Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Department of Energy could have its own interim storage facility to store U.S. spent nuclear fuel within a decade or so, the Office of Nuclear Energy’s newly-minted head of waste disposition said during a webinar Monday. “We will have a federal interim storage facility within the decade, if not fifteen years, with a consent-based […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration planned to start work on a competition for a pair of new contracts to manage its main nuclear-weapon sites in 2023 and 2024, the agency said Monday. In the meantime, Oct. 1 marked the official start of big-money extensions to Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS), the Bechtel National-led incumbent at the […]

The Department of Energy is asking state regulators for another six months to start operating a plant to treat high-level radioactive sodium-bearing waste at the Idaho National Laboratory. In a Sept. 29 letter, DOE asked the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality to extend the formal state milestone to March 31, 2023 to process sodium-bearing waste […]

Subcontractors could begin building a planned plutonium pit factory at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., by Dec. 31, the site’s prime contractor said Monday in a press release. “Construction is expected to begin before the end of this year,” the Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions wrote in the release. “Approximately 2,500 skilled craft […]

The Senate will hold its next votes on Nov. 14, leadership announced Thursday, meaning the upper chamber won’t consider its version of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act until after the midterm elections. However, debate will begin on the annual, must-pass defense-policy bill on on Oct. 11, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) […]

As it prepares a second round of funding under a program aimed at propping up the aging U.S. nuclear fleet, the Department of Energy said in draft guidelines Friday that the upcoming bailouts need not be limited to plants facing imminent closure. The second round of DOE’s civil nuclear credits program “does not restrict eligibility […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office said last week it is again issuing a five-year, $2.5-million grant to Ohio University to further redevelopment work at the Portsmouth Site in Pike County, Ohio. Since 2016, the university has received $8.2 million from the DOE Office of Environmental Management to advance stakeholder cleanup information and evaluate […]

Oak Ridge, Tenn.,-based Navarro Research & Engineering has hired Susanna Waters as director of business development, to work with environmental and nuclear customers at NASA, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. Waters has more than a decade of relevant business development experience, Navarro President and CEO Susana Navarro said in a September […]

October 03: Meeting: The Northern New Mexico Site Specific Advisory Board meets in hybrid session starting at 1 p.m. Mountain Time. In-person meeting at the Hotel Don Fernando de Taos, 1005 Paseo Del Pueblo Sur, Taos, New Mexico 87571. To attend send an email by Sept. 28 to Menice B. Santistevan, menice.santistevan@em.doe.gov. 03: Meeting: Oregon […]

The full Senate was set to vote Thursday on a temporary budget bill for fiscal year 2023, setting up most Department of Energy nuclear programs to continue operating with this year’s budget through Dec. 16. On Tuesday, Senators voted 72-23 to invoke cloture on the bill that will become the continuing resolution, removing a procedural […]

Tropical storm conditions are possible Friday around Aiken County, S.C., and the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, according to the National Weather Service. Wind gusts of up to 32 miles per hour are expected today with showers possible, according to today’s forecast. The chance of precipitation is 90% Friday and rain is expected to […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management should bring in an outside entity to gauge the effectiveness of the overhauled procurement strategy implemented in 2019 to improve its multi-billion-dollar nuclear cleanup operation, the Government Accountability Office said Wednesday. The head of DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) should also develop specific performance goals for […]

Expedited spent fuel removal is underway at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, now that the agency has decided not to recover high-enriched uranium from the L-Basin storage area, a manager told a federal advisory board Tuesday. “We just kept recovering and kept recovering … and we did not have a […]

The company in charge of decommissioning a former Vermont nuclear power plant aims to load and store the last of the facility’s low-level waste next month, according to a Wednesday statement from its CEO. NorthStar, which is in the process of dismantling Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, “anticipates being able to load the Greater than […]

The Maryland couple whose shoddy spycraft got them arrested for trying to sell nuclear submarine secrets to a foreign power again pleaded guilty for their alleged crimes on Tuesday, deciding not to face a jury after a federal judge threw out their first plea deal. The Washington Post reported that both Jonathan Toebbe and his […]

Management at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site is participating in daily calls about Hurricane Ian with emergency officials for the state of South Carolina, a spokesperson at the federal complex said Tuesday. “Site resources have been identified and will be available to respond to any potential site hurricane impacts,” the spokesperson said via […]

The head of the Department of Energy field office overseeing the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., expects the facility to finish fiscal 2022 with 225 shipments of transuranic waste, short of its target of 299. As of Aug. 29, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) has received 217 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste […]

Kimberly Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, admitted last week to all hands at the California nuclear-weapons design lab that she had been arrested for driving under the influence and speeding. Budil, the first woman to run Livermore, has been director of the younger of the two U.S. weapon-design labs for about a […]

A federal district court judge in Tennessee has told litigants to resume mediation in a case involving a half-dozen employees suing the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory contractor over its COVID-19 vaccination policy. In an order Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Atchley, Jr. said he is not enthused about going forward with […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not have a schedule for when it will address a recent request from the state of Nevada aimed at reopening, and eventually ending, the agency’s licensing proceedings for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, a spokesperson said Tuesday. Although Nevada’s Sep. 20 request is in front of NRC’s five-member […]

Due primarily to COVID-19, Los Alamos National  Laboratory believed it could take a year longer than expected for the the lab to casting 10 plutonium pits annually in New Mexico, according to an internal document. A redacted copy of the Los Alamos-authored document, dated September 2021 and released by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) […]

The Senate Tuesday evening advanced a continuing budget resolution that, if made law, would avert an impending government shutdown and keep federal funding at 2022 levels. The stopgap budget, which on Tuesday, by a 72-23 margin, the upper chamber agreed to vote on later this week, would largely keep federal spending at the levels set […]

The company in charge of decommissioning a former Massachusetts nuclear power plant said Monday night that, if it decides to follow through on a controversial plan to release irradiated wastewater from the facility, it will do so early next year. The earliest time “under consideration” for discharging water from Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station would be […]

The Department of Energy plans to ink a contract extension by Friday with the management and operations manager for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, an agency executive told a federal advisory board Monday. “A new contract should be signed sometime this week because Sept. 30 is approaching fast,” said Jimmy “Mac” McMillian, DOE […]

Organizations within the National Nuclear Security Administration bureaucracy are reviewing a draft cybersecurity directive the agency wrote after a third-party review, the weapons steward told the Government Accountability Office last week. The semiautonomous Department of Energy weapons agency planned to issue a final supplemental directive, titled Baseline Cybersecurity Program, by April 30, according to the […]