Sep 19, 2025
Surprise Wyoming! The CSG West (Council of State Governments) annual meeting hosted in Jackson (Sep 16-19) had experts educate *WY legislative members on the storage of spent nuclear fuel. Clearly, they aren’t envisioning Jackson/Teton County becoming the home of a super nuclear fuel waste disposal site!
*CSG West Chair: Representative Mike Yin; Senator Eric Barlow; Representative Landon Brown; Representative Andrew Byron; Senator Barry Crago; Senator Dan Dockstader; Senator Ogden Driskill; Senator Mike Gierau; Representative Karlee Provenza; Representative Liz Storer.
According to Cowboy State Daily, the following entities brought their expertise to the meeting:
- U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Brad Crowell (NRC)
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
- Idaho National Laboratory, Dr. Josh Jarrell
- John Kotek, senior vice president for policy development and public affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute
- Spokesperson with CSG West, Edgar Ruiz
And even though he is not a member of the WY CSG Committee who hosted the event, Fremont County (HD54) House Representative Lloyd Larsen (Johnny-on-the-spot for all things nuclear) was there to add his own expert thoughts to the discussion:
“There’s several other countries that have completed the process for permanent storage of spent fuel,” said Larsen, mentioning Sweden and France.
Larsen noted what he sees as an inconsistency in Wyoming’s approach to nuclear energy.
“We do things a little hypocritical. We want to mine uranium to send it out, but we don’t want to do anything on the waste,” he said, referencing Wyoming’s role in uranium production but reluctance to consider waste storage.”
As Wyoming Struggles With Nuclear Waste, Canada Shares Its Success Story, Cowboy State Daily, September18, 2025
For the record there is a difference between uranium mill tailings and spent nuclear fuel, and Wyoming is the NRC’s 38th Agreement State that assumed the regulatory authority over the byproduct material from uranium mining in 2018.
« Previous Article | Next Article »