Department of Energy

The Department of Energy’s tardiness in providing its entire detailed justification for its fiscal 2023, as well as cleanup challenges at the Hanford Site in Washington state, were among the issues House lawmakers raised with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm Thursday in a two-plus-hour budget hearing. DOE had by Thursday published most of its detailed […]

Washington state regulators probably will not allow the Department of Energy to solidify the Hanford Site’s liquid tank waste with grout-like cement until and unless the parties agree to permit disposal methods for liquid waste other than immobilization in glass, officials told a National Academies of Sciences panel Thursday. “Ecology considers on-site grout disposal to […]

The Department of Energy requested $10 million to fund local and tribal participation in a quest to find a host community for a federally operated interim spent fuel storage site, according to a detailed fiscal year 2023 budget request released late last week. For the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, DOE says it wants […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has made use of “Nonpublic Collaborative Discussions” on various issues since being given the option to use such private meetings in the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, according to a recent report. “The NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] for fiscal year 2021 included a change to the Atomic […]

The Department of Energy has signed off on a $5.4-million task order for Four River Nuclear Partnership to build an emergency operations center at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to a procurement notice posted online Friday April 22. Construction is scheduled to start this year, according to the DOE Office of Environmental Management budget […]

In a just-unsealed public version of a decision last month, a Federal Claims Court judge agrees Swift & Staley is too big to qualify for a new Department of Energy Infrastructure Support Services contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky because of its “negative control” of a joint venture doing similar work at the time […]

The company in charge of a Michigan nuclear plant scheduled to close this summer doesn’t have any plans to keep the facility running despite the state government’s aims to save it, a spokesperson said this week. Entergy, which currently owns Palisades Nuclear Generating Station, “acknowledge[s] having recently been contacted by government officials about the facility […]

The Joe Biden administration’s $7.6-billion budget request for the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office should help the agency begin conversion of low-activity radioactive tank waste into glass at the Hanford Site in Washington state, and other key remediation chores, William (Ike) White told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental […]

The Joe Biden administration’s $7.6-billion budget request for the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office should help the agency begin conversion of low-activity radioactive tank waste into glass at the Hanford Site in Washington state, and other key remediation chores, William (Ike) White told a Senate Armed Services subcommittee Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental […]

The Joe Biden administration’s pick to lead the Department of Energy’s nuclear power section is one step closer to the job after clearing the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Thursday on a voice vote. Kathryn Huff, who the White House nominated in January to become assistant secretary for nuclear energy (NE-1)  in DOE’s Office […]

Should the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state decide to grout much of its supplemental low-activity waste at an existing off-site facility, the process could start as early as 2027, a Savannah River National Laboratory official told a National Academies of Sciences panel Tuesday in Richland, Wash. Dan McCabe, senior scientist from the […]

Without fuel to keep it going, it will be difficult to keep the Palisades Power Plant open this summer as Michigan governor’s appeals to the federal government for a bailout, plant operator Entergy’s CEO said Wednesday. “The plant will have to stop operating in May, because we’ll be out of fuel,” Entergy CEO Leo Denault […]

U.S. electricity generation from nuclear power plants fell behind output from renewable energy sources last year, the government’s independent energy auditor said Tuesday. Renewable energy sources, which include wind, hydropower, solar, biomass, and geothermal power, generated around 800 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity in 2021, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a report published […]

Brian Vance, the top manager for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, told a National Academies panel Tuesday “time is our common enemy” in cleaning up the most contaminated property in the weapons complex. “Maximizing risk reduction per dollar,” is key to addressing the 56 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste […]

Due to the “fits-and-starts” so far with demonstration of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit, the Department of Energy plans to restart the facility’s final test run, which the agency now expects to last beyond the previously scheduled 50 days, officials at Idaho National Laboratory said Tuesday. “There really is no such thing as a 50-day […]

A Senate committee was scheduled Thursday to decide whether Kathryn Huff will get a chance to lead the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, according to a recent meeting notice.  When the White House announced its intention to nominate Huff to be assistant secretary for nuclear energy in January, the former assistant professor of […]

The company aiming to build an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Texas joined the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in calling for a state lawsuit to be kicked out of a federal appeals court, according to a new filing on the docket. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s arguments against Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed […]

DNFSB taking advantage of closed-door meetings, according to report to Congress The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has made use of “Nonpublic Collaborative Discussions” on various issues since being given the option to use such private meetings in the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, according to a recent report. “The NDAA [National Defense Authorization […]

The Department of Energy has signed off on a $5.4-million task order for Four River Nuclear Partnership to build an emergency operations center at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to a procurement notice posted online Friday April 22. Construction is scheduled to start this year, according to the DOE Office of Environmental Management budget […]

It is time for a federal district court judge in Washington state to toss out the amended complaint brought by more than 300 workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site who oppose mandatory vaccination against COVID-19, government lawyers said in filings last week. “Regardless of what procedural exhaustion requirements must be met to assert […]

During the past week there were 23 confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 among the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s federal and contractor workforce, an increase of 10 from the prior week, according to a spokesperson. That is still lower than the 27 recorded two weeks earlier. As of Monday morning, there was no […]

The procurement arm of the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office is requesting information from contractors capable of storing and disposing of low-level or mixed low-level hazardous waste, according to a recent online notice. The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center issued a sources sought/request for information (RFI) on Thursday April 21, trying to […]

Prospective bidders on a Department of Energy contract for long-term storage of domestic elemental mercury now have two extra weeks, until May 20, to submit proposals. In an update on its procurement page for Elemental Mercury Long-term Management and Storage, the DOE said Thursday April 21 that the submission deadline is being extended to May […]

New Mexico’s governor blasted the Secretary of Energy this month for failing to provide “meaningful and transparent public engagement” about the agency’s plans to ship immobilized, surplus plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant from South Carolina. “Because the issues raised in the petition can only be addressed by DOE, I am passing this petition […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management officially said in an April 15 press release it is expanding its Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program thanks to increased funding for the program in the agency’s fiscal 2022 budget, which started Oct. 1. In March, DOE’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina said Minority Serving […]

A federal district judge in southern Ohio is allowing most claims brought by a group of local residents to proceed against current and former contractors at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site. With the exception of not allowing minor children to be plaintiffs in a lawsuit chiefly concerning property, U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley rejected […]

The Jacobs-led cleanup contractor the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory has lifted a self-imposed “stand down” order at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. The contractor, Idaho Environmental Coalition, lifted the order March 31, the DOE spokesperson said in a Tuesday email. The spokesperson was responding to a Weapons […]

Until the recent past, the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico let its fire trucks fall into disrepair and did a poor job of training firefighters, the agency’s Office of Inspector General said in a just-released report.   While it found no evidence to substantiate the most serious allegations raised about the […]

AVANTech, a Columbia, S.C.,-based radioactive and industrial water treatment solutions provider for the Department of Energy and commercial nuclear markets, said this week it recently completed expansion of its business development staff, by adding or promoting five managers. Tammy Monday joined AVANTech in January as vice president of business development for government services, working out […]

A container of transuranic waste from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico was put underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in March without a required flammable gas analysis, a federal safety group said. Analysis of the omitted screening for the Los Alamos container is nearly done, said a DOE […]