Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

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 […]

A New Jersey power plant undergoing decommissioning needs to shore up its spent fuel inventory security procedures, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found in a recent site inspection. NRC logged three physical security violations at Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station during an August inspection of the plant’s independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI), according to a […]

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved about $425 million in funding above the president’s request for nuclear-weapons infrastructure in fiscal year 2022 — money that corresponding appropriations bills would not yet allow the National Nuclear Security Administration to spend. The authorized funding came from an amendment to the committee’s 2022 National Defense Authorization […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not be published on Monday, Sept. 6, 2021 in observance of the U.S. Labor Day holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Tuesday, Sept. 7.

The sponsors of a proposed bill banning the storage of high level nuclear waste in Texas, which passed the state Senate Wednesday, are using a parliamentary gambit to get the law on the books before the federal government can license a planned interim storage facility in the Lone Star State. After unanimously passing the Texas […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would have to report to Congress about the benefits of competitively awarding management and operations contracts for nuclear weapons sites by March 1, if the House’s version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act becomes law. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who holds the seat recently vacated by longtime Armed Services […]

A public meeting is set for 5 p.m. Mountain Time today as the New Mexico Environment Department reviews plans by the Department of Energy and its prime contractor for two new underground disposal panels at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad. The Amentum-led Nuclear Waste Partnership, which includes BXW Technologies, will present information on […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state lifted a take cover order about four hours after workers detected strange odors Wednesday morning in the 200 West Area of the cleanup complex. Crews investigating reports of odors near the Reduction Oxidation (REDOX) plant found no evidence of radiation or a chemical release near the […]

For the second review period in a row UCOR, the Amentum-Jacobs cleanup team at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, is pocketing 98% of its potential fee from the Department of Energy. The contractor earned 100% of its almost $7.9 million potential fee for the first half of fiscal 2021, from Oct. 1, 2020 through […]

Construction of plutonium pit factories should continue more or less as planned for another year-and-a-half, until the Joe Biden administration wraps up a nuclear posture review and the Savannah River Site delivers a baseline cost estimate for a pit factory there, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee said Tuesday.  “We are sort of […]

An anti-nuclear watchdog’s agency-level effort to halt the sale of a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant is dead to rights after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted it down Tuesday. The three NRC commissioners voted unanimously during a Tuesday meeting to nix Three Mile Island Alert’s petition to reconsider the sale of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating […]

Overall, Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth claimed $30 million, or 85% of a potential $35.3 million in total available fee, for its work at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site for an 18-month period ending March 31. The Fluor-led contractor earned $7.4 million or 70% out a potential $10.6 million in subjective fee, according to the scorecard from […]