Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Thousands of pounds of stainless steel originally intended for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., has been donated to welding programs at nearby high schools and colleges. Fifteen high schools and colleges each received a ton of metal from the U.S. Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National […]

BWX Technologies has tapped Dave Broussard, a former contractor at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, to be general manager of the company’s nuclear-naval parts factory in Barberton, Ohio. Broussard will take over the 750-person manufacturing site as it prepares to hire 80 more people and spent $80 million to ramp up production of […]

Washington state Department of Ecology Director Maia Bellon said Monday she would retire at the end of this month. Ecology is the state regulator for the U.S. Department of Energy’s sprawling Hanford Site through a variety of permits including the dangerous waste, or site-wide, permit. Bellon announced her pending retirement Monday after 25 years as […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is accepting comments from the public through Jan. 13 on the scope of an add-on to its environmental impact statement (EIS) for SHINE Medical Technologies’ isotope production plant in Janesville, Wis. The agency issued the original document in October 2015 for SHINE’s application for a construction permit for its facility, […]

Some time before the new year, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will award a new protective forces contract to guard its Albuquerque Complex at the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M. The three-year contract will include a one-year base period and two one-year options, according to a Nov. 19 solicitation from the […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., is optimistic the state will green light its plans for a new utility shaft that is opposed by two local advocacy groups. “The project remains on course as we prepare for the construction process,” Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) spokesman Bobby […]

James Peery will become director of the Sandia National Laboratories on Jan. 1, after current director Stephen Younger retires, the multi-state Department of Energy nuclear-weapon-engineering lab announced Monday. Peery is now  associate laboratory director of national security sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn. In that role, he succeeded Brent Park, who […]

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Dan Brouillette to be the 15th secretary of energy by a 70-15 vote, setting the stage for former secretary Rick Perry’s deputy to lead the roughly $30-billion-a-year agency responsible for U.S. nuclear weapons, waste, and energy. A Department of Energy spokesperson did not immediately reply to a query about […]

A cybersecurity provider for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is urging reconsideration of a recent follow-on award to a rival company. The transition from the $271 million contract held by information-technology specialist Criterion Systems, of Vienna, Va., was driven “by a perceived need to rapidly remediate a contract protest action lingering from 2016,” […]

At the end of the last federal fiscal year on Sept. 30, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission was overseeing decommissioning of 23 nuclear power and early demonstration reactors. Of those reactors, 11 were undergoing active decommissioning and the remaining 12 were in SAFSTOR, or safe storage, in which final cleanup can be delayed for up […]

Veteran Argentine diplomat Rafael Mariano Grossi is set to take over Tuesday as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Grossi, 58, will become the sixth director general of the United Nations organization, which promotes the peaceful use of nuclear technology and the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons technology and materials. He will serve […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico received 275 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during the first 10 months of this year, compared to 272 during the same period in 2018. October is the last full month for which shipment information is available through WIPP’s public database. It shows that the […]

Rick Perry ended his tenure as U.S. secretary of energy on Sunday, but not before issuing a press release highlighting the progress of cleanup at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) in Ventura County, Calif. “I am proud of the work the Department of Energy (DOE) has done to advance the final cleanup of the […]

The Nuclear Energy Institute is asking a federal appeals court to undo the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s determination that it has full authority to regulate disposal of very low-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, even in states that have taken on much of the agency’s oversight of radioactive materials. At issue is Regulatory Issue […]

The federal fund intended to pay for the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., held $40.9 billion in U.S. Treasury securities at the end of fiscal 2019 on Sept. 30, according to the latest audit from the Department of Energy. That rose from $39.2 billion in the Nuclear Waste Fund at the close of […]

Oversight of contractors and environmental remediation remain at the forefront of the U.S. Department of Energy’s management challenges for fiscal 2020, according to a Nov. 15 special report from DOE’s Office of Inspector General. Other major concerns include nuclear waste management, cybersecurity, safeguards and security of DOE installations, civilian stewardship of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, […]

The Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not be published Thursday in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Monday, Dec. 2.

After already being delayed several times, publication of a draft record of decision (ROD) for a proposed new landfill at the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee could slip into 2020. The document is supposed to be issued Dec. 19, but DOE managers have informed the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation of […]

Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) said Tuesday it had narrowed to three the number of communities being considered to host a deep geologic repository for spent fuel from nuclear power plants. In a site-selection process that began in 2010 with 22 candidate sites, the remaining locations are the township of Ignace in northwest Ontario […]

Nuclear power plant operator FirstEnergy Solutions (FES) said Monday it will be renamed Energy Harbor when it comes of out Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring as a stand-alone company. The company will continue to be headquartered in Akron, Ohio. It will employ roughly 2,800 people, according to a press release. The bankruptcy proceeding is expected to […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday urged a federal appeals court to reject two requests from the commonwealth of Massachusetts to freeze the license transfer of the retired Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit does not yet have jurisdiction under federal law to rule on […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and other branches of the Department of Energy continue to struggle to improve their defenses against cyberattacks, according to the DOE Inspector General’s Office. The inspector general’s 2019 evaluation of the department’s unclassified cybersecurity program involved control testing and other evaluations of 28 DOE sites, largely overseen by […]

Based on conversations with the U.S. Department of Energy, the state of Idaho expects the long-awaited Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) will start operating in late 2020 at the Idaho National Laboratory. However, the state for now will continue to assess financial penalties over DOE’s failure to meet the deadline for beginning operations at the […]

Dallas-based Jacobs said Monday it is “rebranding” itself, but one thing that remains constant is the company’s heavy reliance on the U.S. government for a large chunk of its revenue. The international provider of construction, business, and technical services is changing its legal name from Jacobs Engineering to Jacobs Solutions, as it puts less emphasis […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Monday it has selected a longtime Department of Energy manager to lead its field office for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Michael Weis comes to Los Alamos after nearly 25 years with the department, most recently as site office manager for the Fermi National […]

The U.S. Department of Energy spent $8.6 million during the last fiscal year on remediation of a cesium-137 spill at a hospital research facility in Seattle. Remediation is ongoing at the Research and Training Building for the University of Washington’s Harborview Medical Center, according to Al Stotts, a spokesman for DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security […]