Savannah River Site

During 2023, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board advised the Department of Energy on issues ranging from on-site transportation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to overseeing aging nuclear infrastructure across the weapons complex. Those are some highlights of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB)’s 34th Annual Report to Congress published […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday officially announced Michael Mikolanis as its new top federal official at the agency’s Savannah River Site field office near Aiken, S.C. The Exchange Monitor reported in December that Mikolanis would make the move to the Savannah River Site from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The NNSA announced Mikolanis’ […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday officially announced Michael Mikolanis as its new top federal official at the agency’s Savannah River Site field office near Aiken, S.C. The Exchange Monitor reported in December that Mikolanis would make the move to the Savannah River Site from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The […]

During 2023, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board advised the Department of Energy on issues ranging from on-site transportation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to overseeing aging nuclear infrastructure across the weapons complex. Those are some highlights of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB)’s 34th Annual Report to Congress published […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management expects to issue at most two final solicitations between now and September, according to a quarterly notice published Wednesday. The final request for proposals (RFP) for Consolidated Technical Support Services would be released no sooner than June and the Paducah Infrastructure Support Services contract no sooner than […]

A 21-year-old who starts working at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state this year could have a 50-plus-year career and still retire before the former plutonium production facility is officially cleaned up. DOE currently projects, with between 50% and 80% confidence, the Hanford Site will be deemed clean sometime between 2078 and […]

“Better contracting, better cleanup” is the big goal in the Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s new decade-long strategic vision, released this week. The cleanup branch spends about 95% of its $8-billion-plus annual budget on joint ventures and a contractor workforce of 25,000, the agency said in the 52-page document. “It remains critical that […]

PHOENIX — The Department of Energy has issued requests for qualifications at four of the initial five nuclear properties in the agency’s Cleanup to Clean Energy program, officials here said Tuesday at the Waste Management Symposia conference. As of this week, requests for qualifications (RFQ) have gone out at the Hanford Site in Washington state, […]

PHOENIX — The Savannah River Site could send as many as 40 shipments of diluted surplus plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in 2024, a manager at the Savannah River Site said here. Or maybe half that many, Lee Sims, K Area Facility Manager at Savannah River for the site’s Fluor-led prime contractor, Savannah […]

PHOENIX — The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is about 20% to its goal of adding 600 electric vehicles over the next few years, an executive with the site’s prime contractor said here Tuesday. The site currently has 116 electric vehicles and will add another 44 this year, Mike Swain, executive […]

PHOENIX — The Savannah River Site could send as many as 40 shipments of diluted surplus plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in 2024, a manager at the Savannah River Site said here. Or maybe half that many, Lee Sims, K Area Facility Manager at Savannah River for the site’s Fluor-led prime contractor, Savannah […]

PHOENIX — The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is about 20% to its goal of adding 600 electric vehicles over the next few years, an executive with the site’s prime contractor said here Tuesday. The site currently has 116 electric vehicles and will add another 44 this year, Mike Swain, executive […]

The Department of Energy’s decision to re-award a potential $45-billion contract for liquid radioactive waste management at the Hanford Site in Washington state to a BWX Technologies-led group could put the company at the helm of two major nuclear-weapons cleanups. DOE announced March 1 the re-award of the Integrated Tank Disposition contract to Hanford Tank […]

The largest nuclear cleanup sites run by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management would meet or beat fiscal 2023 funding levels, under the compromise 2024 appropriations bill released over the weekend. At the Hanford Site in Washington state, the former plutonium-making complex that is now DOE’s most expensive cleanup project, the two operational […]

Departing officers of an advisory board for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said this week they are feeling less anxious about the National Nuclear Security Administration taking over the 310-square-mile property on Oct. 1. That’s when the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) , a semi-autonomous branch of DOE, is scheduled […]

A longtime federal manager, Jimmy “Mac” McMillian, retires Feb. 29 an advisory board for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina heard Monday. McMillian, a member of senior executive service, has been assistant manager for infrastructure and environmental stewardship for Savannah River’s DOE Environmental Management office since February 2019. The “sad news” […]

Departing officers of an advisory board for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said this week they are feeling less anxious about the National Nuclear Security Administration taking over the 310-square-mile property on Oct. 1. That’s when the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) , a semi-autonomous branch of DOE, is scheduled […]

Departing officers of an advisory board for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said this week they are feeling less anxious about the National Nuclear Security Administration taking over the 310-square-mile property on Oct. 1. That’s when the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) , a semi-autonomous branch of DOE, is scheduled […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch thinks it could complete major infrastructure projects in New Mexico and South Carolina during calendar year 2024, the agency said Tuesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management’s top priorities for 2024 include final testing of a new underground ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in […]

A longtime federal manager, Jimmy “Mac” McMillian, retires Feb. 29 an advisory board for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina heard Monday. McMillian, a member of senior executive service, has been assistant manager for infrastructure and environmental stewardship for Savannah River’s DOE Environmental Management office since February 2019. The “sad news” […]

About two years after it released a draft of the document, the National Nuclear Security Administration published a final environmental review of its plant to dispose of dozens of tons of surplus, weapon-usable plutonium. The nuclear weapons agency published its final Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program (SPDP) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in the Federal Register on […]

About a year after it released a draft of the document, the National Nuclear Security Administration published a final environmental review of its plant to dispose of dozens of tons of surplus, weapon-usable plutonium. The nuclear weapons agency published its final Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program (SPDP) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in the Federal Register on […]

The annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit, hosted by the Exchange Monitor, kicks off in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday with more than 60 speakers from the top ranks of the U.S.  nuclear security enterprise.  Expect much discussion of the National Nuclear Security Administration striving to produce at least 80 plutonium pits for use in modernizing nuclear weapons […]

The Department of Energy is taking applications until Feb. 12 for a new nuclear cleanup field office manager to replace Michael Mikolanis at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to a recent online notice. Mikolanis is leaving by March to become the top DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) executive at the […]

The Department of Energy prime for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is shopping around for subcontractors interested in building a new emergency operations center. The request for information and expressions of interest by Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions was published online Wednesday.   Responses are due by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Feb. 5 […]

The Department of Energy prime for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is shopping around for subcontractors interested in building a new emergency operations center. The request for information and expressions of interest by Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions was published online Wednesday.   Responses are due by 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Feb. 5 […]

“Oppenheimer,” the 2023 movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer, first director of what is now the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, was honored as the year’s best movie drama on Jan. 7 at the Golden Globe awards ceremony. Cillian Murphy, the actor who portrayed the scientist, was named best actor for his performance and […]

A proposed merger of two industry heavyweights, already partners on about $37 billion worth of Department of Energy nuclear-cleanup contracts, will be among the most-watched issues in 2024 for Weapons Complex Monitor. Virginia-based Amentum plans to merge with the government contracting and cyber wings Dallas-based Jacobs, the two companies announced in October. If the deal […]

Amid an increasingly chaotic international security picture, the post-pandemic landscape for the National Nuclear Security Administration came into clearer focus in 2023 as the agency pressed on with plans to produce plutonium pits, reckoned with a major infrastructure project that got off the rails, started competition for a major new site management contract, and braced […]

The looming departure of Los Alamos National Laboratory federal field manager Michael Mikolanis will mark the second swap of Environmental Management field bosses across the Department of Energy’s old weapons complex in a little more than a year. These days, most site feds have a tenure of fewer than six years. These people are the […]