Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Parts of Centrus’ high assay, low-enriched uranium cascade at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio were ready to operate as specified in a sole-source contract with the Department of Energy, the company said Wednesday. The 16-machine AC100M cascade was ready to start up by March 31, a company spokesperson said in an email Wednesday, except […]

SUN VALLEY, IDAHO — Advanced nuclear companies hoping to tap into big pools of funding for their projects need to bring more than good ideas to the table, J.P. Morgan’s lead energy executive said here Tuesday. “I think, first and foremost, what people need to show us is that they have a company,” said Jay […]

Eleventh U.S. Court of Appeal oral arguments on a federal district judge’s order blocking the Joe Biden administration mandate that most federal contractor employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 will not be livestreamed Friday, but a recording should be posted online early next week, a court representative said Tuesday. Streaming of oral arguments before the Atlanta-based […]

The Department of the Air Force has designated the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent next generation intercontinental ballistic missile under development by Northrop Grumman the LGM-35A Sentinel. “The name Sentinel recognizes the mindset that thousands of airmen, past and present, have brought to the deterrence mission, and will serve as a reminder for those who operate, […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is extending the proposal deadline for a potential $120 million small business Technical Assistance Contract solicitation until April 25, the agency said this week. The prior deadline, from a request for proposals (RFP) issued last month, was April 18. But that conflicts with Easter, said one unidentified […]

The former head of the House’s energy panel won’t seek another term in Congress, he announced Tuesday. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) is retiring after a nearly 30-year stint representing Michigan’s sixth congressional district, he announced Tuesday during remarks on the House floor. “Thanks again to the people of my district who placed their faith and […]

The top-ranked U.S. general again touted his support for the low-yield, nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missile the Joe Biden administration wants to cancel, this time at the invitation of House Republicans during Tuesday’s Armed Services Committee hearing. Gen. Mark Milley’s position on the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile, SLCM-N, “has not changed,” the chairman of the Joint […]

The Joe Biden administration’s nominee to lead nuclear weapons programs at National Nuclear Security Administration headquarters was one of four nominees approved unanimously on Tuesday by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Marvin Adams got the nod from the committee just under four months after the White House announced Biden’s intent to install the Texas A&M […]

SUN VALLEY, IDAHO — The almighty dollar is the only thing standing in the way of Holtec International’s plans to build an advanced reactor at the site of a former New Jersey nuclear plant, the company’s CEO said here Tuesday. “The government is the one that has to step up” to help fund Holtec’s plan […]

The Department of Energy intends to terminate a $160-million Paducah Infrastructure Support Services Contract awarded to incumbent Swift & Staley in December 2020 and either re-compete or re-award the deal, the company said in a court filing Monday. Swift & Staley disclosed the impending contract cancellation in a filing with the U.S. Court for the […]

In a sealed opinion issued last week, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thompson Dietz ruled in favor of Virginia-based Akima-Intra Data, which had challenged whether Swift & Staley was suitably sized to win a $160-million Department of Energy landlord services contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. Swift & Staley on Monday appealed the […]

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, the deactivation and demolition contractor at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, should tighten up work control shortcomings that could endanger employee health and safety, according to a new Department of Energy analysis. While the contractor “generally meets the fundamental expectations” of safety requirements, it needs a comprehensive industrial hygiene effort to ensure workplace […]

Marvin Adams, the Joe Biden administration’s to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s defense programs from agency headquarters, has the support of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s powerful Republican ranking member.  Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) “expects to support this nomination when the committee votes,” a spokesperson for committee Republicans wrote Monday in an email.  Adams, […]

The decommissioning company aiming to purchase a Wisconsin nuclear power plant expects that the state regulatory reviewing the transaction should make a decision before the summer, according to a recent letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The Wisconsin Public Service Commission (WPSC) has received its final party briefings and won’t hold any more hearings on […]

SUN VALLEY, IDAHO — Young people are more interested in building out zero-carbon energy technologies like advanced nuclear reactors than addressing spent nuclear fuel storage, an advanced reactor company executive said here Monday. People under 35 are more concerned about “waste from a tailpipe” than they are about waste from nuclear power plants, X-Energy CEO […]

Another nuclear plant closure is partly to blame for a slight increase in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s proposed decommissioning budget for the 2023 fiscal year, the agency said in a budget justification document published Monday. Projected spending for NRC’s decommissioning and low-level waste program was up to around $23.9 million for 2023, according to the […]

The Joe Biden administration last week requested a budget of $41 million for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in fiscal 2023, an increase of $5 million over $36 million from the 2022 omnibus passed in early March. That 2023 request is about a 14% year-over-year increase for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). […]

With COVID-19 illnesses declining nationally, a United Steelworkers officer at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio wants Mid-America Conversion Services to reconsider an earlier decision to fire a handful of longtime employees who refused vaccination. United Steelworkers Local 1-689 is negotiating a new contract with Mid-America to replace the one that expired Jan. […]

NuScale Power, a developer of small modular reactors, has received a new $10 million injection of cash. That increases the amount of new investments in NuScale up to $453 million in the past few months. The new money comes from an eight-year-old San Francisco-based investment firm SailingStone Partners. SailingStone is a subsidiary of Houston based […]

SUN VALLEY, IDAHO — Nuclear executives and officials were set to gather here for four days for the Nuclear Industry Council’s (NIC) ninth Advanced Reactors Summit.  The annual meeting “will continue its focus on showcasing technology developers and advancing solutions on the cost and deployment timeframe of advanced reactors,” NIC said on the event’s webpage, […]

The Joe Biden administration is requesting nuclear legacy cleanup spending of $332 in fiscal 2023 for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a big jump from the $275 million in the final appropriation for fiscal 2022, passed only a few weeks ago. The $275 million in the current fiscal year […]

Construction of the 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is now 40% complete, an agency spokesperson said by email Wednesday. The project includes building a treatment facility, headworks facility, and a 3,000-foot pipeline connecting the two facilities.  “Crews are currently installing floors and walls at the treatment […]

Minority-serving institutions now have until April 8 to file expressions of interest with the contractor running the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, according to a procurement update Tuesday. The prior deadline was March 25 for Minority Serving Institutions, as defined by the Department of Education, to respond to the initial […]

A one-page Department of Defense fact sheet issued this week appeared to confirm that President Joe Biden would not declare a no-first use of nuclear weapons policy.  “As long as nuclear weapons exist, the fundamental role of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack on the United States, our allies, and partners,” reads the […]

A report on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s environmental justice efforts based on a months-long review process is ready for agency leadership to look over, a spokesperson said Wednesday. The environmental justice review team, led by Gregory Suber, deputy chief of NRC’s operating reactor licensing division, sent its findings to the commission Tuesday, an agency spokesperson […]

The sale of a Michigan nuclear power plant could be final before Independence Day so an anti-nuclear group and the state attorney general have only about three months to get a public hearing on the transaction with the NRC — which has yet to say yay or nay, an agency spokesperson said Wednesday. Hearing requests […]