Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina will produce at least half the plutonium pits for the Navy’s W93 warhead after the facility opens next decade, a federal official said Wednesday. “We don’t think we can get that facility up in time to do all of the W93 builds, but it’s important that we have […]

Strategic Management Solutions, a small contractor for the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration, has been acquired by a Louisiana-based private equity management firm led by a former Shaw Group executive. The purchase of Strategic Management Solutions, LLC (SMSI) was announced Tuesday in a press release by Bernhard Capital Partners. The buyer […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration seeks $70 million for a sea-launched cruise missile warhead for fiscal year 2025 as part of the agency’s list of unfunded priorities, a lawmaker said Wednesday. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm acknowledged at the start of a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the weapon was among the […]

Federal and state agencies could soon provide details about a new conceptual agreement for cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), said Tuesday. Cantwell spoke during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on DOE’s fiscal 2025 budget request. The conceptual agreement, announced in May 2023, […]

Nuclear weapons and nuclear power are on the hearing docket Wednesday morning in the Senate, while one scheduled hearing slipped off. The Senate Armed Services Committee has moved the open portion of its hearing about the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) fiscal year 2025 budget request up half an hour, to 9:00 p.m. Eastern time. […]

In a Tuesday hearing, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) requested, but did not get, a promise from the Secretary of Energy that President Joe Biden (D) would follow rules in a House-passed bill if his administration bans imports of Russian uranium. “If the administration does impose its own ban on Russian uranium imports, will you commit […]

After more than three years and one near-settlement, the final plaintiff suing the Department of Energy prime managing the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee has settled her case in federal court over COVID-19 vaccination policy. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley formally dismissed the case by plaintiff Jessica Bilyeu after Bilyeu notified the […]

The Legacy Mine Cleanup Bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), passed the Senate Monday in a voice vote. The legislation would make permanent a special Western office with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help coordinate reclamation of abandoned hardrock mines, including legacy uranium sites, according to online data on […]

The Missouri House of Representatives was set to vote as soon as this week on bills that would give tax breaks for the planned expansion of the Kansas City Nuclear Security Campus in Missouri.  On Monday, the legislation was on the informal third reading calendar of the state’s 163-member House of Representatives, meaning the measure […]

The Department of Energy announced April 11 in a Federal Register notice it is renewing the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board for two more years. The board, set up under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, offers local advice on nuclear cleanup-related issues to DOE’s assistant secretary for environmental management. The renewal was effective April 8, […]