Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

Since starting up a new enrichment cascade in the fall, Centrus has delivered 100 kilograms of energy-dense uranium fuel to the Department of Energy, the company wrote Friday in a regulatory filing. “Centrus has now achieved cumulative deliveries to the DOE of over 100 kilograms of [high assay low-enriched uranium] UF6,” the company wrote in […]

There are lots of new workers joining the nuclear industry these days, but Baltimore-based Constellation Energy has perhaps the only one to list “former Miss America” on her resume. Constellation announced in a Monday press release it hired former Miss America Grace Stanke as a full-time employee working as both an engineer and a spokesperson […]

The Department of Energy contractor running the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina is looking for expressions of interest from Minority Serving Institutions for nuclear cleanup research and development. Battelle Savannah River Alliance published the expressions of interest notice Monday in the System for Award Management. The joint venture between Battelle and several regional […]

The Kansas City National Security Campus in March produced a proof-of-concept replacement fuse for an Air Force nuclear weapon, the Sandia National Laboratory said last week.  The Missouri site cranked out the first production unit for the Mark 21 Replacement Fuze, Sandia said in a press release. After this unit clears several more reviews, the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will meet legal obligations to remove plutonium from South Carolina even though it delayed a facility critical to breaking down old plutonium pits, the agency said Friday. The agency made the declaration in a record of decision published in the Federal Register. The decision, the end of a required environmental […]

Responses to the Department of Energy’s rapid-fire request for subject matter expertise in licensing Centrus Energy Corp.’s latest centrifuge technology were due Monday. The agency released the request for information on Wednesday. Responses were due Thursday, but DOE bumped the due-date past the weekend and on to Monday. The agency is looking for someone with […]

Holtec International last week sued New York over a law the state passed in 2023 that would fine anyone who discharges irradiated wastewater into the Hudson River, a court filing shows. The law constitutes “blatant infringement on the federal government’s exclusive right to regulate the discharge of radioactive materials from nuclear power plants,” Holtec wrote […]

The “long-term policy solutions” for spent nuclear fuel “will require many difficult conversations,” Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) wrote in an op-ed published Sunday in the local Orange County Register. Levin’s district includes the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which shut down in 2013 and which plant owner Southern California Edison is now decommissioning. In his […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico sent 11 shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant between October and March, the lab’s cleanup contractor said recently. The shipments totaled a little more than 32.5 cubic meters in volume, according to a second-fiscal-quarter update posted on the website of Newport News Nuclear […]

It could cost up to $37 billion to acquire the pair of plutonium pit production facilities needed to produce new nuclear weapon cores for the rest of this century, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said at a conference last week. The range, provided by Administrator Jill Hruby at the annual Strategic Weapons […]

A magnitude 2.8 earthquake hit an area near the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington State on Saturday, according to federal data. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake hit about 2.5 miles south of Richland, Wash., which is itself about 15 miles south by road from Hanford’s southern gate. It was a […]

The supplemental national security appropriations bill the House passed Saturday has about $150 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration to help monitor nuclear Ukrainian power plants occupied by invading Russians. President Joe Biden (D) has said he will sign the roughly $95-billion proposal, which the House split into three bills and recombined after receiving […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 24: Open virtual meeting, Consent Order Subcommittee and Risk Evaluation and Management Subcommittee of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board. 3:00 p.m. Eastern time to 5:00 p.m. Eastern time. Members of the public may attend via […]

Local officials in Western Kentucky said Wednesday the Department of Energy is picking up its remaining two-year option on its Deactivation and Remediation Contract with Jacobs-led Four River Nuclear Partnership at the Paducah Site. Four Rivers, a joint venture that also includes Fluor and BWX Technologies, currently has a $1.7-billion contract that started in June […]

The Department of Energy has approved its latest jumbo-sized saltstone disposal unit for operation at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the agency said Tuesday. Saltstone Disposal Unit 9 (SDU 9) is the fourth such mega unit built at Savannah River to hold up to 33 million gallons of saltstone, DOE said in a […]

Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.) brought a list of old grievances to NRC Chair Christopher Hanson’s renomination hearing on Wednesday, setting the stage for a contentious process with time running short. Hanson’s term runs through June 30, and his quickest road to renomination, unanimous consent on the Senate floor, might prove impassable if Capito and all […]