Decommissioning

DOE Pushes Back Planned Completion of EIS for Site Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 8/29/2014 California regulators are “concerned” about schedule delays in the Department of Energy’s completion of an environmental impact statement to allow cleanup work to be completed at the Energy Technology Engineering Center, officials said this week. The Department said earlier this month […]

Sellafield Completes New Waste Storage Facility Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 8/29/2014 Sellafield Limited has completed construction of a new £100 million ($166 million) storage facility for intermediate- level waste generated through decommissioning and fuel reprocessing. The Encapsulated Product Store 3 is an aboveground storage building that can hold more than 29,000 waste drums. “The completion […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 8/22/2014 After the recent successful completion of demolition of Oak Ridge’s enormous K-25 building, work is proceeding ahead of schedule at the site’s two other gaseous diffusion plants, URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, LLC, President Ken Rueter told WC Monitor this week. The contractor is on track to meet its “Vision 2016” goal: […]

D&D work at Oak Ridge will continue on track in the likely event of a continuing resolution at the start of the new fiscal year in October, URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, LLC, President Ken Rueter told WC Monitor this week. The contractor completed D&D of the enormous K-25 gaseous diffusion plant earlier this year and is […]

Eight more buildings at Hanford’s Plutonium Finishing Plant are gone as workers make way for the eventual teardown of the production portion of the plant. “As we prepare to demolish the facility, we’re ensuring that there is enough space around the main buildings to bring in heavy equipment and stage demolition debris,” said Mike Swartz, […]

Department ‘Not Satisfied’ With Performance of URS Mike Nartker WC Monitor 7/11/2014 Unhappy with the current performance of URS at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) D&D project, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management acknowledged this week that it may not be able to meet its latest goal of completing work at SPRU […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 7/11/2014 Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, the D&D contractor at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, and two of its subcontractors won’t face fines from the Department of Energy for a set of safety incidents that occurred in 2012. This week, the DOE Office of Enforcement issued FBP a preliminary notice of violation, citing […]

Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, won’t face a fine from the Department of Energy for an incident that occurred in 2012 involving a 60-ton crane that tipped over at the Portsmouth D&D project. The DOE Office of Enforcement issued FBP a preliminary notice of violation over the incident yesterday, citing the contractor for violations of the Department’s […]

The U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is providing an extra £50 million ($86 million) in the next two years to cleanup work at the Dounreay site due to scope that was added after the contract was awarded in 2012, the NDA announced yesterday. While plans for spent fuel at Dounreay originally called for storing the fuel […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 6/27/2014 North Wind late this week won the Department of Energy’s new $25.6 million task order for environmental monitoring and D&D work at the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) site in California. The fixed price task order is set to run for up to five years, consisting of a three-year base […]

Situation Could be Made Worse Over Pending Legal Action Over Uranium Transfers Mike Nartker and Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 6/27/2014 D&D efforts at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant are facing the threat of significant layoffs in Fiscal Year 2015 that could see the project’s workforce cut by approximately one-third. The situation at Portsmouth could be […]

Lifecycle cleanup costs at the U.K.’s Sellafield site have risen by more than £6 billion ($10.2 billion) from last year’s estimate, according to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s annual financial report to Parliament available here. The current undiscounted cost left to complete Sellafield stands at £79.1 billion, but is expected to rise by £5.4 billion under […]

Some Employees Say More Significant Changes Needed Mike Nartker WC Monitor 6/20/2014 Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, the D&D contractor for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, is working to make improvements to its non-destructive assay program in the wake of a recent assessment that identified concerns, and expects to be able to resume by the end of […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 6/20/2014 EnergySolutions Not Seeking to Overturn Magnox Decision, But Is Claiming Damages From the NDA  Incumbent contractor EnergySolutions is not looking to overturn  the U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s decision to award the Cavendish Fluor Partnership the new contract to manage and decommission the U.K.’s set of nuclear power stations in its […]

K-31 Demolition Set to Get Underway This Fall WC Monitor 6/20/2014 URS-CH2M Oak Ridge, LLC, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge cleanup manager, said this week it is ahead of schedule in getting the K-31 Building ready for demolition, which should begin sometimes this fall. K-31 is potentially a bridge between the demolition of K-25, […]

