Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

In what could be a reversal of fortune for Diablo Canyon Power Plant, the governor of California is weighing whether to bid on a federal bailout for the Golden State’s last operating nuclear power facility, he said last week. State Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) told the LA Times editorial board Friday that a bid on […]

A federal court could soon decide whether to hear the case of several Consolidated Nuclear Security employees who sued the Y-12 National Security Complex prime contractor in 2020 allegeding lost wages. Last week, the three employees, who seek to create a class-action lawsuit, filed a second amended complaint with the U.S. District Court for Eastern […]

The Cerro Pelado fire in New Mexico was only six miles from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory’s property as of 9:45 p.m. local time, the laboratory announced via its Twitter account (@LosAlamosNatLab) late Sunday. The fire is “pushing southeast” and no Los Alamos County evacuations are planned currently and a section of […]

Key claims in a lawsuit brought by residents living in the shadow of a former gaseous diffusion plant in Ohio are barred on various grounds, including the government contractor defense, current and former Department of Energy contractors for the Portsmouth Site said last week. Defendants Centrus Energy, Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth and others filed their motion April […]

03: Jacobs will report on quarterly earnings in a conference call with analysts at 10 a.m. Eastern Time.  03: Leidos will report on quarterly earnings in a conference call at 8 a.m. Eastern Time.  03: The Environmental Management Site Advisory Board chairs will hold a virtual two-day meeting starting at 10 a.m. Central Time at […]

A decommissioning company intervening in state-level proceedings necessary for EnergySolutions’ purchase of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant wants to drag out the process with last-minute contentions, EnergySolutions argued Monday. NorthStar’s April request to include Kewaunee Power Station’s annual decommissioning funding status report in the Wisconsin Public Service Commission’s (WPSC) review of the plant’s sale to […]

In a just-unsealed public version of a decision last month, a Federal Claims Court judge agrees Swift & Staley is too big to qualify for a new Department of Energy Infrastructure Support Services contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky because of its “negative control” of a joint venture doing similar work at the time […]

The Pentagon and the National Nuclear Security Administration are still “sorting out” exactly how many nuclear-weapon triggers the military needs and by when, the head of the civilian agency said in congressional testimony Wednesday. Law requires the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency to make 80 pits a year by 2030 — a goal the […]

Should the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state decide to grout much of its supplemental low-activity waste at an existing off-site facility, the process could start as early as 2027, a Savannah River National Laboratory official told a National Academies of Sciences panel Tuesday in Richland, Wash. Dan McCabe, senior scientist from the […]

Without fuel to keep it going, it will be difficult to keep the Palisades Power Plant open this summer as Michigan governor’s appeals to the federal government for a bailout, plant operator Entergy’s CEO said Wednesday. “The plant will have to stop operating in May, because we’ll be out of fuel,” Entergy CEO Leo Denault […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s fiscal year 2023 budget request includes everything permitted by the Joe Biden administration’s as-yet unpublished nuclear posture review, the Secretary of Energy said Wednesday in written testimony prepared for her first scheduled congressional budget hearing of the season. The nuclear-weapons steward’s 2023 request of $21.4 billion is around 3.5% higher […]

U.S. electricity generation from nuclear power plants fell behind output from renewable energy sources last year, the government’s independent energy auditor said Tuesday. Renewable energy sources, which include wind, hydropower, solar, biomass, and geothermal power, generated around 800 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity in 2021, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a report published […]

A facility the National Nuclear Security Administration is building to remove plutonium from the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., could arrive a little later and cost a little more than thought only a year ago, the agency wrote in its fiscal year 2023 budget request. Unspecified design changes recommended by site prime Savannah River […]

Brian Vance, the top manager for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, told a National Academies panel Tuesday “time is our common enemy” in cleaning up the most contaminated property in the weapons complex. “Maximizing risk reduction per dollar,” is key to addressing the 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste […]

Due to the “fits-and-starts” so far with demonstration of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, the Department of Energy plans to restart the facility’s final test run, which the agency now expects to last beyond the previously scheduled 50 days, officials at Idaho National Laboratory said Tuesday. “There really is no such thing as a 50-day […]

The Department of Defense wants to hire a new director for strategic deterrence and capability to oversee “efforts to modernize and sustain the nuclear deterrent,” according to a recent want-ad on the official federal jobs board. The director would be responsible for a swath of nuclear-weapons tasks that were once organized under the now-defunct post […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory appointed Evelyn Mullen executive officer for weapons, the New Mexico nuclear-weapons design laboratory announced Monday. In her new role, Mullen will be an “executive leader in the organization, with a focus on both tactical and strategic operational needs,” according to Los Alamos’ press release. She will report to Robert Webster, the […]

A Senate committee was scheduled Thursday to decide whether Kathryn Huff will get a chance to lead the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, according to a recent meeting notice.  When the White House announced its intention to nominate Huff to be assistant secretary for nuclear energy in January, the former assistant professor of […]

The company aiming to build an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Texas joined the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in calling for a state lawsuit to be kicked out of a federal appeals court, according to a new filing on the docket. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s arguments against Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed […]

Holtec International late last week withdrew some sharp criticism it made against the company selected to provide spent-fuel management services at a California nuclear power plant, framing its comments as a heat-of-the-moment reaction. Comments directed at Orano USA in an April 6 letter “reflected an emotional response in the immediate wake of the disappointing news,” […]

DNFSB taking advantage of closed-door meetings, according to report to Congress The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has made use of “Nonpublic Collaborative Discussions” on various issues since being given the option to use such private meetings in the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, according to a recent report. “The NDAA [National Defense Authorization […]

The Department of Energy has signed off on a $5.4-million task order for Four River Nuclear Partnership to build an emergency operations center at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to a procurement notice posted online Friday April 22. Construction is scheduled to start this year, according to the DOE Office of Environmental Management budget […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration seeks no funding for fiscal year 2023 for either a nuclear, sea-launched cruise-missile warhead or for previously planned alternations for the B83 gravity bomb, according to the agency’s full budget request for the year. The news follows the Navy’s disclosure last week that it would seek Congress’ permission to cancel […]

It is time for a federal district court judge in Washington state to toss out the amended complaint brought by more than 300 workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site who oppose mandatory vaccination against COVID-19, government lawyers said in filings last week. “Regardless of what procedural exhaustion requirements must be met to assert […]

Honeywell’s wholly owned subsidiary National Engineering and Technology Solutions of Sandia will be the prime contractor for the Sandia National Laboratories for another five years, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced Monday. The semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency said in a press release that it exercised five options on National Engineering and Technology […]

During the past week there were 23 confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 among the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s federal and contractor workforce, an increase of 10 from the prior week, according to a spokesperson. That is still lower than the 27 recorded two weeks earlier. As of Monday morning, there was no […]