Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The American Nuclear Society’s annual winter meeting began this week in Washington and includes scheduled appearances by U.S. lawmakers, senior federal officials and a NuScale executive who will appear following the cancellation of a small modular reactor project. The American Nuclear Society’s winter meeting was scheduled to run from Monday to Wednesday at the Washington […]

The village of Piketon, Ohio, which borders the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site, last week re-elected longtime Mayor Billy Spencer to a new term. Spencer beat out council member David Isaac Dixon 377-to-244 in the Nov. 7 election, according to results from the Ohio Board of Elections. The victory will provide Spencer, who worked for […]

The Government Accountability Office expects to publish several major reports on Department of Energy nuclear remediation issues over the next several months, according to the congressional watchdog agency. Nathan Anderson, director of the Natural Resources & Environment unit for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), said between now and December a report on H Canyon at […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 12-15: Annual winter conference and expo, American Nuclear Society.  Washington Hilton. Washington. Sessions run from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern time. Agenda online. 16: Meeting. Los Alamos Study Group. A panel and audience discussion of […]

William (Bill) Badger, director of nuclear and environmental business development at Department of Energy contractor Amentum, drowned in Richland, Wash., after the car he was driving went into a local marina, according to the coroner in Benton County, Wash. The fatal accident was first reported Wednesday by the Tri-City Herald newspaper, which said the accident […]

The Illinois state Senate on Wednesday night approved legislation that would if signed allow for construction of small modular reactors in the state beginning in 2026. Also under the legislation, spent nuclear fuel and waste resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel would no longer be considered high level nuclear waste under Illinois law. […]

While it remains a critic of nuclear energy, the Natural Resources Defense Council confirmed Wednesday it is scaling back its legal work on nuclear issues. “While NRDC is paring back our nuclear litigation work, we will continue to advocate for better, safer, cheaper solutions to climate change,” Mark Drajem, a spokesperson for the Natural Resources […]

Trials on the slate for this winter will follow-up successful tests, announced last week by the Department of Energy, of the first melter at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant. Conducted on Oct. 26 and Oct. 30, the tests consisted of melting glass beads together to be poured into a cylindrical canister. The […]

The federal agency that provides outside safety advice to the Department of Energy still struggles with a “sustainable organizational culture and climate,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Inspector General said last week. Organizational culture leads the list of the most serious challenges facing the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) in fiscal 2024, the […]

Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. on Tuesday announced it applied with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the operating license of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. In line with expectations, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) wants to keep the reactors on until 2030, according to a Tuesday press release. The NRC license renewal the utility […]

Earnings were up year-over-year for Centrus Energy in the third quarter of 2023, when the uranium broker and enrichment technology developer was working on its first batch of high-assay low-enriched uranium for the U.S. government.  The Bethesda, Md., company reported total revenue of $51.3 million and $33.2 million for the three months ended September 30, […]

A new team of International Atomic Energy Agency personnel crossed the frontlines in Ukraine this week to perform nuclear safety and security missions at the besieged Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. It is the thirteenth such mission since the IAEA last year established a permanent presence at the site to help prevent a nuclear accident during […]

The Department of Energy’s $8-billion-plus nuclear cleanup branch is getting positive results from its early forays into artificial intelligence and machine learning, Jeff Avery told a National Academies panel Tuesday. New technology is playing a growing role at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, Jeff Avery told the National Academies Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board. “We […]

Holtec and the Nuclear Energy Institute appeared in court to have their say in a two year-old lawsuit that could determine the future of commercially operated storage of spent nuclear fuel. The company and the industry’s Washington-based advocacy group filed friend-of-the-court briefs last week with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where Interim Storage […]

The Department of Energy is taking public comment until Dec. 12 on its draft finding that certain radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory can be disposed of there as low- rather than high-level waste. The draft document “demonstrates that the Calcined Solids Storage Facility (CSSF) at closure after waste retrieval is not high-level radioactive […]

Richard Driggs, most recently chief operating officer for Michael Baker International, has been appointed the new president and CEO of Idaho Falls-based North Wind Group, the company said Monday. Driggs is a seasoned hand in the engineering and construction industry and brings more than 30 years of experience as chief executive and chief operating officer […]

The Government Accountability Office should release a report on the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in the coming weeks, the Citizens Advisory Board for nuclear cleanup heard Monday. Savannah River Citizens Advisory Board Chair Gregg Murray dropped the news at the outset of the two-day meeting, being carried via Youtube. The report by the […]

The U.S. Forest Service killed roughly 1,200 wild hogs on the grounds of the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina during fiscal 2023, many of which were eaten by vultures, the site’s Citizens Advisory Board heard Monday. During his presentation to the Savannah River Site advisory board, forest manager DeVela Clark, also […]

New state rules restricting discharge of irradiated water will delay cleanup of nuclear plants in Massachusetts and New York by four and eight years, respectively, Holtec International told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week.  These prohibitions mean the partial site release date of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts will slip to Sept. 24, […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission discontinued efforts to get more insight into whether nuclear power plant owners are obeying agency rules about which investments are allowed in decommissioning trust funds, commission staff told the agency’s inspector general. Staff made the decision official in September, according to a memo dated Oct. 26 and uploaded to the NRC’s […]

A judge could decide by December the fate of a lawsuit about the Department of Energy’s years of allegedly illegal long-term nuclear-waste storage near Butte County. After hearing oral arguments Oct. 30 from the county, the state of Idaho and the U.S. Department of Justice on the government’s motion for dismissal of the county’s suit, […]

Jacobs, Dallas, got a two-year, $53-million contract from EDF Nuclear Operations to support activities ranging from defueling to life extension at several nuclear power plants in the United Kingdom, the company said Monday in a press release. The Project Management Resources framework contract is a successor to an existing deal Jacobs has with EDF Nuclear […]

Effective this past Friday, the Department of Energy’s new 10-year New Mexico Environment Department permit is officially in place for the nation’s only deep underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste. Renewal of the state’s hazardous waste facility permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was finalized last month. In August, the state, DOE, federal […]

During a Senate hearing last week, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) pressed an Environmental Protection Agency official to prioritize remediation of radioactive contamination at the West Lake Landfill Superfund Site in Bridgeton, Mo. “It’s probably no coincidence that the folks who live in this area are not big-time donors to political parties, they’re not big-time party […]

A 66-year-old Arkansas man who allegedly drove his car through an outer gate at Duke Power’s Oconee nuclear plant in South Carolina and tried to run over security staff was arrested and charged with attempted murder, local law enforcement said over the weekend. Doyle Wayne Whisenhunt, of Lockesburg, Ark., was arrested Saturday evening, at an […]