Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

An unsealed status report filed with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims by the Department of Justice says the Department of Energy might seek updated proposals for the legally embattled liquid waste contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state, potentially worth $45-billion. This time around, a DOE contract officer would have discretion to treat […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security said Tuesday it is looking for construction contractors to split a multiple award task order contract at the Pantex Plant in Texas that could be worth up to $600 million over 10 years. The contract includes a five-year base period worth $300 million and five one-year options worth $60 million each, according […]

U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command and the U.S. Space Force’s 30th Space Launch Delta Guardians launched an unarmed Boeing Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with three test re-entry vehicles on Sept. 6 from Vandenberg Space Force Base. “The ICBM’s reentry vehicle traveled approximately 4,200 miles to the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands,” […]

Federal officials did not inappropriately block contractors from investigating concerns about a program to refurbish one of the Navy’s two nuclear weapons, the Department of Energy’s inspector general wrote in a recent report. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is upgrading the W88, which tips submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles and entered service in 1988, for […]

Current and former nuclear weapons workers in the Greater Denver area are invited by the Department of Labor to show up at a Sept. 12 information session on federal occupational illness benefits. Labor Department representatives will be on hand at the Arvada, Colo., session to help attendees with filing new claims or assisting with existing […]

Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., said Wednesday it will begin enriching energy-dense uranium fuel at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, in October. Centrus is in the prove-it phase of a contract, awarded in 2022 and worth up to $1 billion over 10 years, to operate a cascade of 16 AC100M centrifuges […]

The Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio last week made its first rail shipment of depleted uranium oxide containers to the Waste Control Specialists disposal site in West Texas, DOE announced Tuesday. The shipment of 120 storage cylinders from the Mid-America Conversion Services depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion plant at the former gaseous diffusion […]

Teams vying to take over the Pantex Plant from its Bechtel-led incumbent will get another two weeks to turn in their final bids, the National Nuclear Security Administration said Friday. The agency extended the deadline for bids on the potentially 20-year contract by two weeks to Sept. 28, according to a procurement notice posted online.  […]

Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based Boston Government Services, has hired Doug Freund in the newly-created post of chief operating officer, the Department of Energy contractor said Tuesday. Freund was most recently senior vice president for Kiewit Nuclear Solutions, where he was responsible for markets and strategy, Boston Government Services said in a press release. In addition, Freund […]

A small fire ignited but did not last long last month at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, according to a report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The small blaze occurred at an area associated with heating up melter No. 1 at the Waste Treatment Immobilization Plant built by Bechtel, […]

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 […]