Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Department of Energy should expand its use of underground research laboratories (URLs) for research on geologic disposal of nuclear waste, including establishing facilities in the United States, a federal panel of experts said in a report Tuesday. The Energy Department has since 2012 participated in research at URLs in Europe and Asia, the Nuclear […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Energy Department’s Office of Nuclear Energy has begun a limited program to explore opportunities for recycling used nuclear fuel, a senior official said Tuesday. “We are starting a small effort to look at some of these options, but it’s early in development and there’s no clear outcome on where it’s going […]

Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, the Jacobs-led deactivation and cleanup contractor at the Energy Department’s Paducah Site in Kentucky, earned 67% of its potential fee for work during fiscal 2019, or $6.97 million of a potential $10.38 million, according to a recent performance scorecard. The vendor pocketed just over $1 million of a possible $2.33 million […]

International engineering and construction provider AECOM could complete the $2.4 billion sale of its government contracting division to a joint venture of two New York investment firms within days, a company official said Tuesday in Alexandria, Va. Eric Knox, an AECOM vice president for strategic development for nuclear and environment, cited the impending change during […]

Lockheed Martin on Tuesday reported a strong close to its 2019 fiscal year with double-digit top and bottom line growth, and the company expects further gains in 2020. Net income in the fourth quarter jumped 15% to $1.5 billion, $5.29 earnings per share (EPS), from $1.3 billion ($4.39 EPS) a year ago, comfortably above consensus estimates […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The White House does not plan to request any funding in fiscal 2021 for licensing the nuclear waste repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev., issue experts said at an industry conference here Tuesday. That would reverse the Trump administration’s efforts in its last three budget proposals to persuade Congress to appropriate money to […]

A new inspector general’s report bashed the human resources department at the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board as ineffective, inefficient, and incapable of supporting the agency’s oversight of defense-nuclear sites. The board’s “human resources program is currently not designed and implemented to effectively support the execution of its mission,” reads a Monday report from […]

Mid-America Conversion Services, the contractor in charge of operating depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion facilities at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah Site in Kentucky, won roughly 69% of its potential fee for fiscal 2019. That represents $2.42 million of a potential $3.5 million for the federal budget year that ended Sept. […]

Los Alamos County, N.M., wants a federal review board to reverse a December decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency saying the county’s stormwater discharges contribute to pollution of the Rio Grande River. In a petition filed Jan. 17 with the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board, Los Alamos County seeks to overturn the Dec. 16 decision […]

Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, the Energy Department cleanup contractor at the former gaseous diffusion plant site in Pike County, Ohio, pocketed 86% of its potential fee for fiscal 2019, or $19.20 million of a potential $22.78 million. The vendor claimed about $3.61 million of a potential $6.68 million in subjective fee. It also took home $15.59 million […]

The Government Accountability Office should by the end of April rule on challenges to $14 billion worth of Energy Department contract awards at the Hanford Site in Washington state. With the deadline now passed for additional challenges, the GAO has single protests on its docket for each award: the 10-year, $10-billion Hanford Central Plateau cleanup […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has decided to use a cleanup facility in Ohio to help produce high-purity depleted uranium metal for nuclear weapons programs. The semiautonomous Department of Energy weapons agency will do that by installing a fourth process line at the depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion facility at the Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, […]

Demolition of a Cold War-era legacy facility in December still leaves more than 1,100 facilities and buildings to tear down at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Specifically, 1,127 facilities have been identified for eventual demolition, SRS spokesman Monte Volk said via email. Those facilities encompass offices, power production plants, […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is giving the state of South Carolina more time to submit new data and input on the license renewal of Westinghouse Electric’s Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility. The formal 30-day comment period on the federal agency’s draft environmental assessment for the renewal application ended on Nov. 27, 2019. On Jan. 13, […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B), the vendor in charge of legacy environmental remediation operations at the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory in New Mexico, won 84% of its potential fee for work done during fiscal 2019. Altogether, N3B took home more than $8.6 million of a potential amount exceeding $10.2 million, according […]

A former physicist at the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory on Friday pleaded guilty to one count of lying to federal authorities about his alleged connection to a Chinese government-sponsored talent recruiting program. Turab Lookman, formerly of the New Mexico facility’s Theoretical Division, pleaded guilty to the second of three counts of fraud […]

Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) held a groundbreaking on Jan. 23 to renovate Dry Dock 4. The U.S. Navy said the renovation effort will cost $200 million and take almost three years. This makes it the largest NNSY initiative under the larger $21 billion 20-year Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP). The Navy said this renovation will […]

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) in Canada said Friday that just two communities in Ontario remain in contention to host an underground disposal facility for spent fuel from the nation’s nuclear power plants. The locations are the township of Ignace in northwest Ontario and the municipality of South Bruce in southern Ontario. In a […]

Wide-ranging talks between the U.S. Department of Energy and the Washington state Department of Ecology on radioactive waste issues at the Hanford Site have apparently not progressed beyond the starting line. “The parties are still working through some preliminary arrangements,” Ecology spokesman Randy Bradbury said in a Thursday email. The agencies confirmed in October they […]

The former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist is set Friday to change his plea of not guilty to charges that he lied about alleged connections to a Chinese-sponsored talent-recruiting program, a new court filing shows. Turab Lookman’s plea-change hearing is slated for 10 a.m. local time in U.S. District Court for New Mexico in Albuquerque. […]

Another California advocacy organization pitched its case Wednesday to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission against on-site storage of all spent reactor fuel at the retired San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). Following a Tuesday presentation from the San Diego-based Public Watchdogs, Oceansiders Against San Onofre Corruption made its arguments to the NRC’s Petition Review Board […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) hopes to meet soon with new U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette to discuss public health and safety issues at nuclear sites overseen by his agency. In a Jan. 16 letter, DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton congratulated Brouillette on his December confirmation as energy secretary and said the board would […]

The White House on Jan. 6 nominated Nuclear Regulatory Commission member David Wright to a full five-year term, through June 30, 2025. The move came as no surprise – the Trump administration had stated in November it intended to reappoint Wright. Wright’s nomination was referred to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. As of […]

A Bechtel-led joint venture filed a protest Tuesday with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) over the December award of a potential 10-year, $10-billion cleanup contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The Project W Restoration partnership is led by Bechtel National, and the other members of the venture are Tetra Tech and EnergySolutions, […]

Legislation introduced Wednesday in the New Mexico Senate would update the responsibilities of the state Radioactive Waste Consultation Task Force to include oversight of commercial spent nuclear fuel storage. The task force was established in the 1978 state Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Act, largely to act as the New Mexico government’s negotiator for siting, licensing, […]

Passage of a law to reauthorize the U.S. Energy Department’s cleanup of the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state drew kudos Wednesday from participants at a local meeting. The measure, which passed the U.S. Senate on Dec. 2 and was subsequently signed into law by President Donald Trump on Dec. 20, would reauthorize […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) said Monday it has appointed Brandi Smith as program director for the U.S. Navy’s Columbia-class submarine program at the company’s Newport News Shipbuilding division. There was no incumbent Columbia program director at HII, according to a Tuesday email from a spokesperson for the shipbuilding subcontractor for the Navy’s next nuclear-armed ballistic-missile […]