Waste Management

The Department of Energy has announced that the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) has reached a commissioning milestone, producing more than 20 stainless steel containers of immobilized low-activity radioactive waste.

France’s Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection Authority (ASNR) completed its technical review and issued a satisfactory opinion on Andra’s license application to construct the Cigéo deep geological disposal facility. Andra is the French national agency responsible for the safe management of all radioactive waste in the country.

A 3D-printed tool has been developed at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina that can eliminate months from the job of radioactive tank waste sampling.

Nuclear waste disposal technology company Deep Isolation Nuclear has announced the completion of a three-year project to manufacture, physically test, and validate a disposal-ready universal canister system (UCS) for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from advanced reactors.

The Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Paducah Project Office is weighing options on reprocessing approximately 9,700 tons of contaminated nickel being stored at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission could do more to improve its oversight of decommissioning trust funds, according to an assessment by the NRC’s Office of Inspector General. In particular, the assessment, which was conducted by Crowe LLP on behalf of the OIG, identified four areas related to developing policies and procedures, workflows, and other support that would enhance NRC oversight of the trust funds.

The U.S. Supreme Court may once again scrutinize the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s authority to license consolidated interim storage facilities for commercial spent nuclear fuel. The antinuclear group Beyond Nuclear has filed a petition with the court for a writ of certiorari review of an August 2024 appeals court decision rejecting the group’s lawsuit against the licensing of Holtec International’s New Mexico storage facility, the HI-STORE CISF.

Holtec International has completed a spent nuclear fuel dry storage campaign at NextEra Energy’s St. Lucie nuclear power plant in record time, according to the company. Twelve of Holtec's HI-STORM FW cask systems were loaded to the plant’s independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) in little over one month. In total, 144 spent fuel assemblies were moved from St. Lucie’s used fuel pools to the ISFSI pad.

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina will begin a leak-tightness test to qualify the megavolume Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) 10 to store up to 33 million gallons of solidified, decontaminated salt solution produced at the site.

The International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA), a nongovernmental organization made up of 81 member states working to advance the safe, beneficial use of subsurface spaces, is working with the International Atomic Energy Agency to support the advancement of geologic disposal facilities for high-level radioactive waste.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and its contractor Bechtel announced on October 15 the start of nuclear vitrification operations at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP), also known as the Vit Plant, at the Hanford Site in Washington state.

Nuclear waste disposal technology company Deep Isolation is asking that the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) consider how spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste will be managed under its strategy for developing advanced nuclear power projects in participating states.

The American Nuclear Society has sent a letter to Energy Secretary Chris Wright with a set of recommendations for the Department of Energy to take to establish an effective national program to manage the storage, reprocessing, and final disposal of U.S. commercial used nuclear fuel.

Sellafield Ltd., the site license company overseeing the decommissioning of the U.K.’s Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria, England, announced the award of £2.9 billion (about $3.86 billion) in infrastructure support contracts to the companies of Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, Costain, and HOCHTIEF (UK) Construction.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Nuclear Society (ANS) sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in response to Executive Order 14302, “Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base.” The letter outlines expert-backed recommendations for establishing an effective national program within the United States to manage the storage, reprocessing, and final disposal of commercial used nuclear fuel once it has been in a reactor from a nuclear power plant. This stage is commonly referred to as the “back end” of the nuclear fuel cycle.

Holtec International has confirmed it is canceling plans to build a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in southeastern New Mexico. Named the HI-STORE CISF, the facility would have stored up to 10,000 canisters of commercial SNF on land owned by the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA) near the towns of Carlsbad and Hobbs.

PacTec's Legacy of Engineering Excellence

For over 35 years, PacTec, Inc. has been at the forefront of innovation in waste packaging, continuing to develop new packaging solutions for Class 7 radioactive waste. From humble beginnings in Clinton, Louisiana, to a global presence in the nuclear industry, PacTec's commitment to innovation and excellence continues to drive the development of more efficient and cost-effective waste packaging solutions. Our in-house engineering, production, and testing capabilities—combined with over a century of collective expertise—ensure we can quickly design, test, and deliver groundbreaking solutions to meet the ever-evolving needs of nuclear waste packaging.

The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency has issued a report calling for more-detailed information on tracking the decay heat of spent nuclear fuel from light water reactors. According to the NEA, the report highlights the increasing importance of accurate decay heat estimations due to evolving fuel characteristics, including higher initial fuel enrichment, increased burn-up rates, and extended reactor cycle lengths.

The report, Summary of the NEA Assessment on Spent Nuclear Fuel Decay Heat for Light Water Reactors, summarizes the findings of a subgroup of the NEA’s Working Party on Nuclear Criticality Safety (WPNCS), which ran from January 2022 to January 2024.

Nuclear waste disposal technology company Deep Isolation Nuclear announced it has signed a technology licensing agreement with government contractor Navarro Research and Engineering, giving Navarro access to Deep Isolation’s portfolio of intellectual property for use in nuclear and hazardous waste management applications across the states of Tennessee and Idaho.

WM Symposia, which hosts the annual Waste Management Conference in Phoenix, Ariz., announced it has signed a practical arrangement with the International Atomic Energy Agency aimed at strengthening international collaboration in the safe management of radioactive waste, decommissioning, and environmental remediation.