Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Energy Department is extending the public comment deadline from Sept. 26 until Nov. 27 on a plan for on-site disposal of vitrified low-activity waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Aug. 6 notice from DOE did not cite a reason for the 60-day extension. The agency on May 26 started taking comments […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management expects to stay busy with procurements during the remainder of 2020. The nuclear cleanup office intends to roll out up to six final requests for proposals (RFP) between now and December, according to a quarterly update posted Monday by the Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center. The Energy Department […]

A building at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico used for performance tests on non-nuclear nuclear-weapon components opened back up for its regular work schedule Monday, following a a COVID-19 deep-cleaning. Sandia announced last week that one person in Building 720, home of the Ion Beam Laboratory, tested positive for COVID-19, the respiratory disease […]

The United States must find an innovative solution to its growing inventory of radioactive waste even as it takes steps to strengthen its nuclear power sector, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said Wednesday. Whitehouse focused his comments and questions on the waste issue during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Chairman John Barrasso’s […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said this week it plans to conduct a new, broad environmental review of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Livermore’s last such review, officially known as a site-wide environmental impact statement, was in 2005. The new review will cover operations for the next 15 years. In that time, […]

Waste Management Symposia (WMS) said Wednesday it has selected industry veteran Susan Walter as managing director, in charge of planning the nonprofit organization’s annual conference in Phoenix. Walter’s appointment takes effect immediately, according to a press release. She succeeds Jan Carlin, -who stepped down in May after more than two-and-a-half years in the position. “We […]

The Department of Energy on Wednesday kicked off procurement of the next Savannah River Site management and operations contract with a request for information from industry about the award that will fund the Aiken, S.C., facility’s biggest nuclear-weapons programs. The agency will sort out the value, duration, and exact form of the contract after hearing […]

A day after the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico had mostly reopened Building 823 after a case of COVID-19 among its workforce, the Department of Energy facility had to close down Building 720 after the disease caused by the novel coronavirus 2019 popped up there as well. Building 720, which houses the Ion Beam […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will be published on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the ExchangeMonitor’s publishing recess in the second and third full weeks of August. The regular daily publishing schedule will resume on Monday, Aug. 24.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week preliminarily cited NextEra Energy with violating federal regulations in mischaracterizing a shipment of radioactive waste from its Point Beach Nuclear Plant in Wisconsin. The incident would constitute a “White” breach, representing low-to-moderate increased safety significance, according to an Aug. 3 letter to Michael Strope, site director for NextEra Energy […]

The Senate overwhelmingly approved Mark Menezes as deputy secretary of energy on Tuesday, despite opposition from some nuke-wary Democrats. The 79-16 vote elevates the current undersecretary of energy to the No. 2 position at the nuclear weapons, waste, and energy agency, though Menezes’ swearing-in had not been announced at deadline Wednesday. All but two of the […]

Air Force and Navy service members aboard an airplane on Tuesday remotely launched a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile with three unarmed warheads from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. “A joint team of Air Force Global Strike Command Airmen and Navy sailors launched an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile equipped with three test […]

Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) comfortably won over 50% of the vote in a Tuesday top-two primary for the congressional district covering the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site. Newhouse received 50,599 of 89,274 votes in the 4th Congressional District primary, 56.7% of the total, according to unofficial results from the Washington state Secretary of State. He […]

Leidos on Tuesday posted higher sales and earnings in its second quarter, driven by two acquisitions earlier this year and a payment related to patent infringement, more than offsetting higher than expected negative impacts from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Net income increased 13% to $153 million, $1.06 earnings per share (EPS), from $136 million ($0.93 […]

Uranium fuel broker and enrichment-technology developer Centrus Energy posted a profit in the second quarter, rounding out a profitable first half of 2020 in which a major enrichment demonstration contract with the Department of Energy helped stabilize revenue. Second-quarter net income was more than $33.5 million,  or $3.19 per share, up from a loss of […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission aims by the end of August to decide on potential enforcement measures for apparent license and regulatory violations by International Isotopes that contributed to the release of cesium-137 last year at a hospital facility in Seattle. An agency official noted the schedule at the end of a teleconference Tuesday with the […]

South Carolina and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) could be about to cut a deal in the state’s $200 million lawsuit over the federal government’s failure to remove plutonium from the Savannah River Site, court papers show. In a joint motion filed Thursday, lawyers for the two sides said settlement negotiations are ongoing and asked […]

After a brief spike for May, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in June returned to the standard practice of spending just a few hundred dollars of its remaining balance from the federal fund intended to pay for a permanent radioactive waste disposal facility. The NRC outlay from its Nuclear Waste Fund carryover for the month totaled […]

AECOM on Tuesday reported a 5% drop in overall revenue for the third quarter of its 2020 fiscal year, while income figures mostly rose. Revenue fell from nearly $3.4 billion in third-quarter 2019 to just shy of $3.2 billion for the three-month reporting period through June 30. However, net service revenue (which excludes subcontractor expenses) […]

Pending legislation from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) would require the Department of Energy to each year account for continuing and anticipated costs for management of the nation’s inventory of radioactive waste. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which Barrasso chairs, is scheduled Wednesday to consider the discussion draft of the American Nuclear Infrastructure Act […]

The Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories said Monday it evacuated and closed Building 823 at its Albuquerque, N.M., facility after confirming a case of COVID-19 among the workforce there.  Sandia will now disinfect the building, which houses laboratory space used by Sandia’s geosciences program and others, and track down anybody there who had close contact […]

Insulated from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic by its large government contracts and a bread-and-butter nuclear Navy business that didn’t shut down in the spring, BWX Technologies posted a modest uptick in both profit and revenue for the second quarter of 2020. Quarterly net income rose $5 million to about $64 million, or $0.67 […]

Potential radiation dose in 2018 to individuals from the Portsmouth Site in Ohio was well under limits set by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency, according to new figures. The Energy Department last week issued the latest version of its annual site environmental report for the former uranium enrichment complex in Pike County. […]

A longtime executive for U.S. and Canadian power companies is scheduled to join nuclear services firm EnergySolutions in September as chief operating officer. Jeff Richardson “comes to EnergySolutions with a proven history of safety, operational excellence, vision and success within the Nuclear Industry,” the Salt Lake City-based company said in a brief statement Monday. “Jeff’s […]

The state of Idaho has now levied $8.6 million in penalties against the Energy Department for failure to treat 900,000 gallons of sodium-bearing liquid radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory. That is the accrued amount as of July 31, Natalie Creed, hazardous waste bureau chief with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, said by […]

Jacobs Engineering on Monday reported a slight bump in revenue for its fiscal third quarter, from $3.2 billion in 2019 to $3.3 billion this year. Net revenue took a similarly modest step up for the three-month period ending June 26, from $2.6 billion to $2.7. billion on a year-over-year basis. The Department of Energy contractor […]