Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

Honeywell Aerospace, the division of that diversified contractor with major contracts throughout the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex, saw sales and profits rise by about 10 percent in the first quarter of 2018. Excluding costs related mostly related to foreign currency transactions, quarterly revenue for the Aerospace segment — which include the company’s work […]

Diplomats from the United States and Russia wrapped up a 10-day meeting about the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in Switzerland on Friday, but did not announce any imminent plan to sign a successor arms-control agreement. That is according to a Thursday press release from the State Department on the 15th session of […]

South Carolina’s governor and attorney general have asked the U.S. Energy Department to find a neutral third party to determine whether it would cost more to complete a controversial plutonium-disposal project at the Savannah River Site or cancel it. According to a letter dated Feb. 23, which subsequently leaked to the press, Gov. Henry McMaster […]

Over 400 days into the Donald Trump administration, two of the four National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) leadership slots requiring Senate confirmation remain empty, and there is no nominee for one of them. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty was confirmed as NNSA administrator in February, and Brent Park followed her into NNSA headquarters in March as deputy administrator […]

BWX Technologies, known primarily as a contractor for the Defense and Energy departments, said Tuesday it plans to acquire a medical isotopes business from a Canadian health company. Pending regulatory approvals in the United States and Canada, BWXT hopes by the end of this year to complete its buyout of Nordion’s medical isotopes operation. Nordion, […]

A new list published Tuesday by federal inspectors general called out crumbling Department of Energy nuclear infrastructure as one of the federal government’s top management challenges. “Agencies may be hampered in performing their missions effectively because of breakdowns in essential equipment or hazards posed by unmaintained infrastructure,” the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity […]

Over 400 days into the Donald Trump administration, two of the four National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) leadership slots requiring Senate confirmation remain empty, and there is no nominee for one of them. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty was confirmed as NNSA administrator in February, and Brent Park followed her into NNSA headquarters in March as deputy administrator […]

South Carolina’s governor and attorney general have asked the U.S. Energy Department to find a neutral third party to determine whether it would cost more to complete a controversial plutonium-disposal project at the Savannah River Site or cancel it. According to a letter dated Feb. 23, which subsequently leaked to the press, Gov. Henry McMaster […]

Following a five-month pause, plutonium downblending resumed in mid-March at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The mission involves dilution of 6 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable, non-pit plutonium, and not the 34 metric tons of material intended to be processed by Savannah River’s MOX program. Operations began in September 2016, […]

About two months after he left the federal ranks, the former top Department of Energy official at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., joined Atkins in a new role the company created for him. Jack Craig, who in February retired as manager of DOE’s Savannah River Site office after three years in that role […]

The Department of Energy relied on a flawed reading of a contract to justify its 2016 decision to take back some $20 million in fees from CB&I AREVA MOX Services, the company argued in the latest legal volley on an over-budget plutonium disposal plant being built in South Carolina. In a 2016 lawsuit filed in […]

Leaders of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will appear before the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee on Wednesday to discuss the agency’s budget request for fiscal 2019. The Army Corps overall is requesting $4.8 billion for the budget year beginning Oct. 1. That would include $120 million for the Formerly Utilized Sites […]

Parts of the Pantex Plant, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility, are expected to shut down today as part of an emergency drill, the contractor running the site announced. Personnel across the Amarillo, Texas, site will participate in the exercise, Pantex prime Consolidated Nuclear Security said in a press release […]

Whether it’s law enforcement, water lines, or hiring practices, the Energy Department and its cleanup contractors are intertwined with their host communities in many ways. This was the overriding theme from last Thursday’s Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Oak Ridge, Tenn., City Manager Mark Watson once received a permit request to […]

The Energy Communities Alliance got some good news last month when the omnibus budget for fiscal 2018 kept in place existing Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) agreements, ECA Director of Nuclear Energy Programs Kara Colton said Monday. The budget does call for a report on how the Energy Department formulates PILT payments to communities […]

The prime cleanup contractor for the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee said this week it self-reported the unauthorized work done by two employees at a retired experimental reactor in February 2017, which led to a $120,000 penalty. URS-CH2M Oak Ridge (UCOR) is taking corrective actions not just at the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment […]

Outdated equipment appears to be the cause of a potential delay in startup of the $2.3 billion Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. While DOE is no longer publicly using the December 2018 date for the facility to begin operations, it is also not officially […]

Procurement officials at the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) are seeking to reduce the typical two-year process for awarding major contracts to one year. Tamara Miles, federal procurement director for the DOE Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center, discussed efforts to expedite contract awards during a panel session last month at the Waste […]

With new leadership and more money for U.S. Energy Department environmental cleanup, community leaders and contractors attending an Energy Communities Alliance event Thursday were in an upbeat mood. Anne Marie White, sworn in March 29 as assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, appeared during a welcome luncheon at the organization’s annual conference in Washington, […]

The Department of Energy this week suggested it would not push back the deadline for would-be bidders to submit their proposals to build the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. In the request for proposals issued March 22, DOE allowed 46 days for bids to be submitted. Questions on the RFP were due […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions will stay on the job for another year as the management and operations contractor of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Department of Energy wrote in a procurement note earlier this month. The agency announced the extension April 4, ahead of the July 31 expiration of the contract held […]

No injuries or environmental contamination apparently resulted after a drum of radioactive waste overheated and breached Wednesday at the Department of Energy’s Idaho Site, cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho said. The accident occurred Wednesday evening at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex (RWMC) Accelerated Retrieval Project (ARP 5) containment structure before 11 p.m. MDT Thursday, Fluor said in […]

The Department of Energy and its regulators at the Hanford Site will hold their annual meeting on budget priorities on April 23. Representatives from both DOE Hanford offices – the Richland Operations Office and the Office of River Protection — will provide an overview of cleanup work completed and work to be done. The meeting […]

The Australian government on Tuesday issued the outlines of its approach to management of what is expected to be at least 13,500 cubic meters of low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste. The Australian Radioactive Waste Management Framework is intended to “guide the principles, policies and institutional arrangements of radioactive waste management” in the nation, according to […]

By John Stang The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking confirmation that no financial pitfalls await the transfer of the license for the retired Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant from Entergy to NorthStar Group Services. In an April 5 request for additional information, the industry regulator said “NRC staff is unable to find that the […]

WASHINGTON — After the first wave of hearings on the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget, key House members still want to turn Yucca Mountain in Nevada into a permanent nuclear-waste repository as soon as possible, while key senators continue to hedge their bets. On Thursday, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee […]

In a wonkishly detailed descent into the weeds of Yucca Mountain policy, a U.S. congressman on Thursday asked Energy Secretary Rick Perry who is to blame for the continued lack of an Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management: a moribund bureaucratic organ for managing the Energy Department’s work on the proposed nuclear waste repository. The […]

John Sarrao will replace Alan Bishop as principal assistant director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Science, Technology, and Engineering branch, a lab spokesperson said Monday. In his new role, Sarrao will run the lab’s fundamental science programs, which include research applicable to nuclear weapons, among other things. The directorate’s four sub-branches are: chemistry, life, […]

The Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration are seeking bids on a new series of exascale supercomputers, including one at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that would cost up to $600 million and switch on early next decade, according to a request for proposals released Monday. Funding for the proposed Livermore […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions will stay on the job for another year as the management and operations contractor of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Department of Energy wrote in a procurement note earlier this month. The agency announced the extension April 4, ahead of the July 31 expiration of the contract held […]