Department of Energy

The head of the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management field office at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said Wednesday evening the agency could soon pick up its first contract option with the legacy cleanup contractor. “The Department of Energy is getting ready to award our first contract option period under our contract […]

The depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion plants at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky, both back in service after extended outages, are benefiting from backup sources of hydrogen, the federal agency said Tuesday. The Paducah facility in western Kentucky was the first to restart conversion of depleted uranium […]

With retirements and resignations depleting key worker ranks, a procurement manager with the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch said this week the feds should tap parent companies of prime contractors. “Attrition and retention challenges have recently increased the need for the Office of Environmental Management (EM) prime contractors to access corporate support resources to […]

WASHINGTON — The Secretary of Energy told attendees at an international nuclear power conference Wednesday that the U.S. aims to keep nuclear at the center of its energy mixture in the long term. “[W]e are committed to maintaining and modernizing our existing fleet, and we are committed to developing a secure and diverse supply chain […]

Government contractor Leidos started sampling both inside and outside Jana Elementary School in Florissant, Mo., on Monday for signs of radiological contamination, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a Tuesday press release. “We are in the process of collecting samples throughout the entire property to ensure the health and safety of the students […]

The heads of both the U.S. Department of Energy and the United Nations’ nuclear power authority were scheduled Wednesday to speak with reporters at an international conference held in Washington, D.C. Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm and Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), are set to hold a joint press conference following […]

While most workers surveyed at the Department of Energy Portsmouth Site believe management is looking out for their safety most of the time, many lack confidence in radiation measurements and worry about chemical hazards at the former gaseous diffusion plant. Those are a couple of takeaways from a report done for the United Steelworkers Union […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., last week emplaced its last shipment of defense-related transuranic waste into Panel 7, the underground work area left contaminated by a radiation leak in February 2014. “Last week, last Thursday to be specific, the last waste was placed in panel 7,” said Sean Dunagan, […]

The Department of Energy plans to extend by up to a year a contract with a small business based in Arlington, Va.,for cleanup planning at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York. On Oct. 20 DOE announced its intent to extend its contract with h SC&A through Nov. 17, 2023 if all options are […]

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, pledged last week to seek funds for possible replacement of a middle school closed three years ago after public disclosure of radioactive contamination on the campus near the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. Manchin, who also sits on the Senate […]

Two days after a U.S. Senator asked President Joe Biden to intervene, the Army Corps of Engineers announced plans to do more sampling for signs of radioactive contamination “inside and outside” the Jana Elementary School building in Greater St. Louis. The Corps St. Louis Field Office will expand upon its earlier sampling to include soil […]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit planned to hear oral arguments at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on Dec. 8 in Washington to consider whether Swift & Staley is  ineligible for a small business contract it won in 2020 for infrastructure support services at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky. The […]

Two research contractors at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal district court after being accused of filing false bills with the government.   Greenway Energy and Savannah River Consulting both agreed to accept a plea agreement in proceedings before U.S. District Judge Terry Wooten in Columbia, S.C. […]

The Department of Energy is again sending transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., from the Idaho National Laboratory after New Mexico regulators lifted a hold on the shipments.   Idaho resumed sending waste canisters to WIPP on Oct. 6, a New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) spokesperson said in a Thursday email […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup procurement office last week laid out what type of foreign ownership and control disclosures bidders should be ready to provide when pursuing contracts in the weapons complex. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center in a seven-page document detailed the Foreign Ownership Control or Influence review that contractors […]

The Department of Energy could be prepared to start transferring control of the Savannah River Site to its semiautonomous nuclear-weapons agency in bits and pieces starting around 2023, a spokesperson at Washington headquarters said Monday. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), which owns the Aiken, S.C., site now, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), […]

The U.S. Department of Justice is opening a U.S. Attorney’s Office branch in Richland, Wash., near the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, Vanessa Waldref, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington said Oct. 14 in a press release. Federal prosecutors have handled an average of about 70 cases per year from the Tri-Cities area, […]

The Department of Energy expects it will be early 2023 before an Amentum-led contractor starts pretreating its third batch of low-level radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. An ongoing planned outage could take a few more months, a DOE spokesperson said by email Wednesday. That is longer than the agency’s characterization […]

After an alarm on a control panel, the Department of Energy has temporarily stopped heating up the first melter for the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, an advisory panel was told Thursday. The news was shared with a virtual meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board by Mat Irwin, […]

The Department of Energy in December plans to start a competition for a long-term contract to purchase energy-dense uranium fuel, with an eye toward awarding a deal in July, the agency told prospective bidders last week. In slides briefed during an Oct. 13 industry day and published online subsequently, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy said […]

The Department of Energy could be prepared to start transferring control of the Savannah River Site to its semiautonomous nuclear-weapons agency in bits and pieces starting around 2023, a spokesperson at Washington headquarters said Monday. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), which owns the Aiken, S.C., site now, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), […]

The Department of Energy intends in November to start up the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory, the federal agency told state officials. That was the target DOE’s Office of Environmental Management gave officials with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality on a conference call last week, Kim Custer, a senior […]

A hydrogen research contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal district court after being accused of filing false bills with the government.   Greenway Energy agreed to accept a plea agreement in proceedings before U.S. District Judge Terry Wooten in Columbia, S.C. and sentencing has been […]

The Department of Energy expects it will be early 2023 before an Amentum-led contractor starts pretreating its third batch of low-level radioactive tank waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. An ongoing planned outage could take a few more months, a DOE spokesperson said by email Wednesday. That is longer than the agency’s characterization […]

The Hanford Site in Washington state, the Department of Energy’s largest and most costly nuclear cleanup property, has been dubbed “Storm Ready” under a voluntary program with the National Weather Service, DOE said Tuesday. The National Weather Service program is meant to assist emergency managers at the former plutonium production complex beef up operations during […]

A recently-shuttered Michigan nuclear power plant that the state hopes to get running again will have new representation in Congress after November’s midterm elections. Until this year, the Covert, Mich., Palisades Nuclear Generating Station was located within the state’s sixth congressional district, represented by Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.). Following a redistricting effort, the plant is […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants the Department of Energy to address by early January 2023 whether a contractor in Washington state is being rigorous enough in overseeing a system critical to solidifying liquid radioactive waste at the Hanford Site.  In an Oct. 6 letter from Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Chair Joyce […]

The Department of Energy intends in November to start up the long-delayed Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Idaho National Laboratory, the federal agency told state officials. That was the target DOE’s Office of Environmental Management gave officials with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality on a conference call last week, Kim Custer, a senior […]

The Department of Energy could be prepared to start transferring control of the Savannah River Site to its semiautonomous nuclear-weapons agency in bits and pieces starting around 2023, a spokesperson at Washington headquarters said Monday. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM), which owns the Aiken, S.C., site now, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), […]

The U.S. Department of Justice is opening a U.S. Attorney’s Office branch in Richland, Wash., near the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site, Vanessa Waldref, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington said Friday. “The number of cases prosecuted by the Richland Division of my office has risen significantly over the last two decades,” Waldref […]