Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission opened the door for history Monday when it approved a private company’s application to build what would be the only consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the U.S.. In a much-anticipated decision Monday, NRC greenlit Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in Andrews County, […]

The current trillion-dollar nuclear modernization regime is based on obsolete thinking that fails to consider the emerging nuclear danger posed by China, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said Monday at the virtual STATCOM Nuclear Deterrence Symposium. The U.S. is modernizing against “old requirements” developed with the assumption that China is a “lesser included case” […]

Nuclear power in Illinois may be getting a new lease on life after the state legislature voted Monday to approve subsidies for two economically-troubled power plants. The Illinois state Senate voted 37-17 Monday in favor of a bill that provides around $700 million in credits for the Byron and Dresden nuclear power plants. The subsidies, […]

A second draft of the Department of Energy’s Record of Decision to build a new on-site landfill for low-level radioactive waste at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is now expected in mid-October, the agency said late last week. Originally slated to appear this week, publication of the updated draft has been pushed back until […]

A liberal bloc of House lawmakers on Friday urged President Joe Biden to cut the nuclear weapons budget in fiscal year 2023.  In a letter led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the bloc of 29 U.S. representatives told Biden “to use the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to set a nuclear strategy that aims to […]

Westinghouse is bringing in a former Holtec Decommissioning International c-suite executive to take over its biggest business line, the company announced last week. Pamela Cowan, who was senior vice president and chief operating officer of Holtec’s decommissioning branch, will become president of Westinghouse’s Americas operating plant services unit, according to a press release published Thursday. […]

Preliminary figures show the liquid waste cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has roughly two-thirds of its workforce vaccinated against COVID-19, a spokesman said Friday. The numbers are not final because DOE certification of vaccination forms were not due until Friday, a spokesman for Amentum-led Savannah River Remediation […]

The sale of a Wisconsin nuclear power plant is getting more scrutiny, as a second decommissioning company got permission Tuesday to get involved in a review of the transaction. Dominion Energy already agreed to sell the Kewaunee Power Station to EnergySolutions, Salt Lake City, for decommissioning, but the Wisconsin Public Service Commission is reviewing the […]

The federal government needs to do more than just prop up existing nuclear reactors to achieve its climate goals, executives of a major nuclear non-profit and a labor union said in an op-ed Wednesday. Though the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) both “welcome” the Joe Biden administration’s trillion-dollar […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is still keeping its workforce at home as the COVID-19 Delta variant spikes infections across the country. NRC is following the Office of Management and Budget and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines for managing the pandemic, a spokesperson for the agency told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing via email Wednesday. […]

Mark Anthony will move to New Mexico from Lund, Sweden, where he directed construction of a multibillion neutron source, to lead the new plutonium infrastructure directorate at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the lab said this week. Anthony’s appointment, effective Nov. 1, follows a four-month search for someone to head the plutonium infrastructure directorate, which […]

The Department of Energy’s cleanup contractor at a uranium mill tailings pile near Moab, Utah has moved about 74% of the radioactive material to a disposal site 30 miles away, according to an update posted online this week. In August, North Wind Portage shipped 73,923 tons of tailings and debris from the former Atlas Minerals […]

The Department of Energy said Tuesday it plans a 90-day comment period concerning a proposal to grout up to 2,000 gallons of low-activity tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington and transport it out of state for final disposal. In an initial 14-day comment period on the Test Best Initiative that ended last Friday, […]

New nuclear arms-control agreements should focus on all Russian nuclear weapons, including those unrestricted by the New START treaty, and “pursue new risk reduction measures” with China to address Beijing’s “rapid and opaque nuclear buildup,” the new U.S. under secretary of state for arms control and international security said this week. Bonnie Jenkins, confirmed to […]

A bill on the Texas governor’s desk that would ban the storage of high-level nuclear waste has the support of a coalition of anti-nuclear groups, according to a Tuesday press release. Representatives of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition, Public Citizen and the Texas branch of the Sierra Club applauded the state legislature […]

A Louisiana nuclear plant that shut down as Hurricane Ida battered the state last week will soon resume normal operations, the utility company that owns the site said Tuesday. Entergy Nuclear has “completed all necessary internal readiness reviews and has received recommendations and approvals” from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart Waterford Steam Electric Station, […]

It was not clear exactly how many people showed up Tuesday in Los Alamos, N.M., to protest a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, though local media reported that they observed several hundred people, some of whom worked for the laboratory. The Local Los Alamos Reporter put the size of the crowd […]

Given the shrinking chances of Congress agreeing on fiscal year 2022 appropriations by the end of the month, the Joe Biden administration on Tuesday requested that any continuing resolution Congress passes to extend 2021 budgets protect the short-term operations of the Department of Energy’s uranium enrichment cleanups. As Weapons Complex Morning Briefing has reported, the […]

The head of Texas’s environmental regulation agency is staying for another term, the governor’s office said Tuesday. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Tuesday reappointed Jon Niermann to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), according to a press release. Now in his second term on the commission, Niermann can remain in his post until 2027, […]

The Amentum-Jacobs joint venture in charge of remediating the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee said Tuesday it will make vaccination against COVID-19 a condition of employment for its 2,000 workers. That makes the team the third DOE nuclear-site contract to mandate the vaccine, after contractors at the Savannah River Site in South […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Uranium Processing Facility will start up in August 2025, almost a year later than once anticipated but with months of margin to spare to reach full operational capability by the long-promised date of December 2025. That’s according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s DNFSB latest Oak Ridge site report.  […]

With two major Department of Energy nuclear site contractors having already announced plans to mandate worker vaccination against COVID-19, don’t be surprised to see others follow in coming days, sources told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. One industry source said Friday there is a good chance at least one more major limited liability corporation at a […]

Working closely with would-be opponents of nuclear waste repositories is important to getting such sites built, a panel of international nuclear experts said at a conference last week. “I think it’s very important to have informed critics [of nuclear waste],” Arne Kaijser, professor of technology and history at Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, said […]

Mike Nartker, a former communications director at the Department of Energy’s Office’s Office of Environmental Management is now chief of staff, according to a new organizational chart posted online last Wednesday. In the post, Nartker reports to DOE’s acting assistant secretary for environmental management (EM) William (Ike) White.  In addition to supporting White and principal […]

A group opposed to COVID-19 vaccination mandates and mask mandates in schools urged Los Alamos National Laboratory workers to show up Tuesday to protest lab contractor Triad National Security’s decision to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for all employees. The group, New Mexico Freedoms Alliance, urged Los Alamos employees to show up from 11 a.m. to 1 […]