Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Three of the Department of Energy’s national laboratories are participating in an international survey aimed at testing the long-term effectiveness of safety systems that could be used in the storage of high-level radioactive waste, according to a press release Tuesday. Lawrence Berkeley, Sandia and Los Alamos (LANL) National Laboratories are working alongside Swiss national rad […]

Civilian reactors in Tennessee notionally will sharply increase their output of tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons by the fall of 2024 to help the National Nuclear Security Administration produce its desired 2,800 grams of tritium annually during the government fiscal year that begins around that time, officials said Wednesday morning. If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission […]

The final numbers for December confirm 2021 was a bounce-back year of sorts for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, which disposed of 21 more shipments of transuranic waste than during its first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., received 20 shipments […]

The former head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office is headed to the C-Suite of Westinghouse Electric, the company announced Tuesday. Rita Baranwal, assistant secretary for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) from July 2019 to January 2021, was appointed chief technology officer at Westinghouse, according to a press release dated Tuesday. In […]

A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge was scheduled to hear oral arguments next month on whether Kentucky-based Swift & Staley is too large to qualify for the Department of Energy’s three-year, $160-million small business set-aside contract for Infrastructure Support Services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. Judge Thompson Dietz planned to hear arguments Feb. […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security has nearly installed all the glove boxes for a new uranium purification process at the Y-12 National Security Complex and hot commissioning should start early next year, a spokesperson said recently. Site prime Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) put the electrorefining glove boxes and related equipment into Building 9215 last year, though installation […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s chief executive manager is retiring from the agency after nearly 40 years of service, the commission said in a press release last week. Annette Vietti-Cook, who became NRC’s secretary in 1982, is retiring from her role effective this spring, according to a press release dated Jan. 11. Brooke Clark, NRC’s deputy […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to address a perceived conflict of interest, raised by a Bechtel National-led team, about the agency’s November award of a potentially decade-long sites-management contract to a Fluor-led team, according to a letter from the Government Accountability Office. On Friday, at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) request, a source […]

Most staffers with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board don’t need to return to their pre-pandemic workplaces this month, a spokesperson with the federal safety watchdog said Tuesday morning. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is no longer requiring a return to work on Jan. 24, as earlier scheduled, “but is giving the staff […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management plans to award new contracts this year at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Moab uranium tailings site in Utah and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, the office said in its recent list of 2022 priorities. The biggest prize is the potential $45-billion, […]

Big nuclear weapons programs could be delayed if the government cannot agree on a 2022 budget and instead stretches last year’s budgets through the rest of the current fiscal year, the Air Force’s chief of staff said Wednesday in congressional testimony. Gen. C.Q. Brown, the Air Force chief of staff, said the service could lose […]

State and federal settlement talks about revamping the 2016 consent order for legacy cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico will continue into early April, according to a status report filed this month with a federal court. Representatives from the New Mexico Department of Environment (NMED) and DOE Office […]

The Tank-Side Cesium Removal project at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a key cog in the Department of Energy’s plan to begin bulk solidification of liquid radioactive waste there next year, could start up in January, according to a recent memo from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. “DOE Hanford is working with the […]

The Sandia National Laboratories have temporarily dropped a requirement that all employees be vaccinated against COVID-19, leaving only a pair of National Nuclear Security Administration-owned sites that require vaccination. While Sandia’s mandate is paused, “the discipline process for those employees who are unvaccinated, and processing of religious and medical accommodations are on hold,” a labs […]

To date, four Republicans have announced plans to run for Rep. Tom Reed’s (R-N.Y.) seat representing New York’s 23rd Congressional District, which includes the West Valley Demonstration Project, a nuclear site being cleaned up by the Department of Energy. After a former lobbyist accused the lawmaker of sexual harassment last March, Reed, who has served […]

Towing a popular line among industry and nuclear power advocates, executives at Exelon’s recently-named spin-off company Constellation said Wednesday that the federal government can’t achieve its climate objectives without giving nuclear energy a hand. “[I]f we bring in new renewables, and all they do is replace lost nuclear generation, we will be running in place,” […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will allow its employees to work remotely on a limited basis after the recent spike in omicron-variant COVID-19 cases, according to a recent memo from the agency’s operations department. NRC extended “additional flexibilities for project-based telework” to Feb. 26 from Jan. 15, according to a Jan. 6 memo to staff from […]

Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) wants Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm to provide details about a Department of Energy plan to bury certain nuclear waste, now at the Idaho National Laboratory, at the Nevada National Security Site. Titus said she was caught off guard by federal plans for the shipments from Idaho to the Nevada National […]

After the COVID-19 Omicron variant spread rapidly across the country this winter, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided to host an annual spring conference virtually this year, the agency announced Tuesday. Although NRC’s Regulatory Information Conference (RIC), scheduled for March 8-10, was initially supposed to be held as a hybrid event with some in-person attendance, […]

The White House on Tuesday officially nominated Marvin Adams to succeed Charles Verdon as the top weapons official at National Nuclear Security Administration headquarters in Washington, according to an evening press release. The White House sent Adams’ nomination to the Senate nearly a month after announcing its intention to make him the next deputy administrator […]

With the New Mexico Environment Department suing the Department of Energy over a 2016 consent order on legacy waste cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the head of an advocacy group last week questioned why the state is negotiating with the feds over remediation milestones. The New Mexico Environment Department has filed suit against […]

For now, top management at the Department of Energy still plans a phased return to onsite work for employees and contractors starting on Tuesday, Jan. 18. “Per DOE’s COVID-19 Workplace Safety and Reentry Framework, employees who are designated site critical will return to the worksite on Jan. 18,” a DOE headquarters spokesperson said in a […]

Holtec International has agreed to pay a six-figure fine for unspecified security violations at a nuclear power plant the company is decommissioning in New Jersey, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday. Holtec told NRC Jan. 7 that it intends to pay the $150,000 fine proposed in December for security violations at Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating […]

With only a single plant closure expected in 2022, the total generating loss in the U.S. attributable to nuclear energy should be relatively small this year, the Energy Information Administration forecast this week. The planned spring shutdown of Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Generating Station should represent around 5% of the country’s total power plant retirements in […]

In the latest rallying cry for an issue now back-burnered for a decade, the federal government’s independent technical experts on nuclear waste called on the Department of Energy to help forge a “long-term political commitment” to site a nuclear waste repository. “Successful repository implementation needs a legal framework that clearly describes the roles of the […]