Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The host states of the Department of Energy’s three main nuclear weapons production sites are among those planning early, partial reopenings after weeks or months of shuttering most businesses to slow the spread of COVID-19. Tennessee, Texas, and Missouri, host states to the Y-12 National Security Complex, the Pantex Plant and the Kansas City National […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a meeting for May 8 to discuss means of relief that could be provided during the COVID-19 pandemic to licensees for independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs). “The purpose of this meeting is to discuss how NRC ISFSI licensees can request temporary regulatory relief during the COVID-19 public health […]

The Energy Department Office of Environmental Management intends to issue a sole-source business deal to a firm to provide employee training on end-state contracting. In a Monday procurement notice, the agency announced plans to hire Management Concepts Inc. (MCI) to provide the training as the nuclear cleanup office continues to overhaul its management of environmental […]

The Energy Department has exercised a one-year option to keep Spectra Tech on the job overseeing spent fuel facilities at the Idaho National Laboratory through March 2021. In February, DOE picked up its last option for the current contract, according to procurement documents. The Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based engineering and environmental services firm began work on […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Pantex Plant in Texas said Monday it assembled the “first production capability unit” of the W88 Alt-370 submarine-launched nuclear warhead, a precursor to the first production unit intended to prove the entire warhead design is ready for mass manufacturing. The phrase “first production capability unit” officially debuted in February […]

The privately held Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) will stay on for at least four more years as the operator of facilities owned by federal Crown corporation Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL). Atomic Energy of Canada announced Monday that it had exercised the four-year option on CNL’s contract. The six-year base for the award began […]

A New Mexico advocacy organization is asking the state Court of Appeals to block last week’s temporary state approval for the U.S. Department of Energy to sink a new underground shaft at the Waste isolation Pilot Plant. The Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) filed its motion with the court Friday. That same day, the […]

The Air Force probably will not award a contract to build more than 600 next-generation, silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles more than a month or two earlier than planned, the chief executive of presumptive prime Northrop Grumman said Wednesday morning during a conference call with investors. That would put the award around July or August. Northrop […]

A contractor employee at the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, who recently tested positive for COVID-19, left New Mexico on March 23. An article in the Monday Weapons Complex Morning Briefing misstated the date.

Mission Support Alliance is shopping around for a subcontractor to build a new water treatment facility at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Hanford support services contractor said in an April 25 procurement notice it is accepting expressions of interest from vendors to build a new 10,000-square-foot microfiltration membrane water treatment plant. […]

The Department of State on Friday framed deployment of a low-yield warhead aboard U.S. submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles as a means of preventing a nuclear arms race. The agency’s 10-page, election-year publication is part of a series of Arms Control and International Security Papers and takes aim at most critiques against the low-yield warhead leveled […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Monday it had issued a roughly $240,000 fixed-price contract to a small business in Georgia to provide almost a quarter-million, Chinese-made, KN95-style respirator masks for its contractor and federal employees. “This order is to procure masks for NNSA to meet expected demand when employees return to work,” an agency […]

Reductions in on-site staffing at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic have temporarily halted virtually all physical work on the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, a state official said Monday. Progress on the IWTU is on hold “as much of the work requires materials/contractors from outside Idaho and some confined space […]

Pennsylvania’s top environmental official on Monday expressed continued concerns about the adequacy of funding to complete decommissioning of the partially melted-down reactor Unit 2 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Patrick McDonnell submitted a new letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as it considers transferring the […]

Deep Isolation said Monday it has secured a contract to support an industry feasibility study on the potential for same-site selection for both new advanced nuclear power reactors and borehole-based disposal of the spent fuel they will generate. The Berkeley, Calif., company offers the nuclear waste disposal approach being studied – horizontal deep borehole. For […]

An employee of the technical services vendor for the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico has contracted COVID-19. This marks the facility’s first confirmed infection of novel coronavirus 2019. The employee of North Wind Portage tested positive Friday after working remotely since March 18, according to a news release from DOE’s […]

The American Nuclear Society last week formally backed preliminary findings from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in support of licensing a facility in New Mexico for temporary storage of spent nuclear fuel. The March 10 draft environmental impact statement (EIS) from staff at the industry regulator “provides a thorough evaluation of the environmental impacts of the […]

The Department of Energy’s top nuclear energy official on Monday expressed regret over the imminent closure of one reactor at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York state. “It pains me to see Indian Point Unit 2 prematurely shutting down this Thursday,” Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal wrote on Twitter. “The […]

New Mexico’s delegation to the U.S. Senate last week asked the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to further delay into mid-June the public comment period on an environmental review of pit production at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich (both D-N.M.). wrote to NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty on April 22. […]

Reduced staffing caused by the COVID-19 pandemic forced the Department of Energy to suspend construction of the Saltstone Disposal Unit 7 (SDU 7) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said in a recent report. The April 3 staff report filed with DNFSB Technical Director Christopher Roscetti […]

Two more people at the Department of Energy’s Forrestal Building headquarters in Washington, D.C., have tested positive for COVID-19, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said Friday. One employee has not been in the buildng since March 13, the other since March 27, Brouillette said in the statement. Both have since recovered in self-quarantine, he added. That […]

Germany’s Federal Ministry for Defence wants to buy American for the future of the country’s nuclear security-sharing mission with the United States, urging lawmakers to approve the purchase of 30 Boeing F/A-18 aircraft to carry future B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs. The German publication Der Spiegel on Sunday reported that Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer informed Secretary […]

Sandia National Laboratories has been cleared to start processing COVID-19 tests for the general public, according to U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). The nuclear-weapon engineering lab started testing its own employees for the viral disease on April 7 at its Albuquerque, N.M., headquarters, and on April 15 at its Livermore, Calif., campus. On Tuesday, according […]

US Ecology said Monday the value of its stock has been nearly halved by the “unprecedented time of uncertainty” generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission provided further illustration of the stress being placed on the radioactive waste management industry, within the larger chaos the crisis has inflicted […]

Two Fluor vice presidents are leaving the company, and all executives are temporarily taking a 20% cut in their base pay, according to a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the April 10 notice, Fluor announced the separation from employment of Executive Vice President for Systems and Supply Chain Ray Barnard and […]

An employee of the Energy Department’s support services contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington has the second confirmed case of COVID-19 at the former plutonium production complex. In a weekend memo to employees of Mission Support Alliance, President Bob Wilkinson and Chief Operating Officer Amy Basche said they recently learned “a member of the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday it would give the public additional time to comment on a preliminary finding in support of licensing a facility in New Mexico for temporary storage of spent fuel from nuclear power plants. “We’ve extended the public comment period on our draft Environmental Impact Statement for #Holtec‘s proposed spent #nuclear […]