Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

A labor shortage initially blamed on COVID-19, but which has outlasted the nationwide response to the pandemic, hamstrung construction of new nuclear weapons factories and forced a construction triage at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency’s administrator told lawmakers Tuesday. The construction or “craft” labor shortages at various sites contributed to several program delays, […]

The Department of Energy and state and federal regulators agreed that the agency will finish cleaning up most liquid waste at the former plutonium production site near the Georgia line by 2037, the agency and the site’s prime contractor announced Tuesday morning. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, DOE and the U.S. […]

Valerie McCain, the Bechtel project manager in charge of building the Department of Energy’s multibillion-dollar waste vitrification plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, died unexpectedly, the company announced. “It is with great sadness that we share the news that Valerie McCain, project director of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant and a Bechtel […]

Perma-Fix, Atlanta, closed out a tough 2022 with bigger losses and less revenue than a year ago, but the ill-effects of COVID-19 on the company’s business tapered off last year, the chief executive officer said last week. “While 2022 was a challenging year due to the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed projects […]

Following a December court decision, the Department of Energy is officially canceling the solicitation that resulted in incumbent Swift & Staley winning — and then eventually losing — a new set-aside contract two years earlier for landlord services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. “DOE has determined that canceling this solicitation is in the best […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is headed out to the Xcel Energy’s Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant, which the operator shut down on Saturday after water containing tritium leaked into the groundwater at the plant. “The amount of leakage is still being quantified,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a notice posted online Monday. “Monitoring of groundwater […]

A U.S. appeals court recently upheld a nation-wide injunction against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for most federal workers. The ruling 10-6 ruling on Thursday from a majority of judges on the New Orleans-based U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of appeals, who heard oral arguments in September, upheld the January 2022 preliminary injunction issued by […]

The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration was scheduled to testify Tuesday at 9 a.m. before the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, where she will take questions on the agency’s fiscal 2024 budget request. NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby will be joined by John Plumb assistant secretary of defense for space policy, Deborah Rosenblum […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is still looking for a successor to its first executive director of operations, who left in August, the board said in a recent report to Congress. “The board is actively recruiting to fill that vacancy in 2023,” according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s 33rd Annual Report to […]

After several years of planning, the initial discard of uranium solution from the new Accelerated Basin De-inventory program at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., was successfully transferred to the SRS liquid waste program from the H Canyon Chemical Separations Facility, the Department of Energy said last week. The newly implemented Accelerated Basin De-inventory […]

Geiger Brothers, an Ohio-based engineering and contracting business, won a $9.9 million contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build the K-25 viewing platform at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, the corps announced Friday. The award from the U.S. Army Corps’ Nashville District was posted in a Friday notice […]

The Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management has issued stopgap extensions to avoid lapses in nuclear cleanup work this week at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and treatment of a uranium enrichment byproduct there, and at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth and Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services will both receive contract extensions of […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. March 28: Meeting, hybrid/in-person, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board: DOE Efforts Related to Removing Spent Nuclear Fuel from  commercial Nuclear Power Plant Sites. The Florida Hotel and Conference Center, 1500 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, Fla. 32809. […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm was scheduled to take questions from appropriators in the Republican-controlled House this morning at 10:30 a.m. Eastern time about the Department of Energy’s 2024 budget request.  The hearing of the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee was scheduled to stream online on the committee’s website. Overall, the Joe Biden […]

Citing a national security memorandum that describes a reduced need for the B83 thermonuclear gravity bomb, the National Nuclear Administration proposed cutting funding for the weapon in its 2024 budget request.  The NNSA proposed cutting $28 million from funding for management of the B83 in its fiscal 2024 budget request, owing to “updated program requirements […]

Holtec Decommissioning International this week pitched the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on restarting the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan via a license amendment request, according to company documents posted online Monday. It was the first time the company, which wants to find a buyer to reopen and operate Palisades if suitable federal subsidies can be […]

A group of current and former Department of Energy contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio are again targets of a federal lawsuit, this one filed by a plaintiff suffering from cancer who attended a now-shuttered middle school near the former gaseous diffusion plant. Christian Rose, diagnosed in June with Burkitt Lymphoma, a cancer of […]

The Department of Energy is giving interested bidders two extra weeks to submit proposals for the new Occupational Medical Contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to a procurement notice published Monday. Response to the partial request for proposals that came out last month are now due April 24 rather than the earlier […]

The Department of Energy has a nickname: “the Department of Everything,” the acting DOE nuclear cleanup boss told weapons complex citizen advisory board chairs Tuesday.   The DOE Office of Environmental Management senior adviser William (Ike) White retold the joke during a Washington, D.C., meeting. The description applies to an agency involved in issues ranging from […]

Australian leaders are concerned about the nuclear waste the country’s nuclear-powered submarine fleet, which the country will buy and then build under the AUKUS deal with the U.S. and U.K.  AUKUS also poses complicated questions of compliance for Australia, which is treaty-bound to neither produce or possess nuclear weapons or materials that could be used […]

Citing a lack of resources, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday delayed its decision to license a proposed commercial interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel by up to two months.  NRC delivered the news in a letter to Kimberly Manzione, Holtec International’s director of licensing, from the agency’s Bernard White, who signed the missive […]

New Mexico’s public misgivings about nuclear waste is worrisome in Washington state where the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site is expected to become a big shipper to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in a few years and finish around 2050, a Hanford community representative said Tuesday. “There is one item that is hitting our screen […]

Lawyers representing employees who accuse Consolidated Nuclear Security, manager of the Y-12 site in Oak Ridge Tenn., of withholding wages have withdrawn from a proposed class action lawsuit against the contractor.  The motion to withdraw as counsel was granted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee in Knoxville on Monday. Justin […]

Bechtel National earned more than $6.5 million, or 83% of its total potential fee, for Department of Energy work in 2022 on the long-anticipated Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Overall, the company earned $6.53 million out of a potential $7.87 million in fee for the calendar year ended […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s longest-serving associate administrator Jeffrey Johnson, the chief of nuclear security, announced his retirement on Monday.  Johnson served eight years at NNSA following a 20-year career in uniform and seven years as a civilian employee with the U.S. Marine Corps, according to a statement from the NNSA. The NNSA did not […]