Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

New Mexico will hold hearings in the coming weeks about restarting excavation of a new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, the Department of Energy’s manager for the transuranic waste disposal site told state lawmakers in a virtual briefing Tuesday. Reinhard Knerr, the DOE’s manager of the Carlsbad Field Office that […]

The company in charge of decommissioning Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station submitted a proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requesting an amendment to fuel storage safety guidelines that would allow them to complete transferring spent fuel to dry storage by November, according to a filing published Monday. Nuclear services provider Holtec International, which is in […]

Managers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state received confirmation of six positive COVID-19 tests among its workers over the weekend. There were two positive cases reported at Hanford Friday evening and four more on Sunday, according to advisories, posted on a DOE operations website for Hanford run by a contractor. There […]

Here are some public events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the ExchangeMonitor staff is tracking this week. February 09 Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Briefing for New Mexico legislators. Virtual event. DOE Carlsbad Field Office and Nuclear Waste Partnership. 6:30 a.m. Mountain Time. Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Post-New START Arms Control: […]

A recent summary of talking points by the Joe Biden administration’s Department of Energy did not mention nuclear power as part of the 46th President’s clean-energy policy, which has taken center stage in the early days of Biden’s term. On the other hand, the messaging guidance from the DOE Office of Public Affairs, dated Feb. […]

The Las Vegas Sun urged local lawmakers to resume efforts to rename Las Vegas’ airport after Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the former majority leader and political hard-baller who helped block construction of a permanent nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. McCarran International Airport was named for Sen. Patrick McCarran (D), who represented Nevada in the […]

The New Mexico Court of Appeals has been briefed on a lawsuit brought by citizen groups challenging modifications made in December 2018 by the Department of Energy to the method used to calculate waste volumes at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, one of the parties said by email Sunday. The case is now […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will resume force-on-force inspections in March with new COVID-19 guidelines for social distancing during exercises and advance notice about virus conditions on site two weeks prior to inspections, the agency said in a Wednesday webinar. NRC officials from the agency’s security operations division said during the webinar that the agency will […]

The Department of Energy’s plans to kick off a public comment period next month on options for removing seven aging structures within the 200 West Area of the Hanford Site in Washington state. In a Monday announcement, DOE said these are “Tier 2” structures, meaning the facilities are chemically or radiologically contaminated due to Hanford’s […]

A year into the pandemic, the Department of Energy is officially in the market for routine COVID-19 tests for employees who work at the agency’s Washington area headquarters, according to a request for information posted Wednesday. “It is anticipated that testing and support services will be required for an initial six-month period, with additional 90-day […]

Jennifer Granholm, President Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Energy, easily cleared the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Wednesday with a 13-4 bipartisan vote, setting her on course for a floor vote that had not been scheduled at deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the chair […]

New Mexico’s state Senate Conservation Committee adjourned Tuesday without debating proposed legislation that would create a “radioactive waste consultation task force,” but the body is set to reconvene Thursday to tackle the issue.   The bill is one of 14 on the committee’s schedule this week. The body voted on only two of those 14 measures […]

A standard box of transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, stuck at a commercial site in Texas since 2014, has been approved for shipment to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. When that waste box is shipped there will be 74 remaining at Waste Control Specialists, Brian McGovern, […]

The Department of Energy and the prime contractor for the Waste isolation Pilot Plant on Sunday completed an early test of the long-idle 700-C fan, expected to augment underground airflow pending completion of a major new ventilation system.  Construction of the Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, meant to increase airflow to 540,000 cubic feet per […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) will leave the Senate Armed Services Committee and join the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, keeping intact an important legislative shield for nuclear sites in the Land of Enchantment. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) the majority leader, announced the committee assignments for the Democratic-controlled 117th Congress Tuesday on a call with the Senate’s Democratic […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has now confirmed a total of 243 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in the United States a little more than a year ago while the Hanford Site in Washington state is up to about 645 cases during the same period. That is […]

The New START nuclear arms-control treaty is officially extended through Feb. 5, 2026, giving the U.S. time to pursue more arms control agreements with Russia, and possibly with China, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Wednesday in a press release. “The United States will use the time provided by a five-year extension of the New […]

The. Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on Tuesday unanimously agreed to block FirstEnergy Corp. from collecting a virtually guaranteed profit of at least $102 million each year, to which the corporation was entitled under a controversial nuclear power bailout law passed in 2019.  Approval came swiftly after the Ohio Attorney General’s office and FirstEnergy on […]

A review of nuclear modernization is among the top items for Kathleen Hicks, if the Senate confirms her as Deputy Secretary of Defense. Hicks, 50, has been involved on the inside and outside of the Pentagon since 1993, most recently as a senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She […]

A group of environmentalists stopped trying to convince a federal judge to stop construction of the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., according to a recent court filing in a three year-old lawsuit. The plaintiffs — the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, and the […]

Los Alamos County, N.M., is awaiting the New Mexico Environment Department’s reaction to a Department of Energy plan for cleanup of contaminated land just outside the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Harry Burgess, county manager said by phone Monday. The DOE and legacy cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos submitted the plan on Dec. 21 […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission won’t reconsider a minerals company’s objections to the licensing of Interim Storage Partners’ proposed consolidated interim storage site in West Texas, according to a recent agency filing. According to Friday’s filing, the commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board threw out the most recent of three motions filed last year by Fasken […]

The Washington state Department of Ecology kicked off a 45-day comment period Monday on proposed changes to its permit for the Waste Treatment Plant being built by Bechtel at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. The state is inviting public comment until March 17 on the closure plan for the $17-billion facility designed to convert […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to approve Jennifer Granhom’s nomination to be President Joe Biden’s first secretary of energy. If the committee approves the nomination — and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), still the chair, expressed great reservation about supporting the Biden administration energy and climate policies […]

January 2021 came and went without an announcement from the National Nuclear Security Administration about the technology it prefers to use to build the next U.S. uranium enrichment facility.  The semiautonomous Department of Energy Nuclear weapon-weapon steward has a choice between the AC100 technology developed by Centrus Energy Corp. of Rockville, Md., and a smaller […]