Vol. 6, No. 26 DOE Cleanup Official Defends Commitment to Small Business
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Cleanup & Remediation
Idaho Waste Treatment Unit Could Start Operation This Fall
The Department of Energy’s long-awaited Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory could start operating in mid-fall, perhaps October, a Fluor Idaho executive told the online Waste Management Symposia Monday. The facility is now in the final weeks of an extended maintenance period that will precede a 50-day test run and eventual approval […]
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Transuranic Waste
WIPP Ventilation System Projected at $400M-$450M Before Rebaseline
Construction costs for a new ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could be up to $450 million, pending a recalculation, a Department of Energy official said Monday. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s (WIPP) planned Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System (SSCVS) “has a cost range of $400 million up to $450 million,” Janelle Armijo, […]
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Plutonium Pit Production
Fast Critical Assembly Plutonium Will Become Glass, Not Go to WIPP, NNSA Decides
The National Nuclear Security Administration on Monday formalized a decision to immobilize some 350 kilograms of plutonium used in a Japanese research facility into glass-like cylinders at the Savannah River Site rather than sending the material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency put the official stamp on […]
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Budget & Policy
Biden’s DOE DepSec Nominee Set for Committee Vote Thursday
President Joe Biden’s nominee for the No. 2 post at the Department of Energy is scheduled for his first make-or-break vote this week in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the panel announced Monday. At deadline, the committee was scheduled to vote on Turk’s nomination at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday. The former […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
Top EM Brass Says Now is No Time to Let Your Mask Down
Although COVID-19 vaccines are starting to trickle across the U.S. population, it is difficult to say when most cleanup workers at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will receive their shots, a senior agency official said Monday at the all-online Waste Management Symposia conference. Environmental Management (EM)’s Deputy Assistant Secretary Todd Shrader would […]