Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

While Department of Energy contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Co. is doing a good job on hazardous nuclear remediation within Building 324 at the Hanford Site in Washington state, it needs to tackle some safety risks, according to the agency’s Office of Enterprise Assessments. Generally, the DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments said in a review published […]

The Department of Energy Tuesday announced that Michael Goff has started as the number-two official for the agency’s nuclear energy office, according to a press release. Goff, who most recently served as a senior advisor to DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), will now oversee the division’s research and development portfolio as its principal deputy […]

In a little less than a month, the Department of Energy will start doling out fines for the unauthorized sharing of nuclear technology and know-how overseas, the agency said last week. On Thursday, the agency published its final rule in the Federal Register for implementing those penalties. They will go into effect Feb. 13, DOE […]

California’s public utilities commission last week agreed to kick off a new rulemaking that, if finalized, would allow the Golden State’s last operating nuclear power plant to operate into the next decade, documents show. During a Thursday meeting, the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted unanimously to greenlight the proposed rulemaking, which would, among other […]

By the end of this month, the manager of the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico will leave to become deputy manager of the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office in Lexington, Ky., an agency executive said Tuesday. Carlsbad manager Reinhard Knerr, responsible for overseeing the agency’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant since July 2020, is […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration in December removed some surplus, weapon-usable plutonium from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the agency said Friday.  The agency did not say how much of the material it removed from the site near Aiken, S.C. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has said the glove boxes and facilities […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) will chair the appropriations subcommittee that writes the first draft of the Department of Energy’s annual spending bill, the full committee confirmed Monday. Fleischmann takes the gavel of the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee from Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who now will chair the House Appropriations interior and environment subcommittee. […]

In December, the Department of Energy’s $8-billion Office of Environmental Management completed what its head of field operations calls the “beta phase” of a new electronic “dashboard” for tracking nuclear remediation technology development. All of the research-and-development data run through Environmental Management (EM) headquarters in Washington, D.C., has been entered into the system, Nicole Nelson-Jean […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 18: Meeting: A hybrid meeting of the Nevada National Security Site Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board starts at 4 p.m. Pacific Time. To attend virtually, email board administration Barbara Ulmer by 4 p.m. P.T. on Jan. […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., had its busiest month of 2022 during December, receiving 53 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste. Forty shipments originated from the Idaho National Laboratory, 12 came from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, one came from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. […]

A recent poll conducted by New Mexico-based environmental organizations found that more than half of respondents opposed a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the Land of Enchantment, local media reported over the weekend. The survey, taken in December as a joint effort between the Southwest Research and Information Center and the […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), a dependable ally of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex, is in the mix to lead the influential appropriations committee that writes the first drafts of DOE’s annual budget, a source said. Fleischmann, who since 2011 has represented Tennessee’s largely rural third district […]

Local officials this week voted to express formal concerns about the Department of Energy’s plan to ship weapon-usable plutonium through the Santa Fe, New Mexico area as part of long-planned materials-disposal effort. On Tuesday, all five Santa Fe county commissioners approved comments to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) about the agency’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition […]

The timeline to start converting low-level radioactive waste into glass at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has already been slowed by technical and workforce issues and more challenges could arise, a DOE manager told the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board. The Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant is a complex project and […]

New Mexico and the Department of Energy are close to resolving the state’s lawsuit about cleanup rules for the Los Alamos National Laboratory and asked a federal judge Wednesday for another 90 days to negotiate. Lawyers for the state and the Department of Justice told the U.S. District Court for New Mexico that the two […]

A coalition of anti-nuclear groups on Tuesday asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to refuse a proposed 20-year license extension for California’s last operating nuclear power plant, saying it would violate federal law, an agency filing shows. Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E) November request with NRC for a license extension for Diablo Canyon Power Plant is […]

The newly-elected governor of Massachusetts last week signaled that she would stand against a proposal from Holtec International that would see irradiated wastewater from a shuttered nuclear power plant released into the Cape Cod Bay, local media reported. Speaking at a community event in South Yarmouth, Mass., Gov. Maura Healey (D) said that the Bay […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans by Oct. 31 to have permanent leadership for the three new procurement- and infrastructure-focused offices it created last year when it broke up the former Office of Acquisition and Project Management, according to a Government Accountability Office report published Tuesday. The agency “will establish specific outcome-oriented goals and performance […]

Amid the winter rainstorms that pounding California, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has temporarily curtailed all but essential activity at its experimental test site in the San Francisco Bay Area, a spokesperson said Tuesday. “Site 300 has been in minimum safe configuration Jan. 4-5 and Jan. 9-11, due to adverse weather and infrastructure conditions on […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management last month suspended heat up of a long-anticipated waste treatment facility at the Idaho National Laboratory after a small leak of “non-radioactive, non-hazardous solids,” was discovered, DOE said Tuesday. The suspension came Dec. 29, 10 days after beginning warmup to prepare for radiological operations at the Integrated […]

Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge plans this summer to hire a subcontractor to start site preparation for a new landfill to dispose of 2.2-million cubic yards of low-level waste at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, a federal spokesperson said Tuesday. “There are still several significant steps remaining,” before United Cleanup Oak […]

Alaron Nuclear Services, a Veolia affiliate, said in a Jan. 5 news release it has finished a project to double the rail capacity at its low-level radioactive waste transfer site in Western Pennsylvania. The Veolia Nuclear Solutions – Federal Services business said completion of the project enables up to 24 rail cars on the Alaron […]

As the company in charge of California’s last operating nuclear power plant seeks federal approval to operate the facility for an extra five years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is weighing whether to extend the plant’s license to store spent nuclear fuel on site. NRC is considering an application from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) that, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is adding about $10 million of work to the first phase of Nuclear Fuel Services’ contract to purify uranium for the secondary stages of nuclear weapons, according to a procurement note published Monday. The new work, which the nuclear-weapons agency did not describe in Monday’s sole source justification, brings the […]

More than 20 companies expressed interest to the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management in landing a slice of various nuclear remediation projects set aside for small business. Twenty-one signed up by Dec. 20 to be on an “interested vendors” list, for the Nationwide Deactivation, Decommissioning and Removal procurement, according to a DOE Environmental […]

The company in charge of decommissioning a shuttered Massachusetts nuclear power plant is pulling together the required information for a federal permit modification that would let the company discharge irradiated wastewater from the facility, a spokesperson said Monday. Holtec International, which is currently dismantling Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, is “preparing the modification request” for the […]