Department of Energy

A federal district judge in Idaho has penciled in an Oct. 30 hearing date to consider the U.S. government’s motion to throw out Butte County’s lawsuit against the Department of Energy. The case, scheduled for 11 a.m. Mountain Time at the Pocatello, Idaho federal courthouse, will be presided over by U.S. District Court Judge David […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear remediation office should draft clearer guidance to differentiate contractor work that directly advances cleanup from other chores, the Government Accountability Office said in a report published Monday. Until it does, DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) lacks a clear understanding of how much of its multi-billion-dollar budget directly hastens cleanup, […]

A federal safety watchdog for the Department of Energy continues to look for someone to fill its vacant executive director of operations post and discussed the search in closed session last week. On Sept. 26, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) held a “nonpublic collaborative discussion” on candidates for the position, according to a […]

The close brush with a federal government shutdown did spark the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management Friday to call off a meeting of nuclear cleanup advisory chairs previously scheduled to start this Wednesday in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board Chairs meeting previously scheduled for this week was postponed last […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina is cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by curtailing coal-burning, buying more electric vehicles and curbing business travel, according to a recent environmental report. Ameresco Federal Solutions operates an on-site cogeneration power plant that uses biomass such as wood chips to supply steam and eliminate the […]

In a follow-up to prior reports, the Government Accountability Office said again Friday that using concrete-like grout would be a cheaper way to solidify the less-radioactive tank waste at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The Savannah River Site in South Carolina has treated 4 million gallons of its radioactive salt waste […]

Paul Murray, most recently chief technology officer for Orano Federal Services, will lead spent nuclear fuel programs in the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy effective next week. Murray will join the agency at its headquarters in the Forrestal Building in Washington on Oct. 10 as the deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and […]

Still deadlocked over whether to spend the maximum allowed by a law passed this spring, Congress on Friday still had not passed a bill to keep federal agencies open in the new government fiscal year that begins Sunday. On Friday, even before it failed by a 198-232 vote to pass in the chamber in which […]

Owing to a renewed emphasis on producing plutonium pits for use in refurbished nuclear weapons, management of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina will revert to the National Nuclear Security Administration in October 2024. The now-310-square-mile facility near Aiken, South Carolina, was the locus of plutonium and tritium production for the primary stages of […]

New Mexicans who took part in a hybrid public meeting Friday, largely expressed support for a new state permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant while urging the New Mexico Environment Department to be vigilant in monitoring Department of Energy compliance. Too often from 2011 through 2018, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) managers under […]

North Wind Group has appointed Shayne Naugle as the new North Wind Services president, although there is no word yet on a successor to the parent company’s CEO Christopher Leichtweis, who announced plans to step down this year. North Wind announced the promotion of Naugle, who previously led the company’s Northeast operations, to president of […]

States agencies and other entities will receive a combined $54 million worth of funding for programs supporting the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup work, the federal agency said Thursday. For starters, Pittsburgh-based NuVision Engineering will receive $3.5 million for an independent comparison of the DOE nuclear cleanup program with governmental counterparts for the United Kingdom, […]

Crews at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site plan next week to open up a contaminated waste box recently returned to South Carolina from the agency’s underground disposal site in New Mexico, a federal advisory board heard Tuesday. These specific drums initially contained debris waste sent to the Savannah River Site from the shuttered […]

The Department of Energy and Bechtel National should make several upgrades to the chemical safety program for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to DOE’s enforcement wing. While Bechtel and subcontractor Waste Treatment Completion Co. have a “generally adequate” chemical safety program, until key improvements are made, […]

National Technology and Engineering Solutions has established adequate safety systems management programs at Sandia National Laboratories, but a new watchdog report questions whether those programs can ensure safe nuclear operations at the lab’s New Mexico research reactor.  The Energy Department’s Office of Enterprise Assessments inspected the safety system management practices at Sandia’s New Mexico campus, […]

