Orano

The Hanford Site has five major procurements in the pipeline between now and fiscal 2020, according to an announcement published Jan. 3 by the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center (EMCBC). Three of the five solicitations could extend for up to 10 years; a fourth for up to seven years; and the length […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), waste storage tank operations contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state, received 89 percent of its available fee for fiscal 2017, the Department of Energy noted in a recently issued performance scorecard. WRPS earned $11.89 million of the available $13.35 million for the budget year ended Sept. 30, 2017. […]

AREVA said Tuesday it anticipates sealing an agreement this year to provide technology for a new used nuclear fuel treatment and recycling plant in China. Executives from New AREVA and the China National Nuclear Corp. signed a “memorandum of commercial agreement” for the facility alongside a meeting in Beijing of French President Emmanuel Macron and […]

AREVA said Tuesday it anticipates sealing an agreement this year to provide technology for a new used nuclear fuel treatment and recycling plant in China. Executives from New AREVA and the China National Nuclear Corp. signed a “memorandum of commercial agreement” for the facility alongside a meeting in Beijing of French President Emmanuel Macron and […]

Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), waste storage tank operations contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state, received 89 percent of its available fee for fiscal 2017, the Department of Energy noted in a recently issued performance scorecard. WRPS earned $11.89 million of the available $13.35 million for the budget year ended Sept. 30, 2017. […]

The prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) has demanded in federal court that its customer quickly return more than $20 million in contract fees the agency voided in 2016. It was the latest turn in a $200-million lawsuit CB&I AREVA MOX Services filed against DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear […]

Since it resumed receiving transuranic waste again last April, the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., has received 130 shipments from DOE-approved generator sites as of Dec. 15, 2017. That is the most recent date for which shipment data is publicly available. During its first 36 weeks of operation since reopening, WIPP […]

The prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) has demanded in federal court that its customer quickly return more than $20 million in contract fees the agency voided in 2016. It was the latest turn in a $200-million lawsuit CB&I AREVA MOX Services filed against DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear […]

Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies is interested in a potential 10-year, $4 billion support services contract at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state, a spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. BWXT was one of many well-known DOE contractors to send representatives last week to information sessions on DOE’s draft request for proposals on the Hanford Mission Essential […]

A second round of state depositions has been scheduled for January on the proposed sale of the retired Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Depositions were previously held in October as the Vermont Public Utility Commission considers whether to authorize transfer of ownership of Vermont Yankee from power company Entergy to nuclear decommissioning specialist NorthStar Group […]

The U.S. Department of Energy must remove 1 metric ton of plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina by Jan. 1, 2020, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday. The injunctive order from U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs grants one of the key demands in a 2016 lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Alan Wilson, but […]

New AREVA said Monday that in recent months it has secured three contracts valued at 9 million euros ($10.7 million) for processing and disposal of radioactive waste at two French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission sites. The French company will provide treatment of liquid chemical wastes, “of varying radiological intensity … ranging from very […]

One of the parent companies of the prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility said Monday it will be acquired by Houston-based McDermott International in a $6-billion all-stock deal slated to close in the second quarter of 2018. At the close of the transaction CB&I, the Woodlands, […]

The lure of a potential 10-year, $4 billion support services contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state prompted some of the biggest names within the Department of Energy weapons cleanup complex to sign up for an information session last week on a draft request for proposals for the work. The incumbent contract is held […]

After a three-year hiatus, the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., should resume salt mining in a matter of days, according to site management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP). The resumption would mark another key step toward a return to normalcy for the nation’s only permanent underground disposal site […]

With settlement talks continuing, parties in the chemical vapors lawsuit at the Hanford Site in Washington state have asked a federal judge to delay the trial date for another three months. Parties are requesting that the trial date be extended until Nov. 27, 2018. If a trial occurs then, it would be three years after […]

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has begun analyzing whether the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico would be a viable facility for storage of plutonium that would be downblended at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In its fiscal 2017 budget, Congress mandated that the nongovernmental research organization conduct […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has received 118 shipments of transuranic waste since reopening to shipments in April, officials said Wednesday night at the WIPP Town Hall in Carlsbad. WIPP is now averaging between five and six shipments per week from other DOE sites, according to Bruce Covert, president and […]

Salt mining at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is expected to resume within a matter of weeks, a spokesman for site management and operations contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership said last week. In addition, a director of mining should be hired in early 2018 for the underground transuranic waste storage facility near Carlsbad, […]

A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge said Tuesday she needs to determine if her court can decide if South Carolina should receive $100 million from the Department of Energy over missed plutonium disposal deadlines at the Savannah River Site. In the order, Judge Margaret Sweeney granted DOE’s request to defer a ruling on the […]

Medical authorities have given the green light for three workers at the Hanford Site in Washington state to return to work after receiving precautionary medical checks for odors reported Tuesday inside the 271-AW instrument building. That’s according to Washington River Protection Solutions, a Hanford contractor responsible for radioactive and chemical waste stored in 177 underground […]

Waste appears to have been emptied to regulatory standards at the first Hanford tank farm, should tests show work has been adequate. Washington River Protection Solutions has used three technologies to their limit, to empty the 16th and final tank in the C Tank Farm. Regulatory requirements require that either three technologies be used to […]

Changing the structure of the contract for the Department of Energy’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility would not necessarily help restrain the rising costs for building the plant that will eliminate stocks of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report Wednesday. The report does not include any recommended action, but rather reveals […]

Changing the nature of the contract for the Department of Energy’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility would not necessarily help restrain the rising costs for building the plant that will eliminate stocks of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report Wednesday. The report does not include any recommended action, but rather reveals […]

The federal government this week doubled down on its request that the Court of Federal Claims dismiss South Carolina’s lawsuit over disposal of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site. The filing arrived just days after the prime contractor on the Department of Energy facility designed to convert that plutonium into […]

The prime contractor on a Department of Energy facility designed to turn surplus nuclear-weapon plutonium into commercial reactor fuel said government meddling on the project made it impossible for the company to fulfill its contractual obligations and earn its fees, according to federal court papers dated Friday. The claim is part of an amended complaint […]

A CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. project director has been selected as the new manager for the Office of River Protection at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Brian Vance takes over from Kevin Smith, who retired at the end of September. The Office of River Protection is responsible for management of 56 […]

Hanford Treatment Plants Process 2.2B Gallons of Water in FY17 The six groundwater treatment plants at the Hanford Site cleaned 2.2 billion gallons of water in the fiscal year just ended, reinjecting the processed water back into the ground, the Department of Energy announced Thursday. More than 145,000 pounds (72.5 tons) of contamination were removed. […]

About 200 workers were recently laid off from the MOX project at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, construction prime CB&I AREVA MOX Services said this week. Gentry Brann, a spokeswoman for contractor parent CB&I, said the project employed about 2,200 workers at SRS before the recent layoffs. She did not say when the layoffs […]

  The state of South Carolina has asked for summary judgment in its recent $100 million lawsuit against the Department of Energy over plutonium disposition at the Savannah River Site. The request was filed Oct. 6 – the same day the federal agency asked that the suit be thrown out. South Carolina filed the complaint […]