Publications: Morning Briefing

The Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remediation Action (UMTRA) project in Utah as of Tuesday was the sole Energy Department Office of Environmental Management nuclear cleanup site maintaining normal operations during the COVID-19 crisis. The project’s two work sites are “fully operational” while following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to minimize the risk of […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is giving the public additional time to comment on a proposed regulatory update that would ease the path for disposal of very low-level radioactive waste (VLLW) in commercial landfills. The deadline has been pushed back from April 20 to July 20, agency spokesman David McIntyre said by email this week. Very […]

Essential federal workers, including those at National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plants that have not paused operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic, should have access to protective equipment and daily testing for the virus, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said Tuesday. “Every day, if you go to work at the White House, you […]

Two Department of Energy contracts held by subsidiaries of Idaho-based North Wind Group, together valued at over $277 million, are due to expire by the end of this year. North Wind Solutions has a $232 million contract to operate the Transuranic Waste Processing Center at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The five-year contract, which […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has canceled an upcoming public meeting on decommissioning of the SM-1A reactor at Fort Greely, Alaska, and is eyeing other possible impacts to the project from the COVID-19 pandemic. “The team made this decision based on the interest of public health and in accordance with recent Department of Defense, […]

A couple of smaller vendors to the nuclear industry say they are prepared to help clients withstand the current COVID-19 pandemic. UniTech Services Group, a provider of personal protective equipment for the nuclear industry in North America, last week predicted no “service disruptions” through the second quarter. “We’re going to take the right preventative measures […]

The Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., was preparing Monday to move some of its workforce back on site, even as the host counties for two other Department of Energy facilities in the state faced new difficulties from the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the two DOE nuclear weapons laboratories in New Mexico, Sandia has been locked […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee is initiating a public exchange of letters with senior Trump administration officials regarding the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2021 nuclear-weapon budget request.  It is one of the committee’s so-called “paper hearings,” invented to prevent public gatherings during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This session, which includes leadership from DOE and the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved its first exemption authorizing a nuclear power plant to exceed federal limits on work hours to ensure it remains operational during the COVID-19 pandemic. The April 3 approval was filed one day after Exelon Generation submitted the request for its Limerick Generating Station in Montgomery County, Pa. The document […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday provided a large swath of its licensees with an overview of options for relief from federal nuclear safety rules as they strive to sustain operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency addressed a letter to licensees authorized to hold byproduct, source, and special nuclear materials, excluding operating commercial nuclear […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spending from its Nuclear Waste Fund balance slipped below $100 in February, according to the agency’s monthly report to Congress. The outlay of $97 for unspecified program planning and support left the agency with a balance of $430,881 from the fund intended to pay for federal disposal of high-level radioactive waste from […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday announced receipt of its first request from a nuclear power plant for an exception to the federal limits for work hours during the COVID-19 crisis. Exelon Generation filed the request Thursday for its two-reactor Limerick Generating Station in Montgomery County, Pa. “By implementing the alternate work hour controls, LGS […]

A viable program for treating supplemental low-activity waste at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state can be developed for any one of three major technologies – vitrification, grouting, and steam reforming, according to an April 1 report from a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine panel. But grouting and steam reforming would […]

Half of the 1,800-person workforce for the Idaho National Laboratory’s cleanup contractor was still working as of last week, according to the Department of Energy. Of those 900 Fluor Idaho employees, half were physically on-site and the others teleworking, a DOE spokesperson said by email. The spokesperson did not say if those who cannot telework […]

The president of General Dynamics Electric Boat has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus while the company confirmed further changes to the workforce configuration to limit the disease’s spread within its facilities. In an April 4 message to employees, Electric Boat President Kevin Graney disclosed he has tested positive for the pandemic virus, noting his […]

There is at least one confirmed case of COVID-19 among the workforce of the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, where the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) assembles and disassembles nuclear weapons for maintenance and modernization. In a statement, Pantex said the employee became ill at work on March 25. The site said it did not […]

Eric Wollerman will become president of Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies effective April 30, the manager of the Kansas City National Security Campus announced. At the end of the month, the buck will stops with Wollerman at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)-owned manufacturing hub, which produces the non-nuclear parts of nuclear weapons. The company’s […]

A subsidiary of Pro2Serve, Enterprise Technical Assistance Services, (E-TAS), on Wednesday started work as the new technical services vendor for the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office cleanup complex, which is comprised of the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the Paducah Site in Kentucky, and the Lexington, Ky., headquarters. The small-business set-aside has a potential term […]

Nearly a month after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, production of Centrus Energy Corp.’s new all-domestic enrichment cascade in Ohio is one of the first projects for the Department of Energy fearing delays from the viral outbreak. “We are continuing to make progress but we anticipate that there could be impacts on the project […]

The Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is studying two options for removing leftover Los Alamos National Laboratory transuranic waste from a privately held facility in Texas. The Energy Department could either technically confirm the waste can be safely shipped straight to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, or send it back […]

The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Wednesday said ongoing testing of its workforce for COVID-19 had not turned up any new cases. A total of 24 employees had been tested, with two cases confirmed as of this week for infection by the novel coronavirus 2019. Of the remaining workers, 14 have […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapon sites are modifying confinement vessels for planned underground subcritical plutonium experiments, after one such vessel blew a leak last year. A confinement vessel is designed to contain an explosive compression of plutonium metal, which is rigged to bring the material to the brink of a fission chain reaction. Observing that […]

The United States and Russia were each deploying fewer strategic nuclear weapons as of March 1 than they did six months earlier, according to the Department of State’s latest data on the bilateral New START nuclear treaty. Since the last official State-published tally in September 2019, Russia cut more strategic warheads from its arsenal than […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has signed off on the transfer of the license for the retired Crystal River nuclear power plant in Florida, a key step toward its planned decommissioning within seven years. The reactor license now passes from property owner Duke Energy to decommissioning contractor ADP CR3 – a subsidiary of Accelerated Decommissioning Partners […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Nevada have agreed in principle to settle a 2018 state lawsuit contesting the shipment of 500 kilograms of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site. “The parties are currently working diligently to finalize the necessary documents and to obtain final government settlement approvals,” attorneys for the state […]

Holtec International has sued the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) in an effort to force the state agency to resume providing $260 million in tax credits promised in 2014. The Camden, N.J., energy technology company on Tuesday announced the lawsuit, filed March 20 in the Superior Court of New Jersey. “In disregard of its […]