Publications: Morning Briefing

Northrop Grumman Systems Corp.-Marine Systems has been awarded a $111.4 million contract to maintain, overhaul and repair ship service turbine generators aboard the Navy’s Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet. The firm-fixed-price and cost-only, indefinite-delivery indefinite-quantity contract was posted Sept. 4 by the Defense Department. The deal has a total potential value of $253.3 million if […]

Holtec is gearing up for a multi-billion-dollar valuation, announcing the launch of the roadshow for its initial public offering (IPO) in an amended Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing Tuesday. After initially filing registration for an IPO in July, Holtec said in its press release it plans to offer 50 million shares at prices that […]

Lockheed Martin Space has received a $90.2 million contract modification for “advanced design and development” work supporting the Navy’s Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile life extension program, the Pentagon said. The $90,229,306 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification, posted by the Defense Department Sept. 4, supports the Trident II Life Extension 2 Strategic Systems Programs Alteration Advanced Design […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing issued a near $2 billion loan to NextEra Energy to help with efforts to restart the Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa. The $1.9 billion loan is the largest yet that DOE has issued to help revive a nuclear power plant. The former Three Mile Island […]

Virginia-based BWX Technologies (BWXT), which is involved in everything from supporting Naval nuclear reactors, to nuclear power to weapons cleanup, will hold an Investor Day presentation Sept. 29 in New York City. The event, featuring presentations from BWXT President and CEO Rex Geveden and other top executives, is by invitation only. However, the webcast audio […]

The United States and European allies are seeking an International Atomic Energy Agency resolution that would report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear safeguards obligations, news outlets said Friday. The U.S., Britain, France and Germany are lobbying members of the IAEA Board of Governors ahead of its upcoming meeting, seeking support for […]

A Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) resident inspector watched an emergency drill at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state in August to see how crews might handle an earthquake that damaged facilities within the tank farms. “An RI [resident inspector] observed an emergency preparedness event-scene limited drill simulating a seismic event […]

Here are events related to nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking:  September: 9: Meeting (hybrid): Nevada Site-Specific Advisory Board meets starting at 4 p.m. Pacific Time at the Molasky Corporate Center, 15th Floor Conference Room, 100 North City Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89106.  15: Workshop: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission holds its annual data […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will host its seventh annual Artificial Intelligence (AI) Workshop on Sept. 15 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time at NRC’s headquarters in Rockville, Md.  This year’s workshop will be titled: “Navigating the AI Landscape: Regulator Transformation, Industry Innovation, and Global Collaboration.” According to the event’s agenda, it will heavily […]

NANO Nuclear and Enveniam signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to potentially collaborate on building out a nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure and deploying NANO’s microreactor technology.  Enveniam, based in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is a project integration solutions company that works in various areas of the energy sector, including nuclear energy. New York-based NANO is an […]

BWX Technologies has received a contract from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to develop a conceptual design for the first module of a new Lithium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The first phase of the award is a four-month, $4 million contract that covers the conceptual design […]

Benton County, Wash., where the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site is located, is one of five counties in the state added this week to Gov. Bob Ferguson’s (D) wildfire emergency proclamation. The others are Columbia, Grant, Kittitas, and Whitman counties, according to Ferguson’s Aug. 31 press release. Altogether 12 counties and three tribal nations are […]

As the public comment period closed Monday for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) radiation standards rulemaking, NRC Chair Ho Nieh continues to back the agency’s move away from “as low as reasonably achievable,” or ALARA, in an op-ed.  The rulemaking, which is part of a series of changes mandated by Executive Order 14300, would move […]

The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Syria was constructing an undeclared nuclear reactor at Deir al-Zor under former President Bashar al-Assad, according to published reports.  The U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a report viewed by some news outlets such as Al Jazeera its inspectors verified that cooling infrastructure uncovered at the site is […]

WASHINGTON – The scalability of advanced reactor technologies is the next milestone for the nuclear industry, multiple industry representatives and officials told a House Science subcommittee on Energy Wednesday. Joe Hoagland, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory associate director for fission and fusion science, said during the hearing that the DOE’s reactor pilot […]

The Department of Energy’s recent decision to cut the size of the Hanford Advisory Board (HAB) in Washington state by nearly half would bring the membership more in line with other nuclear cleanup site advisory panels, based on a review by Exchange Monitor. The DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) announced last month it would […]

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing not be published on Monday September 7 in observance of the Labor Day holiday. The next edition will be posted on Tuesday September 8. 

Submarine maintenance delays have cost the Navy $3.4 billion over the past decade and could add $3.1 billion more as it prepares to retire aging Los Angeles-class attack submarines, a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report finds. In an analysis of attack submarine (SSN) data from fiscal years 2008 to 2025, GAO said it found […]

AtkinsRéalis has turned to a 32-year veteran of the Royal Canadian Air Force with experience in the aerospace industry as a Canadian security vice president based in Ottawa. AtkinsRéalis said in an Aug. 26 press release it has appointed John Edelman as its vice president, Defence, Canada. In that role, Edelman will oversee the company’s […]

The Department of Energy’s national laboratories as well as the National Nuclear Security Administration have made use of uranium oxide produced by conversion plants at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. That was one of the takeaways from an Aug. 20 meeting of the Paducah Citizens Advisory Board, according to […]

The state of Tennessee Monday issued a fusion-specific byproduct material license forType One Energy to build a commercial fusion plant at the Bull Run site in Clinton, Tenn. This marks the first-ever fusion license to be issued by a state, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation said in a press release. This decision also […]

The House of Representatives voted 370-48 to pass a conferenced, short-term continuing resolution (CR) to fund the federal government through Dec. 11, but the House Appropriations chair still criticized the Senate for not working on its individual appropriations bills. The stopgap spending bill now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature to become […]

Sandia National Laboratories has completed a sounding rocket flight test designed to provide real-world reentry data that will inform development of nonnuclear components for the Navy’s W93 nuclear warhead. The Atrax test, conducted at Sandia’s Kauai Test Facility, collected data on the aerodynamic loads and vibrations a reentry vehicle experiences as it travels toward its […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is reviewing an application from NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy that would indirectly transfer four Dominion-operated nuclear plant licenses to a NextEra subsidiary as part of the companies’ proposed merger. The public may request for a hearing about the indirect transfer of the licenses by Sept. 16. Comments about the […]

Bellevue, Wash.-based TerraPower awarded 12 supplier contracts Monday to further beef up its supply chain for its Natrium reactor in Kemmerer, Wyo. According to TerraPower’s press release, the companies selected are: Greenwood Village, Colo.-based Merrick & Company was awarded two contracts: pin removal cell design and sodium cover gas monitoring skids design. Atlanta-based Mirion Technologies: […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to install two new ammunition storage magazines at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Outdoor Live Fire Range, replacing existing structures that no longer meet current security requirements. The project, detailed in an August floodplain assessment released by the Department of Energy, would take place at Technical Area 72, where […]