Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Department of Energy expects to begin awarding funds from its multi-million dollar interim storage funding program by midyear, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. Roughly $26 million is up for grabs in DOE’s interim storage funding opportunity announcement, aimed at bringing together communities and other stakeholders to hash out how the department should go about […]

The Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico is working with Carlsbad city officials to secure federal money for electric vehicle charging stations in the community, a spokesperson said in a Tuesday email. The local Carlsbad Current Argus newspaper reported last week the city and DOE’s Carlsbad field office management have agreed to […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory will install by 2030 the equipment needed to make at least 30 plutonium pits annually, according to a Jan. 19 memo from the deputy secretary of energy. Formally known as the Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project 30 Base Equipment Installation subproject, the installation will provide the lab with “the […]

The company in charge of decommissioning a shuttered Massachusetts nuclear power plant affirmed Monday night that it would not discharge radioactive water from the facility until it gets a required federal permits modification later this year. Holtec International “will fully comply” with the terms of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station’s National current Pollutant Discharge Elimination System […]

An entity called SRS Critical Infrastructure Security, which appeared to have the business in hand two years ago, filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office over the Department of Energy’s award of a new Savannah River Site security contract for incumbent Centerra. The award was announced earlier in January, and the bid protest […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration stonewalled some requests for classified information by Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the board said in a congressionally mandated report. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) made a pair of classified-information requests with a Nov. 18 delivery date, but as of Jan. 19, “the board has not yet received […]

Texas is fighting to keep its lawsuit against commercial interim storage of spent nuclear fuel in the state from getting tossed on a technicality, as a similar suit was last week, a court filing shows. The state on Friday argued that a site proposed in Andrews County by the Interim Storage Partners (ISP) joint venture […]

Mark Bollinger is now the acting manager for the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico, which oversees the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The DOE Office of Environmental Management announced earlier in January that Carlsbad manager Reinhard Knerr is moving to the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office to become the deputy manager helping to oversee […]

The prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has added a new attorney to its defense team in a racial discrimination case brought by an employee who claims he was unfairly passed over for promotion. With a new trial date and new federal magistrate judge in place, the […]

A Colorado Republican will chair the House Armed Services subcommittee in charge of Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs, the full committee’s new chairman announced recently. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) will lead the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, which aside from setting policy and spending limits for the entire National Nuclear Security Administration every […]

Those seeking funding to help the Department of Energy develop a strategy for siting an interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility have a day or so to throw their hat in the ring. DOE’s roughly $26 million funding opportunity announcement closes Jan. 31, the agency has said. That deadline is about a month later than […]

After skipping a couple of years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual controlled deer hunts returned to the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina during December, and 261 deer were killed, according to the site’s top fed. “Finally we did the deer hunts in December,” Michael Budney, who heads DOE’s Office […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. January 31: Meeting: The National Academies’ Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board holds two days of hybrid meetings starting at 10 a.m. Pacific Time on its review of the continued analysis of supplemental treatment of Low-Activity Waste […]

As scheduled, Bob Pragada formally became the new big boss at Jacobs last week, as the former president and chief operating officer succeeded retiring CEO Steve Demetriou, the company announced in a press release. Also last week Jacobs announced the appointment of a new chief financial officer effective in August. The Dallas-based international engineering and […]

A bill aimed at preventing a private company from building a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico without prior state approval cleared on Tuesday its first legislative hurdle in Santa Fe. The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D), was favorably reported out of the state Senate Conservation Committee […]

A National Nuclear Security Administration plan bound for Congress will detail the agency’s needs over the next decade for new experimental capabilities to test nuclear weapons and materials, the agency said this week. Lasers, used at the Livermore’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) and the University of Rochester’s Omega Laser Facility, and pulsed power, used at […]

A joint venture led by a Veolia affiliate has been tapped by Amentum-led Central Plateau Cleanup Co. to run two landfills at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state under a deal potentially worth $124 million over six years, Veolia said Wednesday. The Hanford cleanup prime has picked the joint venture between Veolia […]

A federal appeals court could hear oral arguments this May in Seattle in a legal challenge brought over COVID-19 vaccination policy at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday informed attorneys for the Justice Department and the Silent Majority Foundation, representing more […]

As expected, citizen groups in New Mexico have asked the state Environment Department to extend the comment period by 60 days on a 10-year permit renewal for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The draft permit is more than 1,200 pages long so granting the extension until April 19 is justified, according to […]

Conversion of 400 LGM-30 Minuteman III ICBM silos to accommodate Northrop Grumman’s Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles will draw lessons from recent work by the company’s team in Utah. Parsons Corp., an original designer of the Minuteman silos, is a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman on the conversion of the Minuteman III silos for the Sentinel program. […]

Earlier this month a Department of Energy contractor started removing radioactive waste from an underground tank at the AX Farm at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Removal of radioactive and chemical waste from Tank AX-101 started Jan. 13, and should take about 18 months, the Department of Energy said in a Tuesday news release. […]

Like football fans, contractors considering bids on Department of Energy business often lack faith they will receive a fair shake from officials, a Tuesday report from a federal watchdog indicates. Representatives from 15 of the 24 industry contractors interviewed by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on DOE procurement “expressed concerns about the fairness of DOE’s […]

  California’s last nuclear power plant must start its federal relicensing process anew, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday, derailing its operator’s plan to put huge chunks of bailout money to quick work via a regulatory shortcut. In 2022, Diablo Canyon Power Plant operator Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) secured more than $2 billion in […]

Roughly a quarter of the way through fiscal 2023 the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has received 107 shipments of transuranic waste, about on pace for meeting its 400-shipment target for the fiscal year ending in September, DOE and its contractor told New Mexico lawmakers Tuesday. There have been 107 shipments to the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration planned to award its next big facilities operations contract in December 2025, a Department of Energy official told the Government Accountability Office in a letter dated December 20. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Tuesday published the letter to Allison Bawden, director of the office’s Natural Resources and Environment team, […]

Citing “unprecedented danger” arising from Russia’s nearly year-long war against Ukraine, the peace-advocating Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on Tuesday set its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds until midnight. It is the closest the long-running, metaphorical clock — a consensus gut-check among dove-like experts — has ever been to the symbolic midnight hour that marks the […]