Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Department of Energy did not make an Aug. 29 target to announce the winner, or winners, of the second round of a federal bailouts to buoy financially ailing nuclear power plants. A spokesperson for DOE’s Office of Grid Deployment did not immediately respond to a query asking how many applications the agency had received […]

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission board should toss an environmentalist group’s effort to block a license extension for Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s spent fuel storage facility, commission staff recommended Sept. 5. The group, San Luis Obsipo Mothers for Peace, had successfully used a legal technicality to steer the renewal application toward a hearing with an NRC […]

Months after a deal was announced, the Department of Energy and the Washington state Department of Ecology are still not ready to share details from recently-completed closed-door talks on future cleanup of the Hanford Site, though the feds are preparing to publish a new five-year plan for the former plutonium production property. Back in May, […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 07: Meeting: The Portsmouth Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board meets in open session starting at 6 p.m. Eastern Time at The Ohio State University, Endeavor Center, 1862 Shyville Road, Room 165, Piketon, OH 45661. 07: Nuclear […]

With less than a month left until fiscal year 2024 begins, the White House has asked Congress for a short-term continuing resolution to freeze federal budgets at 2023 levels. Media reported last week that leaders in the House and Senate have remained open to the requested stopgap bill. The impasse between the Republican-controlled House and […]

Bill Richardson, a secretary of energy during the Bill Clinton administration who at various points of his career was a Democratic congressman and New Mexico governor, and became something of a specialist in international hostage negotiation, died Sept. 1 at age 75, according to major media accounts. Richardson was first elected to Congress in 1982 […]

President Joe Biden announced Sept. 3 that he will nominate Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, to serve as a U.S. representative to the United Nations. The Biden White House said in a press release, he is nominating Lee to represent the United States During the United Nation’s 78th General […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration mismanaged development of two machines used to measure the explosive power of nuclear weapons, leading to program delays and cost overruns, the Government Accountability Office found in a recent report.  To continue its long-running program to test the effectiveness of nuclear weapons without actually detonating one, the NNSA established the […]

Energy Northwest, an electric generator that already has a nuclear plant outside Richland, Wash., plans to be on hand Sept. 22 when the Department of Energy hosts an industry day for enterprises interested in generating carbon-free electricity at the Hanford Site. “We have a long relationship leasing DOE land for clean energy generation projects. For […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office is shopping around for potential providers of Transportation Emergency Preparedness Program support. According to a sources sought notice posted online Tuesday, the agency’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center said the contractor will tackle “preparedness issues for shipments of DOE radiological material and waste,” across the weapons complex. […]

Members of a federal board on Wednesday questioned whether Department of Energy grantees could make inroads with state governments as part of the agency’s drive to find a host community for a federal interim storage site for spent nuclear fuel. At their annual meeting, held this year in Idaho Falls and streamed online, members of […]

In keeping with a White House-backed program to develop clean energy on Department of Energy weapons complex land, the Hanford Site in Washington state plans to host industry players this month in order to learn more about the property’s potential for carbon-free electricity. DOE on Wednesday issued a request for information to seek out companies […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Processing Facility is structurally sound enough to withstand potential seismic events, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board found in a recent study of the building.  The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has worked with the Department of Energy on the seismic safety of PF-4 and Los Alamos since […]

On Tuesday the Department of Energy rolled out a draft solicitation for the next stage of remediation at the West Valley Demonstration Project in Western New York, a contract potentially worth $3 billion over a decade. The new indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract would replace the existing pact held by a team of Jacobs and BWX Technologies […]

William “Ike” White, senior adviser and acting head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, spoke Monday to an international forum in Japan on Decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the nuclear cleanup office said Tuesday. The 7th annual international forum on Fukushima cleanup sponsored by Japan’s Nuclear Damage Compensation and […]

The Environmental Protection Agency said in a recent letter it has not agreed to change cleanup plans for Building 324 and the contaminated soil under it at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “does not concur on any activities towards placing the 324 Building in a […]

The shuttered Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan could restart in about two years, plant owner Holtec International told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a public meeting Tuesday. The date will depend among other things on whether Holtec, Jupiter, Fla., can get a billion-dollar loan from the Department of Energy, but it may also depend […]

Linda Bauer, former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory deputy director, will lead a new effort to write a “blueprint” for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s production and science and technology infrastructure.  NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby announced the campaign to “keep pace with the dynamic global environment” in an internal email seen by the Exchange Monitor on […]

A March incident where a subcontractor at the Paducah Site in Kentucky might have been overexposed to a chemical will trigger an internal investigation at the Department of Energy, , according to a notice from the agency’s Office of Enterprise Assessments. On Aug. 21, the office notified Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services and two of its […]

A Department of Energy subcontractor who was injured while clearing trees on Aug. 11 at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee has died, an agency spokesperson confirmed Monday evening. The DOE “offers its condolences to the deceased’s family and colleagues,” the spokesperson for DOE’s Office of Science field site at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory […]

The Oak Ridge, Tenn., City Council has voted five-to-two to hire Randall Hemann, the current city manager of Mooresville, N.C., as its new city manager, according to a notice on the Oak Ridge municipal website. During an Aug. 18 special meeting, the council selected Hemann, over Aretha Ferrell-Benavides, a former city manager for Duncanville, Texas […]

A state court ruled last week that California can proceed with its effort to keep the Diablo Canyon Power Plant online into the 2030s, spurning an environmentalist group’s argument that the plan violated a contract. A 2022 state law that allowed a five-year life extension for the plant’s two reactors essentially voided the contract that […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission had no authority to license an Orano-Waste Control Specialists joint venture in Texas to build and operate an interim storage site for spent fuel, a federal court ruled Friday. In 2021, after the NRC granted the Interim Storage Partners joint venture a license to store spent fuel at Waste Control Specialists’ […]

The Department of Energy is more than halfway toward its goal of removing cesium from a million gallons of liquid radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a prerequisite for solidifying the waste in the coming years, a DOE manager told the Hanford Advisory Board Aug. 23 Cesium removal should resume in September […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not have the staff it needs to license new nuclear reactor designs and needs to take another look at its hiring programs before that can change, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. The agency, which regulates civilian nuclear power plants and the waste they produce, has […]