Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Energy Department anticipates the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina will be better able to “engage with the research community” by having a its own operations contract, according to documents recently posted online. The slides used for an April 28 virtual online meeting on the draft request for proposals for the potential 10-year, […]

The ExchangeMonitor’s 2020 Decommissioning Strategy Forum is being pushed back from June to September and relocated to Henderson, Nev. The continuing COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to stick to the original schedule to hold the conference on June 8-9 in Nashville, according to the ExchangeMonitor’s parent company, Access Intelligence. “Please note that out of concern […]

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state rose to four as of Wednesday, one more than a week ago. Most of the four infected individuals have “not been on site for several weeks,” DOE Hanford Site Manager Brian Vance said in a post on Facebook. No further […]

The environmental liability of the Energy Department’s Office of Legacy Management is sure to increase from its recent $7.35 billion as it assumes responsibility for more remediated properties, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office. Legacy Management conducts maintenance and surveillance following cleanup of radioactively contaminated sites by DOE’s Office of […]

The New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) plans talks this summer with the Department of Energy on potential modifications to a 2016 legal agreement over nuclear cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The 2016 consent decree revamped a prior 2005 deal between NMED and the federal agency on cleanup of contamination left from Manhattan […]

Congress should keep its eye on cost overruns for the upgrade that will make the F-35A  fighter aircraft nuclear-capable this decade by allowing the Government Accountability Office to keep investigating the program for a few more years, the congressional investigator said this week. Block 4 upgrades will eventually allow Lockheed Martin’s Joint Strike Fighter to […]

It will take a couple more weeks than earlier thought to certify it is time to begin constructing a new calciner in Building 9212 of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee: the U.S. defense-uranium hub that manufactures the secondary stages for nuclear weapons. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “anticipates approval of the Y-12 […]

The Government Accountability Office was not convinced by the argument from a Bechtel-led joint venture that it should have been issued a long-term contract for remediation at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state because its proposed price tag for performing the first set of tasks was lower than that from the rival group that […]

Hanford Communities Executive Director Pamela Larsen is retiring after a quarter-century of advocating for localities around the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Larsen is the only executive director in the history of the intergovernmental organization established under Washington state law in 1994. Hanford Communities represents two counties, four cities, and a Port District […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will next week consider Undersecretary of Energy Mark Menezes’ nomination to the No. 2 spot at the Department of Energy. The White House in March nominated Menezes as deputy secretary of energy. He would succeed Dan Brouillette, who became energy secretary in December. After a career on Capitol […]

Jan Carlin has stepped down as managing director of the Waste Management Symposia (WMS), the nonprofit organizer of the annual conference in Phoenix for the nuclear cleanup and waste management industries. Carlin, a nuclear business consultant, started on the job in September 2017 and had only intended to remain for two years, but stayed on […]

The Government Accountability Office said Tuesday the Energy Department should use best practices when seeking alternatives to the Pretreatment Facility for the Waste Treatment Plant being built at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Pretreatment Facility is intended to separate radioactive waste into high-level and low-level streams before processing at the Waste Treatment Plant, […]

Federal contractors would get leniency for missing deliverables because of their COVID-19 response plans, and prime contractors would be in line for quicker payments, under a Democratic Party-authored relief bill that debuted Tuesday in the House of Representatives – and was flatly rejected by the Senate’s Republican leadership. The Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency […]

It would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to brief a group representing nuclear-site host communities about the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s (DNFSB) latest safety recommendation to the Department of Energy, according to the board chairman. “[U]sing staff resources, even though marginal in this instance, to educate a public interest group on complex technical […]

The commonwealth of Pennsylvania has not proven its case to be allowed to intervene in the federal review of the license transfer application for reactor Unit 2 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, according to the reactor’s owner and prospective buyer. Subsidiaries of FirstEnergy Corp. and EnergySolutions on Monday filed their response with […]

Top executives for contractors at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state don’t know when staffing will return to normal amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but said last week changes are being made to protect employee health. The combined federal and contractor workforce at the nuclear cleanup complex is roughly 11,000, but only 20% to […]

An article in Monday’s Weapons Complex Morning Briefing incorrectly indicated a new Department of Energy procurement on mixed and low-level waste treatment services would replace existing providers of disposal for such material. The contracts are separate.

With most of the ballots counted in Tuesday’s special election in California’s 25th Congressional District, it appears businessman and former Navy fighter pilot Mike Garcia is in position to retake the seat for the Republican Party. Wednesday morning news reports gave Garcia a double-digit lead, 56% to 44%, over Democrat Christy Smith, a member of […]

The COVID-19 scare that shut down construction of the Surplus Plutonium Disposition project at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina lasted about two weeks, with work resuming in mid-April, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday evening. “On April 6, an SPD [Surplus Plutonium Disposition] construction worker called in sick.  In an abundance […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined there would be no significant environmental impact from a 40-year license renewal for the spent fuel storage pad at the retired Humboldt Bay nuclear power plant in California. Owner Pacific Gas & Electric “is proposing no changes in how it handles or stores spent fuel at the Humboldt Bay […]

Perma-Fix Environmental Services on Tuesday reported a $112.3% increase in revenue for the first quarter of 2020, even as the COVID-19 pandemic began to hit its business. Sales rose from $11.7 million in the first quarter of 2019 to $24.9 million in the three-month period ending March 31 of this year, according to a press […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory is set today to begin testing its own employees for COVID-19, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy facility in northern New Mexico confirmed Monday. The local Los Alamos Reporter broke the news Monday. Los Alamos is the second National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) nuclear weapons lab to begin testing. […]

The North Access Road Bypass at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico opened to traffic on Friday. The $9 million, 3-mile bypass connects north and south access roads for the DOE site and directs other traffic away from the underground disposal facility, particularly the construction area on the surface for […]

The 2019 closure of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts drove a major revenue drop that put Entergy Wholesale Commodities’ income into the red for the first quarter of 2020, parent company Entergy Corp. said Monday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the 10-Q filing, the New Orleans-based power company […]

Voters decide today in California’s 25th Congressional District who will serve out the remainder of a term that came open when Rep. Katie Hill (D) resigned last November. Democrat Christy Smith, a member of the California State Assembly, and Republican Mike Garcia, a businessman and former Navy fighter pilot, are facing off in the election […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee thinks its version of the annual policy-shaping National Defense Authorization Act (NSAA) could pass the upper chamber before the Fourth of July holiday, a committee aide confirmed Monday afternoon. Politico reported Monday that the GOP-controlled panel plans to mark up its version of the bill the week of June 8. […]

Centrus Energy Corp. on Monday reported $9.3 million of net income in the 2020 first quarter, up from a loss of more than $20 million a year ago, as revenue improved to $45 million from just under $40 million a year ago, That comes out to earnings of $0.95, on a diluted, per-share basis, up […]