Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The Tennessee Valley Authority and ENTRA 1 Energy have entered into an agreement to deploy new nuclear generation in the southeast. Under the agreement, ENTRA1 will deploy up to 6 gigawatts or 6,000 megawatts of new nuclear energy to TVA’s seven-state region by deploying six ENTRA1 Energy plants, according to TVA’s Tuesday press release. ENTRA1 […]

The Department of Energy said last week it will shop around for qualified small businesses capable of doing general support service work at the Hanford Site at Richland, Wash. The DOE Office of Environmental Management published a sources sought notice Aug. 26 on Sam.gov and on the Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center website. The DOE […]

The Department of Energy’s current orders for national low-level and mixed low-level commercial waste treatment are scheduled to expire Dec. 3, according to a DOE Office of Environmental Management website. The nuclear cleanup office announced last week it has awarded five-year basic ordering agreements for five companies: EnergySolutions; Perma-Fix Environmental Services; Veolia Nuclear Solutions Federal […]

Members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will testify before a Senate oversight hearing Wednesday morning, amid an ongoing shakeup at the agency. The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing, will be held at 10 a.m. Eastern Time in Room 562 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building, will feature Commissioners Bradley Crowell, Matthew Marzano […]

Laura Cooper, the former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, announced on her LinkedIn profile that she logged her last day in federal service this summer. “After 25 years, my last day of federal service was June 28,” Cooper said last week in her post to LinkedIn. “It’s still a lot […]

Here are events related to nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking:   September 10: Hybrid meeting: The DOE Site-Specific Advisory Board for the Nevada National Security Site meets starting at 4 p.m. Pacific Time at Molasky Corporate Center, 15th Floor Conference Room, 100 North City Parkway, Las Vegas, Nevada 89106. 16: Meeting: The […]

Aalo Atomics announced it has broken ground for its experimental reactor in Idaho near the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. The Austin, Texas-based startup nuclear company was selected as one of the 11 projects under DOE’s reactor pilot program and plans to reach by July 4, 2026, according to Aalo’s Aug. 28 press release. […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Venado supercomputer has started running a series of OpenAI models to complete national security research for the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, the Department of Energy announced Aug. 28. The Venado supercomputer, which DOE says is the 19th fastest supercomputer in the world, moved to a classified network earlier this year, according […]

Two workers at the Department of Energy’s vitrification plant at the Hanford Site at Richland, Wash., were involved in a “near miss,” according to an August report more than a month after a jobsite evacuation triggered by a smoke alarm. According to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) report dated Aug. 1, the Low-Activity […]

The Department of Energy said this week more than 1,000 cylinders of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) were converted into a more stable oxide form at two former gaseous diffusion plant sites during fiscal 2025. The work took place at DUF6 conversion plants located at the DOE’s Paducah Site in Kentucky and the Portsmouth Site in […]

WASHINGTON, DC — Nuclear energy is being pushed by the Donald Trump administration, but the effort needs a strong workforce and policy behind it, authors of a new report said here Wednesday.  The working group held a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.  to discuss the report “How America Can Achieve […]

The Office of Inspector General did not find that the National Nuclear Security Administration failed to follow export control regulations, despite complaints to that effect, according to a recent report. The report, published Aug. 7, said the Office of Inspector General (OIG) received a complaint through a hotline alleging the DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security […]

The Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, Lt. Gen. Andrew Gebara,said on a Wednesday webinar that the first Sentinel flight test would be “well prior to” 2028. A Government Accountability Office report earlier this year estimated that the first flight test for the Northrop Grumman-made intercontinental ballistic missile Sentinel […]

Liquid waste work at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina resumed recently, following an annual maintenance outage.  While major waste treatment facilities at the 310-square-mile complex have resumed operations, some outage tasks have not yet been completed, according to DOE.  Liquid waste contractor Savannah River Mission Completion began the outage on […]

Greg Sosson, one of the top feds at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office, took part this month in the ninth annual forum on decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan. The annual gathering brings together international cleanup specialists to discuss nuclear remediation and track the progress of remediation following the […]

After three years in decommissioning, the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan is on the brink of restarting, Holtec announced Tuesday. According to Holtec’s Tuesday press release, Palisades was granted operational status by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Monday. The Michigan nuclear plant is the first U.S. plant to move from decommissioning back to operational […]

The Reuters news service reported Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration plans to tap plutonium left over from dismantled nuclear weapons to help power commercial nuclear reactors in the United States. The news service reported Trump could have the Department of Energy make 20 metric tons available for U.S. nuclear power plants. The article said […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch says it needs more time to put together a detailed response on infrastructure replacement and refurbishment at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. The current top executive at DOE’s Office of Environmental Management requested a 45-day extension to the current Oct. 16 due date in […]

X-Energy has entered into a strategic partnership with Amazon, Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power and Doosan to speed deployment of small modular reactors to meet growing data center demands in the United States. The Rockville, Md. based advanced nuclear company announced the four-company collaboration in its Monday press release. KHNP is the primary South Korean […]

Centrus Energy has signed a memorandum of understanding with two South Korean companies to explore investment in Centrus’ uranium enrichment facilities at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio. The MOU between Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP), POSCO International and Centrus is non-binding. But the deal also calls for the three companies […]

Laura McGill, director of Sandia National Laboratories, said Monday that she anticipates “no further job losses” due to Sandia’s headcount already being pared by about 400 this fiscal year, according to local publication Source NM. McGill, who took over as director in May, discussed layoffs with New Mexico lawmakers at the Science Technology and Telecommunications […]

Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and Gabi Amo (D-R.I.) introduced legislation Aug. 22 to exempt entities already approved for AUKUS work from another Foreign Military Sales requirement, matching a bill introduced in the Senate in June. The bill, dubbed the AUKUS Improvement Act, would specifically exempt the entities previously vetted by the State Department as AUKUS […]

The Department of Energy has announced the three companies it has conditionally agreed to provide the second round of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) allocation for advanced nuclear projects. The three companies awarded are: Antares Nuclear (based in California) Standard Nuclear (based in Oak Ridge, Tenn.) Abilene Christian University/Natura Resources (based in Texas) Antares Nuclear will […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is teaming up with Anthropic to build a tool that can determine whether artificial intelligence is providing knowledge on nuclear weapons that can be used for nefarious purposes. Anthropic, a 2021 San Francisco-based AI safety and research company that built AI assistant models like Claude, announced last week that […]

Fermi America and Westinghouse will team up on deployment of four Westinghouse AP1000 units at Fermi’s proposed hyperscale data centers campus in Amarillo, Texas. “Partnering with Westinghouse, the global leader behind the fully licensed AP1000 design, marks a critical milestone in our project execution,” Fermi America chief nuclear construction officer Mesut Uzman said in Westinghouse’s […]

The Kursk nuclear power plant experienced a fire due to an attack by Ukrainian drones Aug. 24, the day Ukraine celebrated its independence from the then-Soviet Union in 1991, Moscow officials said. The Kursk region’s governor and the operators at the nuclear plant said on messaging app Telegram that the Ukrainian drone was shot down […]