Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

The federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board has scheduled a June 13 meeting in Idaho to consider key technical issues to be dealt with prior to transport of radioactive waste from around the country for interim storage or permanent disposal. The meeting could lead to recommendations to Congress and Energy Secretary Rick Perry as they […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday authorized Northwest Medical Isotopes (NWMI) to build a molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) production facility in Missouri. “We find that, with respect to the safety and environmental issues before us, the Staff’s review of NWMI’s construction permit application was sufficient to support issuance of the construction permit. We authorize the Director […]

Two new contracts worth just over $9 million ($11.7 million CAN) have been issued for radioactive waste cleanup in the municipality of Port Hope, Ontario, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) announced Wednesday. Arcadis, an Amsterdam-based design and consultancy firm that already has one contract for radiological testing in Port Hope, is expected this spring to start […]

A merger of McDermott International and CB&I, the majority partner in the contractor building a plutonium-conversion plant for the Department of Energy, is expected to close May 10 after shareholders for both companies approved the combination. That is according to a joint press release Wednesday from the companies. McDermott shareholders would end up owning 53 […]

Barbara Rusinko, a veteran of Bechtel National’s Yucca Mountain and Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant programs, has joined the parent company’s Board of Directors, Bechtel Group announced Tuesday. Rusinko, president of Bechtel Nuclear, Security & Environmental, gets her vote on the board after 33 years with the company. Before taking charge in 2016 of the unit […]

Zero-emissions credits for Exelon’s nuclear power operations in Illinois and New York state boosted the company’s earnings in the first quarter of 2018, but net income nonetheless dropped on a year-over-year basis. In its latest earnings report, the company said Wednesday generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) net income dropped from $990 million ($1.06 per share) […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy will release a detailed cost estimate for its plan to bury 34 metric tons of diluted weapon-usable plutonium in the New Mexico desert around June, an agency official said here Wednesday. “June-ish,” Virginia Kay, deputy director of the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Material Disposition, told […]

Sentencing has been scheduled for the two men who pleaded guilty to stealing $4.4 million from the federal government while conducting work for the MOX project at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Aaron Vennefron and Phillip Thompson will both be sentenced on May 24 by Judge J. Michelle Childs, of […]

SAVANNAH, Ga. – Waste Control Specialists and Orano plan within the next two months to formally request that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission resume its review of a stalled license application for consolidated interim storage of spent fuel in West Texas, according to the executive leading their partnership. The companies expect in the second quarter to […]

McDermott International shareholders are to vote today on the company’s proposed acquisition of CB&I: one of two partners on the prime contractor for the embattled plutonium disposal plant being built at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The vote is part of a special shareholders meeting, the Houston-based engineering and construction company […]

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will hold a public meeting today in Washington, D.C., as part of its study of the viability of the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico to dispose of downblended plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The preliminary agenda for the 2:30 p.m. […]

A federal judge has decided to let the Department of Energy and a contractor argue in court about whether the agency was allowed to claw back some $20 million in fees on a long-overdue, over-budget plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina. That is according to a Friday order by U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas […]

Parsons has asked Energy Department officials to rescind a notice of concern that claimed significant mismanagement in the company’s work to start up the multibillion-dollar Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In an April 6 letter obtained by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Parsons SWPF project manager Frank Sheppard said […]

The United Kingdom’s pending withdrawal from the European Union, and along with it the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), should not significantly disrupt the nation’s management of radioactive waste, according to the advisory Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM). “CoRWM believes that in the context of the safe management of spent fuel and the safe […]

The Department of Energy is allowing an extra two weeks for submission of bids to build the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. A new amendment to the request for proposals, among other things, extends the deadline for submission to 3 p.m. Eastern time on May […]

The Senate on Friday confirmed a former national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. The Senate confirmed Andrea Thompson by a voice vote. A retired U.S. Army colonel, Thompson was most recently a special adviser at State’s Office of Policy Planning. In her new […]

The federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board has scheduled a June 13 meeting in Idaho to consider key technical issues to be dealt with prior to transport of radioactive waste from around the country for interim storage or permanent disposal. The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires the Department of Energy to establish a permanent […]

An organization comprised of 82 mayors in the Montreal area last week unanimously issued a resolution of objection to plans for a radioactive waste disposal facility at Chalk River, Ontario. The Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM) “is initiating a process to oppose this nuclear dump development project and intends to work with the City of Gatineau […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acceded to a request to halt its review of a license amendment request intended to advance a project for production of the medical isotope molybdenum-99 at the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR). The request from the university was filed on April 5, one day after Canadian health science company […]

Contractor Parsons’ “degrading performance” while testing and commissioning the Savannah River Site’s $2 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) could push its start of operations back by several months, according to a notice of concern from the Department of Energy. Rather than the long-anticipated start of operations in December, Parsons’ data suggests SWPF should begin […]

James Canafax, senior vice president and general counsel for BWX Technologies, will leave the company around Aug. 1, according to a recent regulatory filing. The Harvard-schooled lawyer, who got his J.D. in 1996, has been with the company since 2001: nine years before it was spun off from McDermott International, according to his LinkedIn profile. […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management plans closer oversight of the Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action (UMTRA) Project after workers at the Utah site knowingly falsified certain records. Contractor North Wind Group has taken disciplinary action against the employees involved, a DOE spokesperson said in a Wednesday email, adding that more business ethics […]

The deadline has passed for revised proposals from the three teams that bid on the contract for liquid waste management services at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to industry sources. The Energy Department requested the updated bids after one of the losing teams successfully protested the October 2017 award […]

By John Stang Transporting spent nuclear reactor fuel across the country and through New Mexico topped public concerns during a public event Wednesday on plans for an interim storage facility in the state. That included wondering which routes would be used. “An accident with this material will take decades, if not centuries, to deal with,” said […]

The Department of Energy issued a preliminary notice of violation to Hanford Site contractor Bechtel National on Wednesday for a 2016 worker injury at the Waste Treatment Plant construction site. The incident occurred on Nov. 4, 2016, while a piping system for cooling water for the plant was being vented and filled in preparation for […]

After reviewing a reply from the Energy Department this month, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is still not satisfied the agency and contractor Bechtel National are doing enough to verify the safety of structural steel used in construction of the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “It’s completely unacceptable that the […]

Four 55-gallon drums of radioactive waste ejected their lids due to excessive pressure on April 11 at the Accelerated Retrieval Project No. 5 (ARP 5) facility, Idaho Site cleanup contractor Flour Idaho confirmed this week. The Energy Department and the contractor had both indicated last week at least one drum, and possibly more, had been […]

The Hanford Site’s occupational medicine services provider earned 91.75 percent of the fee available for fiscal 2017, the Department of Energy announced last week. Kennewick, Wash.-based HPM Corp., a small, woman-owned business founded in 2001, earned $311,950 of the available $340,000. The contractor’s performance was rated about the same as in fiscal 2016. Then it […]

Joseph Henry, president and chief operating officer of BWX Technologies’ Nuclear Operations Group, will retire June 30, the company disclosed Monday in a regulatory filing. It was not immediately clear who would succeed the retired Navy admiral at the helm of the Lynchburg, Va.-based company’s nuclear manufacturing and fuel-enrichment business. “We will announce [Henry’s] successor […]

Alabama-based Caddell Construction will build a new office building in Albuquerque for more than 1,000 National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) employees under a contract worth a little under $150 million, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced this week. The Army Corps is procuring construction services for the planned Albuquerque Complex and managing the contract. […]