Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Interim Storage Partners (ISP) on Monday petitioned for dismissal of the sole permitted contention against federal licensing of its planned consolidated interim storage facility in West Texas for spent fuel from nuclear power plants. Upon rejecting the contention, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board should then close out the entire proceeding of […]

Minutes after President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that John Bolton would leave his job as national security adviser, voices in the arms control community wondered if the White House now would be more likely to extend the New START nuclear-weapons treaty with Russia. “Is there hope for the New START Treaty?” Madelyn Creedon, principal deputy administrator […]

The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee on Tuesday advanced legislation that would provide $65 million more than the White House requested for fiscal 2020 for the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile. The Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program would receive $635 million for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, under the 2020 Defense Appropriations Act […]

Staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has determined there would be no significant environmental impact in a 20-year renewal of the Department of Energy’s license for storage of radioactive waste from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory. The agency is expected to formally post the final environmental assessment […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in July again spent little of its remaining balance from the fund intended to pay for a federal nuclear waste repository. The agency spent just $704 in the month for unspecified program planning and support. That left the NRC with a total balance of $434,262, with $408,039 of that not […]

Site preparation recently began for the next large-scale Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to a post Monday on the site’s Facebook page. Liquid waste contractor Savannah River Remediation (SRR) has completed excavation of the location for SDU 8, a 32-million-gallon megavolume concrete structure that will permanently […]

HENDERSON, Nev. – Nuclear cleanup vendors hope the U.S. Energy Department’s new approach to procurement succeeds in quickening the pace of contract awards, one executive said here last week. That was the assessment of the end-state contracting model offered Sept. 3 at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste Summit by Cathy Hickey, executive vice president for Navarro Research […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will flex up the Kansas City National Security Complex’s manufacturing capacity by leasing some 275,000 square feet of industrial space about a mile from the nuclear security enterprise’s main components shop, according to an environmental notice published Monday. The semiautonomous Department of Energy weapons agency plans to lease […]

The U.S. Energy Department announced on Friday it would keep BWX Technologies as a contractor for storage of radioactive hot cell waste and spent nuclear fuel. The department’s Idaho Operations Office and Office of Nuclear Energy announced plans to issue the sole-source, five-year contract for continued waste storage at a BWXT facility in Lynchburg, Va. […]

The leaders of the House and Senate have each announced plans to buy time for Congress to move through the fiscal 2020 appropriations process by passing a continuing resolution, but the chambers each have their own proposed process. The Senate will move quickly to pass as many regular appropriations bills as possible, and then pass […]

The latest soil samples from around the Rocky Flats Natural Wildlife Refuge show residual radiological contamination at the one-time nuclear weapons site in Colorado poses no health threat for employees, hikers, or nearby communities, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a report Friday. The samples taken in June around the former location of […]

The U.S. Energy Department has not accounted for all costs associated with fixing the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU) at the Idaho National Laboratory, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office. In the report, GAO said the Energy Department has not followed best practices in that it failed to include both […]

HENDERSON, Nev. — There is roughly three decades of environmental work left at the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, mostly at Y-12 National Security Complex and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, according to one official. “We’ve got about 30 years of cleanup to do, we think, based on a relatively flat funding […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Friday visited the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory to assess challenges associated with cleanup of the site. The Energy Department said in a Friday press release that Perry was keeping a promise he made in June to visit the facility. The Energy Department […]

With just a handful of business days until the fiscal 2020 budget year begins, the Senate Appropriations Committee is rushing to approve its spending bills. The full panel has scheduled markups for 10 a.m. Thursday of its defense; energy and water; state, foreign operations, and related programs; and labor, health and human services, education, and […]

A former employee at the URENCO USA uranium enrichment facility in New Mexico has been barred from conducting Nuclear Regulatory Commission-licensed activities for one year. Justin Roberts was working as a contract assembler at the plant in Eunice in September 2016 when he placed an unidentified, confidential part into another worker’s lunchbox, according to an […]

As negotiations begin on the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act this week, the White House asked the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee not to cut development of new proliferation-detection technologies at the National Nuclear Security Administration. The Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed in June, would not authorize some […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Friday visited the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory to assess challenges associated with cleanup of the site. The Energy Department said in a Friday press release that Perry was keeping a promise he made in June to visit the facility. The Energy Department […]

HENDERSON, Nev. — Communities along the Georgia-South Carolina line, as well as U.S. Energy Department cleanup vendors, will be closely tracking federal consideration of disposal options for 10,000 gallons of vitrified wastewater from the Savannah River Site. When the Energy Department published its proposed reinterpretation of the definition of radioactive high-level waste (HLW) in June, […]

HENDERSON, Nev. – Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy Rita Baranwal on Wednesday said there is value in “parallel paths” for management of the nation’s nuclear waste, encompassing consolidated storage and a permanent repository. Speaking at the ExchangeMonitor’s RadWaste Summit, Baranwal said she last week walked 5 miles through the planned underground disposal site at […]

Massachusetts’ government on Tuesday pressed the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for “a stay of the effectiveness” of agency staff’s approval of the license transfer and decommissioning trust fund exemption for the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. Former owner Entergy completed the sale of the retired single-reactor plant to Holtec International on Aug. 26 after receiving NRC […]

Andrew McIlroy has become associate laboratories director for the Sandia National Laboratories California campus in Livermore, Calif., the New Mexico-based laboratory system said Wednesday.  McIlroy now will lead the smaller, satellite campus of the main U.S. nuclear-weapon engineering laboratory, which employs about 1,000 people. Among other things, the campus includes the combustion research facility that studies […]

The U.S. Department of Energy now plans to issue its draft record of decision for a proposed 2.2-million-cubic yard landfill for the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee on Sept. 30. Officials with DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the state of Tennessee agreed to delay publication of the ROD from […]

ARLINGTON, Va. — It could take 18 months longer than thought to finish a pair of crucial nuclear weapon refurbishments, a senior National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) official said here Wednesday. The first production units of the B61-12 gravity bomb and the W88 Alt-370 submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead are “going to be delayed by approximately 16 […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects to give stakeholders more time to provide input on its draft regulatory basis for a potential rulemaking on disposal of Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) low-level radioactive waste. “No extension yet, but one is likely,” agency spokesman David McIntyre said by email Tuesday. On Aug. 29, the Texas Commission on Environmental […]

With uncertainty still surrounding the path of Hurricane Dorian, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site as of Tuesday was monitoring the storm but otherwise proceeding with normal operations. Dorian reached Category 5 status earlier this week, devastating the Bahamas. It was downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane as of Tuesday, with winds still […]