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Important Dates
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Feb. 22 at 2PM Central:
SRG Staff Quarterly Call
April 16-19:
National Radiological Emergency Preparedness Conference, Seattle, WA
More information
June 4-7:
NTSF 2018 Annual Meeting, Omaha, NE
Register
June 5:
MRMTC Spring 2018 Meeting, Omaha, NE
Register
June 13:
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board Summer 2018 Meeting (on SNF/HLW transportation issues), Idaho Falls, ID
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Join Our List
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COMMITTEE HAPPENINGS
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Spring Meeting Registration Open
Members can now register and reserve hotel rooms for the Committee's next meeting on
June 5 in Omaha, Nebraska, which is being held in conjunction with the 2018 Annual Meeting of the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum (NTSF) on
June 4-7. Registration for both the Committee and NTSF meetings are being handled through a single online registration system,
available here. Committee members and several other Midwestern state personnel will be reimbursed for their travel to Omaha, including the $50 meeting registration fee.
In other meeting news, members should have received an invitation to complete a survey that will help determine the dates and location for the Committee's fall 2018 meeting. The survey will close on
Feb. 21, so please submit your responses before then. If you did not receive the survey link, please contact
Katelyn Tye-Skowronski. The results of the survey will be announced during the Committee meeting in Omaha.
In other news, as discussed at the Committee's fall meeting in Cleveland, the Midwest in January sent
a letter to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Edward McGinnis to express the region's commitment to maintaining a productive working relationship with DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE). With DOE-NE awaiting program direction and funding from Congress, the Midwest felt it was important to emphasize the value states add to the Department's transportation planning for future shipments.
Finally, a group of Committee members from Iowa, Illinois, and Nebraska, will begin planning for the resumption of transuranic waste shipments from Argonne National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) later this year. The group is scheduling its first conference call for later this month to discuss updates on shipment timing; states' needs related to information, training, and outreach; plans for a Midwestern WIPP Road Show; and plans for a WIPP tour this fall or winter.
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NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION STAKEHOLDERS FORUM
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NTSF News and Events
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Registration is now open for the 2018 Annual Meeting of the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum (NTSF). The meeting will take place on June 4-7 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Omaha Downtown in Omaha, Nebraska. DOE, CSG Midwest, and the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (TRMTC) are the co-hosts of this year's meeting. A preliminary agenda is available on the
NTSF Annual Meeting website.
As noted in previous editions of the newsletter, the state regional group (SRG) meetings will be held on
June 5 and the TRMTC will meet on
June 4. NTSF ad hoc working groups are scheduled to meet on
June 5 and 6. On
June 7, attendees will have the opportunity to participate in one of two tours. One group will visit Union Pacific's Harriman Dispatching Center, which provides real-time monitoring of the railroad's 32,000-mile network, while another group will head to the shutdown Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station.
Space on the tours is limited, so be sure to register early.
In NTSF webinar news, slides and a recording of the Jan. 16 NTSF webinar on DOE's Initial Site-Specific De-Inventory Analyses on Humboldt Bay and Kewaunee are now posted on the
NTSF wiki site. The webinar, featuring Matt Feldman (Oak Ridge National Laboratory), was the latest installment in a series started last year on the Department's de-inventory reports for shutdown nuclear plants.
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| FOCUS THIS MONTH |
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The Future of Ohio's Nuclear Plants Looking Grim
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The Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant (photo from FirstEnergy)
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FirstEnergy, which owns two Ohio nuclear plants, recently confirmed the company will exit the competitive energy generation business, according to
a Jan. 31 article in the
Sandusky Register.
As noted in the article, the company has not made any final decisions or announcements about the future of the Davis-Besse and Perry plants, including whether they will be sold or closed, but did emphasize the challenges for nuclear in the current energy market.
Advocates for the plants, including FirstEnergy, are still asking state lawmakers to enact a measure that would provide zero-emissions credits for nuclear energy. On Jan. 25, the Ohio Senate Public Utilities Committee held a hearing on the legislation (
Senate Bill 128), but committee chairman Sen. Bill Beagle said he has no plans to vote the bill out of committee,
reported The Plain Dealer.
According to
a recent article in the
Toledo Blade, the utility is struggling financially with a $100 million debt payment that is due on April 2. The article notes that a group of investors have agreed to provide FirstEnergy with $2.5 billion to "support growth in the company's regulated utility businesses," which do not include nuclear and coal-fired power plants.
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NUCLEAR NEWS
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Duane Arnold Nuclear Plant in Iowa at Risk of Closure
The owners of Duane Arnold Energy Center, Iowa's only nuclear plant, said the reactor may close by the end of 2025, according to
a Jan. 29 article
in
The Gazette
. The article reports that NextEra Energy does not believe the plant's main customer will renew its contact, which would cause its premature closure. Duane Arnold, which started operations in 1975, is located about nine miles northwest of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and employs around 600 people.
Wisconsin Company Leads Race for Radioactive Isotope Production in U.S.
A recent article by
Kaiser Health News highlighted Wisconsin-based SHINE Medical Technologies' efforts to become the first North American manufacturer of molybdenum-99 (moly-99), a radioisotope produced by nuclear fission. The article reports that the $100 million plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, is the first of its kind to receive approval for construction from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission since 1985, and could eventually manufacture up to 50,000 doses of an imaging agent that is used to detect cancer and other dangerous medical conditions, such as blocked blood vessels.
The Midwest is considering holding its fall 2018 Committee meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, so it can invite representatives of SHINE and/or NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes to speak to the group about nuclear medicine technology.
Western Interstate Energy Board Adopts Policies Recommended by High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee
The Western Interstate Energy Board (WIEB) has approved five policy positions recommended by WIEB's High-Level Radioactive Waste (HLW) Committee in a series of papers. The papers, which are
available here, now represent the official policy of WIEB on several key nuclear waste transportation topics:
- the application of the WIPP transport model to spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and HLW transport;
- physical protection requirements for SNF transport;
- shipping oldest fuel first;
- implementing a program to support state and federal rail inspections; and
- developing a process for robust and consistent inspections of rail shipments.
The WIEB HLW Committee is chaired by Ken Niles (Oregon).
Thank you to Melanie Snyder (WIEB) for sharing the news about the policy papers' adoption.
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Thank you for reading. Watch for the next edition to come out on
March 1, 2018
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Missed a newsletter? Past issues are
archived
on the committee's webpage.
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Please do not reproduce or create new content from this material without the prior express written permission of CSG Midwest.
This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy under Award Numbers DE-NE0008604, DE-EM0004869, and DE-EM00002327.
This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.
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