House appropriators are pushing back against the Department of Energy’s current plan to put the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant into a long-term surveillance-and-maintenance state once it’s returned from USEC, and instead are directing the Department to submit information that “clearly describes” DOE’s anticipated time line for decommissioning the plant. “The Department is obligated to decommission […]

Jeremy Dillon NS&D Monitor 1/24/2014 The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has concluded that reusing its separated plutonium stock as fuel for potential new reactor technology remains the preferred disposition option, according to a position paper released by the NDA this week. The position paper stressed that MOX fuel remains the preferred option for reuse […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 4/04/2014 Unsuccessful bidders are considering challenging the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s award of the new Magnox contract to the Cavendish Fluor partnership, including the Bechtel-EnergySolutions team and a team led by Amec. The NDA announced early this week the award of a new contract for management of the 10 Magnox reactor sites […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 3/28/2014 The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority plans to announce the award of the new contract to manage the 10 Magnox nuclear reactor sites and two research reactor sites in a March 31 conference call with bidders, WC Monitor has learned. Four teams submitted bids last fall in the competition: Reactor Site Solutions, […]

K-31 DEMOLITION TO GET UNDERWAY WC Monitor 3/28/2014 Cleanup contractor URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) has received approval to proceed with demolition of the K-31 building at the East Tennessee Technology Park. The move is designed to keep the workforce that was assembled for the massive K-25 D&D project largely intact until the Department of Energy […]

Mike Nartker WC Monitor 3/21/2014 The Department of Energy is now projecting to complete a final cost-and-schedule baseline for D&D efforts at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) site by the end of this fiscal year, and to complete physical work at the site by the end of FY 2015, according to detailed budgetary documents […]

Kenneth Fletcher WC Monitor 3/21/2014 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory posted a sources sought notice seeking companies interested in completing demolition work at the Old Town area of the lab. The University of California may set aside the contract for small businesses “if a sufficient number of small businesses are pre-qualified,” according to the notice. The […]

Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) led a chorus of state stakeholders criticizing the lack of state and local input into the decisions behind a utility’s decommissioning plan for commercial reactors during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on nuclear reactor decommissioning held yesterday. Sanders, whose home state of Vermont went through negotiations with Entergy […]

AREVA and ATOX, a Japanese nuclear maintenance service company, announced yesterday that they have created a joint venture to work on decommissioning activities at the Fukushima-Daiichi cleanup project. The joint venture, named ANADEC, will “provide solutions and services in the field of decommissioning and dismantling of Japanese nuclear power plants,” AREVA said. The joint venture […]

The House version of the Fiscal Year 2015 defense authorization bill would authorize funding for a new federal contribution to the Uranium Enrichment D&D fund, though the bill does not have language that would reauthorize the fund itself. Full details of the bill were released yesterday in advance of a planned markup before the full […]

Sellafield Ltd and TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi Decontamination and Decommissioning Engineering Company appears to have come together for a cooperation agreement, according to Copeland Member of Parliament Jamie Reed. The agreement will work as an ‘operator to operator’ cooperation agreement “to share knowledge, experience and skills on an on-going basis,” Reed said. “This is an exciting […]

After four workers at Hanford’s Plutonium Finishing Plant received radioactive doses from a sealed strontium 90 source in October, the Department of Energy and contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company have identified several noncompliances, according to a DOE enforcement letter released this week. While no occupational dose limits were exceeded, “significant worker extremity doses” were […]

Incumbent contractor EnergySolutions yesterday filed a claim for damages against the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in a challenge to the recent award of the Magnox/RSRL contract to the Cavendish Fluor Partnership. Bechtel, EnergySolutions’ teaming partner in the Reactor Site Solutions bid, did not join in the legal challenge. EnergySolutions contends that the NDA “has inconsistently and […]

The effort to demolish a 530-ton filter gallery on top of the a massive chimney at Sellafield has passed the half way point, site license company Sellafield Limited announced yesterday. The large filter gallery must addressed at the last remaining Windscale chimney before it can be brought down. The 110 meter chimney was a ventilation […]

The International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning (IRID) along with the Mitsubishi Research Institute (MRI) will host a workshop on April 25 in Tokyo that will discuss the results of the Request For Information that IRID issued in last year on innovative approaches to fuel debris removal, as well as the path forward for the […]