Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Last spring, the National Nuclear Security Administration quietly backed off a drive to produce 30 plutonium nuclear-warhead cores per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory earlier than the long-established target of 2026, a recently published contract modification shows. The April 30, 2019, modification to Triad National Security’s lab management and operations contract scrubs out […]

The Australian government on Saturday said it had selected property in the town of Kimba in South Australia to house its National Radioactive Waste Management Facility. “I am satisfied a facility at Napandee will safely and securely manage radioactive waste and that the local community has shown broad community support for the project and economic […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects in March to issue a final report on revising its inspection program for independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs) at U.S. nuclear power plants. “The final report and recommendations, incorporating internal and external feedback, is undergoing internal review,” agency spokesman David McIntyre said by email on Jan. 29. “Once this […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Under pressure from the state of Texas, the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup office has agreed to relocate drums containing potentially combustible radioactive transuranic waste stored since 2014 at the privately operated Waste Control Specialists facility in Andrews County. “We are going to work to disposition the legacy TRU waste from Los Alamos […]

The continuing operations of Honeywell flashed 10% per-share earnings growth in 2019, the parent company of multiple Department of Energy site management contractors reported Friday. Excluding the effects of spinning off its transportation systems and commercial building technology units in 2018, Honeywell’s 2019 earnings rose on a per-share basis to $8.16, according to a press […]

A federal judge is scheduled on April 22 to sentence a former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist who has pleaded guilty to lying about his relationship with a Chinese talent recruitment program, according to a hearing notice filed Sunday. Turab Lookman, formerly of the New Mexico lab’s Theoretical Division, pleaded guilty in January to one […]

Comprehensive Decommissioning International (CDI) has secured the contract for decommissioning the retired Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, one of the company’s owners said Monday. The deal is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Canadian engineering firm SNC-Lavalin stated in a press release. It was signed Friday, CDI spokesman Pat O’Brien said by email. The […]

Engineering and construction giant AECOM said Monday it has completed the $2.4 billion sale of its Management Service business to a joint venture of two New York investment firms. Sale of the subsidiary to American Securities LLC and Lindsay Goldberg LLC closed on Friday, according to an AECOM press release. The new company, which will […]

Canadian utility Ontario Power Generation on Friday terminated its plan to build a nuclear waste disposal facility near Lake Huron after a First Nation group voted against the project. Members of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) on Friday voted 1,058 to 170 not to support the deep geologic repository for low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste. […]

The Navy on Friday awarded Lockheed Martin a $474 million contract for Trident II (D5) ballistic missile life-extension work. The contract specifically covers the Life Extension 2 Strategic Systems Programs Alteration Advanced Development Program. Work will largely occur in Denver, Colo., and is expected to be finished by September 2026. The Navy obligated $3 million […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A hyper-partisan political climate, as reflected by the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump and the start of presidential primaries this month, reduces the chances of timely passage of appropriations bills to fund the government for fiscal 2021, issue watchers said last week. The Energy Department and other federal agencies are likely […]

The United Kingdom is expected to generate 4.6 million cubic meters of radioactive waste through 2135, most of it from nuclear power production, according to the latest inventory from the government’s Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The department inventories the nation’s existing and anticipated holdings of radioactive waste and materials every three […]

Las Vegas-based Longenecker & Associates said in Tuesday it has hired a former Fluor supervisor as its manager for New Mexico projects. Lindsay Wallace started Monday and her role will include serving as Longenecker’s program manager for legacy cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Longenecker has a subcontract with Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los […]

The USS Tennessee ballistic-missile submarine went on an Atlantic Ocean patrol in December, armed with “one or two” of the brand new W76-2 low-yield warheads, the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists reported Wednesday. “We estimate that one or two of the 20 missiles on the USS Tennessee and subsequent subs will be armed with the W76-2, […]

The chief financial officer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is moving into the corresponding position at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Cherish Johnson will start as the regulator’s CFO on Feb. 18, according to a Monday press release. She succeeds Maureen Wylie, who retired after working for 35 years in the federal government. […]

The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board wants to forge a closer working relationship with the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. In a Jan. 10 letter to DOE Senior Adviser for Environmental Management William (Ike) White, Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board Chairwoman Jean Bahr urged “a framework for more regular interaction” between the two […]

The Department of Energy is not publicly discussing the progress of conversion of highly enriched uranium shipped from Canada at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, including whether the project remains on track to be completed in April. Multiple questions sent via email last week to the department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) […]

Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette is creating a new Department of Energy policy shop to handle “all policy within the Department,” and appointing a new personal adviser for nuclear security, according to an all-hands memo dated Tuesday. To do this, Brouillette will rebrand the current Office of Policy (OP) as the Office of Strategic Planning […]

The Washington state Court of Appeals heard arguments Tuesday on a lower court’s $8.1 million award in 2017 to a former employee of Energy Department contractor Mission Support Alliance (MSA) at the Hanford Site. The support services vendor is asking Division III of the appeals court to reverse the award against it and former vice […]

New Mexico’s entire congressional delegation this month called on the Department of Energy to suspend a controversial order that the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) says has curtailed its access to nuclear-weapon sites. The Energy Department should lift the almost 2-year-old Order 140.1 to comply with recent changes to federal law that require […]

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 […]