Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The existing nuclear fleet is essential in giving the Joe Biden administration time to expand the capacity of renewable generating sources, the White House’s climate czar said Tuesday. Nuclear energy provides a “very stable baseload” of electricity generation, national climate adviser Gina McCarthy said at a virtual event hosted by the Columbia University Center on […]

A three-day New Mexico Environment Department hearing on the need for a new underground shaft for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant kicked off Monday with a lawyer for DOE saying the case is not about a life extension for the transuranic waste disposal site. The hearing is about efforts to “restore a […]

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), a reliable vote against the nuclear-modernization status quo in the House Armed Services Committee, told disarmament advocates Monday that the Joe Biden administration should pause development of the next U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile. It was one of two steps Garamendi said Biden should take as part of the administration’s nuclear posture […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory employees who can provide proof that they’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19 will not have to submit to mandatory random screenings for the viral disease, lab leadership said. In a May 17 email to employees, Kathy Segala, associate laboratory director for capital projects, said Los Alamos personnel can skip out on COVID-19 […]

Bechtel, Reston, Va., and Fluor, Irving, Texas, are leading separate bids for the potentially $10-year, $21.5 billion management and operations contract for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, people familiar with the competitive landscape said Monday. Amentum, Germantown, Md., is also in the mix as a partner, one of these people said. The Savannah […]

New York’s public service commission will vote on the proposed settlement between the state, Holtec International and Entergy over decommissioning of the Indian Point Energy Center on Wednesday, state attorney general Letitia James said in a recent court filing. In the Thursday filing, the state asked a federal judge for a little more time to […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 27 shipments of transuranic waste in April, which marks its busiest month since the COVID-19 pandemic started in early 2020. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) logged five months in 2020 when it received 20 or more shipments. October was the busiest month, […]

Here are some public events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: 2021 May 17 – Arms Control Association virtual meeting: Smarter Options on U.S. Nuclear Modernization. Includes remarks from Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), member, House Armed Services Committee. 2:00 p.m. – 3 p.m. Eastern time. Register […]

The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state should transport between 10 and 20 shipments of transuranic material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico starting in 2028. The vast majority (99%) of the defense-related transuranic waste now at Hanford’s central plateau, in the 200 West Area, will be hauled to the […]

Swift & Staley’s share of the Portsmouth Site’s infrastructure services contractor helped make the company ineligible for a small-business set-aside contract at Department of Energy’s Paducah Site, according to a ruling made public this week by the Small Business Administration. Swift & Staley’s annual receipts alone did not push it past a $41.5 million size […]

The Joe Biden administration will start its nuclear posture review soon and work on it into the fall, there’s no new Minuteman III life-extension study at the Pentagon and bad welds on some missile tubes won’t delay delivery of the first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, witnesses testified late Wednesday before a Senate Armed Services panel. […]

The National Academies of Science are putting together a panel of experts to look at the thoroughness and technical quality of a recent analysis done by the Department of Energy national laboratories on supplemental treatment options for low-activity tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Nominations are due by May 21 via this […]

With just over two weeks left in the session, the Texas state Senate has not yet debated a suddenly controversial proposal to ban storage of high-level nuclear waste in the Lone Star state. The Senate-side version of H.B. 2692, introduced in March by state Rep. Brooks Landgraf (R), is still listed on the state Senate’s […]

The president of News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) Glenn Morgan is leaving his post with the legacy cleanup contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and taking a job with Huntington Ingalls Industries. “I wanted to let you know that I have been called upon to fill a corporate position for […]

Nuclear services company EnergySolutions is adding another decommissioning project to its portfolio with the purchase of a long-shuttered nuclear power plant in Wisconsin, according to a press release Wednesday. Dominion Energy, the current owner of Kewaunee Power Station in Carlton, Wisc., signed a definitive agreement to sell the plant to EnergySolutions, according to the Wednesday […]

An April 16 staff report by a federal watchdog questions if the Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration have fully learned lessons stemming from a drum breach and radiation release that shut down the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico in February 2014. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) […]

The Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee was scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday evening on the budget needs and posture of U.S. nuclear forces. Vice Adm. Johnny Wolf, the Navy’s director of strategic systems programs, and Gen. Timothy Ray, commander of Air Force global strike command, are the scheduled headline witnesses. The hearing will […]

A swap of common shares for preferred shares led to a $2.2-million first-quarter loss for Centrus Energy Corp.’s  common shareholders, as revenue rose across the board, the Bethesda, Md.-based nuclear fuel reseller and enrichment technology developer wrote in its latest quarterly earnings report.  Centrus’ net income was $5.1 million for the three months ended March […]

Generating loss resulting from the retirement of nuclear power plants will be offset this summer by “a return to more normal operations” at existing reactors, the Department of Energy’s energy statistics agency said in a new report Tuesday. In their summer 2021 electricity industry outlook published Tuesday, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecast that generation […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied a request for a new rule that would establish a framework for restarting retired nuclear reactors, according to a notice published last week. There’s not enough industry interest in a regulatory framework to reauthorize operations at retired reactors, NRC said in its denial of a 2018 petition for a new […]

The Department of Energy was scheduled to brief a local agency-chartered advisory group on Wednesday about plans for a new landfill at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.  A DOE draft record of decision is expected in July on the proposed Environmental Management Disposal Facility, designed to handle low-risk construction material from building demolition at […]

Early in-person voting started last week and runs through May 29, for the June 1 special election in New Mexico’s Congressional District 1, which is home to the Sandia National Laboratories. The seat was vacated by Rep. Debra Haaland (D), she was confirmed as the Joe Biden administration’s secretary of interior on March 16. The […]

Ex-Sandia National Laboratories employee Joshua Cordova has pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud and now awaits a sentencing in the U.S. District Court for New Mexico after allegedly ripping off the government for somewhere between $75,000 and $140,000, according to a plea agreement filed last week. Cordova, who helped train military, law-enforcement and emergency […]

As part of a flurry of Department of Energy appointments on Monday, the Joe Biden administration made nuclear engineering professor Kathryn Huff the acting head of DOE’s nuclear energy office. Biden appointed Kathryn Huff principal deputy assistant secretary for nuclear energy, second in command at the DOE office that oversees research on nuclear energy and […]