Archive

BWX Technologies

A manufacturer of naval nuclear reactors and components, and a major supplier of enriched uranium products and services to the U.S. government.

  • COMMENTARY: Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Needs Third-Party Assessment

    By Billy Spencer, Mayor, Piketon, Ohio. Scioto County Commissioner Mike Crabtree is misinformed with respect to the Village of Piketon’s long-held position on the cleanup and redevelopment plan for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) and the need for a third-party independent assessment. He should also know that the Village of Piketon is not alone […]

  • BWXT CEO Seeks to Bolster Profits at Nuclear Cleanup Segment

    Revenue at the BWX Technologies business focused on the Energy Department’s Cold War cleanup program rose more than 15 percent last year as part of a generally strong 2016, the company reported Monday. The Lynchburg, Va., company derives the preponderance of its revenue from its sole-source nuclear propulsion work for the U.S. Navy and reports […]

  • SRS on Pace to Double-Stack 200 Canisters of Waste in FY17

    The Savannah River Site is on pace to meet its fiscal 2017 goal to double-stack and safely store 200 canisters of treated radioactive waste, according to a site official. In October, liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) began stacking canisters of vitrified waste on top of each other in Glass Waste Storage Building 1 […]

  • NMED Letter Hints at Progress on WIPP Shipment Authorizations

    While the Energy Department still has not said which of its cleanup sites will first send waste to the reopened Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, recent correspondence between the New Mexico Environment Department and the agency shows DOE has made headway in approving shipments from three of the five sites on its shortlist. In a Feb. […]

  • NMED Letter Hints at Progress on WIPP Shipment Authorizations

    While the Energy Department still has not said which of its cleanup sites will first send waste to the reopened Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, recent correspondence between the New Mexico Environment Department and the agency shows DOE has made headway in approving shipments from three of the five sites on its shortlist. In a Feb. […]

  • BWXT Nuclear Cleanup Segment Posts Higher Revenue, Lower Profit in 2016

    Revenue at the BWX Technologies business focused on the Energy Department’s Cold War cleanup program rose more than 15 percent last year as part of a generally strong 2016, the company reported late Monday. BWXT is scheduled to host its investor earnings call for the quarter and year ended Dec. 31 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern […]

  • BWXT, AREVA Earnings on Tap

    Department of Energy contractor BWX Technologies is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter 2016 earnings after market close on Monday. That will be followed by an earnings conference call with management at 8:30 a.m. Eastern U.S. time, according to a BWXT press release. The Lynchburg, Va.-based company reported about $62 million in operating income for the […]

  • Scioto County Official Blasts Piketon Mayor for Portsmouth ‘Dump’ Remark

    The commissioner of the Ohio county south of the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site has taken a local mayor to task for his resistance to the waste disposal facility DOE intends to build at the former uranium enrichment facility. Earlier this month, Mayor Billy Spencer of Piketon, the village of 2,000 adjacent to the Portsmouth cleanup, petitioned DOE to […]

  • All Quiet on the SRS Liquid Waste Contract Front

    The Energy Department and some potential contractors are keeping quiet as the agency reviews the bids for the new liquid waste contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The department could announce an award in early April, based on the June 30, 2017, expiration date on incumbent Savannah River Remediation’s contract and the […]

  • Projected WIPP Disposals Would Require Greatly Accelerated Shipping Rate

    At some point in the future, the Energy Department will have to crank shipments of radioactively contaminated material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) into overdrive to meet an internal projection of roughly 20 shipments a week over the mine’s 35-year operational life. In the 35 years running through 2034, DOE thinks the New […]

  • Scioto County Official Blasts Piketon Mayor for Portsmouth ‘Dump’ Remark

    The commissioner of the Ohio county south of the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site has taken a local mayor to task for his resistance to the waste disposal facility DOE intends to build at the former uranium enrichment facility. Earlier this month, Mayor Billy Spencer of Piketon, the village of 2,000 adjacent to the Portsmouth cleanup, petitioned DOE to […]

  • Projected WIPP Disposals Would Require Accelerated Shipping Rate

    At some point in the future, the Energy Department would have to crank shipments of radioactively contaminated material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) into overdrive to meet an internal projection of roughly 20 shipments a week over the mine’s 35-year operational life. In the 35 years running through 2034, DOE thinks the New Mexico […]

  • All Quiet on the SRS Liquid Waste Contract Front

    The Energy Department and some of its leading contractors are keeping quiet as the agency reviews bids for the new liquid waste contract at the Savannah River Site. The current contract with Savannah River Remediation (SRR) is set to expire in four months, and DOE has previously said it would award the follow-on deal in the first quarter […]

  • DOE IDs First Five Sites to Ship to WIPP

    Four federal nuclear sites and one privately operated waste disposal facility will send a total of 128 shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) from April 2017 to January 2018, the Energy Department announced Tuesday. These will be the first waste shipments to WIPP following the February 2014 underground fire and […]

  • DOE Identifies First Five Sites to Ship Waste to WIPP

    Four federal nuclear sites and one privately operated disposal facility will send a total of 128 shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) from April 2017 to January 2018, the Energy Department announced Tuesday. These will be the first waste shipments to WIPP following the February 2014 underground fire and subsequent, unrelated […]

