Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has laid out its plans for traversing the government shutdown which began on Wednesday. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) sent out an approved lapse plan for the independent agency on Tuesday.  Under the plan, when carryover funds at the NRC are all exhausted, activities, including licensing, inspections […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has not used effective strategies to manage cost growth notifications for its construction projects, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO squeezed this report on NNSA and one more Sept. 30 before the government shut down at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday. “Over the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has appointed Andrea Kock to lead its Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards (NMSS), effective Monday, Sept. 29. Kock served as Region I administrator in King of Prussia, Penn. and most recently has been leading the NMSS as its acting head. She initially joined the NRC in 1996 as a […]

AtkinsRéalis-led Mission Conversion Services Alliance is now handling landlord work at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth and Paducah Sites, a company executive said Wednesday. Meanwhile, an Amentum-led team, Southern Ohio Cleanup, has taken over remediation at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio. Southern Ohio’s contract is worth nearly $5.9 billion over 15 years. As for […]

The federal government was set to shut down just past midnight Wednesday after the Senate failed to reach 60 votes on a stopgap bill to keep agencies open and funding flowing through Nov. 21. The upper chamber voted 55-45 on a Republican-led bill that needed a three-fifths majority to pass. Two Democrats, Sens. John Fetterman […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has *awarded a BWX Technologies (BWXT) subsidiary with a contract for licensing, design and operation of High Purity Depleted Uranium production in Tennessee. BWXT Ordnance Tennessee, the subsidiary awarded the capability, will produce this form of uranium in Jonesborough, Tenn. at a manufacturing plant it establishes at its own […]

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Tuesday published a request seeking proposals from contractors looking to build and power artificial intelligence (AI) data centers at Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. The notice calls for “entities interested in entering a long-term lease” located at Savannah River Site. Interested parties would be involved […]

The final 1 million tons of uranium mill tailings from a pile near the Colorado River at Moab, Utah has been removed, the Department of Energy said this week. In a Tuesday announcement, DOE said work crews for contractor North Wind Portage have successfully removed all 16 million tons of tailings and other contaminated material […]

The Department of Energy said Tuesday it has chosen four companies to participate in its pilot program to strengthen the domestic nuclear fuel supply chain. According to DOE’s Tuesday press release, the winning companies are: Oklo, Santa Clara, Calif., to build and operate fuel fabrication facilities to support their Aurora and Pluto reactors. Terrestrial Energy, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Y-12 National Security Complex announced the “diamond-stamping” of a secondary stage of a nuclear weapon through the W80-4 Life Extension Program, the agency announced Sept. 25. “Diamond-stamping,” as the release calls it, refers to marking a product as war-reserve quality, or reliable and safe to use in a nuclear […]

Construction of a new fire hall at the Hanford Site in Washington state gets underway in October and could be finished sometime in spring 2027, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. In a news release, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management said the long-planned new fire station will have enough room, 22,000-square-feet, to sleep 12 firefighters […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed the operating licenses of units 1 and 2 of NextEra Energy’s Point Beach nuclear plant in Two Rivers, Wis. for 20 additional years. The renewed licenses for Point Beach’s Unit 1 will expire in October 2050 and the second unit in March 2053. This is the second time the Wisconsin […]

X-energy’s subsidiary in Canada completed a study confirming the feasibility of repurposing a thermal generation site in Alberta, Canada with Xe-100 small modular reactors. The feasibility study found “significant alignment between the province’s unique energy and industrial profile and the attributes of the Xe-100,” according to the company’s Sept. 25 press release. It identified areas […]

Dae Chung, a longtime senior federal manager who retired from the Department of Energy earlier this year, has accepted a post as executive vice president at HukariAscendent. According to its website, HukariAscendent is a technical consulting and engineering company that works with DOE as well as the nuclear industry and power generation business. Chung announced […]

As the government funding deadline looms and the House is until Wednesday, government agencies, including the Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, are preparing for the possibility of a shutdown. If no eleventh-hour stopgap is agreed to, a shutdown could start at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday Oct. 1, just after the end […]

Two new Department of Energy contractor teams this week take over billions of dollars’ worth of work at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. A new Amentum-led team will be in charge of remediation at Portsmouth while an AtkinsRéalis-led team will take landlord responsibility at both Portsmouth and Paducah. This […]

Top management for the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office should use available information to identify the scope and cost of remediating contaminated soil and legacy landfills, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said last week.  DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) should also use that information to prioritize work at nuclear sites, GAO said in […]

An article in the Monday September 29 edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing should have reported the previous plan to address stranded transuranic waste at Waste Control Specialists in Texas set up a “DOE island” there prior to direct shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.

Connecticut has been granted certain authority to oversee radioactive materials, becoming the 40th Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreement state. NRC Chairman David Wright and Connecticut Gov. Edward “Ned” Lamont (D) signed the agreement Sept. 25. The final agreement was published in the Federal Register on Monday. According to the governor’s Sept. 25 press release, the agreement […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and its Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) have completed treating four flanged tritium waste containers, according to a Sept. 26 press release by the New Mexico Environment Department. The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous branch in charge of maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile informed the New Mexico Environment Department […]

A Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will hold oral arguments at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Oct. 6 on challenges to Long Mott Energy’s construction permit application for a small modular reactor in Seadrift, Texas. The petitioner, San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper (Waterkeeper), was certified for oral argument on Sept. 16 in […]

Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) created a state task force focused on advancing nuclear energy on Sept. 22 at a Western Governors’ Association’s workshop held at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The Idaho governor also said the new task force will replace the Leadership in Nuclear Energy (LINE) Commission. The commission formerly […]

ARLINGTON, VA — Perma-Fix has ratified an expanded labor agreement with Local 598. Building Trades Union that covers the company’s 35-acre treatment facility near the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Richland, Wash., the company’s CEO said Thursday. Perma-Fix CEO Mark Duff made the announcement Thursday Sept. 25 at DOE’s annual National Cleanup Workshop here. […]

Here are events related to nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking: September 30 Fiscal 2025 ends at midnight which could trigger a federal government shutdown Oct. 1 unless a continuing resolution is agreed upon. October 06: Hearing: An NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will hear oral arguments on Long Mott’s construction permit […]

ARLINGTON, VA — The Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is weighing a new strategy for moving transuranic waste stuck for years at Waste Control Specialists (WCS) in Texas, a federal manager said Thursday. The prior plan declared several acres inside the WCS property in Andrews, Texas a temporary “DOE island,” […]

The Navy’s Strategic Systems Program conducted four missile test flights of unarmed Trident II D5LE missiles from an Ohio-class nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) off Florida’s east coast  from Sept. 17 to 21.  The tests were launched from a submerged SSBN and landed in a “broad ocean area of the Atlantic Ocean,” the Navy said.  […]