Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Nuclear naval reactor builder BWX Technologies has named former Boeing executive Nicole Piasecki to its board of directors effective Jan. 2. Piasecki spent 25 years with Boeing in various senior leadership positions, including vice president and general manager of the Propulsion Systems Division for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. She currently serves on the boards of BAE […]

Here is an event related to civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week:  11: Webinar with question and answer session. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff. “Periodic public meeting to discuss possible efficiencies for the Subsequent License Renewal Review.” Register to attend online. Looking ahead 19: Federal funding runs out for the Department […]

Congressional leaders over the weekend announced they had reached a sort of agreement in principle to fund the federal government for the nine months that remain in fiscal year 2024. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Johnson (R-La.) agreed to limit federal spending in the fiscal year that […]

Over the winter holidays, the Department of Energy revealed it will raise the value of the $4-billion landlord contract held by Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions at the Hanford Site in Washington state to more than $5.3 billion. Without the modification the current contract ceiling “is insufficient to enable the contractor to continue full operations […]

The Department of Energy plans to extend its contract with CDM Smith for technical support services at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, Calif., into August, increasing the value of the deal by $3 million. The notice announcing the justification for departure from normal competitive bidding was posted Jan. 3 in the government’s […]

While the Department of Energy is increasingly interested in using grout to solidify some low-level radioactive waste left from decades of plutonium production at its Hanford Site in Washington, operation of such a facility would not begin before the 2030s, according to a recent report. Various scenarios from DOE and its state regulator, the Washington […]

The Department of Energy this week formalized its decision to award Pacific Gas and Electric Co. some $1 billion in financial aid over four years to keep the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant running. DOE on Monday published its record of decision in the Federal Register, making official the award the agency announced in 2022, […]

As part of a six-month old lawsuit against the company, Holtec International, Jupiter, Fla., recently accused a former employee of defamation over allegedly false language that appeared in a publicity campaign and news stories. The Superior Court of New Jersey in Camden County planned to decide on Jan. 19 whether to allow the defamation claim […]

Several inches of snowfall are expected between now and Friday at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to the National Weather Service. Snow flurries accounting for less than an inch of accumulation were forecast Wednesday night in Los Alamos followed by new snowfall of four-to-eight inches on Thursday, according […]

Following a 60-day transition, Virginia-based Inomedic Health Applications took over Monday as the new occupational medical services contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, an agency spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. The contractor will provide medical services to Hanford’s 10,000-person federal and contractor workforce. There are two clinics at Hanford.  In October DOE […]

Connie Flohr, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup manager at the Idaho National Laboratory will retire from the federal government and take an industry job, a top executive at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management told staff Wednesday. The pending departure of Flohr, a career fed and former budget official who became Idaho cleanup manager in […]

Neil Subin left Centrus Energy Corp.’s board of directors on New Year’s Eve, capping a roughly six-year stint on the board.  Centrus, Bethesda, Md., announced Subin’s departure in a press release ahead of the winter holidays. Subin, a wealth manager, remains a Centrus investor, the company said in the press release. He had been on […]

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration is taking comments between now and Jan. 17 on plans for a new 14-mile electric power transmission line serving the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. A draft environmental assessment was published and public comment period commenced Dec. 19 on the Los Alamos National Laboratory Electrical […]

Current and former Department of Energy contractors must reply by Feb. 5 to the latest lawsuit accusing them of not properly controlling off-site contamination from work at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio. Plaintiff Joshua Shaw filed suit in federal district court in southern Ohio Nov. 27 accusing the Portsmouth Site contractors of violating the […]

The Air Force’s mishandling and possibly inadequate monitoring of radioactive material over several years at the Kirtland Air Force Base is still on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s radar, a Christmas-week regulatory filing shows. Though the Air Force has dealt with half the 14 apparent violations identified in 2022 by NRC at the base near Albuquerque, […]

With federal courts already involved, the Government Accountability Office will not consider an Atkins-led group’s challenge of a $45-billion Department of Energy award to manage liquid radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. “We dismiss the protest because the matter involved is the subject of litigation before a court of competent jurisdiction,” the […]

Over the holidays, the Department of Energy’s cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge site in Tennessee and a former employee there filed summary judgment motions in a COVID-19-related wrongful termination lawsuit. The prime, Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR), argues that as a government contractor, it has sovereign immunity from the lawsuit filed by Yolonda […]

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory developed a new tool to model how blowing up a nuclear  weapon might stop an asteroid from slamming into Earth. Published in December in the Planetary Science Journal, the Livermore research introduces a new way of digitally simulating the energy deposition from a nuclear device on an asteroid’s surface, […]

In early December, National Nuclear Security Administration Deputy Administrator Frank Rose completed a multiday visit to Hawaii to meet with senior military officials regarding regional security and nuclear non-proliferation issues.  Rose met with U. S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) officers and staff from Dec. 4-8, in a series of meetings focusing on the regional security environment, […]

A federal nuclear safety watchdog for the Department of Energy defense sites is scheduled to stop taking applications next week for a technical director to replace the one who left in July to take a job with DOE. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) job posting for the technical director will close on Jan. […]

With the award of a follow-on contract taking longer than expected, the Department of Energy will extend major cleanup contracts at shuttered gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio and Kentucky for up to six months, the agency said after Christmas DOE’s Office of Environmental Management intends to extend Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth’s Decontamination and Decommissioning contract at the […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not publish Monday, Jan. 1, 2024 in observance of the New Year’s holiday. 

The Government Accountability Office on Dec. 21 dismissed an Atkins-led team’s protest of the $45-billion liquid waste cleanup contract the Department of Energy awarded in April to a BWX Technologies-led team. However, the BWX Technologies team, Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure, is still blocked from taking over the cleanup because of a federal lawsuit […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Friday signed the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, setting a year’s worth of spending limits and policy for national security programs, including those at the Department of Energy. The law is separate from appropriations bills that provide money for federal agencies to spend. The Department of Energy, Nuclear […]