Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is now part of a utility company’s board of directors, according to a press release Monday. Kristine Svinicki, who was the top regulator at NRC from 2017 to January, was elected to Southern Company’s board effective Sunday, the company said in a press release dated Monday. Svinicki […]

The Savannah River Site’s management contractor requires employees seeking a medical exemption from a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination to submit a certified form from their doctor, while those seeking a religious waiver might have to be interviewed and file supporting documents from a minister. That is according to Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) documents distributed to […]

After various problems hamstrung the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for most of August and September, the disposal facility only took in three shipments of transuranic waste last month, all of which arrived Sept. 30. A combination of problematic underground conditions and a brief uptick in COVID-19 cases prompted DOE […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is “targeting” fiscal year 2026 as the startup date for a new facility at the Savannah River Site that will process 34 metric tons of surplus weapon usable plutonium for disposal in New Mexico, an agency official told advisors to South Carolina’s governor on Monday. That’s two years earlier than […]

The Department of Energy now expects the Salt Waste Processing Facility built by Parsons at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina will treat roughly four million gallons, rather than six million gallons,  during its first full year of operation, an agency official told the state Nuclear Advisory Council Monday. Parsons finished hot commissioning of […]

Early steps in the decommissioning of the long dormant SM-1 reactor at the Ft. Belvoir Army base in Virginia will begin in November, the Army Corps of Engineers announced recently. The Corps of Engineers plans to “mobilize limited site crew” in early November to start prepping SM-1 reactor in Fairfax County for dismantlement, according to […]

A federal nuclear waste agency will take a look at some the Department of Energy’s recent research into long-term geologic storage of radioactive waste in November, according to a press release Monday. During two days of public meetings starting Nov. 3, representatives from DOE’s national labs will present to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board […]

SHINE Technologies, Janesville, Wis., got $35 million through a cooperative agreement with the National Nuclear Security Administration to help produce the molybdenum-99 medical isotope in the U.S. without relying on highly enriched uranium, the agency announced Monday. This was the third of four agreements planned under a funding opportunity Congress ordered the National Nuclear Security […]

Despite the dismissal of some workers who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the Department of Energy and its contractors at the Savannah River Site do not currently expect big personnel shortages in fiscal 2022, federal officials told the Nuclear Advisory Council to South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday. Of the total 1,056-member workforce […]

A New Mexico state judge declined to block the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s management and operations contractor for enforcing its COVID-19 vaccine mandate and other measures to reduce COVID-19 transmission on site, local media reported Friday. More than 100 Los Alamos employees had sued the lab’s operations contractor, Triad National Security, in the First Judicial […]

The company in charge of a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Texas is getting involved in the state’s federal suit against the proposed site, according to recent court filings. A judge in the U.S. fifth circuit court of appeals allowed Interim Storage Partners (ISP) to intervene in Texas attorney general Ken […]

The Department of Energy will solicit more public input this fall on plans for a new low-level waste landfill, the Environmental Management Disposal Facility project, at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, before issuing an updated draft of its record of decision in December, according to an agency spokesperson. The DOE Office of Environmental Management […]

“In the Dark of the Valley,” a documentary about the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, is scheduled to air nationwide on the MSNBC cable network on Nov. 14 at 10 p.m. Eastern Time, the Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles and other groups announced recently. The documentary film explores a 1959 nuclear accident involving a commercially-owned sodium […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: October 18 – Meeting: South Carolina House of Representatives SRS and ARPA Appropriations Ad Hoc Committee. 11 a.m. Eastern time. South Carolina Statehouse Blatt Building, Room 110. Testimony of the Office of Regulatory Staff. Streaming online.  […]

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission team conducting an environmental justice review of agency practices will give members of the public an update on their progress next week, the agency announced recently. The review team, spearheaded by Gregory Suber, the head of the agency’s operating reactor licensing division, will host its second virtual public comment session Oct. […]

Personnel at the Savannah River Site should wrap up commissioning of transuranic waste characterization equipment by March, in time to get a shipment of proliferation-resistant plutonium-oxide mixture shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant next summer, a site spokesperson said Wednesday. Testing and certification of the transuranic waste-characterization equipment at the site’s recently completed K-Area […]

A hearing was scheduled Thursday in a New Mexico court as part of a lawsuit in which 34 identified employees have asked a state judge to block Los Alamos National Laboratory’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate a day before they could be fired for not complying with it. The hearing was on the slate for 8:00 a.m. […]

The Department of Energy has selected one new member and reappointed five current members to the Paducah Citizens Advisory Board, the agency said recently in a press release. Eric Butterbaugh, an analyst for a computer firm, is the new appointee and will serve a two-year term. The five incumbent members receiving a new two-year term […]

The proposed nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missile might yet survive the Joe Biden administration’s nuclear posture review thanks among other things to the reported discovery of new Chinese missile silos, the official who coordinated the Donald Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review said Wednesday. “I thought perhaps at the beginning of this process that this particular weapon […]

A former Sandia employee who pleaded guilty to ripping off the labs for tens of thousands of dollars or more worth of merchandise is still fighting with the government over the exact value of the ill-gotten goods — a figure that could mean an extra two months in prison, or not, court papers show. Joshua […]

A member of the South Carolina legislature from Aiken, Rep. Melissa Oremus, (R), urged Gov. Henry McMaster (R) to help stop planned firings of holdouts who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site. Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the Fluor-led management contractor at the federal complex along the Georgia […]

A pump-and-treat system that captures groundwater contamination near radioactive waste tanks inside the Hanford Site in Washington would be expanded under a joint interim record of decision announced Wednesday by state and federal agencies.  The interim decision for groundwater operable units in Hanford’s 200 East Area — 200-BP-5 and 200-PO-1 — was issued jointly by […]

A legal dispute over the Department of Energy’s issuance of a landlord services contract for the Paducah Site in Kentucky to Swift & Staley, is apparently still percolating at the Small Business Administration’s Office of Hearings & Appeals. Late last month, Judge Thompson Dietz of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims granted another party in […]

A decommissioned U.K. cargo vessel that once helped ship weapon-usable plutonium to the U.S. from Sweden has been completely recycled, ship operator Nuclear Transport Solutions announced this week. The INF3-class Oceanic Pintail, a 3,865 metric-ton (4,260 U.S. tons) vessel, was decommissioned in Scotland by Dales Marine Services of Leith near Edinburgh, Scotland, said Nuclear Transport […]

The parties involved in a federal court case aimed at blocking a recently-licensed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel could still be litigating through next summer, new court filings show. If a judge in the D.C. circuit court of appeals approves a draft schedule filed by the parties Tuesday, final briefings in the suit […]

An anti-nuclear watchdog group pressed Pennsylvania’s utility regulator Tuesday for more information about its ongoing investigation into water use at the shuttered Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station. Docketed records, communications and work notes are among the trove of documents Three Mile Island Alert wants from the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission’s (PUC) investigation into water […]

The Department of Energy’s prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has completed removal of 157,000 tons of salt mined from Panel 8, clearing the way for emplacement of transuranic waste there once Panel 7 is full in April 2022, the agency announced Tuesday. While electric power, phones and equipment such […]