Savannah River Site

A federal lawsuit accusing the management contractor at the Savannah River Site of forcing a worker to retire due to his sleep apnea should be thrown out, according to a recommendation from a U.S. magistrate judge. Judge Thomas Rogers wrote in his Jan. 19 recommendation that Steven Baxley, a former employee of Savannah River Nuclear […]

The Department of Energy’s plan for plutonium pit manufacturing will be made clearer in the Donald Trump administration’s 2019 budget request in February, agency officials told members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board last week. That is according to a presentation uploaded to the board’s website Jan. 19 after a briefing with Department of […]

French nuclear fuel cycle company New AREVA officially has a new name as of Tuesday: Orano. Orano is the result of a corporate restructuring AREVA initiated in 2016 that late last year resulted in the sale of the company’s nuclear power business to French utility EDF and other entities. What was left was almost entirely […]

A federal lawsuit accusing the management contractor at the Savannah River Site of forcing a worker to retire due to his sleep apnea should be thrown out, according to a recommendation from a U.S. magistrate judge. Judge Thomas Rogers wrote in his Jan. 19 recommendation that Steven Baxley, a former employee of Savannah River Nuclear […]

Setting aside the effect of major spinoffs in 2017, Honeywell, a major player in U.S. nuclear weapons and waste programs, saw sizable sales and earnings boosts last year, while profits rose in the Aerospace segment that houses two of its big Department of Energy contracts. Excluding the effects of the spinoffs, Honeywell’s full-year per-share earnings rose […]

The Department of Energy’s plan for plutonium pit manufacturing will be made clearer in the Donald Trump administration’s 2019 budget request in February, agency officials told members of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board last week. That is according to a presentation uploaded to the board’s website Friday after a briefing with Department of Energy […]

An advisory board that monitors environmental management issues at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina wants the Department of Energy to reclassify old liquid waste equipment so it can be shipped off-site for permanent disposal. The SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) voted 22-1 Tuesday to request that DOE investigate whether used liquid waste melters and certain […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., by taking 133 shipments of transuranic waste from around the DOE complex during 2017, beat its own target for resuming waste emplacement. Last March, during a WIPP Town Hall presentation, DOE Carlsbad Field Office Manager Todd Shrader publicly identified a target of 128 shipments from […]

A third South Carolina jurisdiction has officially called on the Department of Energy to move production of plutonium pits — the fissile hearts of nuclear warheads — to the Savannah River Site from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. On Tuesday, the city of North Augusta, which neighbors the Savannah River Site, passed a […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions took home $13.1 million in fiscal 2017 fees for the nuclear-weapon work it manages for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. That was roughly 84 percent of the total available $15.7 million fee for the budget year that ended on Sept. 30 of […]

The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor hired about 550 employees last year in an effort to offset personnel lost due to retirement. Some of the new Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) hires are operators, who assist in the operation of a process or equipment within a nuclear facility at the Department of Energy […]

Concerns are growing over safety violations at the Savannah River Site’s defense facilities, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a recent letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The Jan. 4 letter, signed by DNFSB Chairman Sean Sullivan, said safety issues identified in a Sept. 8, 2017, report from staff at the DOE watchdog […]

Concerns are growing over safety violations at the Savannah River Site’s defense facilities, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a recent letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The Jan. 4 letter, signed by DNFSB Chairman Sean Sullivan, said safety issues identified in a Sept. 8, 2017, report from staff at the DOE watchdog […]

The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor hired about 550 employees last year in an effort to offset personnel lost due to retirement. Some of the new Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) hires are operators, who assist in the operation of a process or equipment within a nuclear facility at the Department of Energy […]

The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor hired about 550 employees last year in an effort to offset personnel lost due to retirement. Some of the new Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) hires are operators, who assist in the operation of a process or equipment within a nuclear facility at the Department of Energy site in […]

After a series of temporary spending measures, major media outlets are reporting that the chance of a federal government shutdown is growing more likely at the end of the day Friday when the latest stop-gap ends. Congress on Dec. 21 adopted its third budget continuing resolution to all federal agencies operational through Jan. 19. Should […]

With fewer than six months left on the incumbent’s contract, the Department of Energy still has not started competition for the next Savannah River Site management and operations deal — the pact that includes running the National Nuclear Security Administration’s tritium program. The NNSA extracts tritium gas, which boosts the yield of nuclear weapons, at the […]

South Carolina on Monday sued the federal government again to claim $100 million it says it is owed for the Department of Energy’s failure to remove 1 metric ton of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium from the state. The complaint filed in U.S. Court of Federal Claims, State of South Carolina vs. The United States of America, […]

Local governments near the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina this week said they would be glad if the facility took over manufacturing plutonium pits for the National Nuclear Security Administration. On Tuesday, the nine-member Aiken County Council voted unanimously to approve a resolution “Supporting and Encouraging the Department of Energy/National Nuclear […]

The liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and a former employee have received additional time to produce names and contact information for potential witnesses in a discrimination suit against the company. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett on Wednesday granted the joint request submitted five days earlier by plaintiff Adrienne Saulsberry and defendant […]

A key piece of equipment needed for liquid waste disposal at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina has successfully been replaced, but the yearlong outage of liquid waste processing remains in effect, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. Melter 3 is in place and operational as of Dec. 29, when it began pouring treated […]

The comment period on a draft environmental assessment (EA) for a planned above-ground storage facility at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., has been extended by two weeks, DOE said recently. The original 30-day comment period, from Dec. 15 through Jan. 15, will now end Jan. 29, DOE said in a […]

With fewer than six months left on the incumbent’s contract, the Department of Energy still has not started competition for the next Savannah River Site management and operations deal — the pact that includes running the National Nuclear Security Administration’s tritium program. The NNSA extracts tritium gas, which boosts the yield of nuclear weapons, at the […]

Local governments near the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina this week said they would be glad if the site took over manufacturing plutonium pits for the National Nuclear Security Administration. On Tuesday, the nine-member Aiken County Council voted unanimously to approve a resolution “Supporting and Encouraging the Department of Energy/National Nuclear […]

The liquid waste contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site and a former employee have received additional time to produce names and contact information for potential witnesses in a discrimination suit against the company. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett on Wednesday granted the joint request submitted five days earlier by plaintiff Adrienne Saulsberry and defendant […]

A key piece of equipment needed for liquid waste disposal at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina has successfully been replaced, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. Melter 3 is in place and operational as of Dec. 29, when it began pouring treated waste into a storage canister, SRS said. The Energy Department reported […]

As of Thursday, the Government Accountability Office had not ruled on protests filed against the Energy Department’s award of a $4.7 billion liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. It also appears the GAO has not to date received any bid protests on the $1.39 billion award for legacy […]

Brookfield Business Partners, a global asset management firm, announced Thursday it would purchase ailing nuclear energy and infrastructure giant Westinghouse Electric from Toshiba for $4.6 billion. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Westinghouse is looking to focus more on nuclear services, including reactor decommissioning. “The company operates within a complex regulatory and licensing environment […]

The Energy Department is seeking public comment until Jan. 15 on plans to build a 65,280- cubic-foot above-ground concrete storage facility at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., for contact-handled transuranic waste. The comment period opened Dec. 15 on the draft environmental assessment, required by the National Environmental Policy Act. The surface storage […]

The U.S. Department of Energy must be prepared to safely manage its 2,510-metric-ton stockpile of spent nuclear reactor fuel for decades until it can be placed in a permanent repository, according to new findings from a federal panel of experts. “While disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) in a deep […]