Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The looming departure of Los Alamos National Laboratory federal field manager Michael Mikolanis will mark the second swap of Environmental Management field bosses across the Department of Energy’s old weapons complex in a little more than a year. These days, most site feds have a tenure of fewer than six years. These people are the […]

The Department of Energy on Wednesday issued a draft call for companies interested in generating carbon-free electricity on unused land at the Hanford Site in Washington state to submit their qualifications. DOE released the draft request for qualifications (RFQ) Wednesday for parties interested in some type of lease or easement at the former plutonium production […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will review environmentalists’ claims that Holtec Decommissioning International illegally paid for the upkeep of Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Plant with funds intended to pay for the plant’s teardown, the commission said this week. The NRC the referred groups’ “concerns that Holtec has misused the decommissioning trust fund to the Executive Director for […]

The Los Alamos County Council in New Mexico voted unanimously last week to hire current deputy manager Anne Laurent, to become the new county manager effective March 3, 2024. The 7-0 vote during a Dec. 15 special meeting means Laurent will succeed her boss, Los Alamos County Manager Steven Lynne, who is retiring. During the […]

With 2023 winding down, the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office on Tuesday offered a broad overview of how most of its nuclear-weapons cleanup contractors performed during the year. Most results shared in the Office of Environmental Management’s house newsletter were for fiscal 2023, which ended Sept. 30. DOE had not published all the contractor […]

About six months after his nomination, the Senate on Tuesday confirmed Vice Adm. William Houston to be director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program that develops reactors for Navy warships and submarines. Houston was nominated in May to lead Naval Reactors for an eight-year term. At the time, however, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) was blocking […]

The Navy’s drive to recruit submarine builders inspired one National Nuclear Security Administration official, who on Tuesday said the nuclear-weapons agency might consider its own flashy recruitment ad. “Everyone in my house was riveted to that commercial,” Frank Lowery, associate administrator for management and budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said of the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday said it accepted Pacific Gas & Electric’s application to extend the operating license of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California. The decision, announced in a Federal Register notice, officially begins what could be a contentious, year-long, federal review of California’s plan to keep nuclear power alive in the […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch could issue a trio of final solicitations for new contracts during the first six months of 2024, according to a notice issued Monday. In a notice posted online Monday, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said final request for proposals (RFP) for Phase 1B of cleanup of the West […]

A group of lawmakers recently urged the Department of Energy to speed up its consideration of Holtec International’s request for a large federal loan to restart the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan. “[W]e urge the Department of Energy to give its fair, full, and swift consideration to the application,” the bipartisan, nine-member bloc of […]

After its waste shipment rate declined briefly due to staffing, the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is again sending about 12 shipments most weeks to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, according to a recent report. After bosses at the Idaho National Laboratory cut the number of weekly shipments during October to […]

A federal court wants to know more, by Jan. 5, about a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by a citizens group seeking access to some U.S. Environmental Protection Agency documents about a radioactive waste landfill at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes ordered a status […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory would be barred from expanding equipment needed to dispose of surplus plutonium until the lab certifies it can produce at least 30 nuclear weapon cores annually, under a bill passed last week. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress passed Thursday, would prohibit expansion of the Advanced Recovery and […]

Environmentalists have no right to a hearing over Holtec International’s plans to restart the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan, but they might soon, Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff said Friday. Palisades shut down in 2022 but Holtec, which bought the plant from Entergy to decommission, is now trying to restart it. The company needs a […]

A Minnesota regulator fined Xcel Energy $14,000 for storing tritium contaminated groundwater without a permit at the Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, the state agency said last week. The contaminated groundwater came from leaks that began in November 2022 and continued into March 2023. Xcel cleaned up the leaks, blamed on failed plumbing, but got fined […]

Entities hoping to convert energy-dense uranium into a form suitable for powering advanced reactors have two more weeks to prepare the bids for the Department of Energy, the agency said last week.  Bids for the High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) Deconversion Acquisition are now due Feb. 13 instead of Jan. 30, the agency wrote in a […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: December 20: Hearing, Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Future of Arms Control and Deterrence. Senate Dirksen Office Building, Room 419, Washington. Streaming online. 10:00 a.m. Eastern time.

The Department of Energy will hold its Clean Energy Project Information Day for the Nevada National Security Site Feb. 13 in Las Vegas, the department said this week. The session will be held at the National Atomic Testing Museum at 755 East Flamingo Road in Las Vegas, Nevada on Feb. 13, at a time to […]

The Senate on Wednesday passed a compromise version of the 2024 National Defense Appropriations Act that sets policy and spending limits for nuclear weapons and all other defense programs. The Senate easily passed the bill, unveiled last week after closed-door negotiations with members of the House, by 87-13.  The House of Representatives was scheduled to […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., remains on pace to have its best calendar year performance since it returned to service in 2017 following an underground accident three years earlier. The nation’s only deep geologic disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste has received 434 shipments between Jan. 1 and Nov. […]

Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Boston Government Services this month announced a pair of management moves, appointing a vice president for energy and environmental work as well as a head of cybersecurity. Longtime Boston Government executive Karen Harris, who was chief executive of a small technical services business for a decade and has 25 years of experience […]

Local officials last week failed to pass a resolution opposing disposal of greater than class c radioactive waste at Waste Control Specialists’ site in Andrews Texas, local media reported. The resolution, considered during a Dec. 6 meeting of the Andrews County Commissioner’s Court, failed on a 2-2 vote. The tie vote means the local government […]

A federal nuclear safety watchdog wants the National Nuclear Security Administration to respond to concerns over worker safety at the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in just over a month. Three different NNSA safety assessments of the in-development plutonium facility have now found concerns with worker safety, specifically that project leaders are allowing workers to […]

With maintenance almost complete, the Department of Energy expects to restart operations of an Idaho National Laboratory treatment facility for radioactive sodium-bearing waste early in 2024. Workers for DOE ‘s Jacobs-led environmental cleanup contractor have replaced mercury-laden beds of granular activated carbon in two vessels of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU), which has been […]