Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

One major contractor at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina settled an age discrimination suit in the past week, while another is the target of newly-filed case, according to court records. Amenetum-led Savannah River Remediation has agreed to settle the age discrimination case against it. Meanwhile, a longtime employee has filed a […]

Radioactive waste management provider US Ecology said Tuesday it would cut tens of millions of dollars in costs this year to offset the economic uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Boise, Idaho-based company said in a press release that unspecified “cost control initiatives” should save $15 million to $20 million annually. A 30% cut […]

International Isotopes said Tuesday it would no longer provide radiological field services for the Department of Energy, after the federal agency put a hold on all existing contracts in the wake of a cesium-137 spill last May during a job in Seattle. “Regardless of the DOE’s future plans for field service contracts, it is unlikely […]

Radioactive waste management provider US Ecology said Tuesday it would cut tens of millions of dollars in costs this year to offset the economic uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Boise, Idaho-based company said in a press release that unspecified “cost control initiatives” should save $15 million to $20 million annually. A 30% cut […]

Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal suggested last week that a foreign entity could be used for recycling of U.S. spent nuclear fuel. “If we don’t build a recycling plant in the United States, that’s OK, there are other entities that certainly could do this for us,” Baranwal said during a March 27 […]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is scheduled next week to consider updating its regulations to reduce a specific fee for disposal of radioactive waste at a state-owned facility operated by Waste Control Specialists. With approval from the commission, the curie inventory charge would be cut from $0.40 per millicurie (1/1000th of a curie) […]

Nearly a month after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, production of Centrus Energy Corp.’s new all-domestic enrichment cascade in Ohio is one of the first projects for the Department of Energy fearing delays from the viral outbreak. “We are continuing to make progress but we anticipate that there could be impacts on the project […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Wednesday said ongoing testing of its workforce for COVID-19 had not turned up any new cases. A total of 24 employees had been tested, with two cases confirmed as of this week for infection by the novel coronavirus 2019. Of the remaining workers, 14 have […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapon sites are modifying confinement vessels for planned underground subcritical plutonium experiments, after one such vessel blew a leak last year. A confinement vessel is designed to contain an explosive compression of plutonium metal, which is rigged to bring the material to the brink of a fission chain reaction. Observing that […]

The United States and Russia were each deploying fewer strategic nuclear weapons as of March 1 than they did six months earlier, according to the Department of State’s latest data on the bilateral New START nuclear treaty. Since the last official State-published tally in September 2019, Russia cut more strategic warheads from its arsenal than […]

The Defense Nuclear Safety Facilities Board (DNFSB) is urging its inspectors and staff to press their newly bolstered authority to inspect Department of Energy defense-nuclear sites, as codified by Congress last year. Congress, at least in the board’s interpretation, used the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020 to short-circuit DOE Order 140.1, which was written […]

Radioactive waste management provider US Ecology said Tuesday it would cut tens of millions of dollars in costs this year to offset the economic uncertainty created by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Boise, Idaho-based company said in a press release that unspecified “cost control initiatives” should save $15 million to $20 million annually. A 30% cut […]

International Isotopes said Tuesday it would no longer provide radiological field services for the Department of Energy, after the federal agency put a hold on all existing contracts in the wake of a cesium-137 spill last May during a job in Seattle. “Regardless of the DOE’s future plans for field service contracts, it is unlikely […]

Department of Energy contractors and subcontractors, including those in the National Nuclear Security Administration, can be indemnified from damages arising because of testing for COVID-19, under a determination published Tuesday by Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette.  The order also indemnifies contractors that plan to offer DOE computing facilities to scientists who want to model the […]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is scheduled next week to consider updating its regulations to reduce a specific fee for disposal of radioactive waste at a state-owned facility operated by Waste Control Specialists. With approval from the commission, the curie inventory charge would be cut from $0.40 per millicurie (1/1000th of a curie) […]

A 6.5 magnitude earthquake shook Idaho at around 6 p.m. local time Tuesday, with the epicenter about 120 miles from the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed. “While ground shaking was felt, there was no damage to any INL facilities,” INL spokesperson Sarah Neumann said in a Wednesday email. It was […]

Two more staffers at the Department of Energy’s Washington, D.C., headquarters have tested positive for COVID-19, raising the number of confirmed cases at headquarters to at least three, the agency announced this week. At the same time, Sandia National Laboratories reported two more confirmed cases, one each among the workforce of its Albuquerque and California […]

A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report update lays out how the COVID-19 pandemic could impact the Navy’s shipbuilding programs and noted what action Congress has taken in the past to mitigate other events. The report, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress, was last updated March 27. It notes COVID-19 […]

A second person has tested positive for COVID-19 at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge Tenn. The individual shared a work area with the first infected worker, the site said Monday. The second confirmed case at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) defense-uranium hub underscores how rapidly the disease can spread, and how […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) canceled or suspended contracts with International Isotopes after cesium-137 was accidentally released last year while the company was removing a blood irradiator under agency contract from a facility at the University of Washington in Seattle. The company, which wants indemnity under a federal law covering nuclear incidents, disclosed the development […]

The Pentagon has agreed to tidy up records of its responses to three Obama-era reviews of its nuclear infrastructure, personnel and programs, according to the unclassified version of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report from the fall. The three internal reports made hundreds of recommendations, but the Defense Department has done a poor job tracking […]

A longtime employee of the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has filed a lawsuit under the Americans With Disabilities Act against facility management and operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS). The case was filed Wednesday in the Second Judicial Circuit of the South Carolina Court of Common Pleas by Richard Lusby, […]

The Kansas City National Security Campus is moving some of its workforce off-site to help cope with COVID-19, making it the latest Department of Energy civilian nuclear weapons site to expand telework during the pandemic. “To further protect our work force during the COVID-19 crisis, the Kansas City National Security Campus has reduced its on-site […]

President Donald Trump on Friday signed into law the $2 trillion relief bill to support national recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to nearly $100 million for the Energy Department’s Office of Science and semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to support research and development to help contain the fallout of COVID-19, at national […]

Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal suggested Friday that a foreign entity could be used for recycling of U.S. spent nuclear fuel. “If we don’t build a recycling plant in the United States, that’s OK, there are other entities that certainly could do this for us,” Baranwal said during a webinar hosted by […]

Top Navy officials have not seen any shipyard delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic yet, but they are expecting and planning for future issues. “[T]o date we haven’t seen any sort of perturbations in that right now but we are anticipating that there will be, and we’re looking at what that might cost with respect […]

South Carolina’s attempt to wrench hundreds of millions of dollars in fines over Department of Energy management of plutonium in the state is headed to oral arguments before a panel of appeals judges May 5, according to a recent court filing. The South Carolina state government has been trying to extract the money from DOE […]

Centrus Energy Corp. closed out 2019 by boosting revenues and trimming its losses from the prior year, but management said the COVID-19 pandemic has for now dimmed the company’s hopes of returning to profitability in 2020. On Wednesday, the Bethesda, Md.-based uranium-fuel broker and centrifuge developer reported a 2019 net loss of about $16.5 million, […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) wants a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Energy to further improve the contentious relationship between the federal agencies. That would be an additional measure on top of DOE’s revision to the controversial Order 140.1 that revised its interactions with the board. The revision comes after Congress last year directed […]

Having already taken its financial lumps during the past year, Energy Department contractor Fluor announced a measure Wednesday meant to ensure its shareholders get a fair shake “in the event of any proposed takeover.” The limited-duration stockholder rights agreement will also shield against “abusive tactics to gain control of the Company without paying all Fluor […]