Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

In a deal rumored for weeks, two of the largest players in the Department of Energy’s weapons complex will merge into a public company majority-owned by Jacobs shareholders. Virginia-based government contractor Amentum said late Monday it reached a deal to combine with the government operations business of Dallas-based Jacobs Solutions and create a new $13-billion, […]

France successfully test-fired an M51.3 long-range submarine-launched ballistic missile, without a nuclear warhead aboard, over the Atlantic Ocean on Nov. 18. The test firing was conducted by the General Directorate of Armaments (DGA) from the Ballistic Launch Site (BLB) in Biscarrosse in southwest France. The flight comes just seven months after the successful acceptance test […]

One of the six reactors at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant lost power for about an hour and a half last week, causing an emergency diesel generator to kick in to provide electricity for cooling and other functions, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.  Plant personnel are investigating what caused the 90-minute power outage to […]

Based on a survey taken mid-year, 72% of the staff at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have a “high level of respect” for senior leaders, which is the best score on this question in about four years at the independent federal watchdog for Department of Energy nuclear weapon sites.  The figure reached 69% of […]

Jean-Luc Palayer will be Orano USA’s chief executive officer effective immediately, the U.S. arm of the French nuclear-fuel-cycle and services company announced Monday. Palayer, most recently Orano USA’s vice president of business operations, took over the top spot after Amir Vexler left the company to become chief executive officer of Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md. […]

The comment period for the Los Alamos National Laboratory Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade Project Draft Environmental Assessment opens Dec. 19 and runs through Jan. 17.    The draft assessment analyzes the construction and operation of a new 115 kilovolt power transmission line and upgrades to the lab’s existing electrical infrastructure.  “Los Alamos requires a reliable and […]

Centrus Energy on Monday announced that Chief Executive Daniel Poneman will step down from leadership of the uranium broker and enrichment technology developer at the first of the year.  He will be succeeded by Orano USA President and Chief Executive Amir Vexler on January 1.   Poneman joined Centrus in March 2015 and over eight […]

This week Here is an event related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: 21: Earnings Call: Jacobs will hold its fourth quarter earnings call starting at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. 

With federal records increasingly available electronically, the Department of Energy is closing a Richland, Wash., repository for Hanford Site paper records, federal and state agencies announced last week. In August 2022, the Tri-Party Agreement agencies that govern cleanup of the former plutonium production complex, DOE, the Washington state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental […]

The Mercury Treatment Facility at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, which is about to become the responsibility of the site’s Amentum-led prime, is 50% complete, a DOE spokesperson said Friday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management spokesperson replied to an Exchange Monitor inquiry on the current status of the project. The […]

With the holidays approaching, the Department of Energy’s request for information for potential carbon-free power projects at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been extended until Jan. 2, the agency said Wednesday. Information on the clean energy potential of the 310-square-mile federal complex is now due by 12 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday […]

Two brothers in their twenties, one a former worker at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, were sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for their role in an uncle’s Mexico-based drug trafficking operation. Eduardo Reyes-Santana, 26 of Kennewick, Wash., a commercial driver and union member who worked two years at the […]

Lawmakers who created an independent commission to study U.S. nuclear modernization efforts without estimating the cost, now want to see what replacing all three legs of the triad and rehabbing the National Nuclear Security Administration will cost.  During a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, several representatives — all Democrats — dinged […]

Natalia Saraeva, formerly the team lead for the Department of Energy’s consent based siting program, is now the community and stakeholder engagement lead at DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. Saraeva was the team lead for DOE’s consent based siting program for about one year and took on a new role in October, according to her […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 36 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during October, according to the agency’s public website for the facility. The figure is current as of Wednesday Nov. 15. There is typically about a two-week lag time between a shipment arriving at the Waste Isolation Pilot […]

A Department of Energy contractor has removed cesium from about 698,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a DOE spokesperson said Tuesday. The fourth batch run at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) project was completed Oct. 27, the DOE spokesperson said in an email response to an Exchange […]

Six small modular reactors that NuScale, Portland, Ore., planned to use in a canceled generation project in the southwestern U.S. could be diverted to another customer, the company’s CEO said Tuesday.  “I want to be able to take those modules and move them over to our next customer,” John Hopkins, president and CEO of NuScale, […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants improvement in emergency response preparation at tank waste pretreatment facility at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions went through a simulated tornado drill last month at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s onsite […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration started its oral interviews with four joint ventures vying for a contract to operate the Pantex plant in Texas, a source said Monday. A second source familiar with the ongoing search for a Pantex maintenance and operations contractor for the U.S. nuclear weapons clearing house confirmed to Exchange Monitor that […]

The Department of Energy will not again extend a contract with a joint venture of APTIM and North Wind Group to finish building a mercury treatment facility at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, an agency spokesperson confirmed Monday. The contract, which began in December 2018 and is now valued at $128-million, will not be […]

U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall says he is concerned about Northrop Grumman’s ability to develop the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile on time and that the program to replace the current Minuteman III fleet is “struggling.” Northrop’s B-21 Raider strategic stealth bomber, however, is doing “fine,” he said in a Nov. 13 forum in […]

There is no evidence that classified information was disclosed during an open, unclassified National Nuclear Security Administration at Department of Energy Headquarters’ Forrestal Building in September of last year, an agency watchdog report found. However, the suspected incident was not properly reported, according to a DOE Inspector General (IG) report published Nov. 2.  In September […]

Naval nuclear reactor manufacturer BWX Technologies has appointed Mike Boorstein as the new general manager for its Nuclear Operations Group-Euclid manufacturing facility. In this role, Boorstein will be responsible for BWX’s daily operations at the site, which employs more than 350 workers and manufactures electro-mechanical components for naval nuclear reactors used in submarines and aircraft […]

Nuclear policy reforms that hitched a ride on an annual must-past defense bill are in trouble in the House, the bill’s sponsor said Monday at a meeting of nuclear professionals. “[W]e’ve really hit a stumbling block if not just a whole wall in the House,” Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.) said in a morning speech to […]

Nuclear-waste disposal is still nuclear energy’s biggest problem, the senior U.S. Senator from West Virginia told a gathering of nuclear professionals Monday in Washington. “The biggest hurdle we have right now? What the hell do we do with the waste?” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said during the opening plenary session of the American Nuclear Society’s […]