Savannah River Site

With 2023 winding down, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office this week offered a broad overview of how most of its nuclear-weapons cleanup contractors performed during the year. In a widely distributed statement on Tuesday, the Office of Environmental Management shared contractor performance ratings that mostly spanned fiscal year 2023, which ended Sept. 30. […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory would be barred from expanding equipment needed to dispose of surplus plutonium until the lab certifies it can produce at least 30 nuclear weapon cores annually, under a bill passed last week. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress passed Thursday, would prohibit expansion of the Advanced Recovery and […]

The Department of Energy’s cleanup office boss at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has been selected to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s field operations at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, a DOE executive said this week. Michael Mikolanis, who has led DOE’s cleanup office at Los Alamos since July […]

S&K Logistics, a tribally-owned government contractor, has won a potential three-year, $24-million award for support services at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract for professional services, ranging from liquid waste cleanup to legal support, at Savannah River runs from Dec. 12, 2023 through Dec. 11, […]

A federal nuclear safety watchdog wants the National Nuclear Security Administration to respond to concerns over worker safety at the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in just over a month. Three different NNSA safety assessments of the in-development plutonium facility have now found concerns with worker safety, specifically that project leaders are allowing workers to […]

The Department of Energy’s cleanup office boss at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has been selected to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s field operations at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, a DOE executive said this week. Michael Mikolanis, who has led DOE’s cleanup office at Los Alamos since July […]

A federal nuclear safety watchdog wants the National Nuclear Security Administration to respond to concerns over worker safety at the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in just over a month. Three different NNSA safety assessments of the in-development plutonium facility have now found concerns with worker safety, specifically that project leaders are allowing workers to […]

The Government Accountability Office said Thursday the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup wing should reach deals with key federal entities that rely on H-Canyon at DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina Site to process spent reactor fuel. H-Canyon is the nation’s only nuclear chemical separations facility and the DOE Office of Environmental Management plans […]

Contractor North Wind Group has finished putting up the structural steel for a 60,000-square-foot offsite research facility it is building for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site at the University of South Carolina-Aiken, the agency said Monday. “Since construction started about eight months ago, we have been making substantial progress,” on the Advanced Manufacturing […]

With the holidays approaching, the Department of Energy’s request for information for potential carbon-free power projects at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been extended until Jan. 2, the agency said Wednesday. Information on the clean energy potential of the 310-square-mile federal complex is now due by 12 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday […]

The Government Accountability Office expects to publish several major reports on Department of Energy nuclear remediation issues over the next several months, according to the congressional watchdog agency. Nathan Anderson, director of the Natural Resources & Environment unit for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), said between now and December a report on H Canyon at […]

The Department of Energy’s inventory of legacy transuranic waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been winnowed to the point where the last such shipment to the underground disposal site in New Mexico could be only five years away, a federal advisory committee heard last week. Most of Savannah River’s defense-related legacy […]

With the holidays approaching, the Department of Energy’s request for information for potential carbon-free power projects at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been extended until Jan. 2, the agency said Wednesday. Information on the clean energy potential of the 310-square-mile federal complex is now due by 12 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday […]

The Department of Energy’s $8-billion-plus nuclear cleanup branch is getting positive results from its early forays into artificial intelligence and machine learning, Jeff Avery, the No. 2 at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, told a National Academies panel Tuesday. New technology is playing a growing role at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, Avery,  principal deputy […]

The U.S. Forest Service killed roughly 1,200 wild hogs on the grounds of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina during fiscal 2023, many of which were eaten by vultures, the site’s Citizens Advisory Board heard Monday. During his presentation to the Savannah River Site advisory board, forest manager DeVela Clark, also […]

The Department of Energy’s $8-billion-plus nuclear cleanup branch is getting positive results from its early forays into artificial intelligence and machine learning, Jeff Avery told a National Academies panel Tuesday. New technology is playing a growing role at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, Jeff Avery told the National Academies Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board. “We […]

The Government Accountability Office should release a report on the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in the coming weeks, the Citizens Advisory Board for nuclear cleanup heard Monday. Savannah River Citizens Advisory Board Chair Gregg Murray dropped the news at the outset of the two-day meeting, being carried via Youtube. The report by the […]

The U.S. Forest Service killed roughly 1,200 wild hogs on the grounds of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina during fiscal 2023, many of which were eaten by vultures, the site’s Citizens Advisory Board heard Monday. During his presentation to the Savannah River Site advisory board, forest manager DeVela Clark, also […]

A draft solicitation for a carbon-free power project at the Hanford Site in Washington state could be released within a month, a senior adviser with the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office said during an online presentation Tuesday. Hanford was the first DOE Office of Environmental Management property to hold a “Cleanup to Clean Energy” […]

Design of a glovebox facility for the planned Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in South Carolina is 90% complete and should be done by next spring, an official with the site landlord contractor said this week. “Glovebox design is going to be at 90 percent around spring of next year, and that’s just all of […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee in a voice vote Thursday advanced the White House’s nomination of Patricia Lee to be a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a panel designed for five people that’s currently down to two.  The nomination of Lee, a manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory […]

The prime environmental contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina expects the Salt Waste Processing Facility to treat roughly six million gallons of waste during fiscal 2024, after doing more than 4 million in fiscal 2023. That was the assessment BWX Technologies-led Savannah River Mission Completion President Dave Olson provided […]

The race to build 80 nuclear weapon cores per year is stretching the U.S. supply of gloveboxes used to keep engineers radiation-free while manipulating plutonium and other hazardous materials.  The equipment is becoming difficult to source, Michael Robinson, vice president of project management for Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) earlier this month said at the Energy […]

The South Carolina Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council meets Thursday to discuss, among many things, the transition of the Savannah River Site from the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management to the National Nuclear Security Administration. Leading off the presentations is a landlord transition update from Savannah River Nuclear Solutions Executive Vice President and NNSA […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. October 25: Meeting: The Idaho Cleanup Project’s Citizens Advisory Board holds a hybrid meeting starting from 9 a.m. Mountain Time from Sun Valley Resort  at 1 Sun Valley Road, Sun Valley, ID 83353.  To participate virtually, […]

Fluor subsidiary Stork UK has landed a three-year contract to provide inspection and quality assurance services to Sellafield Limited’s nuclear site in the United Kingdom, Fluor said in a Thursday press release. The new contract is scheduled to start in November and has two single-year follow-on option periods, Fluor said in the release. The announcement […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s drive to make new nuclear-weapon cores has delayed disposal of old ones, according to an agency statement emailed to the Exchange Monitor on Tuesday. Amid the expansion of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility and early work on South Carolina’s planned Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, which combined are supposed […]

The Department of Energy Tuesday issued requests for information from potential developers of carbon-free power projects at the Idaho National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At Savannah River, four tracts of 2,000 acres or more on relatively flat land are available for potential clean energy projects, according to DOE’s Oct. 17 […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s drive to make new nuclear-weapon cores has delayed disposal of old ones, according to an agency statement emailed to the Exchange Monitor on Tuesday. Amid the expansion of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility and early work on South Carolina’s planned Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, which combined […]

The Department of Energy Tuesday issued requests for information from potential developers of carbon-free power projects at the Idaho National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At Savannah River, four tracts of 2,000 acres or more on relatively flat land are available for potential clean energy projects, according to DOE’s Oct. 17 […]