Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The newly-appointed second-in-command at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, Jeffrey Avery, will formally assume his new job next month, a spokesperson said Monday. Avery, most recently director of regulatory and security affairs with the Office of Naval Reactors, is already listed as principal deputy assistant secretary or EM-2, in the latest org […]

Sam Brinton, hired over the summer to lead the Department of Energy’s efforts to find a disposal solution for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel, was fired from the agency following multiple accusations of felony theft, according to reports. Brinton was removed from their post as DOE’s deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition, […]

After the Environmental Protection Agency last week threatened to throw the book at Holtec International over proposed wastewater discharges from a Massachusetts nuclear power plant, the decommissioning company is preparing a response, a spokesperson said Monday. Holtec will “respond accordingly” to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Dec. 5 letter reiterating concerns about the company’s proposal […]

The White House last week announced that nuclear risk management expert Nathan Siu will head up the government’s independent nuclear waste technology auditor, according to a press release. The Joe Biden administration appointed Siu, who was previously a senior technical adviser in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s risk analysis division, as designated chair of the Nuclear […]

Department of Energy contractor Swift & Staley is ineligible for the $160-million landlord contract awarded at the Paducah Site in Kentucky two years ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said Monday, only days after oral arguments in the protracted case.  The “per curiam” or unanimous decision, was issued in a one-page […]

A communications outage at the Los Alamos National Laboratory that began over the weekend was unresolved at portions of the lab as late as early Monday morning, according to the lab.  “The Laboratory experiences a communications outage over the weekend due to a fiber-optic cable cut near Santa Fe which impacted cellular and internet services […]

The incoming Bechtel National prime for the Departments of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico expects to get most of its hiring done by mid-January, according to the new contractor website. “We are working diligently to complete the majority of the hiring activities by mid-January and declare readiness to perform operations by late […]

Former Miamisburg, Ohio mayor and a founding member of the Energy Communities Alliance, Dick Church, has died at age 81, the advocacy group for Department of Energy localities said Friday. Church “was a founding member that led the organization through transition and helped it grow from an idea into an organization that works for and […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 13: Press conferences and panel discussion on “Major Scientific Breakthrough by NNSA National Laboratory.” Washington, D.C. Media only, invite only. Event begins at 10:00 a.m. Widely rumored to be the reported net energy gain said to […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security is in the early stages of returning a facility at the NNSA’s Pantex Plant in Texas to active explosive testing. In October, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board noted the effort to reclaim the facility after 30 years of inactivity following a contamination event. Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) spokesman Jason Bohne confirmed […]

A Hanford contractor and the U.S. Department of Labor agreed for the company to pay 151 Hispanic job applicants $157,621 for not complying with federal non-discrimination regulations, Labor announced last week. In a press release and other records, the federal department said Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) discriminated in 2019 against Latino applicants to become […]

Samuel Brinton, the Department of Energy’s recently-hired head of nuclear waste policy, has been implicated in another alleged theft, this time at a Nevada airport, according to documents obtained by the Exchange Monitor. Brinton, who has served as DOE’s deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition since June, was accused of grand larceny […]

The U.S. will not allow Australia’s submarine forces to have “capability gap” between the time the island nation retires its diesel-powered submarines and deploys nuclear-powered subs powered by technology provided by the U.K. and the U.S.  “[W]e will not allow Australia to have a capability gap going forward,” Austin said at a press conference after […]

Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton was set on Friday to assume command of the interagency forces that carry U.S. nuclear weapons. Cotton, now commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, will take over from Admiral Charles Richard, who has led U.S. Strategic Command since November 2019. Richard will retire from active duty, Strategic Command said. […]

Communities interested in receiving federal funding to explore hosting an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel now have through January to apply, the Department of Energy announced Wednesday. The deadline for DOE’s roughly $16 million interim storage funding opportunity is now Jan. 31, the agency announced in a Tweet Wednesday. Dec. 19 had been […]

A building slated to become a key cog in the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plutonium pit-production complex is taking longer than expected to be authorized to hold enough plutonium for its new mission, a spokesperson said Tuesday. The Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building (RLUOB) should be recategorized as a hazard category 3 nuclear facility by March 2023, […]

An anti-nuclear group looking to block decommissioning of a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant may get a chance in the new year to argue its case before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to agency correspondence. NRC’s Atomic Safety Licensing Board planned to hold a 90-minute oral argument session on Three Mile Island Alert’s (TMIA) petition against […]

A two-year legal fight comes to a head Thursday with a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., set to consider if incumbent Swift & Staley was too large to qualify for a $160-million small business contract it won in December 2020 at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky. Sometime after 10 a.m. Eastern […]

The company in charge of decommissioning a shuttered New York nuclear power plant forecast that it could finish moving the facility’s spent nuclear fuel inventory into dry storage early next year, according to regulatory filings. Holtec International, which is dismantling Indian Point Energy Center, has told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission it expects spent fuel transfer […]

Maryland-based Amentum has hired a former Cavendish Nuclear boss, Loren Jones, to lead its national security group’s international business line, Amentum said in a Tuesday press release. Jones joined Amentum this month as managing director and senior vice president of the Amentum security group’s international business. He will head nuclear, security and environment business for […]

The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority wrapped up most spent fuel reprocessing during 2022, one of the major advances for the agency charged with cleaning up the kingdom’s early nuclear sites, according to a new report. The U.K. National Decommissioning Authority (NDA) “strategy is to bring the reprocessing programme to an end,” according to the […]

A compromise National Defense Authorization Act released late Tuesday would authorize the National Nuclear Security Administration to spend some $880 million more than requested, more than the House or Senate had proposed individually. The bill also authorizes almost $7 billion, $100 million more than requested, for defense environmental cleanup: the largest account in the Department […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration extended Los Alamos National Laboratory management and operations contractor Triad National Security for five more years, through Nov. 1, 2028, the agency announced Tuesday. In the third such mass-extension this year for a nuclear-weapons site contractor, the agency picked up five one-year options on Triad’s contract simultaneously.  Triad includes team […]

The Department of Energy is planning to open up its second round of bailouts for economically-troubled nuclear power plants in the new year, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. DOE is preparing its next round of funding under its roughly $6 billion civil nuclear credits program, greenlit in November 2021 under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs […]

Long-idled design work resumed this summer on the high-level waste portion of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. After August workshops, prime contractor Bechtel National and DOE created what they call the “HLW [High Level Waste] Firm […]

Congressional leaders said they still wanted to pass the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act before Republicans take control of the House in January, but partisan maneuvering over issues unrelated to Department of Energy nuclear-weapon programs have held the bill up. The House Rules Committee was scheduled Monday to set the terms of debate for the […]