Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Department of Energy has extended by one week, until 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Aug. 1, the bid deadline for the Portsmouth Paducah Project Office Operations and Site Mission Support Contract, potentially worth $2.9 billion over 10 years. The earlier deadline for proposals was today for the contract that includes conversion of depleted uranium […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: 24-28 – Institute for Nuclear Materials Management, Virtual Annual Meeting. No in-person participation. Registration required and to be available here. 25: The Savannah River Site Citizens Advisory Board in South Carolina starts a two-day meeting at […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is preparing to lease office warehouse and storage space in northern New Mexico and Colorado, according to a notice posted online late last week. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency is considering leases within a 150-mile radius of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to an environmental impact […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments said it will investigate the radioactive contamination in January of some Triad National Security employees at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility. The facility is in the early stages of an overhaul and expansion necessary for the lab to annually produce 30 war-ready plutonium pits […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is trying to kickstart a solution to U.S. nuclear waste storage problems, usurping Congress’ constitutional authority in the process, an anti-nuclear group argued Wednesday in its lawsuit over commercial interim storage. Beyond Nuclear’s Wednesday comments to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals were the latest in the anti-nuclear group’s ongoing struggle […]

The legacy cleanup contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in August plans to start the site’s largest radioactive waste extraction effort in more than a decade, a company executive told a federal advisory board Thursday. Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) vice president Joe Legare said in August the contractor […]

National utility Entergy is considering working with Holtec International to build advanced nuclear reactors at existing generation sites, the nuclear services company announced Wednesday. Entergy and Holtec have entered into a memorandum of agreement under which the utility will “evaluate the feasibility” of deploying small modular reactors (SMRs) at one or more existing sites within […]

A federal district judge in Eastern Washington this week approved an unopposed request allowing the Department of Energy another year-and-a-half to start solidifying certain radioactive tank waste into glass and other work for the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant. The ruling Tuesday by Senior U.S. District Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson means DOE and contractor Bechtel […]

In a few years, the Department of Energy could make its practices for categorizing hazards found in nuclear facilities a formal federal rule, the agency wrote in a recent letter to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. DOE would not begin the rulemaking until 2025 at the earliest, according to the June 27 letter to […]

The full House on Wednesday approved a fiscal year 2023 Department of Energy budget bill that provides more or less the requested funding for DOE’s nuclear weapons and waste programs and a small increase over the request for nuclear energy programs.  The 2023 Energy and Water Appropriations Act, part of a package of six spending […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 30 shipments of transuranic waste during June, making it one of the busiest disposal months since the COVID-19 pandemic reduced in-person operations at DOE nuclear sites in March 2020. Of the 30 shipments last month recorded on a Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) […]

Bill Tindal retired as chief executive officer of Consolidated Nuclear Security, the Bechtel National-led management contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two main nuclear-weapons production sites, a company spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. “We shared with employees yesterday that Bill has retired,” the spokesperson said. Gene Sievers, site manager for Y-12 National Security Complex, is now […]

With no major defense-nuclear amendments allowed on the floor, the full House appeared poised this week to approve fiscal year 2023 spending bills for Department of Energy nuclear weapons and waste programs that would meet the White House’s request. The full House of Representatives, where Democrats have a slim majority, started debate Tuesday on a […]

The Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has lifted the indoor mask order it reinstituted earlier this month, a DOE spokesperson said Tuesday. That is thanks to the fact the COVID-19 community rate for Los Alamos County returned to “medium” on Friday July 15, after being “high” days earlier, the DOE […]

Like the U.S. Department of Energy, the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is in the market for local communities open to hosting an underground disposal facility for radioactive waste. “Our mission goes beyond existing sites,” David Peattie, CEO of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said in a recent annual report for 2021-2022. The NDA is […]

A Senate committee had to delay its plan to vote this week on the White House’s picks to fill two open seats on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the panel announced Tuesday. Although the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee was scheduled Wednesday to consider Annie Caputo and Bradley Crowell for roles as two of NRC’s […]

Joel Duling will resign as president of BWT Technology’s mainstay Nuclear Operations Group effective July 29, the company wrote in a regulatory filing dated Monday. Duling informed the company of his decision on July 12, according to the 8-K filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.  “Joel Duling is retiring from BWXT to pursue other […]

New Mexico’s traditional summertime monsoon rain season has dramatically lowered the risk of wildfires around the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory lately, a federal safety board said in a recent update. “Recent monsoonal rain events have increased moisture levels and lowered the wildland fire risk,” the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Monday released all the unclassified details of its fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, showing lawmakers in that chamber disagree with their House counterparts on little except by how much to exceed the White House’s request for construction of a new plutonium pit factory in South Carolina.  The […]

The liquid waste contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site said Monday it had processed more than 366,000 gallons of liquid waste in the Tank-Side Cesium Removal system, which prepares waste for solidification in the nearby Waste Treatment and Vitrification Plant that DOE hopes to switch on in 2023. That was according to a […]

The U.S. Department of Justice filed written arguments last week saying a federal appeals court should uphold a lower court’s decision that Swift & Staley failed to meet size limits for a set-aside landlord contract at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky. Kentucky-based Swift & Staley, on the other hand, wants the U.S. […]

The New Mexico chapter of a prominent environmental group voiced its opposition over the weekend to Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s recent recommendation that the commission license a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the state. The Sierra Club’s Rio Grande chapter joins New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) in her fight […]

Australia’s defense minister said recently he hopes the AUKUS agreement will create a “seamless” defense industrial base among the U.S., U.K. and Australia as the first two countries work to help the third acquire nuclear propulsion technology for attack submarines. In meetings with U.S. officials “we’ve been specifically talking about how we can have our […]

A district court in Japan last week ruled top executives at Tokyo Electric Power Co. are personally liable for 13 trillion yen, the equivalent of (U.S.) $95 billion, in connection with the meltdown of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Mach 2011 following a powerful tsunami, news organizations reported. A key finding in the ruling was […]

The Department of Energy confirmatory test run for the much-anticipated Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory will likely end around the end of the month, a state official said Friday. “The [Integrated Waste Treatment Unit] continues to run and will do so for approximately two more weeks,” Kim Custer, a senior hazardous […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: 18, week of – House Rules Committee amendment process: 2023 appropriations bills including the energy and water appropriations act that will fund the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, Office of Environmental Management and other agencies. Time to be announced. […]