Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning House appropriators unveiled, and the Joe Biden administration said it would sign, a bipartisan omnibus 2022 budget bill that would slightly raise budgets for Department of Energy defense nuclear programs. The measure also includes emergency aid for Ukraine, which Russia invaded on Feb. 24. Fiscal year 2022 ends […]

One of the three serving commissioners at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission went to bat for the agency’s proposed decommissioning rules change Tuesday at an annual regulatory conference. Commissioner David Wright, who in November voted alongside NRC Chairman Christopher Hanson to approve a set of rules updates aimed at lowering regulatory barriers for nuclear plant operators […]

Idaho-based North Wind Portage has received the green light from the Department of Energy to commence transition to its new Moab Remedial Action Contract, potentially worth $614 million over 10 years for cleanup of uranium mill tailings in Utah. “The transition task order may last up to 60 days,” a DOE spokesperson said by email […]

Over the next 10 years, the Department of Energy’s $7.6-billion Office of Environmental Management hopes to realize several of its long-desired objectives around the nuclear weapons cleanup complex. According to its Strategic Vision 2022-2032, published Tuesday by the Environmental Management (EM) branch, the feds expect to start converting low-level radioactive tank waste into glass at […]

PHOENIX — The Department of Energy planned to give some cash to communities interested in hosting a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel but the agency’s spent fuel czar declined to provide details during a panel discussion here Tuesday. DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy is “in the development phases” of a funding opportunity […]

PHOENIX — The final solicitations could be out in May for multi-billion-dollar contracts at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky, an agency procurement manager said here Tuesday. Aaron Deckard, procurement director for DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center, offered the assessment at the agency’s spring quarterly […]

The Department of Energy was eyeing an “easy fix” for the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit in Idaho, knocked offline Feb. 26 during the final demo run preceding treatment of nearly 1 million gallons of liquid radioactive waste, an agency official said here Tuesday. The long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) was processing a simulant, non-radioactive […]

There is not enough money in the world for the National Nuclear Security Administration to spend its way to making 80 plutonium pits a year by 2030, the general who commands U.S. nuclear forces told Congress Tuesday morning. “[W]e now know that we will not get 80 pits per year by 2030 as is statutorily […]

Autonomy is one of the nuclear regulator’s most important assets, especially where developing nuclear technology is concerned, the chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday at a virtual annual conference.  “In the past few years, as climate change and energy security have come to the fore as existential threats, many have rallied around nuclear […]

PHOENIX – The 2,100-plus attendees at Waste Management Symposia were asked upon registration to place a color-coded dot on their name badges to show their level of COVID-era comfort about personal space and handshakes. Then, when the conference began, attendees were asked to observe a moment of silence for Ukrainians being shelled by Russia’s army. […]

MOX Services, the contractor that was building the canceled plutonium facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, settled allegations of fraud with the government to the tune of $10 million, the Department of Justice announced Monday. The contractor paid to end the nearly three year-old litigation over federal claims that it submitted “false […]

PHOENIX — Holtec International’s proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel could be greenlit by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the coming months, the company’s government services lead said at an industry conference Monday. NRC could make a licensing decision on the Holtec site, proposed for Eddy County, N.M., by the second quarter of […]

PHOENIX — The nuclear industry has done its fair share to convince the public that private spent-fuel depots are safe, and the federal governments must now step up to the plate, the head of Westinghouse’s environmental services division said Monday. “If [the government] wants to stand behind a commercial site, they would have to take […]

PHOENIX— The Department of Energy’s $7.6 billion Office of Environmental Management is now responsible for only 15 cleanup sites, with the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York coming off the board. Meanwhile, DOE Environmental Management planned to sign a new collaboration agreement with the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority later today (Monday) at the 2022 […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration was recently searching for a new director for its office of enterprise project management, according to a want-ad posted on the federal government’s official recruiting website. According to the listing, the agency conducted interviews only for a month, from Jan. 21 to Feb. 22. The current occupant of the office […]

Todd Shrader, second in command at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management since 2019, is leaving the cleanup office for a clean energy job at the agency, according to an internal email sent Monday. Longtime DOE hand Candice Robertson will step in for Shrader on an acting basis, William (Ike) White, senior advisor […]

Nearly all of the commercial nuclear power reactors in the U.S. meet the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s highest regulatory standards, the agency said in a press release Monday. NRC has issued its 2021 performance reports to all 93 of the country’s operating nuclear plants, the commission said, and of those sites, 91 were in NRC’s highest […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: March 6-10 – Annual Waste Management Symposium. Phoenix, Ariz. IN PERSON. Professional networking for technical and business leaders in radioactive waste management, with appearances by representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy and foreign government officials. […]

A major U.S. industry group threw its weight last week behind a proposal to protect Ukraine’s nuclear power plants from military threat after a Russian assault at one such site put international regulators on alert. The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) “supports the creation of safe zones surrounding all nuclear power plants in Ukraine,” CEO Maria […]

This past week there were only 65 confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, down from 82 the prior week, according to an agency spokesperson. By comparison only a month ago, with the nation still experiencing a surge in the highly transmissible Omicron variant, there were 775 cases within […]

Top nuclear cleanup officials from the United States and the United Kingdom, along with the outgoing chief executive officer of Maryland-based contractor Amentum, were scheduled to kick off the annual Nuclear Waste Management Symposia Monday in Phoenix. The conference devoted to radioactive waste management and related topics is returning this year as an in-person event […]

A bipartisan bill introduced Wednesday in the Senate would prevent the government from using federal funds to develop privately-owned interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel, according to a press release. If it became law, the bipartisan legislation unveiled Wednesday by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) would bar the feds from using […]

Fewer people than five years ago want to share ideas about how to site a federally owned interim storage site for nuclear waste, a Department of Energy official told the federal government’s nuclear agency Wednesday. As of Tuesday, DOE had gotten just around 125 comments on its interim storage request for information (RFI) since the […]

In light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its seventh day, the Democratic controlled House and its Armed Services Committee are certain to authorize an increase in the defense budget for fiscal year 2023, the committee’s leader said Thursday. “It’s gonna go up,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the Armed Services chair, said in a […]

A New Mexico citizens group and the Department of Energy filed a proposed settlement agreement Tuesday with a U.S. District Court in a long-running legal fight over a 2016 consent decree governing legacy nuclear cleanup around the Los Alamos National Laboratory. A 33-page agreement outlining proposed changes to the 2016 “compliance order on consent” was […]

A federal judge in Knoxville overseeing litigation brought by a half-dozen employees refusing vaccination against COVID-19 at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has called for parties in the case to confer with him by telephone March 25. U.S. District Judge Charles Atchley Jr. issued an order Monday setting the scheduling conference in […]