Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

A half-dozen employees suing the operator of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee over a COVID-19 vaccine mandate have asked a federal court in Knoxville for two more weeks, until Jan. 4, 2022, to file their amended complaint. The plaintiffs filed their motion for the extension in the U.S. District Court […]

The head of the New Mexico Environment Department, James Kenney, supports a congressional committee’s call for the Government Accountability Office to examine practices at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office. Kenney wrote this week to the U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, who heads the Government Accountability Office (GAO), backing a request this month by […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission proposed fining Holtec International, Camden, N.J., $150,000 for unspecified security violations at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant that the company is decommissioning.  This summer, the NRC disclosed security violations related to spent fuel and falsified records about firearms at the shuttered plant in Lacey Township. “Holtec has 30 days to […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory paused enforcement of its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, a labs spokesperson told the Exchange Monitor Wednesday. “Enforcement of the mandate at LLNL is paused until further notice,” the Livermore spokesperson said. “However, our current COVID-19 safety controls remain in place. We’re currently at 580 total cases, our vaccination rate is approximately 90 […]

A nationwide injunction against contractor vaccine mandates should not apply to the management and operations contractor at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Fluor-led team said in Monday court filing. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) is a privately-held employer, the company said in a filing with the U.S. District Court in South Carolina, […]

As of early December, the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., had received 200 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste in 2021, beating the 2020 total of 192 shipments with weeks left to go in the calendar year, according to the mine’s website. In November alone, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) […]

If transferring spent nuclear reactor fuel from wet to dry storage was an Olympic sport, Holtec International would take home the gold — at least according to the company. In a Dec. 13 press release, the Camden, N.J., nuclear services company announced that it had completed spent fuel transfer at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station Dec. […]

The U.S. will cease exporting highly enriched uranium to overseas producers of the medical isotope molybdenum-99 in January, the federal government announced Monday. In the release, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said they jointly certified that there is enough molybdenum-99 (Mo-99)  in the world […]

The Joe Biden administration will nominate Texas A&M nuclear engineering professor Marvin Adams to be deputy administrator for defense programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration, the White House announced Wednesday.  Adams, if approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed by the full Senate, will replace Charlie Verdon, the last senior appointee left […]

The top federal manager at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site said Wednesday cleanup of the Plutonium Finishing Plant is basically finished, while a nuclear boss with the Washington Department of Ecology indicated there is a general agreement about future remediation needs at the former plutonium production hub. Those were a couple of major takeaways […]

Editor’s note: the following was adapted from remarks delivered Wednesday by retired Air Force Gen. Frank Klotz, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) from 2014 to 2018, in a virtual forum organized by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance Deterrence Center. The Exchange Monitor has abridged Klotz’s […]

Nearly all staff members at the nation’s top nuclear power regulator have been vaccinated against COVID-19, a spokesperson said Wednesday. 2,684 of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 2,836 employees, around 95%, are fully vaxxed as of Wednesday, an agency spokesperson told Exchange Monitor via email. NRC doesn’t track booster shots and isn’t required to, the spokesperson […]

The story “Top EM Official Expects Hanford Tank-Side Cesium Removal Startup in January” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Dec. 14, 2021] should have said the Tank-Side Cesium Removal project was built by subcontractor AVANtech and installed by contractor Washington River Protection Solutions.

A minerals company is fighting to stay involved with Texas’ lawsuit against a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel and wants the suit to stay in the Fifth Circuit, court papers filed this week show. Texas-based Fasken Land and Minerals, a longtime opponent of Interim Storage Partners’ proposed site in Andrews, Texas, argued […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office could find out soon if the administration of President Joe Biden will back a second trial run moving certain high-level radioactive waste out of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and disposing of it in a facility licensed for low-level waste. That was the word Monday from […]

A publicly-traded special purpose acquisition corporation is merging with NuScale Power, a developer of small modular reactors, in a move expected to turn NuScale, Portland, Ore., into a public company sometime in the first half of 2022. The acquirer is an Oregon-based subsidiary of Spring Valley Acquisition Corp., a special entity set up in the Cayman […]

The state of Illinois wants Washington to step up and save its economically-troubled nuclear power plants after the Prairie State’s multi-million dollar bailout bill expires, a state senator said Tuesday. “[O]ur hope is that this issue will be taken on at the federal level and that it will have an answer at the federal level,” […]

More than 90% of the federal employees and contract workers at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch have now been vaccinated against COVID-19, with more than 2,000 apparently still not taking the shot. “The vast majority of our [Environmental Management] EM workforce is vaccinated,” a spokesperson for the DOE Office of Environmental Management said […]

Groups led by BWX Technologies and Bechtel National have protested the National Nuclear Security Administration’s decision to award management and operations of the agency’s two main nuclear-weapons production sites to the Fluor-led Nuclear Production One.  The Government Accountability Office filed notices online Monday that Strategic Nuclear Operators — which web searches show shares an address […]

A private company’s plans to purchase and decommission two Michigan nuclear power plants took a step forward Monday, when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission provisionally approved the transaction, according to a new agency order. NRC staff approved the sale of Palisades Nuclear Generating Station and Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant to Holtec International from Entergy, […]

A former in-house federal inspector at a Virginia nuclear plant is facing up to five years of prison time after he was found guilty of intentionally falsifying inspection reports, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s inspector general announced Monday. Gregory Croon, NRC’s former resident inspector for the North Anna Power Station in Mineral, Va., pleaded guilty in […]

The Department of Energy’s cleanup branch announced Monday that Joel Bradburne is the new field office manager at the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office, after acting as the top boss for operations in Ohio and Kentucky since Robert Edwards retired at the end of July. “In this role he will oversee the deactivation and demolition of the […]

The top fed at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management expects the Tank-Side Cesium Removal project at the Hanford Site in Washington state to begin operating “within weeks.” Office of Environmental Management (EM) senior adviser William (Ike) White made the comment Monday during an online meeting of the chairs of the chairs of […]

An Aug. 8 experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility that dazzled scientists, weapons-focused and otherwise, has the National Nuclear Security Administration rethinking plans to focus the facility more strictly on nuclear-weapons work. The experiment did not create a sustained nuclear fusion reaction, but it did set a new record for energy […]

Citing COVID-19-related supply chain disruptions on the agency’s end, the Department of Energy has cancelled plans for Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., to operate a new uranium enrichment centrifuge at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, next year, the company disclosed Friday. Under a DOE contract awarded in 2019, Centrus subsidiary American Centrifuge Operating was […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: 13 – Environmental Management Advisory Board: Virtual meeting via Zoom. 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Anyone wishing to attend should register by 5 p.m. Dec. 6 by emailing Alyssa.Harris@em.doe.gov.  15-16 – The Hanford Advisory Board:  online Meeting starting at […]