Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

The University of Texas at San Antonio has won a $3.1 million competitive grant from the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office to assist programs serving minority students, the department announced before Christmas. The three-year grant runs from Jan. 1, 2025, through Dec. 31, 2027, and is meant to help DOE’s Office of Environmental Management […]

Hiring new employees and upping the compensation of existing ones will cost between $2.3 million and $5.5 million, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a recent report to Congress. The commission made the 10-page report available on its website on Dec. 26. The NRC sent the report to Congress on Dec. 17, as it was […]

The Department of Energy’s environmental and disposal liabilities grew by $11 billion to $545 billion at the end of fiscal 2024, according to a December financial report. That is up about 2% from $534 billion at the end of fiscal 2023, according to DOE’s annual financial report released Dec. 12. “The increase is primarily due […]

President Joe Biden on Dec. 23 signed the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, setting spending limits for nuclear weapons and waste programs and changing parts of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s authorizing law. The Senate approved the bill on Dec. 17. The House approved it Dec. 11. The bill sets policy and spending limits for […]

Former President Jimmy Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100, was engaged in nuclear power issues dating back to the 1950s when, as a young naval officer, he helped with cleanup of a partial meltdown at the Chalk River research reactor in Canada, according  to various published accounts. The Carter Center announced […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plutonium facility had a fire start from a lightbulb’s melted plastic dripping onto glovebox parts in November, a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report said. The fire went out before staff could discover it, and was small enough that the sprinklers did not activate, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican […]

The Department of Energy remains on pace for final cleanup of a uranium mill tailings project outside Moab, Utah by 2029, the department said in a Dec. 23 press release. On Dec. 19, DOE celebrated the removal of 15 million tons of radioactive material from the site alongside the Colorado River, leaving only 1 million […]

The Leidos-led landlord contractor at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state said Dec. 26 it believes contract talks with the Hanford Guards Union have reached an impasse and Local 21 should either accept the company’s final offer, or present a “reasonable counter offer” by Jan. 2. The Hanford Guards Union Local 21 […]

The contractor in charge of converting a byproduct of uranium enrichment into a safer form at old gaseous diffusion plants in Ohio and Kentucky exceeded its targets for fiscal 2024, the Department of Energy said.  DOE recently made public its latest fee scorecards for both that contractor, Mid-America Conversion Services and separate cleanup contractors at […]

The Department of Energy last week said it would move a pair of failed melters from Savannah River Site’s Defense Waste Processing Facility to above-ground storage. The agency announced its decision in the Federal Register on Wednesday. The Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) solidifies into glass-like cylinders the liquid radioactive waste created at the Savannah […]

The California Public Utilities Commission last week approved $723 million in rate increases to let Pacific Gas & Electric Co. keep the state’s last nuclear power plant open through 2025, media reported. The increases would cover operations of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant from Sept. 1, 2023 through Dec. 21, 2025. The California Public […]

Hanford Guards Union Local 21 has asked a federal district court to issue a temporary restraining order against the Department of Energy and its Leidos-led landlord contractor for the Hanford Site in Washington state, and lift the lockout in place since Nov. 27. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS) said contract talks […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff planned to meet Jan. 9 with representatives of Holtec International to discuss regulatory relief related to aging steam generators at the Michigan nuclear plant the company wants to restart next year. The two steam generators have drawn the attention of activists opposed to restarting the Palisades Nuclear Generating station, which closed […]

An ammonia leak prompted a take-cover alert Friday for 75 workers around the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, according to DOE. The ammonia leak was reported by employees about 4:17 p.m. Pacific Time Dec. 20 around a holding tank for the plant, according to a […]

Department of Energy defense-nuclear programs will keep their 2024 budgets for almost half of fiscal year 2025, under the year’s second continuing resolution, signed into law Saturday. President Joe Biden (D) signed the bill early Saturday, the first day of winter in the northern hemisphere, hours after federal funding had technically lapsed under the previous […]

A partial government shutdown loomed after President-elect Donald Trump told congressional Republicans to oppose a three-month continuing resolution. As of Thursday morning, Speaker of the House Rep. Michael Johnson (R-La.) had not proposed an alternative to the three-month spending package Republicans published Monday, and which would if passed keep the government open through March 14. […]

MERCURY, Nev. — The next subcritical experiment in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Nimble is scheduled to fire in April, senior officials at the Nevada National Security Site site told the Exchange Monitor Wednesday. The experiment, named Nob Hill, would be the second in the three-shot series of experiments. The first experiment, called Twin Peaks, took […]

The Senate on Tuesday passed the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, setting spending limits for nuclear weapons and waste programs and tinkering with the National Nuclear Security Administration’s authorizing law. The Senate approved the bill 85-14. Voting no were three Republicans, 10 Democrats and one independent who caucuses with Democrats. President Joe Biden (D) had […]

Both the prime for the Department of Energy’s transuranic waste disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M., and the legacy cleanup contractor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory received good reviews from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management for fiscal 2024. The Huntington Ingalls Industries-led cleanup contractor, Newport News Nuclear BWXT (N3B)-Los Alamos, earned 82% of its subjective […]

An executive with the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, Johney Green, will be the new head of the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina, Battelle said last week. Battelle Savannah River Alliance said in a Dec. 13 press release it chose Green, the associate laboratory director for mechanical and thermal […]

LIVERMORE, Ca. — The W80-4 warhead’s final design reviews are complete and its first production unit is still on track for fiscal year 2027, a senior official at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory official told the Exchange Monitor here Tuesday. “We’re in a phase called production engineering,” Brad Wallin, Livermore’s deputy director for strategic deterrence, […]

The House on Tuesday evening published the text of a continuing resolution that would mostly hold federal agencies to their 2024 budget through March 14. Federal funding will run out Friday unless the bill passes Congress and President Joe Biden (D) signs it. The House planned a vote later this week, according to a press […]

After getting bad marks from the Department of Energy during fiscal 2023 for upkeep of fire suppression systems at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a Leidos-led landlord contractor won 85% of its subjective fee from the feds during fiscal 2024. The improved performance by Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS), which only took home 35% […]

Federal and state agencies on Tuesday said they did not look for a radiation source, since recovered, that went missing in New Jersey earlier this month. Spokespersons for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection all said in emails Tuesday that they did […]

The new BWX Technologies-led contractor that will oversee tank waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state expects to start making job offers to incumbent employees Jan. 6, the joint venture said recently. Hanford Tank Waste Operations & Closure (H2C) expects to start extending employment offers to workers now employed by Amentum-led […]