  • DOE Mulls Mobile Treatment System for Potentially Explosive TRU Waste in Texas

    The Energy Department could develop a new mobile waste-treatment unit to decontaminate more than 70 barrels of potentially explosive nuclear waste stored at a private contractor in Texas, a source in New Mexico said Tuesday. The 70 barrels, which contain a potentially explosive combination of plutonium-contaminated nitrate salts and organic kitty litter, represent the greater part of […]

  • Atkins-Led Team Takes Over DUF6 Jobs at Portsmouth, Paducah

    The Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services joint venture has started work on an Energy Department contract to process depleted uranium hexafluoride left over from Cold War uranium enrichment in Ohio and Kentucky. In late September, DOE awarded Mid-America Conversion Services a five-year, $318 million depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) treatment contract, unseating incumbent BWXT Conversion Services. Fluor […]

  • SRS Waste Processing Facility Shuts Down While New Melter is Installed

    The Savannah River Site’s main waste processing facility will be offline for much of the year to allow for replacement of a key component. The Energy Department said on Feb. 3 that site liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) is preparing to replace a melter in the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF), which converts […]

  • Hanford Worker Protection Trial Postponed to 2018

    The bench trial for the Hanford Site worker vapor protection lawsuit brought by Washington state and other plaintiffs will be postponed until March 5, 2018, Judge Thomas Rice ruled Monday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington. The plaintiffs and defendants jointly requested the trial be delayed more than four months from Oct. 30, 2017, […]

  • Public Tours Scheduled at DOE’s Portsmouth Plant

    Public tours are being offered again this year at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, the shuttered facility’s cleanup contractor announced Monday. “We are pleased to continue these special tours for the public to get a close-up view of the former uranium enrichment facilities while they are being addressed under the […]

  • Mayor Fears ‘Nuclear Dump’ Legacy for Piketon

    Wary that his village will become known only for the pile of radioactive waste the Energy Department plans to leave behind after it cleans up the nearby Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, the mayor of Piketon, Ohio, is pitching the agency on a plan to reinvent the former uranium enrichment site as a DOE technology hub. […]

  • Public Tours Scheduled at DOE’s Portsmouth Plant

    Public tours are being offered again this year at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, the shuttered facility’s cleanup contractor announced Monday. “We are pleased to continue these special tours for the public to get a close-up view of the former uranium enrichment facilities while they are being addressed under the […]

  • Atkins-Led Team Takes Over DUF6 Jobs at Portsmouth, Paducah

    The Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services joint venture has started work on an Energy Department contract to process depleted uranium hexafluoride left over from Cold War uranium enrichment in Ohio and Kentucky. In late September, DOE awarded Mid-America Conversion Services a five-year, $318 million depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) treatment contract, unseating incumbent BWXT Conversion Services. Fluor […]

  • SRS Looks to Redirect Salt Waste Funds Toward Other Waste Goals

    The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site is seeking approval from agency headquarters to redirect money not needed for salt waste work toward other liquid waste missions. The DOE facility in South Carolina, like the rest of the federal government, is currently being funded at fiscal 2016-enacted levels under a budgetary continuing resolution that expires […]

  • Portsmouth X-326 ‘Cold and Dark’ Date Slips Again

    Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth has pushed back by up to six months the date for rendering the Energy Department’s 60 year-old X-326 uranium enrichment building cold and dark, according to a senior company executive. “[O]ur goal in the X-326 is to be ‘cold & dark’ by the end of this calendar year,” Dennis Carr, Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth’s program director, […]

  • Contractor Winnows Down Post-Start Punch List at WIPP

    The Energy Department and its contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico are winnowing down the mine’s post-reopening punch list of fixes, a DOE spokesperson said Monday. After last year’s DOE-led operational readiness review, the agency identified 15 fixes for WIPP prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) and the local DOE […]

  • DOE May Reclassify West Valley as Defense Site

    The Energy Department may reclassify its West Valley Demonstration Project as a defense nuclear site, upping the federal funding for which the former spent fuel reprocessing facility is eligible, a local New York newspaper reported last week. Former Energy Sec. Ernest Moniz notified Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) of the possibility Thursday, the Olean Times Herald […]

  • SRS Waste Facility Resumes Operations Following Planned Outage

    A key Savannah River Site (SRS) waste treatment facility returned to operations last month after a three-month scheduled outage to address equipment concerns. The Saltstone Production Facility (SPF) receives low-radioactive salt solution that has been separated from radioactive sludge. That pre-separation material is stored together in more than 40 liquid waste tanks, which in total hold about […]

  • Clarification

    Weapons Complex Morning Briefing on Monday described Nuclear Fuel Services Inc., the former spent nuclear fuel reprocessor at what is now the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state, as defunct. The business continues to operate as a BWX Technologies subsidiary that produces nuclear fuel for the U.S. Navy.

  • SRS Waste Facility Resumes Operations Following Planned Outage

    A key Savannah River Site (SRS) waste treatment facility returned to operations last month after a three-month scheduled outage to address equipment concerns. The Saltstone Production Facility (SPF) receives low-radioactive salt solution that has been separated from radioactive sludge. That pre-separation material is stored together in more than 40 liquid waste tanks, which in total hold about 35 […]