Department of Energy

Contractor North Wind Group has finished putting up the structural steel for a 60,000-square-foot offsite research facility it is building for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site at the University of South Carolina-Aiken, the agency said Monday. “Since construction started about eight months ago, we have been making substantial progress,” on the Advanced Manufacturing […]

Based on a survey taken mid-year, 72% of the staff at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have a “high level of respect” for senior leaders, which is the best score on this question in about four years at the independent federal watchdog for Department of Energy nuclear weapon sites.  The figure reached 69% of […]

The Department of Energy said this week early commissioning is underway for the much-anticipated Safety Significant Confinement Ventilation System, designed to triple underground airflow at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. Testing commenced last month for some of the electrical cables that will supply power to the motors, fans and other equipment for […]

In a deal rumored for weeks, two of the largest players in the Department of Energy’s weapons complex will next year merge into a public company majority-owned by Jacobs shareholders. Jacobs is lead partner in about $3.7 billion worth of contracts overseen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, according to an online […]

Based on a survey taken mid-year, 72% of the staff at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have a “high level of respect” for senior leaders, which is the best score on this question in about four years at the independent federal watchdog for Department of Energy nuclear weapon sites.  The figure reached 69% of […]

With federal records increasingly available electronically, the Department of Energy is closing a Richland, Wash., repository for Hanford Site paper records, federal and state agencies announced last week. In August 2022, the Tri-Party Agreement agencies that govern cleanup of the former plutonium production complex, DOE, the Washington state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Environmental […]

The Mercury Treatment Facility at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, which is about to become the responsibility of the site’s Amentum-led prime, is 50% complete, a DOE spokesperson said Friday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management spokesperson replied to an Exchange Monitor inquiry on the current status of the project. The […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants improvement in emergency response preparation at tank waste pretreatment facility at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions went through a simulated tornado drill last month at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s onsite […]

There is no evidence that classified information was disclosed during an open, unclassified National Nuclear Security Administration at Department of Energy Headquarters’ Forrestal Building in September of last year, an agency watchdog report found. However, the suspected incident was not properly reported, according to a DOE Inspector General (IG) report published Nov. 2.  In September […]

A Department of Energy contractor has removed cesium from about 698,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a DOE spokesperson said Tuesday. The fourth batch run at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) project was completed Oct. 27, the DOE spokesperson said in an email response to an Exchange […]

Two brothers in their twenties, one a former worker at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, were sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for their role in an uncle’s Mexico-based drug trafficking operation. Eduardo Reyes-Santana, 26 of Kennewick, Wash., a commercial driver and union member who worked two years at the […]

With the holidays approaching, the Department of Energy’s request for information for potential carbon-free power projects at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been extended until Jan. 2, the agency said Wednesday. Information on the clean energy potential of the 310-square-mile federal complex is now due by 12 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday […]

Natalia Saraeva, formerly the team lead for the Department of Energy’s consent based siting program, is now the community and stakeholder engagement lead at DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. Saraeva was the team lead for DOE’s consent based siting program for about one year and took on a new role in October, according to her […]

The Government Accountability Office expects to publish several major reports on Department of Energy nuclear remediation issues over the next several months, according to the congressional watchdog agency. Nathan Anderson, director of the Natural Resources & Environment unit for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), said between now and December a report on H Canyon at […]

The Department of Energy’s 2023 budget was extended through Jan. 19 by another short-term spending bill, which Congress passed this week before leaving Washington for their Thanksgiving recess. President Joe Biden (D) signed the House-authored bill on Thursday, the same day the Senate passed it 87-11. The House passed the bill Tuesday 336-95. This is […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 36 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during October, according to the agency’s public website for the facility. The figure is current as of Wednesday Nov. 15. There is typically about a two-week lag time between a shipment arriving at the Waste Isolation Pilot […]

The Amentum-led remediation prime at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee will finish construction of the Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, DOE announced Friday.  Earlier in the week, DOE confirmed to Exchange Monitor the agency will not again extend a contract with a joint venture of APTIM and […]

During its quarterly earnings report next week, Dallas-based Jacobs could unveil a deal to sell its government contracting business to the owners of another major player in the Department of Energy’s weapons complex, according to Reuters. Jacobs, an international engineering, construction and procurement contractor, “is in advanced talks” with Virginia-based Amentum, according to “people familiar […]

The Department of Energy’s 2023 budget was extended through Jan. 19 by another short-term spending bill, which Congress passed this week before leaving Washington for their Thanksgiving recess. President Joe Biden (D) signed the House-authored bill on Thursday, the same day the Senate passed it 87-11. The House passed the bill Tuesday 336-95. This is […]

The Department of Energy’s inventory of legacy transuranic waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has been winnowed to the point where the last such shipment to the underground disposal site in New Mexico could be only five years away, a federal advisory committee heard last week. Most of Savannah River’s defense-related legacy […]

The Department of Energy could roll out a draft solicitation by Dec. 31 for a small business to provide technical support services at the Paducah Site in Kentucky and the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the agency said Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management could publish a draft request for proposals (RFP) sometime within 15-to-45 […]

Two brothers in their twenties, one a former worker at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, were sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for their role in an uncle’s Mexico-based drug trafficking operation. Eduardo Reyes-Santana, 26 of Kennewick, Wash., a commercial driver and union member who worked two years at the […]

Natalia Saraeva, formerly the team lead for the Department of Energy’s consent based siting program, is now the community and stakeholder engagement lead at DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. Saraeva was the team lead for DOE’s consent based siting program for about one year and took on a new role in October, according to her […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., received 36 shipments of defense-related transuranic waste during October, according to the agency’s public website for the facility. The figure is current as of Wednesday Nov. 15. There is typically about a two-week lag time between a shipment arriving at the Waste Isolation Pilot […]

A Department of Energy contractor has removed cesium from about 698,000 gallons of radioactive liquid waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state, a DOE spokesperson said Tuesday. The fourth batch run at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) project was completed Oct. 27, the DOE spokesperson said in an email response to an Exchange […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants improvement in emergency response preparation at tank waste pretreatment facility at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions went through a simulated tornado drill last month at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s onsite […]

The Department of Energy will not again extend a contract with a joint venture of APTIM and North Wind Group to finish building a mercury treatment facility at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, an agency spokesperson confirmed Monday. The contract, which began in December 2018 and is now valued at $128-million, will not be […]

Nuclear-waste disposal is still nuclear energy’s biggest problem, the senior U.S. Senator from West Virginia told a gathering of nuclear professionals Monday in Washington. “The biggest hurdle we have right now? What the hell do we do with the waste?” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said during the opening plenary session of the American Nuclear Society’s […]

The village of Piketon, Ohio, which borders the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site, last week re-elected longtime Mayor Billy Spencer to a new term. Spencer beat out council member David Isaac Dixon 377-to-244 in the Nov. 7 election, according to results from the Ohio Board of Elections. The victory will provide Spencer, who worked for […]

The Government Accountability Office expects to publish several major reports on Department of Energy nuclear remediation issues over the next several months, according to the congressional watchdog agency. Nathan Anderson, director of the Natural Resources & Environment unit for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), said between now and December a report on H Canyon at […]