclear Generation LLC is financially qualified to own Beaver Valley, Davis-Besse, and Perry, and that Energy Harbor Nuclear Corp. is financially and technically qualified to operate the plants,” according to the release. “The NRC staff also concluded that, since the plants’ existing decommissioning funds will be transferred, the new licensees satisfy the NRC’s decommissioning funding assurance requirements and the facilities are not owned, controlled, or dominated by a foreign entity.”
Radioactive waste transport and management provider Orano TN has a new president, its parent company announced this week.
Longtime General Electric executive Amir Vexler started at Orano TN this month, according to his LinkedIn profile.
“Amir’s energy and expertise are the right mix for our TN business,” Orano USA CEO Sam Shakir said in a press release Monday, “as we actively enhance our competitive positions in the used fuel, decommissioning, and federal environmental clean-up markets.”
Orano USA is the domestic branch of French nuclear company Orano, formerly AREVA. Orano TN provides used nuclear fuel storage systems, “pool to pad” services for storage of spent fuel, and transport and other nuclear logistics.
Vexler most recently spent more than three years as chief executive officer of Global Nuclear Fuel, a GE- partnership with Hitachi and Toshiba that provides fuel for boiling water reactors. He previously was the joint venture’s chief operating officer for just over years, in a tenure at GE dating at least to September 2002.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is accepting comments from the public through Jan. 13 on the scope of an add-on to its environmental impact statement (EIS) for SHINE Medical Technologies’ isotope production plant in Janesville, Wis.
The agency issued the original document in October 2015 for SHINE’s application for a construction permit for its facility, which it approved in February 2016. The NRC is now conducting a full technical review of the company’s July application for a 30-year operations license for the plant.
The supplement to the EIS “will update the prior environmental review,” the NRC said in a Nov. 27 Federal Register notice. “The supplement will only cover matters that differ from or reflect significant new information concerning matters discussed” in the original document.
A scoping process will precede preparation of a draft supplement for public review. Scoping, according to the Federal Register notice, will encompass matters including: the definition of the proposed action; key matters to be evaluated and issues that do not require assessment; determining if other environmental impact statements or assessments are being prepared separate from the supplement; and identifying potential partner agencies. Participants in the process can include SHINE; relevant federal agencies; impacted state, local, and tribal entities; and individuals who request to be involved.
SHINE is building a 43,000-square-foot facility to house production of medical isotopes including molybdenum-99. That isotope decays into technetium-99m, which annually is employed in 40 million medical procedures, including diagnosing cancers. Management aims to complete construction and begin production in 2021, assuming approval by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Agency staff will conduct a meeting on Dec. 12 in Janesville to receive public input on environmental issues related to the project, the NRC said in a Monday press release. The event will begin with an open house at 5 p.m. at the Celtic House at Glen Erin Golf Club, 1417 West Airport Road, followed by staff presentations and public comments from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Comments on the EIS supplement can also be submitted via regulations.gov, Docket ID NRC 2019-0173; or by mail to Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWFN-7-A60M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Program Management, Announcements and Editing Staff.
From The Wires
From CNN: Germany needs a place to dispose of radioactive waste from its nuclear power plants, which are due for closure by 2022.
From the Williston Herald: The Williams County, N.D., Board of Commissioners denied a permit request to allow a local landfill to receive technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials.
