Los Angeles-based engineering giant AECOM on Monday announced that it has promoted former Department of Energy official Mark Whitney to lead its nuclear and environment business unit, filling the slot vacated by Todd Wright.
Wright recently retired as executive vice president and general manager of the AECOM branch, but is staying on at the company in a senior role focused on major business development and corporate governance in the nuclear sector.
Whitney became the new general manager and executive vice president for the business effective Monday. He will run daily operations and support AECOM efforts for the Energy Department, the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and other clients.
Prior to joining AECOM almost two years ago, Whitney spent over a decade at the Energy Department, where he served in leadership posts including principal deputy assistant secretary and acting assistant secretary for the Office of Environmental Management and manager of the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management in Tennessee. During his government tenure, Whitney also worked at DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, including as acting principal assistant deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation.
“Mark Whitney’s experience as our nuclear and environment chief operating office and his previous role with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will allow us to continue the strong momentum we have developed in the government and commercial nuclear market,” John Vollmer, president of AECOM’s Management Services group, said in a press release. Management Services is the unit that includes AECOM’s Department of Energy business.
The international infrastructure firm is currently leading DOE contractor teams on liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and operation of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.
The chairman of the New Mexico Legislature’s Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee this week came out swinging against a document signed by the majority of the panel’s voting members in support of Holtec Internationa’s plans to build an interim storage site for spent nuclear reactor fuel in the state.
Seven of 12 members of the bicameral committee signed what they said was a resolution touting the economic benefits provided by the facility proposed to be built in southeastern New Mexico, along with the safety measures intended to ensure there are no accidents involving radioactive material. Holtec Vice President for Corporate Business Development Joy Russell earlier this month forwarded the resolution to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki.
In his own Aug. 29 letter to Svinicki, state Sen. Jeff Steinborn reaffirmed his argument that the document is not a resolution because it “was not discussed, voted on or adopted at any duly organized meeting of the committee. Accordingly, the resolution is not an official action of the committee and may only be considered the personal opinion of the individual legislators who signed it.”
Steinborn, a Democrat from Las Cruces, also accused Russell of making “several inaccurate and highly inappropriate assertions regarding the committee’s official confidence in the safety of Holtec’s proposal.”
The letter, posted Friday to the NRC website, did not elaborate on those assertions. In an email Friday, Russell emphasized support for the Holtec facility in the state.
“Holtec International is grateful for the support from the majority of the voting members of the Radioactive and Hazardous Materials interim committee. Their support mirrors the 2016 bi-partisan memorial approved from the full New Mexico House of Representatives (50 yeas, 17 nays) and the New Mexico Senate (27-10),” she wrote. “Moving forward we will continue to communicate with the state and local communities to build upon the support for the proposed project in Lea County as it is important for the nuclear energy industry and the country.”
The Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee provides legislative oversight of federal and private nuclear operations in New Mexico, though it has no regulatory authority. Steinborn has been critical of the Holtec project, which would involve underground storage of potentially more than 100,000 metric tons of used fuel until a permanent national repository is ready. The New Jersey energy technology company is seeking a 40-year NRC license for the first tranche of material, totaling 8,680 metric tons. With federal regulatory approval by 2020, storage operations could begin in 2022.
The owners of operational and shuttered nuclear power plants in 2017 all demonstrated “assurance” that they are prepared to manage the costs of decommissioning their facilities, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Agency staff offered its assessment in a summary of its evaluation of the decommissioning funding status reports filed last year by licensees for both power-generating facilities and those in decommissioning.
The funding reports are due each year for reactors being decommissioned or within five years of closure, and biannually for other reactors that remain operational.
Federal law demands that nuclear licensees be able to show “reasonable assurance” that they are prepared to pay the costs of decommissioning their plants. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have all the funds necessary on hand, but that funding amounts “provide assurance that licensees have available the bulk of the funds to safely decommission the facility,” according to the Aug. 6 policy report, made public on Aug. 21, from Brian Holian, acting director of the NRC Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, to the five commissioners.
There is no set definition for decommissioning funding assurance, an NRC spokesman said. However, it can be demonstrated by at least one of three methods: prepayment, via a trust fund or other separate account; surety, insurance, or parent company guarantee, under which decommissioning would be funded even if the licensee defaults; and external sinking fund not controlled by the licensee.
Licensees for all 100 operational nuclear power reactors demonstrated decommissioning funding assurance in 2017, as did the licensees for the 20 reactors now being decommissioned, the report says.
Three reactors that had funding shortfalls in the 2015 review – the two units at the Braidwood Generating Station and Unit 2 at the Byron Generating Station, both sites operated by Exelon in Illinois – had by last year met NRC minimum funding requirements.
While Indiana Michigan Power Co. demonstrated funding assurance for its Donald C. Cook Nuclear Plant in Michigan, the utility noted that its decommissioning trust for two reactor units dropped by about $150 million from 2015 to 2017. The company attributed the reduction to shifting funds to finance upcoming spent fuel management operations. The NRC has asked for more information on the situation, Holian wrote.
Indiana Michigan Power revised the 2017 decommissioning funding status report in an Aug. 9 letter to the NRC, the spokesman said: “Based on information presented in the August 9, 2018 submittal, staff concluded that the licensee is in compliance with the decommissioning funding assurance requirements.”
In addition, one of the decommissioning reactors – Unit 1 at EGC’s Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania – reported a $35 million shortfall in 2017. The company, though, “provided additional financial assurance to cover the estimated cost to complete decommissioning” for the reactor, the report says.
From The Wires
From The Salt Lake Tribune: Utah Department of Environmental Quality reviewing EnergySolutions request for exemption allowing disposal of depleted uranium.
From WRDV: U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) backs sending radioactive waste from the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in his state to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository.
From The Asahi Shimbun: Decommissioning begins on Japan’s Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor.
From Africa Newswire: Officials from 21 African nations meeting in Kampala, Uganda, to discuss radioactive waste management.
