Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 26 shipments of transuranic waste during June, according to its public website. Eight were received from the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee but the rest traveled from the Idaho National Laboratory. During the first half of 2021 the underground disposal site had at […]

A state utilities regulator will look into water usage at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant undergoing decommissioning after an environmental watchdog group sounded the alarm, according to a recent email from the regulator. The Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission’s bureau of investigation and enforcement will review “certain uses of water” at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station’s […]

As part of a largely stay-the-course fiscal year 2022 budget, DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state would get a little more money than requested for liquid waste cleanup while the National Nuclear Security Administration would get less money than requested for some smaller warhead and bomb development programs. The full House Appropriations Committee was scheduled […]

The Texas county slated to host a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel was scheduled to discuss the issue in a meeting Thursday and, according to one stakeholder, potentially resolve it. The Andrews County, Texas Commissioners’ Court will convene at 3:00 p.m. Central time “for a discussion and possible resolution” regarding Interim Storage […]

Since starting up in October, the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has processed 1 million gallons of radioactive tank waste, plant builder Parson wrote this week in press release. The 140,000-square-foot Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is the center of DOE plans to empty 36 […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission could grant licenses to a pair of proposed commercial interim storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel in the next six months, the commission’s chairman told Congress Wednesday. The NRC should make its final call on Interim Storage Partners’ proposed site in west Texas should in September, Christopher Hanson, the NRC chair, […]

Senior officials from the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, and the states of Oregon and Washington, were scheduled to discuss radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington today during a virtual meeting of a National Academies panel. The Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board of the National Academies was slated to hear […]

President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration is one of many political appointees for key national defense posts whose confirmation votes have been blocked in the Senate, multiple people have told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.  Some of these people told the Monitor this week that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) had held […]

With COVID-19 vaccines now widely available in the U.S., federal agencies including the Department of Energy are supposed to set plans by Monday to return personnel to offices. The White House Office of Management and Budget gave federal agencies until July 19 to “finalize their phased plans for reentry and post-reentry,” according to a June […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission hopes the two vacant seats on its executive committee won’t be gathering dust for too long, the agency’s head told Congress Wednesday. “I think we work best when we have a full complement,” said NRC chair Christopher Hanson while testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday afternoon. Currently the […]

Despite a shortfall so far compared with the agency’s goals for 2021, disposing of transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory continues to be a high priority for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a federal manager told the New Mexico Legislature’s Radioactive & Hazardous Materials Committee Wednesday. The federal agency had […]

The Department of Energy this week publicly released its long-delayed draft Record of Decision for a proposed new landfill to handle low-level radioactive waste from building demolition at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The 350-page draft on the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, dated June 22, now will undergo a 60-day review, by the Tennessee […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday it completed the first production unit of a refurbished submarine-launched nuclear warhead, setting the stage for a mass-production run that could begin early next year and which will fit the weapon with a new detonation system rated for 30 more years at sea. Workers at the Pantex Plant […]

Christopher Hanson was scheduled to testify Wednesday before a pair of House subcommittees about the Nuclear Regulatory’s 2022 budget request, power plant decommissioning and nuclear waste management. The joint hearing of the House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee and climate change subcommittee was scheduled to air on the committee’s website at 11:30 a.m. Eastern time. […]

Another attempt by a nuclear watchdog to halt the sale of Three Mile Island “falls woefully short” of review guidelines set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the company in charge of the plant’s decommissioning said in a new filing. NRC should toss Three Mile Island Alert’s July 1 motion to reopen proceedings on the sale […]

There has been no big retirement spike among federal employees at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office during the COVID-19 pandemic but officials who spoke at a virtual hearing Tuesday fear that could change.  The assessment was offered by William “Ike” White, acting assistant secretary for environmental management, in response to a question from […]

The Savannah River Site has been running a four-shift glove box operation at its main plutonium-disposal program in the site’s K-Area for a little more than a month now, a site spokesperson said Tuesday. The Aiken, S.C., site ratcheted up to four shifts from two on June 1, the spokesperson wrote in an email to […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is holding a long-anticipated virtual public hearing today on ongoing safety issues for tritium production and other work at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Witnesses listed on the agenda include the acting assistant secretary for the DOE Office of Environmental Management, William “Ike” White […]

The Joe Biden administration “may be moving” to start its inquiry into a possible host state for a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, the chair of the House’s energy spending panel said Monday. “I believe we provided enough authority in the bill for [a consent-based siting inquiry] to move forward …  and […]

The story “House Appropriators Propose Small Increase for Nuclear Weapons Cleanup” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, July 12, 2021) should have said that the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee’s fiscal year 2022 Department of Energy budget proposal would provide a little more funding than requested for nuclear weapons cleanup in fiscal year 2022. The […]

A coalition of more than 30 citizen groups, called the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, wants President Joe Biden to nominate a Department of Energy assistant secretary for environmental management committed to cleanup and environmental justice, according to a Monday letter. Whoever gets picked to run the $7-billion-plus DOE Office of Environmental Management must have a […]

The relatively flat National Nuclear Security Administration budget proposed by a House appropriations subcommittee on Monday “short changes” the national defense, the panel’s ranking Republican said Monday. The bill’s proposed “increase of less than 1% for the Weapons Activities does not even keep up with inflation,” Rep. Mike Simpson(Idaho), the ranking Republican on the House […]

Some 240 people were set to go on strike at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California over what the union called the management’s refusal to negotiate terms of a mandatory on-call policy for some craft workers. The Society of Professionals, Scientists and Engineers Local 11 – University Professional and Technical Employees, Communications Workers of […]

It only took the House Appropriations Committee’s Energy and Water subcommittee about 20 minutes Monday to bless an almost $7.8-billion fiscal 2022 budget proposal for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Following a voice vote, the panel chaired by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) sent the proposal on to the full House Appropriations Committee […]

Although the Environmental Protection Agency is taking a fresh look at the facility, the draft Record of Decision on a proposed 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill for the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is still expected later this month, a state spokeswoman said Friday. “Currently it is on schedule and no extensions have been […]