Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 06: BWX Technologies holds its quarterly earnings conference call at 5 p.m. Eastern Time.  07: Second fiscal quarter 2024 investor earnings conference call, Jacobs Solutions. 7: A Conversation with Ambassador Laura Holgate on the Future of […]

Before leaving the Department of Energy on Friday, Kathryn Huff briefly spotlighted the Joe Biden administration’s consent-based siting program for spent nuclear fuel in a recorded interview produced by the agency. “It’s what we owe to communities, it’s what we’ve promised the utilities, and trust that the U.S. government is moving forward rather than stagnating […]

Connie Flohr, a longtime Department of Energy executive who retired from the agency last month after being manager of cleanup at Idaho National Laboratory, has joined contractor Navarro Research & Engineering. In her role at Oak Ridge, Tenn.,-based Navarro, Flohr will concentrate on partnerships and growing the company’s footprint within DOE, NASA and the Department […]

Pierre Oneid, formerly with Holtec International, joined EnergySolutions as vice president of business development, the Salt Lake City company said this week. “Pierre’s focus will be to support the development of our new offerings in the nuclear services arena,” Ken Robuck, president and CEO of EnergySolutions, said in a press release announcing the hire. At […]

Washington State politicians do not want the Department of Energy treating high-level waste at the Hanford Site as low-level waste, and a long awaited update to cleanup rules at the site reflects that. In December 2021, DOE affirmed a policy proposed in 2019 during the Donald Trump administration that the agency could reinterpret an existing […]

Net earnings fell drastically for Parsons, Chantilly, Va., after a big tax hit in its first quarter, but the federal contractor on Wednesday reported record revenue and healthy core operations. Parsons posted a net loss of about $107 million, or $1.01 a share, for the quarter ended March 31, down from earnings of roughly $25.5 […]

A settlement agreement for cleaning up underground tank waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, still subject to public comment and submission to a federal court, lays out a path for using grout to stabilize some less-radioactive liquid waste. The so-called “holistic” agreement, in the works since 2019 and announced Monday […]

The Senate Environment and Public Works committee on Wednesday morning approved Christopher Hanson’s nomination for five more years on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The committee voted 18-1 to approve Hanson, the current chairman of the NRC, and send his nomination to the floor for a vote by the full Senate. Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.), the […]

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have shipped the old reactor vessel from the Low Intensity Test Reactor, also known as Building 3005, to Utah for disposal, the agency said Tuesday. Crews loaded the 37,600-pound, 30-foot-long vessel onto a truck last week and shipped it to Clive, Utah, for […]

A year after construction started, an off-site research center for the Savannah River National Laboratory, “looks like a building now” and should open in 2025, a Department of Energy manager in South Carolina said Monday. The Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative, the new 60,000-square-foot building at the University of South Carolina-Aiken should be occupied “a year from […]

The Department of Energy plans an August “transition readiness review” of plans to transfer management of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to its nuclear weapons branch from its Office of Environmental Management. The readiness review will run from Aug. 5 through Aug. 30, before the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) takes the reins […]

On Tuesday, the Senate voted unanimously to ban imports of Russian uranium by 2028, setting the stage to wean U.S. power plants off the imported fuel this decade. The Senate approved a bill that the House passed in December and which would make Russian uranium illegal in the U.S. by Jan. 1, 2028. U.S. utilities […]

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee was set Wednesday morning to vote on Christopher Hanson’s nomination to serve five more years on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The committee of jurisdiction for the civilian nuclear regulator was to gavel in at 9:45 a.m. Eastern time at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, according to […]

The schedule for one of Sentinel’s nuclear warheads will not change until at least the end of the Air Force’s review of the budget-busting missile, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday. The civilian agency will stick to its current schedule for the W87-1 warhead throughout the Air Force’s ongoing Nunn-McCurdy review […]

Earnings rose at Leidos, Reston, Va., in the first quarter, which the national security and technology company attributed to strong business demand across all its sectors. Net earnings for the first quarter ended March 29 were $283 million, or $2.07 a share, up from $164 million or $1.17 a share, in the year-ago quarter, according […]

The Department of Energy prime has issued Cementation, a mine development company, a $15-million contract to renovate a big underground salt bin at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a DOE spokesperson said Monday. DOE announced last week prime contractor Salado Isolation Mining Contractors, a Bechtel business, retained underground mine developer Cementation to refurbish the underground […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission can let the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant operate past the expiration of its federal license while the plant owner applies for a license renewal, a federal court ruled Monday. Pending a rehearing of the full Ninth Circuit or an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, an independent […]

At a Monday meeting of the South Carolina governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council, the Savannah River Site’s prime contractor discussed starting plutonium pit production in the early 2030s and an antinuclear activist from New Mexico said the state should take on the government’s entire pit mission. “We have put a stake in the ground that we […]

Missouri state senators last week defeated a proposed amendment that would have added assistance for St. Louis residents affected by radioactive waste to a nuclear-weapons expansion bill. The bill — sponsored by then-state-Sen. Greg Razer (D-Jackson County) — offers sales tax exemptions for construction materials.  The exemptions are meant to lessen the cost of the […]

The Department of Energy is starting to evaluate proposals for solar power projects at the Savannah River Site, the top site’s federal nuclear cleanup manager told the South Carolina governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council Monday. The deadline for requests for qualifications for solar power at Savannah River was Friday, April 26, Michael Budney, who leads the […]

A long-awaited settlement agreement rolled out Monday by state and federal agencies says the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state still intends to start turning low-level radioactive tank waste into glass starting next year, with high-level waste vitrification to follow in the 2030s. DOE, the Washington state Department of Ecology (Ecology), and U.S. […]

A Navy veteran who served as a captain on the U.S.S. Nautilus nuclear submarine turned 100 recently, a newspaper in Washington state reported Sunday. Frank Fogarty, who turned 100 on April 24, told the Spokane, Wash. Spokesman-Review of joining the Nautilus crew in the 1950s. In the article, Fogerty recalled meeting Adm. Hyman Rickover, regarded […]

In response to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board review, the Department of Energy’s nuclear branches are taking a “deep dive” into aging infrastructure, DOE said last week. In an April 24 letter to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), the head of DOE’s Office of Nuclear Safety said progress is being made on […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Science has issued a $1.9-million stopgap contract to a small local company for security work at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, according to a procurement notice published Thursday. Golden Services of Kingston, Tenn., has been awarded a bridge contract until a follow-on contract is issued for “physical security […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week.   April 29: Meeting: South Carolina Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council meets starting at 1 p.m. Eastern Time at Gressette Building Room 105, Columbia, S.C. The meeting will be webcast. 30: Earnings call: Leidos has scheduled its […]