Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The company decommissioning a shuttered Vermont nuclear power plant ran slightly afoul of federal guidelines for such facilities, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a recent letter. A November inspection at Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station revealed a regulations violation of “very low security significance,” NRC told plant operator NorthStar in its letter, dated Dec. […]

The New Mexico Environment Department on Tuesday kicked off a 60-day comment period on a 10-year permit renewal for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, with the state fighting the federal government’s attempt to keep the mine’s closure date open-ended. The DOE has said it needs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission met recently with Holtec International to discuss the agency’s concerns about the company’s proposed use of a shuttered New York nuclear power plant’s dedicated decommissioning fund, a regulatory filing shows. According to a summary of NRC’s Nov. 2 call with Holtec, published Monday, the nuclear services company gave the agency a […]

A Veolia affiliate has started operating its new GeoMelt vitrification facility in Andrews County, Texas that will be used to convert certain low-level radioactive wastes into a solid glass form, according to a Tuesday press release. In June, Veolia Nuclear Solutions Federal Service formally dedicated the GeoMelt facility at the Waste Control Specialists site in […]

The Nevada National Security Site plans to allow subcritical experiment packages back onto the hoist leading to the U1a underground experimental complex in the spring, a site spokesperson said Wednesday. After an active desert monsoon season in August and September, the Nevada site discovered some muck at the bottom of the entrance shaft to the […]

The long-running, closed-door talks between Washington state and federal agencies over future cleanup of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site are continuing, a Washington state Department of Ecology spokesman said Tuesday. “Holistic negotiations are still ongoing,” Ryan Miller, communications manager for Ecology said in a Tuesday email response to an Exchange Monitor inquiry. “The parties […]

Right in time for Christmas, the National Nuclear Security Administration put Nuclear Fuel Services under contract to produce uranium metal for nuclear weapons programs, according to a procurement note published Monday. The agency’s announcement Monday moves Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS), a BWX Technologies subsidiary in Erwin, Tenn., into new work on the sole-source contract the […]

The outgoing prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., earned 66% of its subjective fee and about 72% of its total potential fee for its work during fiscal 2022, according to a fee scorecard released Tuesday. In a Dec. 20 letter to Nuclear Waste Partnership’s president and project […]

Thanks to emergency funding from Congress, the Department of Energy’s civilian nuclear power program will get about what the White House asked for in 2023 under a proposed spending plan unveiled by congressional appropriators early Tuesday morning. Under usual 2023 appropriations, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) should get around $1.5 billion from the spending […]

Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions claimed 82% of its subjective fee and 87% of its total potential fee for its tank management work at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state for the 2022 fiscal year, the agency reported Tuesday. Also on Tuesday, DOE officials at Hanford issued the latest fee performance documents […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch would see its annual budget swell to nearly $8.3 billion, or $359 million than the $7.9 billion it received during fiscal 2022, under an omnibus 2023 spending bill released Tuesday. It’s the same figure the Senate Appropriations Committee recommended this summer after the House approves the $7.9 billion […]

WATERFORD, CT — Congress probably will not allow the Department of Energy to build an interim storage site for nuclear waste any time soon, one of Capitol Hill’s foremost advocates for spent fuel solutions said here Tuesday. Federal law passed as part of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act says the Department of Energy has to […]

WATERFORD, CT — The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy will begin looking for a new head of spent fuel and waste disposition soon, the head of the office said here Tuesday. DOE plans to open applications for deputy assistant secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition “in the coming days,” Assistant Secretary of […]

The Hanford Site in Washington state and other Department of Energy nuclear facilities in the northern United States could see single-digit temperatures and cold winds in the days leading up to Christmas, according to forecasts from the National Weather Service. For example, the Richland, Wash., area, where Hanford is located, could see a Wednesday night […]

Responding to a scathing letter from the government’s environmental regulator, the company in charge of decommissioning a Massachusetts nuclear power plant insisted Monday that it was not planning to discharge irradiated wastewater from the facility in violation of a federal permit. In a Monday letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Holtec International sought to […]

Civilian nuclear weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration will almost all get year-over-year raises in excess of what the White House requested under an omnibus 2023 spending proposal released early Tuesday morning. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency would get about $22.2 billion under the bill: some $750 million more than requested […]

The company in charge of decommissioning a shuttered Michigan nuclear power plant said Monday that it would make another attempt to restart the facility via a federal bailout scheme. Although it had previously tamped down the possibility that it could participate in the second round of the Department of Energy’s civil nuclear credits program, a […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Nimble series of subcritical experiments in Nevada should wrap up in fiscal year 2024, about a year later than the California nuclear-weapons lab once planned. The Nimble series “is scheduled to be complete later in FY23 & early FY24” a lab spokesperson wrote in an email on Monday, referring to government […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board could be left without a quorum within 10 months if President Joe Biden fails to nominate and win Senate approval of at least one individual before the term ends for a long-serving member. It increasingly appears 2022 will draw to a close without the White House nominating anyone to […]

The U.S. and Kenya signed a memorandum of understanding about civilian nuclear cooperation, the U.S. State Department announced late last week. The two countries now have what is formally known as a “Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Strategic Civil Nuclear Cooperation,” according to State’s press release, dated Thursday. The memorandum does not indicate any immediate transfer […]

Inching forward with plans to dispose of surplus plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the National Nuclear Security Administration plans public hearings after New Year’s on its just-released draft environmental review of the project, the agency said Friday. The nuclear-weapons agency on Friday released a draft environmental impact statement about its planned Surplus Plutonium […]

The Department of Energy last week issued a task order for Jacobs-led Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership to continue with shipment and destruction of legacy R-114 refrigerant, better known under the brand name Freon, from the Paducah Site in Kentucky. Four Rivers, which also has Fluor and BWX Technologies on its team, received its $16 million […]

The Senate could vote this week on a short-term federal funding extension and soon after that on the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, leaving a long-term 2023 spending bill as the last domino to fall before the 118th Congress begins in January. In the Department of Energy, both the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) active […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday that it has lifted some environmental quality assurance requirements for a shuttered California nuclear power plant now that decommissioning work at the facility has wrapped up. In its Oct. 11 order, announced in a Federal Register notice Wednesday, NRC exempted Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) from regulations that required […]

A contractor readiness review at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state has concluded the Liquid Effluent Retention Facility is about ready to start operations as a hazard category 3 nuclear facility, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report. The readiness review that occurred in Novemebr is designed to check to […]