Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday agreed to vacate a national preliminary injunction against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for federal contractors, after the Justice Department argued the issue became moot when pandemic emergency measures ended this spring. The court Monday granted a petition filed by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in July asking the high […]

Holtec International this week asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to dismiss an antinuclear group’s attempt to block regulatory action needed to restart the Palisades Nuclear Plant. Holtec on Monday asked the commission secretary to deny a Dec. 5 petition by three antinuclear groups who want a hearing about the company’s Sept. 28 request for an […]

On Nov.6 the Los Alamos Fire Department responded to the highly-secure Plutonium Facility at the national laboratory for a report of a fire inside a glovebox used to manipulate radioactive material.  It took until Nov. 16 to reopen the room where the fire occurred, after all the gloves on the gloveboxes in the room were […]

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has given the U.S. government until this Friday, Dec. 15, to answer a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by an environmental group over documents concerning a low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes agreed to the […]

The Department of Energy on Thursday issued a request for information from entities interested in leasing land at the Nevada National Security Site for solar or other carbon-free power projects. The Nevada National Security Site has about 2,400 acres of desert land at the Nevada site that could potentially be used for solar power generation, […]

Illinois Gov. J. B. Pritzker’s (D) on Friday signed a law that partially repealed a 36-year ban on new nuclear reactors. The law, HB2473, also removed spent nuclear fuel and waste created by extracting uranium from spent fuel from the state’s list of high level nuclear waste materials.  Under the new law, introduced in November […]

Texas on Monday told a federal court not to convene all of its judges to rehear a case that this summer effectively killed commercial interim storage of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. In a 24 page brief filed with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, opposed a rehearing […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: 12: Meeting. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Discussion of the Administration’s Short- and Long-term Domestic Uranium Fuel Strategy. NRC Headquarters, Commissioners’ Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md. 10:00 a.m. Streaming online. 13: Meeting: A Waste Isolation Pilot […]

Rick Lopez will formally take the oath of office as the new mayor of Carlsbad, N.M., on Jan. 2  at the Janell Whitlock Municipal Annex, according to a Dec. 10 post on the city’s website. Lopez is the retired fire chief for the New Mexico city about 26 miles northeast by road from the Department […]

The Department of Energy’s environmental prime at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee said in a  court filing last week that as a U.S. contractor it is shielded from a lawsuit brought under a state law by a former employee fired after refusing to be vaccinated for COVID-19. In November, U.S. District Court Judge Charles […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration, Japan and South Korea signed a trilateral agreement to collaborate on emerging nuclear technologies.  The three countries signed what they called a framework to create a memorandum of cooperation that will launch early next year to “facilitate scientific collaboration in critical and emerging technology areas,” the National Nuclear Security Administration […]

Personnel at the Hanford site in Washington state have prepared nearly 800,000 gallons of liquid radioactive waste for conversion into glass form in 2025, the site’s federal manager said Tuesday. Contractor Washington River Protection Solutions has started its fifth batch run at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) project, Department of Energy site manager Brian […]

The agreed-upon conference report on the 2024 must-pass defense policy bill includes a requirement for the Defense Department and National Nuclear Security Administration to develop a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile.  As for funding levels, DOE nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons cleanup programs would be authorized for roughly the requested levels. Within three months of its […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office would mostly stay hands-off off any clean energy generation that comes to the Hanford Site in Washington state, an official said Tuesday.  DOE’s Hanford office will be “limited to being a good landlord” federal manager Brian Vance said Tuesday at a meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board. About […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy has put $7 million in funding up for grabs for nuclear energy programs at U.S. universities, the agency announced Wednesday.  The University Nuclear Research Infrastructure Revitalization grant will account for almost all of this round funding at a single $6-million award, DOE wrote in the release. The […]

In October, Orano USA finished cutting up and packaging the vessel for the Unit 3 reactor of the shuttered Crystal River Nuclear Plant in Florida, the company announced Wednesday.  Orano USA, the Bethesda, Md.-based U.S. arm of the French nuclear company, announced in August it had started cutting the reactor into pieces. The parts of […]

Senator Tommy Tuberville’s about-face on holding up more than 400 military promotions for months because of Pentagon policies relating to reproductive care for servicemembers does not include nominees to four-star status, including the presumptive head of the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Program.  The Senate on Tuesday confirmed more than 400 military officials after Tuberville, a Republican […]

A House committee on Tuesday sent two nuclear energy bills to the floor, one with workplace reforms for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and another to encourage domestic production of uranium fuel. The first bill approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Atomic Energy Advancement Act, rolls up a number of smaller legislative proposals […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board should focus on providing the Department of Energy with independent safety advice and let its new incoming operations director deal with the board’s day-to-day grind, a new federal report said. A recently-released Office of Inspector General report on management challenges at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Defense Nuclear […]

Some cleanup will continue at DOE’s Building 324 at the Hanford Site in Washington state even as the government takes public comment on proposed changes to the work, federal officials told an advisory committee Tuesday. Department of Energy Hanford Site manager Brian Vance and David Einan, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Region 10 Superfund manager […]