Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The annual must-pass defense policy bill that sets spending limits for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs is headed for its final debate in Congress after the House on Tuesday voted for a conference with the Senate. At a high level, the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate this year crafted wildly different versions of […]

The Department of Energy has so far delivered 12 shipments of down blended plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to a public waste database. The most recent shipment that DOE has made public arrived at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near […]

The Department of Energy has $19 million in grant funding available for disadvantaged communities affected by decades of nuclear work, the agency said in a Tuesday press release. Comments are due within three weeks on the draft funding opportunity announcement for DOE’s Community Capacity Building Grant Program, the agency said in the press release. The […]

The Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board was to meet Thursday for the first time since New York outlawed the discharge of irradiated water from the shuttered plant. The board was scheduled to meet at the Cortlandt Town Hall in Cortland, N.Y. at 6:00 p.m. Eastern on Thursday evening. The board planned to stream the meeting […]

The Department of Energy’s enforcement arm has told two contractors it will investigate a fatal tree clearing accident in August near the Central Training Facility at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. In a pair of Sept. 8 letters, the Office of Enforcement within DOE’s Office of Enterprise Assessments informed East Tennessee Mechanical Contractors and […]

Deputy EnergySec among headline speakers for Hanford clean industry day Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk is among the federal bigwigs on the agenda for Friday’s  ‘Cleanup to Clean Energy’ informational meeting for the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to the Department of Energy. In addition to Turk, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management senior […]

Jacobs Solutions, Huntington Ingalls, BWX Technologies and others are among those seeking the National Nuclear Security Administration’s decade-spanning, $30-billion contract to manage the agency’s nuclear-weapons service center in Texas. Pantex and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., are currently managed for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) by Consolidated Nuclear Security, a […]

EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, completed its acquisition of Williams Industrial Services Group, the company announced Monday in a press release. EnergySolutions operates a low-level waste facility in Clive, Utah, and is decommissioning the partially melted-down Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor in Pennsylvania. The company said in July it was buying Williams out of chapter […]

A Hanford contractor is trying to avoid a repeat of a July incident where overdue inspections for equipment resulted in a stop-work order at the site’s fire department, a federal safety board said. Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, the site’s Leidos-led landlord contractor that oversees firefighting and other services at the shuttered DOE nuclear-weapons site, restored […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 19: National Academies. Public meeting. Independent Study on Potential Environmental Effects of Nuclear War. This fourth meeting about the study focuses on climate modeling done by Department of Energy national laboratories. 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Eastern […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 58 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during August, with all but a half-dozen coming from the Idaho National Laboratory, according to the latest figures available on its public website. The data indicate the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) continues to experience its busiest […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has launched its market research for up to $40 million worth of environmental restoration work around the Superfund site in Maywood, N.J., according to a procurement notice published online Friday. A sources sought notice was issued online Friday in the Systemwide Awards Management website (SAM.gov) for small businesses to […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security moved a meeting for potential bidders on a construction contract for the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, to a nearby college from the nuclear-weapons maintenance site, the contractor wrote in an online notice. “[D]ue to the number of requests we have moved the venue off site to prevent issues with badging,” the […]

On Tuesday, SNC-Lavalin, the Montreal-based engineering and project managing company, rebranded itself AtkinsRéalis and its chief U.S. subsidiary Atkins Nuclear Secured is now rechristened as AtkinsRéalis Nuclear Secured, company officials said this week. The parent company, which is involved in the nuclear industry and trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange, will officially change its stock […]

ARLINGTON, VA. — This winter the Department of Energy and Waste Control Specialists should start moving remaining containers of transuranic waste, stuck at the company’s Texas facility for nine years, to a new above-ground storage facility to prep the material for shipment to the agency’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The “notional” deadline […]

In a court filing this week, Holtec International’s ex-finance chief said he neither disclosed corporate secrets nor violated a nondisclosure agreement by publicly suing his former employer.  Kevin O’Rourke sued Holtec, Jupiter, Fla., June 1 in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Camden County, alleging the company overvalued itself in an effort to get […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has told transuranic waste generators that it won’t take shipments during February 2024, the head of DOE’s prime contractor said here Wednesday. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) has traditionally held a multi-week maintenance outage during the winter and February tends to be hardest […]

ARLINGTON, VA —Planned plutonium pit production for nuclear defense purposes at two Department of Energy sites depends on the ability to dispose of resulting transuranic waste, a National Nuclear Security Administration executive said here Wednesday. “A single bad waste drum is likely to have a bigger impact on our mission” than any bad pit, James […]

ARLINGTON, VA — A facility at the Idaho National Laboratory has solidified more than 68,000 gallons of sodium-bearing, liquid radioactive waste since starting operations in April and it will commence a maintenance outage later this month. That was the word shared with DOE’s National Cleanup Workshop Tuesday on the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) by […]

ARLINGTON, VA —Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) Tuesday prodded hundreds of people here for the National Cleanup Workshop to urge their congressional representatives to avoid a federal government shutdown but stopped short of predicting a stopgap agreement before fiscal 2023 ends Sept. 30. “Reach out to your member of congress,” said Fleischmann, who chairs the House […]

ARLINGTON, VA — A planned test to solidify 2,000 gallons of low-level radioactive tank waste from the Hanford Site into a concrete-like grout could pave the way for a second method of treating waste at the former plutonium production complex near Richland, Wash., the Department of Energy’s top nuclear-cleanup official said here Tuesday. During the […]

The U.S. and Philippine governments are in the home stretch of signing a 123 agreement to boost cooperation on both civil energy projects and nuclear non-proliferation efforts.  Quoting Philippine Energy Undersecretary Sharon Garin, the Manila Bulletin — that nation’s largest English language newspaper — said the two countries are on the brink of signing the […]

The Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy and Grid Deployment offices got new chiefs of staff, the agency announced Tuesday. Emily Doran, a former campaign staffer for President Joe Biden (D), will be the staff chief at the Grid Deployment Office while Rory Stanley, most recently a staffer on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, […]

Two electric cooperatives would purchase electricity generated by the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan if the plant restarts, plant owner Holtec International said Tuesday in a statement. If Palisades restarts, something Holtec has said could happen in August 2025, if everything goes according to the company’s unprecedented plan, Wolverine Power Cooperative will purchase two […]