Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

After more than a year of trying, International Atomic Energy Agency teams experts on Monday were granted access to the sixth and final reactor hall at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. Situated on the frontlines of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the plant has been under Russian occupation almost since the beginning of Moscow’s February 2022 […]

Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge, which remediates the Department of Energy Site in Eastern Tennessee will continue to be closed Wednesday “due to inclement weather,” it said in a social media post. “Workers should not report to locations during this closure,” the contractor said on the social media platform X. “However, workers who can telework […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico received 48 shipments of transuranic waste during December, finishing 2023 with 489 shipments, the most in a year since the facility reopened in 2017, according to DOE’s public website. The 489 shipments shattered the 2022 mark of 272 shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot […]

The Department of Energy’s landlord contractor for the Hanford Site in Washington state, earned only 35% of its subjective fee during fiscal 2023 in part because of its failure to keep on top of fire suppression system maintenance, according to a scorecard released Tuesday. That translates to $2.4 million out of a potential $8.4 million, […]

In a prelude to the main event a the nine-month old lawsuit against Holtec International, a state judge will hold oral arguments Friday about whether the company can sue an ex-employee for defamation. Kevin O’Rourke, former chief financial officer of the Jupiter, Fla.-based company, sued Holtec in June, alleging that the company misrepresented the value […]

Senior officials from the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission were scheduled to testify about nuclear power Thursday before a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee. Headlining the list of three witnesses is Kathryn Huff, DOE’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy. Huff was scheduled to testify at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time alongside Daniel Dorman, the […]

Feds and contract workers at both the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee and its headquarters offices in Washington, D.C., are having their Tuesday work schedules affected by a winter storm. The DOE’s Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge will remain on “maximum telework status” for Jan. 16, Y-12 managers announced via […]

Tom Bailie, a farmer who lived in the shadow of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state and became an advocate for downwinders affected by nuclear radiation, died at age 76, the Spokane Spokesman-Review newspaper reported Sunday. Born in Pasco, Wash. in 1947, Bailie’s family moved soon afterward to a farm across the […]

A virtual pre-solicitation meeting attracted 52 people representing 23 companies interested in a potential Department of Energy contract for technical services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky and the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The following companies had individuals who signed up to learn more about draft solicitation for Portsmouth Paducah Project Office Technical Support Services:  […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: 17: Meeting: The Nevada Site Specific Advisory Board holds a hybrid meeting starting at 4 p.m. Pacific Time from the Valley Electric Association’s Valley Conference Center 800 E Highway 372, Pahrump, NV 89048. For remote access,  […]

House and Senate appropriators on Sunday agreed to extend 2023 budgets for federal agencies for about another month-and-a-half, into March, while they continue work on permanent budget bills for the 2024 fiscal year, now in its second quarter. Under the latest continuing resolution, the third such stopgap of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, […]

Raymond Furstenau will temporarily become the Nuclear Regulatory Commission executive director on Jan. 27, when Daniel Dorman, the current director is set to retire, the commission announced Wednesday. Furstenau, who leads the NRC’s Office of Research, will act as the commission’s chief operating officer, managing personnel and delegating technical and regulatory work on NRC-licensed facilities […]

In the first courtroom action for a lawsuit opposing a life extension of California’s last nuclear plant, federal judges on Wednesday asked if the case belonged in their court and whether keeping it there could unleash a tide of new environmental lawsuits. “I’m trying to decide the floodgate here,” said Circuit Judge Consuelo Callahan, an […]

The Jacobs-led remediation contractor at the West Valley Demonstration Project in western New York state announced this week Jason Casper is its new president and general manager, succeeding the recently-retired John Rendall. Rendall led CH2M HILL BWXT West Valley since February 2020 and worked with Department of Energy contractor CH2M, now part of Jacobs, since […]

In coming weeks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will review hundreds more documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request about a new low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, according to a Jan. 5 court filing. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the […]

Richland and the Tri-Cities area of Washington state experienced wind gusts exceeding 60 miles per hour and some power outages Tuesday, according to coverage in the local Tri-City Herald newspaper. The area is home to the Department of Energy’s sprawling Hanford Site, the former plutonium production facility and nuclear cleanup property. Today’s forecast for south-central […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will hold a public meeting Thursday regarding a new 14-mile electric power transmission line serving the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Public comment on the  Los Alamos National Laboratory Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade Project Draft Environmental Assessment opened on Dec. 19 and will be extended for another month […]

The Department of Energy is looking for information from small businesses with the ability to provide technical, management and administrative services at the agency’s Environmental Management office at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The request for information (RFI) notice was posted online Jan. 8 via the System Awards Management website, SAM.GOV. Maryland-based Link Technologies […]

Physicians for Social Responsibility and other groups sued the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland and other federal agencies Monday, claiming radioactive contaminants still linger along the former grounds of the Department of Energy’s Rocky Flats Plant in Colorado. “Although this facility is no longer in operation, the radioactive contaminants, […]

The Department of Energy on Tuesday solicited bids for a contract under which it could acquire up to 145 metric tons of high assay low-enriched uranium to help commercialize nuclear reactors that need the fuel. Under the contract, only U.S.-based companies will be allowed to perform the final step of enriching to the high assay […]

A group of environmentalists trying to block a life extension for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant were scheduled to have their day in court Wednesday. Oral arguments in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, Calif., were set for 9:00 a.m. Pacific time, or 12:00 p.m. Eastern time. The proceedings were to […]

A joint venture of APTIM and North Wind Group failed to properly train laborers on use of a circular saw prior to a November 2022 accident, which caused a worker to lose a finger at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, the agency said last week. “While cutting, a kickback occurred, which […]

The New Mexico Environment Department and the Department of Energy told a federal judge Monday agency representatives were to meet today, and again later this month, as they seek to cut a new deal for legacy cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. “It is the parties’ intent to use the upcoming meetings to resolve […]

Jeffrey Baran’s nomination for five more years at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was sent back to the White House on Jan. 3, leaving President Joe Biden’s (D) administration with the choice of repeating a hard fight to get Baran through the Senate again or moving on to another candidate. There are two sessions in each […]

Some time between October and December, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s programs to refurbish its B61 bombs and W88 warheads reached the halfway mark, an agency spokesperson said Monday. Production of the B61-12 Life Extension Program and W88 Alt 370 reached the halfway mark, with at least 50% of the required weapons produced and delivered […]

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chair Joyce Connery repeatedly “undermined” the first board’s executive director of operations in ways “inconsistent” with federal law, according to a report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Inspector General. The 15-page report on “actions inconsistent with the delegation of functions required by the Atomic Energy Act,” and dated […]