Vol. 7, No. 43 
Huff confirmed as NE-1 with big bipartisan margin in Senate
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Plutonium Pit Production
More money won’t buy more pits, NNSA administrator, Nuclear Weapons Council chair tell senators
The National Nuclear Security Administration won’t be able to make 80 pits annually by 2030 even if Congress throws more money at the problem this year, the agency’s top official and the Pentagon’s acquisition chief both told Senators Wednesday in a hearing “The nuclear weapons council stands by the assessment that was provided, that I […]
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Cleanup & Remediation
DOE request would ‘kick the can down the road’ on Hanford Building 324, Murray says
During a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) pronounced herself “really disappointed with this year’s request” by the Department of Energy for cleanup of the Hanford Site in her home state. The Joe Biden administration’s fiscal 2023 request of $2.5 billion for Hanford was not only […]
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Transuranic Waste
GAO says some DOE nuclear cleanup office projects still struggle
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management could improve its cost and schedule oversight for big-ticket projects such as the Hanford Site’s multi-billion-dollar Waste Treatment Plant in Washington state, the Government Accountability Office said this week. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Wednesday it did a performance audit from December 2020 to April 2022 […]
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Interim Storage & Waste Disposal
Summary of interim storage RFI responses coming this summer, DOE says
A round-up of public comments on how the Department of Energy should go about siting a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel should be published before Labor Day, the agency said Wednesday. DOE “is working to analyze the comments” on its interim storage request for information (RFI) unveiled in November, an agency spokesperson […]
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Advanced Nuclear & SMRs
Small modular reactor developer NuScale goes public
NuScale Power Corp, a Corvallis, Ore., developer of small modular reactors, went public on the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday. The company on April 28 formally completed a merger with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, to form NuScale Power Corp., the company announced Monday. The acquisition company is a […]
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Budget & Policy
Ohio consumer counsel wants big penalty for FirstEnergy’s failure to track grid modernization fees
Since FirstEnergy cannot prove it spent $456 million to modernize its power grid as legally required, an Ohio state consumer watchdog agency wants the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to penalize the Akron corporation three times that amount, in accordance with state law. That translates to a penalty of almost $1.4 billion. The Ohio Consumers […]