Budget & Policy

Todd Jacobson WC Monitor 10/10/2014 The top manager at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley Site Office improperly utilized her position to force employees to perform work on personal matters and created a “negative work environment” before being terminated, DOE’s Inspector General said in a report released late last week. The publicly released version of […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/10/2014 Summit Power Group and CPS Energy this week signed a new power purchase agreement for power generated at the Texas Clean Energy Project being developed near Odessa, Texas. The two parties had been in negotiations since CPS let a prior agreement expire at the end of 2013 due to […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/10/2014 AUSTIN, Texas—While significant progress has been made in last decade in the carbon capture and storage industry, more must be done to ensure the technology’s readiness to act as a major contributor to climate mitigation efforts in the future, Julio Friedmann, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal in the […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/10/2014 AUSTIN, Texas—The role that policy should play in the future of carbon capture and Storage was debated by experts at the International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Technologies, held here this week. Kelly Thambimuthu, chairman of the International Energy Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Research and Development Program, suggested that for CCS […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/10/2014 A lawsuit brought against the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed new source performance standards was thrown out by a U S. District Judge this week in Nebraska. The state’s Attorney General, Jon Bruning, filed suit against the agency in January following the release of an updated version of the proposed […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/10/2014 The University of Wyoming is now accepting applications for the position of director in the school’s Institute for Carbon Management (ICM), according to a notice issued by the school. The new director will fill the position currently being held by former National Energy Technology Laboratory Director Carl Bauer on […]

GHG Monitor 10/10/2014 IN DOE Grace Bochenek officially began work as the director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory this week. Bochenek replaces Scott Klara, who has led the lab in an acting capacity since taking over for former Director Anthony Cugini last fall. Prior to beginning work with NETL, Bochenek served for eight years […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 10/10/2014 Stanford University is proposing a contracting pilot program that would dramatically reset the Department of Energy’s relationship with its national laboratories, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Board of Overseers Chairman Bill Madia told a Congressional panel examining the effectiveness of DOE’s labs this week. Speaking at an Oct. 6 meeting of […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 10/10/2014 A group of nuclear explosive safety senior technical advisors that has made safety-related recommendations about the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant says their voice isn’t being heard, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board member Sean Sullivan told Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and NNSA Principal Deputy Administrator Madelyn Creedon this week. […]

Mike Nartker NS&D Monitor 10/10/2014 A new approach to how the Department of Energy manages its projects is set to be rolled out in the coming weeks, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said this week, though he provided few concrete details about what changes may be in the works.  DOE has been looking at “redoing […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/10/2014 Even if the Senate flips to Republican control this coming November, don’t expect any rapid movement on the revitalization of the now-shuttered Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository project, industry officials said this week. As polls indicate right now— Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight website gives the Republicans a 58 percent chance […]

Jeremy L. Dillon RW Monitor 10/10/2014 This week marked the start of operation for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s reincorporated Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. With the NRC’s changing workload, the NRC staff launched a working group last year to review the organizational structure of the materials and waste management programs, and determined that […]

Liz Sherwood-Randall, the Department of Energy’s new deputy secretary, will participate in a town hall meeting with DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz for DOE employees on Oct. 15 at 1:00 p.m. at DOE headquarters in Washington, D.C. Sherwood-Randall began her DOE tenure earlier this week, replacing former Deputy Secretary Dan Poneman. “We are fortunate to have […]

A new approach to how the Department of Energy manages its projects is set to be rolled out in the coming weeks, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said yesterday, though he gave few concrete details about what changes will be made. The Department has been looking at “redoing our fundamental project management structures," Moniz said […]

Stanford University is proposing a contracting pilot program that would dramatically reset the Department of Energy’s relationship with its national laboratories, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Board of Overseers Chairman Bill Madia told a Congressional panel examining the effectiveness of DOE’s labs yesterday. Speaking at a meeting of the panel in Alexandria, Va., Madia said Stanford […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has begun searching for a new Associate Administrator for Management and Budget to replace Cindy Lersten according to an announcement posted on USAjobs.gov yesterday. Lersten headed up the agency’s Office of Management and Budget since 2012, but NNSA budget director Robert Nassif is currently heading up the office in an […]

The Department of Energy is still spending more than necessary on software maintenance licenses, according to a DOE Inspector General report released yesterday that follows up on a previous investigation finding issues with acquisition and management of desktop software. “Although the Department had made progress in addressing our prior recommendations, we found that it had […]

A senior manager at a federal site office improperly utilized their position to force employees to perform work on personal matters and created a “negative work environment” before being terminated, the Department of Energy’s Inspector General said in a report released Friday. The report did not identify the manager, but it said that the manager […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board on Tuesday will hear from Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, National Nuclear Security Administration Principal Deputy Administrator Madelyn Creedon and Acting Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Mark Whitney. The meeting will be the third in series of five meetings the Board plans to hold on the topic of safety […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 10/3/2014 Officials within the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Secure Transportation did not report or properly assess a “deliberate example of unauthorized access to nuclear weapons,” the Department of Energy’s Inspector General said this week. DOE’s IG released only a summary of its Sept. 24 inspection report Sept. 29, raising […]

Kenneth Fletcher NS&D Monitor 10/3/2014 Despite a plan earlier this year to potentially put the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility into “cold standby” at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2015, construction will continue for the time being at the current rate, the National Nuclear Security Administration has confirmed. Citing rising costs for the project, the […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/3/2014 An international team of scientists has found that environmental damage that would be caused by a small-scale sub-seabed carbon dioxide leak would be minimal, according to the results of a study published late last week. The study was conducted off the shore of Scotland using a controlled CO2 leak […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/3/2014 When considering the energy security of the United States, climate action must be a part of the conversation, a senior White House official said this week during a panel discussion hosted by the Department of Energy. "The future of energy security … must be met against a second dimension […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/3/2014 Mississippi Power reported an additional $59 million in overruns for Kemper County Energy Facility in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week. The latest increase, when added to previously reported overruns, results in an $88 million increase in the project’s since the company’s last quarterly filing […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/3/2014 Due to an overly aggressive timeline and flawed targets, the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emission standards for existing coal-fired power plants cannot feasibly be implemented, Mark McCullough, Executive Vice President for Generation with American Electric Power said during the United States Energy Association’s Annual Energy Supply Forum this […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/3/2014 What had looked to be a promising pilot program testing technologies from Canadian-based CO2 Solutions and Neumann Systems Group (NSG) has been canceled, CO2 Solutions announced late last week. However, the company also announced that testing of its own enzyme-enabled carbon capture technology will be conducted at the University […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/3/2014 The Environmental Protection Agency late last week approved a Class VI Underground Injection Control (UIC) permit for Archer Daniels Midland’s Illinois Industrial CCS Project (Ill-ICCS). The permit allows ADM to construct a well for the injection of carbon dioxide more than 5,000 feet underground into the Mount Simon geologic […]

Abby L. Harvey GHG Monitor 10/3/2014 Carbon dioxide emissions in the United States have increased compared 2012 and the first half of 2013 according to two recently published government reports. The reports, prepared by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Information Agency, both note that the majority of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. […]

Todd Jacobson NS&D Monitor 10/3/2014 The National Nuclear Security Administration is planning to fine Nevada National Security Site contractor National Security Technologies $110,000 for four violations stemming from the unauthorized disclosure of classified information in 2010. The NNSA issued a Preliminary Notice of Violation to NSTec Sept. 26, describing the security breach publicly for the […]