Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

As part of the must-pass defense policy bill for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, Congress will consider this week a measure to extend benefits to victims of nuclear radiation exposure for nearly another two decades.  Congress last week took up the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in conference between members of both houses. […]

The former head of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio pleaded not guilty on Monday to bribery and embezzlement in the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati in a case related to two financially struggling nuclear power plants in that state, a court filing shows. A federal grand jury on Nov. 29 indicted Sam Randazzo, 74, […]

HANFORD SITE, WASH. — Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site filled its first canister with melted non-radioactive glass last week, the site’s leaders announced Monday. “It was not obvious to everyone except this team that we’d be here today,” said the Department of Energy’s Hanford Manager Brian Vance at a Monday ceremony at […]

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant lost all off-site power overnight Dec. 3 and temporarily relied on emergency diesel generators for the electricity needed to cool its reactors, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The main power line – the only remaining main power line at the ZNPP compared to the four it had before […]

Jacobs’ government contracting and cybersecurity businesses, which are expected to merge with Virginia-based Amentum in 2024, account for more than a third of the revenue at Jacobs, according to material released following the Nov. 21 consolidation announcement. Depending on the way it’s counted, Critical Mission Solutions with the cyber and intelligence business line were responsible […]

Holtec International on Monday announced it plans to file construction permits in 2026 to build a pair of small modular reactors at the site of the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, which the company hopes to restart in 2025. Notionally to be commissioned as soon as 2030, the two SMR-300 reactors are “likely to be […]

An Iranian-born ex-professor, fired from the University of Toledo in Ohio for allegedly allowing an Iranian citizen to access software owned by the National Nuclear Security Administration, sued the school for wrongful termination, alleging multiple counts of discrimination. E. Ishmael Parsai, a 69 year-old, nationalized U.S. citizen born in Iran, sued the university in November […]

The Navy plans to conduct its first submarine maintenance work in Australia using a U.S. submarine tender ship in summer of 2024, when dozens of Australian sailors aboard will learn to repair U.S. nuclear-powered submarines. Under Secretary of the Navy Erik Raven on Thursday said the trilateral AUKUS partners of Australia, U.K. and the U.S. […]

When the House of Representatives voted Friday to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who has not been convicted of any crime, some prominent GOP members of the House representing Department of Energy weapons complex sites came down on opposite sides. The 311-to-114 vote to kick out Santos, the subject of a scathing House Ethic Committee […]

The U.S. and 21 other countries at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai on Saturday agreed to work together on “tripling nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050,” according to a Department of Energy press release. Among other things, including the continued development of new nuclear reactors and encouraging financial organizations to invest in […]

Westinghouse Electric said Nov. 29 it has acquired the remaining 50% of Tecnatom, a Spanish nuclear services business, from Endesa, Madrid, for an undisclosed amount. Westinghouse bought a 50% interest in Tecnatom in 2021 and ran the company jointly with Endesa, an electric company serving Spain and Portugal. Tecnatom is a Spanish engineering and digital […]