Department of Energy

Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, the Department of Energy contractor in charge of remediation at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, was deemed mostly “satisfactory” during fiscal 2021 and earned roughly half of its potential “adjective” fee, according to a recently-released scorecard from the agency. The joint venture made up of Jacobs, Fluor and BWX Technologies, earned […]

With the Department of Energy’s depleted uranium hexafluoride conversion plants offline during fiscal 2021, Atkins-led Mid-America Conversion Services won 70% of its subjective fee and 95% of its performance-based incentive fee, according to a scorecard published last week. The contractor earned more than $1.3 million out of a potential $1.9 million in subjectively reviewed fees […]

The White House on Monday officially nominated Kathryn Huff to lead the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, sending her nomination to the Senate about a month after announcing its intention to do so. Next up for Huff, who the Joe Biden administration tapped Jan. 24 to become the deputy assistant secretary of nuclear […]

The Department of Energy could begin doling out the first installments of credits for financially-troubled nuclear power plants this summer, the agency’s nuclear fuel cycle chief said Monday. Mid-June “is the best estimate we can offer” on when DOE’s initial payments could go out, said Andrew Griffith, the Office of Nuclear Energy’s deputy assistant secretary […]

A joint venture led by BWX Technologies, Savannah River Mission Completion, has taken over liquid waste operations now at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC), which began its transition at the end of November, was to officially assume control of the waste management operations from Amentum-led […]

Over the next 10 years, virtually all of the legacy transuranic waste at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory will be shipped to New Mexico for underground disposal and the lab’s Radioactive Waste Management Complex will be closed, the president of Jacobs-led Idaho Environmental Coalition, said Thursday. In addition, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit […]

After being offline for nearly two years due to a combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and plant upgrades, the Department of Energy says conversion of depleted uranium hexafluoride to a more stable form is resuming at the Paducah Site in Kentucky. Likewise, depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion into uranium oxide at the Portsmouth Site in […]

The White House said Friday President Joe Biden intends to nominate Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Biden was expected to formally introduce the 51-year-old Brown Jackson, currently serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, as his choice during a White House ceremony […]

Lawyers for the U.S. Attorney’s office told an Atlanta-based appeals court this week President Joe Biden has authority to restrict federal contracting to businesses that make their employees get a COVID-19 vaccination. “The principal question in this case is whether the President may require federal agencies to do business only with contractors that agree to […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General could not substantiate allegations that the Amentum-led cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee fudged its safety and health records in order to look better for DOE. That is the crux of an Office of Inspector General (OIG) report posted online Thursday. The office received […]

The legacy cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico won 72% of its subjective fee and 91% of its performance-based fee during fiscal 2021, according to an agency scorecard posted this week. Altogether, Newport News Nuclear BWXT (N3B)-Los Alamos took home $8.37 million out of a potential $9.77 […]

Department of Energy contractor Swift & Staley will stay on at least another month while a federal judge decides whether the firm exceeded the size restrictions for the $160-million Infrastructure Support Services contract at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to a Friday court filing. In a Feb. 18 order, U.S. Court of Federal Claims […]

Next Monday, Feb. 28, will mark a return-to-onsite work for most Department of Energy Idaho National Laboratory personnel, according to a recent staff report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which said COVID-19 is still complicating work there. Meanwhile, as of the seven-day period ended Thursday, Feb. 24, there were only 82 confirmed active […]

Both quarterly and annual net earnings rose at BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., the nuclear services provider said in a Tuesday press release. The company also said transition is going well for a BWXT-led team that will handle waste management at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina.  Net earnings for the fourth […]

The Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina returned to service Feb. 11, and since then has processed about 127,000 gallons of salt waste, a DOE spokesperson said in a Friday email. Earlier this month, DOE confirmed the plant built by Parsons was poised to resume operations […]

After a warm up period, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory last week resumed a 50-day final trial run of the plant expected to treat about 900,000 gallons of liquid sodium-bearing waste, federal and state agencies confirmed Tuesday. Despite a brief hiccup in the latest practice run, the […]

The Department of Energy is scheduled to answer the public’s burning questions about its forthcoming tax-credits program for economically-troubled nuclear power plants, the agency’s nuclear energy office said this week. DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) will host two public seminars next week to answer questions about its request for information (RFI) on the civil […]

The Joe Biden administration’s nominee to head up the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office won’t be back in that job, which she held in an acting capacity, until the Senate confirms her appointment, an agency spokesperson said this week. “Dr. Huff was nominated by President [Joe] Biden to be our Assistant Secretary for Nuclear […]

Net income from continuing operations at Fluor, Irving, Texas, fell for both the fourth quarter and 2021 as a whole, which the international company and Department of Energy contractor attributed mostly to a massive, pre-tax charge related to a Dutch pension plan, according to a financial release Tuesday morning. For the quarter ended Dec. 31, […]

The legacy cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico won 72% of its subjective fee and 91% of its performance-based fee during fiscal 2021, according to an agency scorecard posted this week. Altogether, Newport News Nuclear BWXT (N3B)-Los Alamos took home $8.37 million out of a potential $9.77 […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm is remaining in Washington, D.C., this week after canceling a trip to the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state due to tensions in Eastern Europe that on Thursday morning erupted into a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Given the uncertainty in global energy markets and the global security […]

The Department of Energy is scheduled to answer the public’s burning questions about its forthcoming tax-credits program for economically-troubled nuclear power plants, the agency’s nuclear energy office said Wednesday. DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) will host two public seminars next week to answer questions about its request for information (RFI) on the civil nuclear […]

Both quarterly and annual net earnings rose at BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., the nuclear services provider said in a Tuesday press release. Net earnings for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2021, were $117 million, or $1.26 per diluted share, which beat net income of $65.7 million, or $0.69 per diluted share, in the prior-year […]

After a warm up period, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory last week resumed a 50-day final trial run of the plant expected to treat about 900,000 gallons of liquid sodium-bearing waste, federal and state agencies confirmed Tuesday. On Feb. 17 operators of the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit […]

For those not traveling to Phoenix in a couple of weeks for the annual Waste Management Symposia, the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is making its Business Opportunities Forum session available online. Topics during the 9:45 a.m. Mountain Time session from the conference at the Phoenix Convention Center will include an update on […]

The interested public has just about one week left to suggest ways the Department of Energy could go about siting a future federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. March 4 is the deadline for submitting comments on DOE’s request for information (RFI) about the interim storage inquiry the agency unveiled in November. DOE […]

Net earnings from continuing operations fell at Jacobs, Dallas, in the first quarter of fiscal 2022, which the global engineering firm and Department of Energy contractor attributed largely to tax-related adjustments, according to financial results reported last week. Net earnings from continuing operations for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2021, were $134 million, or $1.03 […]

A recent Government Accountability Office report confirms what most observers already assumed — the COVID-19 pandemic prompted much of the federal workforce at the Department of Energy and elsewhere to abandon their cubicles in favor of telecommuting, although the practice has its own hassles. The DOE found there were limits to its work-from-home efforts especially […]

In social media posts Thursday, U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) says he has returned to Washington, D.C., where he is “back at work and will return to the Senate floor soon,” following his January stroke.  “Through the love and support from my family, medical team, and New Mexicans, I’m getting stronger each day in […]

Ben Harp, a Department of Energy manager for several years, has been appointed as an acting senior adviser at the $7.6-million Office of Environmental Management. Harp, a former deputy manager at the Office of River Protection at the Hanford Site in Washington state, is listed on the latest DOE Environmental Management (EM) organization chart published […]