Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

The Department of Energy’s solid-waste cleanup contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state now recommends tearing down the above-ground portion of the decaying 324 Building before digging up radioactively-contaminated soil under the structure’s B cell. In an Aug. 23 presentation to the Hanford Advisory Board, Central Plateau Cleanup Co. President John Eschenberg said he […]

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant has started pumping water from the first of a dozen or so planned new groundwater wells as officials attempt to shore up sufficient cooling sources for its six reactors after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam earlier this summer, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Aug. 22. The collapse of […]

In a recent visit to Ukraine, the United Kingdom’s top nuclear energy official discussed providing uranium enrichment services to the embattled nation so its nuclear power plants can stay online this winter. Grant Shapps, the U.K.’s energy security secretary, was in Kyiv just as London announced a $243 million loan allowing Urenco — a British-German-Dutch […]

The Oak Ridge, Tenn., City Council could select a new manager next week for the municipality, population 31,000, which hosts the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site. The selection is expected during a special city council meeting on Aug.28, according to an update posted on the city’s website. The ultimate hiring could come after Oak […]

A $1.4-billion facility that since April has solidified more than 60,000 gallons of sodium-bearing waste at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory received “minor superficial damage” from a crane accident in July, an agency spokesperson said Wednesday. The Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) was repaired and the IWTU maintenance crane was returned to service […]

Thanks to retirements, the Department of Energy and its Washington state regulator have some new managers at the Hanford Site, the Hanford Advisory Board heard Wednesday. Hanford Advisory Board member Pam Lasen also announced during the start of the two-day board meeting that a former longtime board member from Oregon, Norma Jean Germond, died this […]

In a move with ramifications for Holtec International’s decommissioning of the Indian Point Energy Center, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) on Friday signed into law a state ban on discharging radioactive wastewater into the Hudson River. Holtec would now face escalating fines for discharges into the Hudson. For a first time offense, Holtec would […]

Major National Nuclear Security Administration projects to modernize nuclear-weapons production infrastructure shot $2 billion past estimated budgets and are collectively overdue by nearly a decade, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.  The overruns have several causes, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in the first of what will become biennial reports […]

When it comes to nuclear deterrence, and the warheads and delivery systems that support it, the more options the better, said U.S. Strategic Command head Air Force Gen Anthony Cotton. Though he was careful not to name specific delivery systems or weapons, Cotton said that when advising the president on how to keep nuclear competitors […]

The BWX Technologies-led team that won a $45-billion Department of Energy contract at Hanford Site in Washington state, only to see the award blocked by a federal court in June, should brief an appeals court in early October about why the trial court’s ruling was wrong. The team, Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure, should […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission planned to host a public informational meeting about the agency’s oversight of high-assay, low-enriched uranium for use in nuclear reactors.  Centrus Corp., Bethesda, Md., is the only company in the U.S. with a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to produce HALEU. In early February, the company completed construction and […]

As a byproduct of Post-Tropical Cyclone Hilary, some normally arid Department of Energy weapons complex sites out West experienced unusually heavy rain or wind, according to the latest from the National Weather Service. However, a DOE Office of Environmental Management spokesperson said Tuesday morning no significant weather-related damage or disruptions have been reported at the […]

Recently, Pacific Gas and Electric formally communicated to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it intends to apply for a license extension that could keep the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant operating into the 2060s. By Dec. 31, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) will ask NRC to extend Diablo Canyon’s two reactors “for up to 20 […]

This week, a trade group for nuclear professionals released a 76-page report that recommends changes to the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for nuclear-waste repositories.  Broadly, the new report from the Illinois-based American Nuclear Society (ANS) aims to make the standards set for the failed Yucca Mountain deep-geologic repository in Nevada the standard for all U.S. […]

Waste Control Specialists was expected to provide an update next week in Andrews, Texas, about the company’s efforts to expand its existing low-level waste disposal site there, a tri-state waste-disposal commission announced Wednesday. The update from Waste Control Specialists, which operates a state-owned low-level waste disposal site at its Andrews County property, was scheduled as […]

Dan Brouillette, the second secretary of energy of the Donald Trump administration, will become president and CEO of the Edison Electric Institute, effective Oct. 1, the trade group for investor-owned electric companies said Wednesday. Edison Electric Institute (EEI) Chair Pedro Pizarro made the announcement in a press release, about five months after longtime EEI head […]