Uranium Enrichment & Fuel Cycle

About a week remained as of Friday for interested parties to express interest to the Department of Energy about running a demonstration project in Ohio to produce hundreds of kilograms of high assay low enriched uranium for the department. DOE envisions a contract lasting as long as 10 years. The first year could call for […]

Fewer than 10 days remain for interested parties to express interest to the Department of Energy about running a demonstration project in Ohio to produce hundreds of kilograms of high assay low enriched uranium for the department. DOE envisions a contract lasting as long as 10 years. The first year could call for completion of […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration, which requires a regular supply of depleted uranium tetrafluoride for future nuclear-weapon refurbishments, may let a small business coordinate production and delivery of that material to the agency, according to a request for information released last week. The nuclear-weapons agency plans to acquire the uranium tetrafluoride by converting stocks of […]

Editor’s note: this story corrects errors about the cost and schedule estimates for the Y-12 National Security Complex’s direct melt bottom-loading furnaces published in the January 29 edition of Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor [Vol. 26, No. 4], “New Uranium Reclamation Furnace at Y-12 Starting Up in 2026, Defense Board Says.”    Bottom-loading furnaces at […]

Editor’s note: this story corrects errors about the cost and schedule estimates for the Y-12 National Security Complex’s direct melt bottom-loading furnaces published in the January 25 edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, “New Uranium Reclamation Furnace at Y-12 Starting Up in 2026, Defense Board Says.”    Bottom-loading furnaces at the Y-12 National Security Complex, […]

At industry’s recommendation, the Department of Energy now says a bidder’s technical and management approach will count more than past performance in a competition for the next depleted uranium hexafluoride and site support contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. But the bidder’s key personnel remain the most important […]

The first of multiple bottom-loading furnaces designed to reclaim uranium scraps from the manufacture of nuclear-weapon components at the Y-12 National Security Site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is scheduled to start up in September 2026, an independent federal nuclear watchdog said recently. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to install four direct chip melt […]

A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge was scheduled to hear oral arguments next month on whether Kentucky-based Swift & Staley is too large to qualify for the Department of Energy’s three-year, $160-million small business set-aside contract for Infrastructure Support Services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. Judge Thompson Dietz plans to hear arguments Feb. […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security has nearly installed all the glove boxes for a new uranium purification process at the Y-12 National Security Complex and hot commissioning should start early next year, a spokesperson said recently. Site prime Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) put the electrorefining glove boxes and related equipment into Building 9215 last year, though installation […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security has nearly installed all the glove boxes for a new uranium purification process at the Y-12 National Security Complex and hot commissioning should start early next year, a spokesperson said recently. Site prime Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) put the electrorefining glove boxes and related equipment into Building 9215 last year, though installation […]

Eventual winners of new multibillion-dollar contracts at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky are expected to use small businesses to perform work worth 15% to 20% of contract value, not counting the 120-day transition period. That is according to a detailed presentation on the $ 5.87-billion Portsmouth Decontamination and Decommissioning […]

SHINE Technologies, Janesville, Wis., signed contracts with the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management to support the company’s initiative to domestically manufacture a medical isotope without highly enriched uranium, according to a DOE press release. In an email this week, a spokesperson for SHINE said the grant the […]

SHINE Technologies, Janesville, Wis., signed contracts with the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management to support the company’s initiative to domestically manufacture a medical isotope without highly enriched uranium, according to a DOE press release. The release did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, or the […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management published draft solicitations this week for a potentially 10-year, $2-billion contract that includes processing depleted uranium tetrafluoride for National Nuclear Security Administration nuclear weapon programs. The work would be part of the cleanup branch’s Portsmouth Paducah Project Office Operations and Site Mission Support Contract, the meat of […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration hopes its efforts to boost the domestic industry for Molybdenum-99 will result in commercial-scale availability of the medical isotope a couple years from now, according to an annual nonproliferation report the agency released before the holidays. Under its partnership with four U.S. companies the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “aims […]

The Department of Energy’s Environmental Management published draft solicitations Tuesday for two contracts potentially worth more than $7.7 billion combined at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. The larger draft request for proposals (RFP) is for the potential $5.87-billion Portsmouth Decontamination and Decommissioning Contract, DOE said in a press release. […]

With litigation on a controversial contract award two years ago still ongoing, the Department of Energy has extended incumbent Swift & Staley as the landlord services provider at the Paducah Site in Kentucky through February, a spokesperson confirmed via email this week. Without the extension, first revealed in a U.S. Court of Federal Claims order, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration hopes its efforts to boost the domestic industry for Molybdenum-99 will result in commercial-scale availability of the medical isotope a couple years from now, according to an annual nonproliferation report the agency released before the holidays. Under its partnership with four U.S. companies the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “aims […]

A Department of Energy Office of Legacy Management program has identified 360 abandoned uranium mines on tribal lands across the western U.S. and is working with other government agencies to assess the safety and environmental risk posed by the sites, Legacy Management said in a press release this month. About 96% of the sites identified […]

The U.S. will cease exporting highly enriched uranium to overseas producers of the medical isotope molybdenum-99 in January, the federal government announced Monday. In the release, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said they jointly certified that there is enough molybdenum-99 (Mo-99)  in the world […]

The Senate this week passed the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), approving a larger-than-requested budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) that would not phase in until Congress reconciles competing appropriations bills produced by the full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee, neither of which provides the amount authorized by the […]

The Department of Energy’s cleanup branch announced this week that Joel Bradburne is the new field office manager at the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office, after acting as the top boss for operations in Ohio and Kentucky since Robert Edwards retired at the end of July. “In this role he will oversee the deactivation and demolition of […]

Radiological contamination was found on four workers at the Y-12 National Security Complex in recent weeks, including one person who tracked material into a facility housing enriched and depleted uranium operations, according to a report from a federal group that monitors Department of Energy sites. The four incidents stemmed from routine operations and maintenance, according […]

Citing COVID-19-related supply chain disruptions on the agency’s end, the Department of Energy has cancelled plans for Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., to operate a new uranium enrichment centrifuge at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, next year, the company disclosed Friday. Under a DOE contract awarded in 2019, Centrus subsidiary American Centrifuge Operating was […]

Citing COVID-19-related supply chain disruptions on the agency’s end, the Department of Energy has cancelled plans for Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., to operate a new uranium enrichment centrifuge at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, next year, the company disclosed Friday. Under a DOE contract awarded in 2019, Centrus subsidiary American Centrifuge Operating was […]

ALEXANDRIA, VA. — The demolition of the massive X-326 Process Building, which began in the spring, is underway and should be finished in summer 2022, an executive with the decommissioning contractor at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio said at a conference here this week. “We are off to a very good start […]

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Jill Hruby continued her tour of the nuclear security enterprise this week, with the joint Pentagon-Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons Council riding along, the agency tweeted. Hruby, sworn in in July, has been checking in with each of the NNSA’s big plants and sites throughout the summer and the […]

Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., on Wednesday posted net income of about $41.5 million, or $2.95 a share for the 2021 third quarter, up from a loss of $7 million or 83 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Quarterly revenue was about $91 million, up from more than $57.5 million a year ago, mostly […]

Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., on Wednesday posted net income of about $41.5 million, or $2.95 a share for the 2021 third quarter, up from a loss of $7 million or 83 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Quarterly revenue was about $91 million, up from more than $57.5 million a year ago, mostly […]

Crews finished building the structure of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s next-generation, secondary-stage factory in September and the compound’s electrical hub is scheduled to be completed in around January, the site prime contractor said recently. The milestone for the Main Process Building, where the most important weapons work at the Y-12 National Security Site will […]