The BWX Technologies-led nuclear remediation contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management have inked an eight-year task order for the next stages of cleanup, the site’s Citizens Advisory Board heard Tuesday. Michael Budney, DOE’s operations manager for the Savannah River nuclear cleanup, said the […]

About 75% of the motor vehicle fleet at the Nevada National Security Site is powered by either electricity or alternate fuels, according to the just-released annual environmental report for 2022. The former nuclear testing site also gets more than a third of its electricity from carbon-free sources, according to the 270-page report prepared by prime […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Enterprise Assessments is investigating an incident at the Y-12 National Security Complex in which a machine used to shape uranium was dismantled without proper criticality controls in place. In a letter dated Aug. 3, Anthony Pierpoint, director of the NNSA’s office of enforcement, notified Consolidated Nuclear Security’s (CNS) […]

A federal employee at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s W88 Alteration 370 Federal Program Office, whose computer access was restricted, used a subcontractor’s email for five years to bypass those restrictions, according to a new watchdog report.  The employee’s National Nuclear Security Administration building access also was restricted “due to a formal inquiry by a […]

A Department of Energy environmental remediation contractor has taken down the second nuclear reactor on the central campus of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the agency said Tuesday. Amentum-led United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) has finished tearing down the Low Intensity Test Reactor, which is also known as building 3005. Demolition of the […]

There will be no slowdown in nuclear cleanup next autumn when the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management gives up its landlord role at the Savannah River Site, a citizens group heard Tuesday. “What we are not transferring are any of the EM [environmental management] missions,” Michael Budney, operations manager for DOE’s Office of […]

The Department of Justice and a pair of contractor teams are still waiting for the Department of Energy to take definitive action on a potential $45-billion deal for Hanford Site radioactive waste management in Washington state, according to a new court filing. That’s the gist of a three-page status report filed Thursday by the Department […]

The Department of Energy and Bechtel National should make several upgrades to the chemical safety program for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, according to DOE’s enforcement wing. While Bechtel and subcontractor Waste Treatment Completion Co. have a “generally adequate” chemical safety program, until key improvements are made, […]

National Technology and Engineering Solutions has established adequate safety systems management programs at Sandia National Laboratories, but a new watchdog report questions whether those programs can ensure safe nuclear operations at the lab’s New Mexico research reactor.  The Energy Department’s Office of Enterprise Assessments inspected the safety system management practices at Sandia’s New Mexico campus, […]

Crews at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site plan next week to open up a contaminated waste box recently returned to South Carolina from the agency’s underground disposal site in New Mexico, a federal advisory board heard Tuesday. “We are spending a lot of time planning it out to make sure we get it […]

A federal employee at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s W88 Alteration 370 Federal Program Office, whose computer access was restricted, used a subcontractor’s email for five years to bypass those restrictions, according to a new watchdog report.  The employee’s National Nuclear Security Administration building access also was restricted “due to a formal inquiry by a […]

The BWX Technologies-led nuclear remediation contractor for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management have inked an eight-year task order for the next stages of cleanup, the site’s Citizens Advisory Board heard Tuesday. Michael Budney, DOE’s operations manager for the Savannah River nuclear cleanup, said the […]

There will be no slowdown in nuclear cleanup next autumn when the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management gives up its landlord role at the Savannah River Site, a citizens group heard Tuesday. “What we are not transferring are any of the EM [environmental management] missions,” Michael Budney, operations manager for DOE’s Office of […]

North Wind Group has appointed Shayne Naugle as the new North Wind Services president, although there is no word yet on a successor to the parent company’s CEO Christopher Leichtweis, who announced plans to step down this year. North Wind announced the promotion of Naugle, who previously led the company’s Northeast operations, to president of […]

New Mexicans who took part in a hybrid public meeting Friday, largely expressed support for a new state permit for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant while urging the New Mexico Environment Department to be vigilant in monitoring Department of Energy compliance. Too often from 2011 through 2018, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) managers under […]