Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

South Carolina and the Department of Energy said last week they had failed to settle a $200-million lawsuit over the federal government’s failure to begin removing weapon-usable plutonium from the state by Jan. 1, 2016. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims case had been on hold for about a year, during which DOE made only […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission plans through fall to hold 11 public meetings in communities near nuclear power plants that have closed or are nearing the end of the service life. The purpose of the meetings is to discuss best practices for community boards that would provide advice on decommissioning of the facilities, as required […]

Parsons has provided quality management at the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF), with little need for improvement, according to a recent assessment from the U.S. Department of Energy. Agency officials further concluded the contractor has successfully implemented processes and procedures that fall in line with DOE’s Conduct of Operations for facilities in […]

The U.S. Senate is set to vote today on its version of the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which would allow appropriators to provide the White House’s requested level of funding for nuclear-weapon modernization programs at the Department of Energy and the Pentagon. The bill also would authorize the roughly $5.5 billion requested for defense […]

Contractors at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state have won praise, for the third year in a row, for their efforts to limit the environmental impact of their computers and other electronic equipment. In 2018, over 95% of the electronics bought by all DOE contractors at Hanford were environmentally friendly, according to […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday it intends to award BWX Technologies subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services a sole-source contract to purify highly enriched uranium and convert it into metal for nuclear weapons programs. The NNSA will need Nuclear Fuel Services to step in around 2023, when the semiautononmous Department of Energy agency plans […]

Leaders in the Nevada county where the federal government wants to build a nuclear waste repository on Wednesday criticized several key elements of legislation aimed at resolving the longstanding impasse over management of the radioactive material. “The Nye County Commission remains in support of the proposition that the Yucca Mountain licensing proceeding should be completed […]

As the Air Force and wider Defense Department work to address threats posed by peer competition and to fulfill the requirements of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the service must invest in a workforce that can build and deliver crucial capabilities to sustain the nuclear arsenal, the Air Force’s top military official said June 26. […]

The Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky temporarily lost all power Sunday following a storm in the region. In an occurrence report published Wednesday, DOE said “the Paducah Site experienced a total loss of site power as a result of the severe weather affecting the Shawnee-Marshall 161kV Line that feeds power to the Paducah […]

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) wants to give state governors a firm voice in the Department of Energy’s reinterpretation of the federal definition of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). In an amendment submitted to the House’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Smith proposed prohibiting any DOE funding in the upcoming 2020 federal budget year […]

The Department of Energy is accepting claims through Sept. 13 for reimbursement of expenses for cleanup of certain uranium and thorium processing sites in the current 2019 federal fiscal year. The agency said in a Federal Register notice Tuesday that its Office of Environmental Management requested just over $20 million in fiscal 2020 for the […]

The legacy nuclear cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico this week canceled the procurement for removal of concrete slabs and related work in Technical Area 21. In an update to its April contracting notice, Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) said Monday it was terminating the procurement […]

Saudi Arabia will have to sign “a very strong 123 agreement” to be counted among the “adult members of the world community” that use nuclear power, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said Tuesday in congressional testimony. Perry has made that point directly to the Saudi government, the Energy Department chief told the House Science Committee […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Tuesday committed to explaining the missed 2017 deadline to complete environmental remediation at his agency’s portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California. The Energy Department is one of three parties, with Boeing and NASA, responsible for cleanup of the former 2,850-acre rocket testing and nuclear research complex […]

The House of Representatives will not debate its version of the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) until after the Fourth of July, but lawmakers have already proposed several pro- and anti-nuclear amendments to the annual defense policy bill. Lawmakers proposed their amendments Tuesday to the House Rules Committee. The panel plans to set […]

The Department of Energy has extended three technical support services contracts through Sept. 30 for cleanup operations at its Paducah Site in Kentucky and Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Further details about the contract extensions were not immediately available. The department has indicated it could extend the contracts in three-month increments from April 1 to Dec. […]

The prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 National Security Complex continued to grapple with a fix for a hydrogen fluoride system until earlier this month — well after an April leak that prompted an evacuation of the agency’s main uranium processing building.  The system in Building 9212 “returned to operation on Monday, […]

Mission Support Alliance (MSA), the support services provider for the Hanford Site in Washington state, has dropped a contract dispute complaint against the Department of Energy. The chair of the U.S. Civilian Board of Contract Appeals on June 19 dismissed MSA’s case against the Energy Department with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled at a […]

The Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) this month formally determined that the site of the now-decommissioned Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) can be released for unrestricted use. Contractor EnergySolutions completed decommissioning the facility in April. While the University of Arkansas owns the reactor site, the work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. […]

Doug Fremont is the new chief of staff for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), an agency spokesperson said Monday. He succeeds William “Ike” White, who left to work at the Department of Energy’s Cold War nuclear-weapon cleanup program. Fremont is the former security chief for the semiautonomous DOE nuclear-weapons agency. He was removed from […]

One of the Department of Energy’s major contractors has sealed a cooperative agreement with a company offering a “drillhole” method for disposal of nuclear waste. Under the memorandum of agreement announced Monday, Bechtel will offer project management, business, and other support to assist Deep Isolation in selling its technology to the Energy Department and other […]

A federal judge on Monday stayed the almost 3-year old lawsuit filed by MOX Services against the National Nuclear Security Administration after the parties announced they were close to settling the $200-million-plus case. “After mediation, the parties have come to an agreement in principle on proposed settlement terms which, if approved, would resolve this consolidated […]

U.S. Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) on Friday called on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to rethink its decision against posting a full-time inspector at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) until completion of the used reactor fuel offload at the retired power plant. The lawmaker, whose congressional district covers SONGS, cited a list of safety […]

The U.S. Senate is expected this week to act on its version of the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which would permit more funding than the Trump administration requested for Department of Energy nuclear cleanup and as much money as requested for nuclear weapons programs. That is the sole bit of congressional action […]

DAYTON, Ohio — With a series of modernization efforts on the table for the Air Force’s aging B-52 bomber fleet, the service will decide over the next two years whether the upgrades merit a model change, officials said June 20. Brig. Gen. Heath Collins, program executive officer for fighters and bombers at the Air Force’s Lifecycle Management […]

The prime cleanup contractor for the Central Plateau at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state is accepting expressions of interest from potential manufacturers of an ion-exchange system for treatment of contaminated groundwater. The selected subcontractor would design, produce, and submit the system for extraction of uranium and technetium-99 for the pump-and-treat facility […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the prime contractor for a canceled plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina have reached an agreement in principle to settle a $200 million lawsuit the company filed nearly three years ago after the agency moved to shutter the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. MOX Services and the agency […]