Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

At least for now, the Department of Energy will not extend the April 9 proposal deadline for a solicitation for a new five-year Technical Support Services contract at the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. In a set of questions and answers posted last week, DOE turned down a questioner who asked the final request for proposals (RFP) […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: March  18: Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Holtec International. Hybrid meeting. “Palisades Pre-submittal Meeting with Holtec Decommissioning International, LLC on Emergency Plan for Resumption of Power Operations.” 9:30 a.m. Eastern time to to 11:20 a.m. Eastern time. Join the Microsoft Teams […]

Michael Moulin-Ramsden, a former Veolia Nuclear Solutions manager, joined Alpha Safety last month as its director of business development for the United Kingdom and Continental Europe, according to a LinkedIn post. Moulin-Ramsden, who spent about eight years with Veolia in business development roles, is also a founding director of a consulting firm, Haslam Advisory Ltd.

PHOENIX —A trio of managers from branches of the Department of Energy at the Idaho National Laboratory planned to travel to Washington, D.C., later this month to brief congressional staffers on sitewide spent nuclear fuel management at the lab. Connie Flohr, who is retiring from DOE next month, said at the Waste Management Symposia conference […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant should have reported a Jan. 23 incident, where two miners were stuck up to 30 minutes in a waste hoist lowering them underground, to the Department of Energy’s accident reporting system, a federal safety watchdog says. “Site personnel determined that an erroneous digital signal caused a breaker to trip, resulting […]

Under a settlement with the state, the Department of Energy will install portable showers at the Integrated Disposal Facility once it starts receiving canisters of glass made from radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The agreement, dated March 4 and signed by attorneys for DOE and the Washington Department of Ecology, was […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will have to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if it wants another chance to prove that it can legally license commercial interim storage of spent nuclear fuel. According to an order dated Thursday, judges of the Fifth Circuit voted 9-7, with one recused, not to rehear the NRC’s argument that […]

Crews have started heating up the second melter for the Department of Energy’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the agency said Wednesday. “Last year, the Hanford team successfully completed heat up of the first melter and poured the first non-radioactive test glass,” at the Waste Treatment Plant built […]

PHOENIX —With the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio making headway in nuclear remediation, feds and locals around the Piketon, Ohio complex are working to attract new industry, including nuclear power. That was the takeaway from a Wednesday panel discussion on the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site during the Waste Management Symposium conference. […]

Now in his second year as second-in-charge at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, Jeff Avery wants a laser focus on nuclear cleanup balanced with an eye toward doing “public good” where practical. During a 20-minute interview with Exchange Monitor on the sidelines of the Waste Management Symposia, Avery touched upon the evolving […]

PHOENIX — The Savannah River Site could send as many as 40 shipments of diluted surplus plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in 2024, a manager at the Savannah River Site said here. Or maybe half that many, Lee Sims, K Area Facility Manager at Savannah River for the site’s Fluor-led prime contractor, Savannah […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday requested about $2.5 million in fiscal year 2025 to review Holtec International’s requests to restart the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan. In its latest budget request, NRC also said it needs the equivalent of more than nine full-time staffers to review Holtec’s requests, which consist of multiple filings for […]

PHOENIX — Jeff Avery, No. 2 boss at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, said Tuesday he understands industry frustration over the slow pace of big industry procurements. “Here’s what I can tell you about some of the extended procurement experiences,” Avery told Exchange Monitor during an interview on the sidelines of the […]

PHOENIX — The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is about 20% to its goal of adding 600 electric vehicles over the next few years, an executive with the site’s prime contractor said here Tuesday. The site currently has 116 electric vehicles and will add another 44 this year, Mike Swain, executive […]

PHOENIX — Paul Murray, deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition, was scheduled to speak to the congressional spent fuel caucus in Washington on March 20, the Department of Energy official said here Tuesday. “Please call your local representatives and ask them to ask me the nastiest questions,” Murray said during a panel […]

PHOENIX — The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy could be about a month away from beginning conceptual work on a federally owned interim storage facility, the head of the office said here. The federal interim storage facility could hit the project management milestone known as Critical Decision 0, or CD-0, in the next […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina is the latest Department of Energy nuclear property to issue a request for qualifications for carbon-free electricity projects. The request for qualifications published Monday March 11 by DOE particularly targets solar power generation. Responses to the RFQ are due before noon Eastern Time on April 19. DOE’s Cleanup […]

PHOENIX — Unwilling states could be forced to regulate Greater-Than-Class-C waste under a pending federal rule change, the head of an interest group for states that regulate low-level radioactive waste said here. States that took on responsibility for regulating low-level radioactive waste under agreements with the NRC “are all very, very concerned about what GTCC […]

PHOENIX— A maintenance outage at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., which started Jan. 26, concluded Monday, a site manager said Monday. Shipments of defense-related transuranic waste to the underground salt mine should resume Friday, Tammy Hobbes, vice president of site prime contractor Salado Isolation Mining Contractors said on the […]

The Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is ready to proceed with installation of a small microreactor project capable of providing electric power for about 10 homes while providing the agency with the lab with a means of studying small reactor designs, DOE said in a Monday press release. The design team for the Microreactor […]

PHOENIX — Nuclear waste repositories planned in Finland, Sweden and Switzerland will help the public accept that nuclear power is safe, the head of the Nuclear Energy Agency said here Monday. “This is going to help everybody,” William Magwood, director-general for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency, said Monday during prepared […]

Funding for the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons program would rise and funding for its nuclear-waste-cleanup programs would fall slightly year-over-year, under the fiscal year 2025 budget request President Joe Biden (D) released Monday. The Department of Energy had not released detailed budget justification documents as of Monday afternoon, but according to a document published Monday […]

PHOENIX— Contaminated old buildings at U.S. nuclear weapons sites are being torn down and, internationally, nuclear power is increasingly seen as a legitimate source of carbon-free electricity, participants in the Waste Management Symposia heard Monday. “For people familiar with EM [the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management], there is no better illustration of progress […]

The U.S. Department of Energy needs to improve how it studies the long-term storage of commercial spent nuclear fuel, according to a February report to Congress and the secretary of energy by the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board  The board performs independent technical and scientific peer review of DOE’s management and disposal of high-level radioactive […]

EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, said Sunday it acquired Cabrera Services, East Hartford, Conn., a radioactive cleanup company that has contracts with the Department of Energy and the Army Corps of Engineers. EnergySolutions announced the news in a press release shared Sunday with the Exchange Monitor. The release did not specify the financial terms of the […]