Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

The administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration was set to testify Tuesday in the House for the first time this hearing season. Jill Hruby, administrator of the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency, was set to appear in an afternoon hearing of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee. Hruby, months away from completing […]

A federal court was wrong in June 2023 to block the Department of Energy’s award of a $45-billion liquid waste contract, the BWX Technologies-led team that won the work argued this week. Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn’s decision to block the DOE’s April 2023 issuance of the contract to Hanford Tank Operations and Closure […]

The local government of South Bruce, Ontario, Canada, on Tuesday voted to let its citizens decide this fall whether they want to host a deep geologic repository for nuclear waste. The seven-member South Bruce council voted in support of the question, which now is eligible to appear on ballots during a by-election to be held […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will host a virtual public meeting on April 29 to hear about Holtec International’s quality assurance plan for the planned restart of the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan. Holtec will submit the plan after the meeting, according to a notice the NRC filed online this Tuesday.  During the virtual gathering, […]

A day after the Senate passed it, President Joe Biden (D) on Wednesday signed a $95-billion foreign aid bill that includes funds to help the National Nuclear Security Administration monitor radiological threats in war-torn Ukraine. The bill easily passed the Senate 79-18 on Tuesday. It was a modified piece of Senate legislation that the House […]

The Department of Justice on Tuesday said Consolidated Nuclear Security paid $18.4 million to settle allegations of timecard fraud at the Pantex Plant that date back to the company’s takeover of the facility in 2014. “[B]etween July 1, 2014, and June 30, 2020, [Consolidated Nuclear Security] knowingly submitted false claims to the National Nuclear Security […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will let the Tennessee Valley Authority produce more tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons using the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Tennessee, according to a Tuesday regulatory filing. The NRC on April 15 approved a license amendment request the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) submitted in March 2023. The commission posted the amendment […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) who already chairs a key House Appropriations Committee panel affecting the Department of Energy is also picking up a seat on a defense purse strings subcommittee. Fleischmann has been appointed by House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole  (R-Okla.) to serve on the Defense Subcommittee, the Tennessee lawmaker said in an April […]

The South Carolina agency charged with environmental monitoring of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., will split into two separate organizations on July 1. Under a measure passed in 2023 by the state legislature, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) is becoming two separate agencies: the South […]