Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Australia will modify an existing submarine design when it acquires nuclear propulsion under the new AUKUS trilateral partnership with the United Kingdom and the U.S., Canberra’s ambassador to the states said in a virtual presentation Tuesday. “We didn’t want to spend years playing around with a design and so with our American and English partners, […]

Editor’s note, 11/10/2021, 1:44 p.m. Eastern time. The story was corrected to show that Los Alamos is scheduled to complete the PF-4 decontamination and demolition subproject in fiscal year 2025.   A major subproject to clear out space for new pit-manufacturing equipment at the Los Alamos National Laboratory will cost about $530 million and finish […]

The Santa Fe-based Southwest Research and Information Center, a frequent critic of the Department of Energy’s operation of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, has appealed an Oct. 27 ruling by the New Mexico Environment Department authorizing completion of a new underground utility shaft at the transuranic waste disposal facility. Southwest Research Information Center (SRIC) attorney […]

After an Illinois climate bill bailed out two financially-struggling nuclear plants in the state, the utility operating the reactors said last week that their lifespans had been significantly increased. Byron Nuclear Generating Station’s Unit 2 reactor will run until 2046 and its Unit 1 reactor is slated to shut down in 2044, Exelon said in […]

In 2020, Dan Brouillette, then-President Donald Trump’s second energy secretary, allegedly violated the Hatch Act — the law that prevents public servants from campaigning for or supporting candidates for office, the special counsel said in a report Tuesday.  Brouillette and 12 other Trump administration officials were implicated in the findings. According to the report, Brouillette […]

As part of a foundation-shaking corporate split announced Tuesday, General Electric said its nuclear services arm will be managed by a future spin-off company focused on the energy sector. General Electric’s (GE) power segment will be subsumed into a new business “positioned to lead the energy transition” in early 2024, the company said in a […]

Before it even started, the Department of Energy on Tuesday cancelled a competition for a Savannah River Site management and operations contract worth billions, citing an increase of National Nuclear Security Administration nuclear weapons work at the site. “The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is indefinitely delaying the Final Request for Proposal (RFP) for the […]

Under current projections, the Department of Energy could process nearly all of the salt waste inventory from 43 high-level radioactive waste tanks at the Savannah River Site by 2033, the top official for the agency’s Office of Environmental Management there said recently. The 2033 date cited by Michael Budney, manager of the Savannah River Operations […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is still hammering the Department of Energy about a nearly decade-old recommendation to stiffen safety requirements at Savannah River Site’s Building 235-F to avoid a plutonium release from the aging structure.  In a Nov. 2 letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Joyce Connery, the board chair, praised DOE […]

Declining to block the lab’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, a judge ruled Monday that Los Alamos National Laboratory Employees who will not take a required COVID-19 vaccine and are unsatisfied with receiving unpaid leave as their religious exemption from the shot must hash things out with the lab in arbitration. Pending the outcomes of other lawsuits […]

An inspection at Holtec International’s headquarters found that the company violated some federal regulations in its spent fuel cask program, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a recent letter. In a letter to Holtec president and CEO Krishna Singh, dated Oct. 28 and made public Thursday,  NRC said its investigation team in May discovered three […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: November 9: Virtual event, Hudson Institute. What’s Next for AUKUS? A discussion with Ambassador Sinodinos. 12 p.m. Eastern time with the Australian ambassador. AUKUS us the trilateral partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States […]

After weeks of intra-party squabbling, a trillion dollar infrastructure package, with nuclear power subsidies intact, made it through the House Friday night and was awaiting President Joe Biden’s signature at deadline. The measure, which passed on a 228-206 vote in the House Friday night, is good news for financially-troubled nuclear plants. The version of the […]

Texas has “a strong leg to stand on” in opposing an interim storage facility planned there, according to an op-ed published Sunday by the Texas state lawmaker who sponsored the state’s recently-enacted ban on high-level nuclear-waste storage. With the passage of House Bill 7 in September, the Texas legislature “prevented radioactive waste of decommissioned nuclear […]

Bill Condon became the lead for Amentum’s Nuclear & Environment Business, replacing the recently promoted Jim Blankenhorn, and will quarterback the company’s pursuit of Department of Energy defense-nuclear site contracts, the closely held Germantown, Md., group announced. A longtime URS man who remained with the company through the AECOM years, Condon has more than 30 […]

This week, the Department of Energy will brief losing bidders about its rationale for awarding multi-billion-dollar nuclear-cleanup contracts to teams led by Amentum and BWX Technologies, a senior industry official said last week at the Radwaste Summit in Summerlin, Nev. The executive made the comments on the sidelines of the annual summit, sponsored by ExchangeMonitor […]

SUMMERLIN, NEV. — The Department of Energy should have a new 10-year authorization to continue operating the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico in place before 2024, the manager of the agency’s Carlsbad Field Office said Wednesday. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s (WIPP) current 10-year state license expired months ago and DOE will operate […]

Texas has until Dec. 13 to make opening arguments in its lawsuit against a recently-licensed commercial interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, according to a Wednesday filing in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. It’s the first major movement in the suit since early October, when the court accepted Interim Storage Partners (ISP) as […]

The parties to the Iran nuclear deal that traded sanctions relief for constraints on Tehran’s fissile materials program were to gather in Vienna on Nov. 29 for a seventh round of talks about bringing the U.S. and the Islamic Republic back into the deal, diplomats from some of those countries said Wednesday. Ali Bagheri Kani […]

The Pentagon expects China to have an arsenal of at least 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, according to a new report, with the U.S.’ top military official on Wednesday calling the pacing threat of Beijing a “really significant” challenge for the next 10 to 20 years.  The projected nuclear stockpile detailed in the department’s latest […]

Magistrate Judge Could Take Over Suit by ORNL Resisters Although a federal judge in Tennessee turned down a preliminary injunction for vaccine holdouts at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and contractor UT-Battelle has asked that the lawsuit be tossed, a federal magistrate could take over the case. On Tuesday, District Judge Charles […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission greenlit Wednesday a proposed rule aimed at streamlining the decommissioning process for nuclear power operators, the agency said in a statement. The newly-approved rule would implement “specific regulatory requirements” for reducing agency-mandated safety and emergency preparedness protocols at nuclear power plants that become unnecessary when the site is being decommissioned, NRC […]

Eleven employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state on Monday informed their bosses they have tested positive for COVID-19, according to an online advisory. The Leidos-led contractor, Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, which acts as a landlord or city manager for the former plutonium production complex, posted the development Monday evening on […]

FirstEnergy Corp. reached an agreement to refund $306 million to overcharged Ohio customers over the next four years, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio announced Monday.  The commission, which regulates electricity, water, gas and other utilities, supports the agreement but must still formally approve it, according to a press release. The agreement is between FirstEnergy […]

Members of United Steelworkers Local Union 1-689, working in deactivation and demolition at the Department of Energy’s former gaseous diffusion plant complex in Ohio, approved a two-year contract extension Monday with Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth. The local union’s president, Herman Potter, declined to provide a vote count. Turnout was light but those who did vote went “overwhelmingly […]

Leidos, the lead team member on the Hanford Site’s support services contractor, is offering employees who don’t want to take a COVID-19 vaccination the option of moving over to the commercial side of the business, CEO Roger Krone said Tuesday on a conference call. Based on vaccination cards turned into the company, Krone said Leidos […]