Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to declare a federal emergency after the Hazelwood, Mo., school board voted to stop using a local elementary school near which radioactive contamination has been found from a Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program cleanup site. The Hazelwood Board of Education acted Tuesday night to close […]

The Department of Energy in December plans to start a competition for a long-term contract to purchase energy-dense uranium fuel, with an eye toward awarding a deal in July, the agency told prospective bidders last week. In slides briefed during an Oct. 13 industry day and published online subsequently, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy said […]

A hydrogen research contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal district court after being accused of filing false bills with the government.   Greenway Energy agreed to accept a plea agreement in proceedings before U.S. District Judge Terry Wooten in Columbia, S.C. and sentencing has been […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission may not wrap up a proposed series of amendments to its regulations for packaging and transporting radioactive waste for another two years or so, an agency official said during a webinar Wednesday. The current projected publication date for NRC’s proposed changes, which the agency has said would bring its oversight in […]

The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday denied a protest by a women owned small business seeking to overturn a $53-million award at the Y-12 National Security Complex to Sigma Science. Vector Resources — which lists its headquarters and mailing addresses in a pop-up business space in Erie, Pa., and a strip mall in Engelwood, Fla., […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is rolling out an Instagram account, the agency said in a press release Wednesday. NRC’s new account on photo-sharing social media platform Instagram will be used to post photos, videos and graphics to “provide a more creative approach to information regarding the NRC’s mission, with a focus on the skilled and […]

The Department of Energy expects it will be early 2023 before an Amentum-led contractor starts pretreating its third batch of low-level radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. An ongoing planned outage could take a few more months, a DOE spokesperson said by email Wednesday. That is longer than the agency’s characterization […]

In the nine months just ended, renationalization of the U.K. nuclear weapons complex cost Lockheed Martin’s Space segment more than three quarters of a billion dollars, the company reported Tuesday. Bringing the British weapons program fully back into the government’s arms dropped sales in Lockheed Space by some $865 million over the past nine months, […]

The Hanford Site in Washington state, the Department of Energy’s largest and most costly nuclear cleanup property, has been dubbed “Storm Ready” under a voluntary program with the National Weather Service, DOE said Tuesday. The National Weather Service program is meant to assist emergency managers at the former plutonium production complex beef up operations during […]

A recently-shuttered Michigan nuclear power plant that the state hopes to get running again will have new representation in Congress after November’s midterm elections. Until this year, the Covert, Mich., Palisades Nuclear Generating Station was located within the state’s sixth congressional district, represented by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.). Following a redistricting effort, the plant is […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants the Department of Energy to address by early January 2023 whether a contractor in Washington state is being rigorous enough in overseeing a system critical to solidifying liquid radioactive waste at the Hanford Site.  In an Oct. 6 letter from Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Chair Joyce […]

Congress should not authorize or fund a nuclear-tipped, lower-yield sea-launched cruise missile or save a megaton-class gravity bomb, the White House said again Tuesday. The message was part of a statement of administration policy about the Senate’s version of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which like the version of the annual […]

The Department of Energy intends in November to start up the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory, the federal agency told state officials. That was the target DOE’s Office of Environmental Management gave officials with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality on a conference call last week, Kim Custer, a senior […]

In news reminiscent of disclosure of radioactive contamination found at a school bordering the Department of Energy’s Piketon Site in Ohio, a citizens group in Missouri is citing a report of high levels of thorium and radium contamination on school grounds near a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cleanup site at the St. Louis Airport. […]

The story “This week” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Oct. 17] should have said that the two-day Hanford Advisory Board meeting starting this afternoon will be at the Three Rivers Convention Center, Room D 7016, West Grandridge Boulevard, Kennewick, Washington.

Although a Michigan nuclear power plant shut down earlier than expected, capacity losses from nuclear generation outages were lower this summer than they were the year prior, the government’s independent energy auditor said in a report last week. Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, which shut down May 20, removed around 770 gigawatts (GW) of electricity from […]

The Department of Energy could be prepared to start transferring control of the Savannah River Site to its semiautonomous nuclear-weapons agency in bits and pieces starting around 2023, a spokesperson at Washington headquarters said Monday. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), which owns the Aiken, S.C., site now, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), […]

The U.S. Department of Justice is opening a U.S. Attorney’s Office branch in Richland, Wash., near the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, Vanessa Waldref, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington said Friday. “The number of cases prosecuted by the Richland Division of my office has risen significantly over the last two decades,” Waldref […]

The Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Pike County, Ohio, which as of last month was the last nuclear cleanup property with indoor mask restrictions, no longer has a high local transmission rate for COVID-19. The transmission rate in the county surrounding the former gaseous diffusion plant is now medium, according to figures updated Friday […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup procurement office last week laid out what type of foreign ownership and control disclosures bidders should be ready to provide when pursuing contracts in the weapons complex. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center in a seven-page document detailed the Foreign Ownership Control or Influence review that contractors […]

One of two on-site facilities storing spent fuel from a California nuclear power plant can keep operating for another decade or so, the Golden State’s coastal land regulator said last week. The 12-member California Coastal Commission voted 9-0 Thursday to approve a 13 year extension on state permits for the storage pad, located at San […]

The Department of Energy and its prime contractor for the two main U.S. civilian nuclear-weapons production sites agreed in early October to end a contractual dispute before it escalated to court, according to a recently published decision. According to a notice dated Oct. 6 and published subsequently, attorneys for the Bechtel National-led Consolidated Nuclear Security […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week. 19-20: Meeting: Hanford Advisory Board meets in a hybrid session starting at 1 p.m. Pacific Time on Oct. 19 and then at 9 a.m. on Oct. 20. The session originates from the Three Rivers Convention Center, Room […]

An amendment to the Senate’s nearly $900 billion defense budget proposed for the 2023 fiscal year would, if made law, direct the Department of Energy to ensure that the U.S. civilian nuclear fleet can run on domestically-sourced fuel. Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.V.) proposed add to the Senate’s $847 billion version of the National Defense Authorization […]

State and federal agencies said in a Wednesday analysis that teardown and removal of old U.S. Naval submarine reactor prototype facilities at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory is the best remediation option. That is according to an engineering evaluation/cost analysis published for demolition of Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse and Aircraft Carrier 1st Generation […]