Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

“Regulatory impedance” is among the challenges facing the new nuclear renaissance, the chief executive officer of BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., said Monday at a professional conference. “For whatever reason, western nations, developed economies, develop maybe a little bit of a fetish around regulation, control oversight, audit,” Rex Geveden, the BWX Technologies (BWXT) chief, said in […]

It’s not exactly radioactive waste definitions for dummies, but a National Governors Association task force has produced a document to help state and federal agencies stay on the same page when discussing cleanup of government nuclear weapons testing and production. “The purpose of this document is to help states impacted by cleanup at U.S. Department […]

Hurricane Helene gave the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management one last emergency to deal with at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina before turning over control of the property to the National Nuclear Security Administration, a cleanup manager said Monday. Hurricane Helene “made for an interesting final weekend” before the cleanup office […]

The federal government should pay $145 million for failing to remove spent nuclear fuel from three shuttered New England power plants over five years, court papers filed last week show. The payment, jointly agreed to by the plant operators and federal officials, must still be approved by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The government […]

Military activities are targeting Ukraine’s energy and nuclear infrastructure, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement Saturday. Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi said in the statement that the Khmelnytskyy, Rivne and South Ukraine nuclear power plants were not directly impacted nor did they shut down, but their […]

A little more than two weeks after Republicans swept into power in Washington, Matthew Marzano, a Democratic Senate staffer and licensed reactor operator, will get the first of two lame-duck votes he must pass in order to become a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Marzano was scheduled for a vote during a business session […]

Here are some events related to civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: November 17-20 – American Nuclear Society. 2024 Winter Conference and Expo. Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld, Orlando, Fla. Rex Geveden Chief Executive Officer of BWX Technologies, to speak on Monday’s opening plenary session. 18-19 – Savannah River Site Environmental […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 29 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during October, according to figures posted on the facility’s public website. There were 24 shipments from the Idaho National Laboratory, four from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and one from the Los Alamos National Laboratory […]

Multiple national news organizations reported Saturday President-elect Donald Trump intends to nominate Chris Wright, CEO and founder of Liberty Energy, a Denver-based oilfield services company, to be the next secretary of energy. According to his Liberty biography, Wright is a self-described “tech nerd” who previously founded Pinnacle Technologies in the 1990s, a company involved in […]

The Tennessee Valley Authority began a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage Nov. 1 at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 1, the quasi-government corporation announced last week. A Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) spokesperson told the Monitor in an email that tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TPBARs) are “loaded during a refueling outage, irradiated during one cycle, […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, told the Exchange Monitor it ‘feels like we’re close’ to finalizing an extension for a management and operations contract at Lawrence Livermore. “We’re working on an extension on that,” Hruby said, referring to Lawrence Livermore National Security, the California nuclear weapons lab’s Bechtel […]

NBC News and the Associated Press projected that incumbent Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse, whose fourth congressional district borders the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, won his race over a GOP rival backed by Donald Trump. Both the Associated Press and NBC News now list Newhouse as the projected winner of the Nov. 5 House election […]

Forgoing a recount, a Canadian municipality on Tuesday formally acknowledged its citizens’ vote to become a potential host site for a permanent radioactive waste repository. The governing council of South Bruce, Ontario, Canada, accepted the results in a special meeting, according to a municipal news release. In late October, 51% of South Bruce voters approved […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has selected Maria Mitchell-Williams as the next deputy manager of the Idaho Cleanup Project at Idaho National Laboratory. Mitchell-Williams fills the vacancy created when Mark Brown became manager of the cleanup project in March, a DOE spokesperson said in an emailed statement Tuesday to Exchange Monitor. Mitchell-Williams, […]

By spring, the Department of Energy and its prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico expect to complete overhauling an underground staging area for lifting mined salt to the surface, DOE said Tuesday. “The team is in the process of safely demolishing the old structural steel and will begin work on […]

In a 37-page framework for meeting its commitment to triple U.S. nuclear energy generation by 2050, the White House on Tuesday devoted about one page to disposal of spent nuclear fuel. The framework was a sort of deliverable that followed the U.S.’ 2023 pledge at the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference. Twenty four other […]

The total value of the Portsmouth Paducah Project Office Operations and Site Mission Support Services contract awarded Friday to an Atkins-led team could reach $2.3-billion if all options are picked up, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. A notice in the Nov. 8 System for Award Management procurement tracker indicated the deal would be worth […]

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency will visit Iran’s capital this week to meet with Iranian government officials, according to an agency press release. Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi said in the release that holding technical discussions and making “substantive progress” in implementing the IAEA Joint Statement […]

The federal government and environmental groups have until Dec. 12 to figure out how to review the environmental effects of plutonium pit production without stopping development of a pit factory in South Carolina, a judge said Friday. It was more than a month ago that Judge Mary Lewis ruled, in a lawsuit filed in 2021 […]

The Department of Energy awarded a $1.1 billion operations and support contract for former gaseous diffusion plant sites in Ohio and Kentucky to Mission Conversion Services Alliance, the agency said Friday. The contract for Operations and Site Mission Support at the Paducah Site in Kentucky and the Portsmouth Site in Ohio includes conversion of depleted […]

Bucking a statewide shift to the right, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) will return to Congress for another six years after narrowly edging out her Republican opponent, the Associated Press said Sunday. Rosen beat Brown, a Trump supporter and wounded Army Captain with a medical discharge who has never held elected office, by fewer than 2 […]

The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has granted corporate defendants until Nov. 27 to file a motion for rehearing in a case involving liability for Manhattan Project radioactive waste in the St. Louis area. The appeals court granted the request Nov. 5 in litigation brought by Nikki Steiner Mazzocchio and Angela Steiner Kraus against […]

Centrus Energy Corp. will get until late June to deliver 900 kilograms of energy-dense uranium to the Department of Energy, the company said last week in a regulatory filing. Centrus, Bethesda, Md., disclosed the extension, but not its terms, in a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The extension was foreshadowed in February […]

Here are some events related to civilian nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking this week: November 13 – Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board. In-person-virtual public meeting. 1 Science.gov Way, Oak Ridge, Tenn. To attend virtually email bridget.maestas@em.doe.gov by 7:00 p.m. Eastern time November 8, 2024. 3:00 p.m. Eastern time to 7:00 p.m. […]