Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

About three dozen businesses turned out Sept. 21-22 to learn about the potential $3 billion contract for Phase 1B of Department of Energy cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state, according to online documents. While the big crowd included plenty of the usual names around the weapons complex, one curiously absent […]

KNOXVILLE — Design of the Savannah River Plutonium Pit Processing Facility is half finished and the facility could be built by 2032, though the date is not set in stone, a senior contractor executive said here Tuesday at an industry gathering. “You’ve got to put a stake in the sand at some point,” Dennis Carr, […]

About 30 companies, many better known for electric generation than work around the weapons complex, took part in the Department of Energy’s Cleanup to Clean Energy day at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to data posted after the Sept. 22 gathering. Some of the big names include Shell, Next Era Energy, which describes […]

Environmentalists say their plea to shut down Diablo Canyon’s Unit 1 reactor is too important to be treated like a routine Nuclear Regulatory Commission proceeding and should be sent directly to the commission immediately. The environmental groups, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth, say Unit 1’s reactor pressure vessel is […]

The Department of Energy has extended through January existing contracts for environmental cleanup and depleted uranium work at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. The contracts for both Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, which handles decontamination and decommissioning, and Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services, which does the depleted uranium work, will now run through […]

EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, planned to open a manufacturing facility in southeastern Tennessee to make parts for nuclear power plants, the company announced Tuesday in a press release. For the task, the company plans to “immediately” begin refurbishing a 200,000 square-foot building it owns in Roane County, Tenn., according to the press release, which hit […]

The Department of Energy Waste Isolation Pilot Plant received 473 shipments of transuranic waste during fiscal 2023, the most in about a decade, a DOE manager said Tuesday during a public meeting in New Mexico. The 473 shipments for the 12 months ended Sept. 30 is the most since before February 2014 when an underground […]

The Department of Energy and its environmental contractor broke ground last week on a major new expansion to more than double the capacity of the low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Idaho National Laboratory. The current 390,000 cubic meters of capacity at the Idaho Comprehensive Disposal Facility is 80% filled, DOE said in a Tuesday […]

The recent short-term continuing resolution that averted a government shutdown Sunday allows the Navy to start construction on its next nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine. The stopgap, which funds the government through Nov. 17, generally holds funding for government programs steady. However, the Navy got what is known as an anomaly that allows the service […]

Holtec International is creating a new subsidiary to switch back on the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan in less than two years, company executives told Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff Tuesday at agency headquarters in Rockville, Md. The new operating company will eventually employ about 500 people, including more than 200 who are working on […]

A federal district judge in Idaho has penciled in an Oct. 30 hearing date to consider the U.S. government’s motion to throw out Butte County’s lawsuit against the Department of Energy. The case, scheduled for 11 a.m. Mountain Time at the Pocatello, Idaho federal courthouse, will be presided over by U.S. District Court Judge David […]

The Navy has successfully launched the 191st Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile during a shakedown cruise of the USS Louisiana, marking the boat’s readiness for deployment.  Northrop Grumman, which builds the solid rocket motors that power the Trident, announced the successful launch on Oct. 2. The test was one element of the Navy’s Demonstration […]

Executives with Holtec’s decommissioning arm were scheduled to meet Tuesday with Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff to continue a discussion about potentially restarting the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station. The meeting at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md., was to begin at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time and run until 3:00 p.m. Eastern time, according to a notice […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear remediation office should draft clearer guidance to differentiate contractor work that directly advances cleanup from other chores, the Government Accountability Office said in a report published Monday. Until it does, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) lacks a clear understanding of how much of its multi-billion-dollar budget directly hastens cleanup, […]

The United Kingdom awarded contracts worth $4.9 billion total to three British companies to design and manufacture the future SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered attack submarines. The U.K. Ministry of Defense signed the Detailed Design and Long Leads phase of work on Oct. 1 with BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Babcock to “progress the program through the design, prototyping […]

An environmental coalition’s “last-ditch attack” on California’s only operating nuclear plant is riddled with legal errors and willfully disregards the state’s plans for the plant, Pacific Gas and Electric wrote in a recent court filing. The lawsuit does not belong in court in the first place and the anti-nuclear groups’ argument rests on a faulty […]

A federal safety watchdog for the Department of Energy continues to look for someone to fill its vacant executive director of operations post and discussed the search in closed session last week. On Sept. 26, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) held a “nonpublic collaborative discussion” on candidates for the position, according to a […]

The close brush with a federal government shutdown did spark the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management Friday to call off a meeting of nuclear cleanup advisory chairs previously scheduled to start this Wednesday in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board Chairs meeting previously scheduled for this week was postponed last […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 03: Conference: The Energy Technology and Environmental Business Association kicks off its three-day Business Opportunities and Technical Conference at the Knoxville Convention Center in Knoxville, Tenn.  03: Meeting: The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by curtailing coal-burning, buying more electric vehicles and curbing business travel, according to a recent environmental report. Ameresco Federal Solutions operates an on-site cogeneration power plant that uses biomass such as wood chips to supply steam and eliminate the […]

In a follow-up to prior reports, the Government Accountability Office said again Friday that using concrete-like grout would be a cheaper way to solidify the less-radioactive tank waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Savannah River Site in South Carolina has treated 4 million gallons of its radioactive salt waste […]

Paul Murray, most recently chief technology officer for Orano Federal Services, will lead spent nuclear fuel programs in the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy effective next week. Murray will join the agency at its headquarters in the Forrestal Building in Washington on Oct. 10 as the deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and […]

The Department of Energy and Bechtel National should make several upgrades to the chemical safety program for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to DOE’s enforcement wing. While Bechtel and subcontractor Waste Treatment Completion Co. have a “generally adequate” chemical safety program, until key improvements are made, […]

National Technology and Engineering Solutions has established adequate safety systems management programs at Sandia National Laboratories, but a new watchdog report questions whether those programs can ensure safe nuclear operations at the lab’s New Mexico research reactor.  The Energy Department’s Office of Enterprise Assessments inspected the safety system management practices at Sandia’s New Mexico campus, […]

Holtec Decommissioning International plans this fall to demolish water tanks at the shuttered Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant that held radioactively contaminated water and, by mid-winter, package much of the radioactive waste from the plant’s reactor vessel. Members of the Massachusetts Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel heard that and more Monday from Dave Noyes, Holtec’s compliance […]

Crews at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site plan next week to open up a contaminated waste box recently returned to South Carolina from the agency’s underground disposal site in New Mexico, a federal advisory board heard Tuesday. “We are spending a lot of time planning it out to make sure we get it […]