Department of Energy

The recent trend of nuclear sector consolidation is continuing as Salt Lake-based EnergySolutions said Thursday it has bought WMG, a provider of engineering services and software. WMG was founded in 1979 and is known in part for its trademarked RADMAN software program for radioactive shipments, EnergySolutions said in a Thursday press release. Over time, WMG […]

The Department of Energy’s $8.2-billion fiscal 2027 request for its nuclear cleanup branch, which includes a budget cut for the Hanford Site in Washington state, would not affect solidification of less radioactive tank waste, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told a House panel Wednesday. Wright testified on behalf of the White House’s DOE budget request […]

A South Carolina woman pleaded guilty last week to stealing money from her deceased relative’s pension benefits earned from working at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site.  On April 9, the Department of Justice announced Effie Mae Youmans, 71, of Columbia, admitted to theft of public money by wrongly collecting someone else’s pension benefits. […]

The Department of Energy’s $8.2-billion fiscal 2027 request for its nuclear cleanup branch, which includes a budget cut for the Hanford Site in Washington state, would not affect solidification of less radioactive tank waste, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told a House panel Wednesday. During an exchange with Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), Wright said the […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy has received 28 responses from states following DOE’s request for information for the Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus program.  During a Wednesday House Appropriations Energy and Water subcommittee hearing on DOE’s fiscal 2027 budget request, Wright said the nuclear […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) recorded 25 transuranic (TRU) waste shipments in March, following an annual maintenance outage that kept it offline since January.  The 25 shipments are the first since the facility accepted 33 shipments in December, and an uptick from March 2024 when WIPP received 13 shipments, according to […]

Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Dave McCormick (R-Penn.) have introduced a bill this week that looks to expand the Department of Energy’s ability to accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear technology The bill, Nuclear Energy Innovation and Deployment Act, was introduced to the Senate on Tuesday. The senators said in the press release that the […]

Nuclear power, as a percentage of electric generation, is expected to remain relatively flat despite the Donald Trump administration’s push to reach 400 gigawatts of nuclear power by 2050, according to an April report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2026 report, published April 8, provides projections of what the agency […]

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy unveiled in a Tuesday memorandum a new initiative focused on the use of nuclear power in space. Within 30 days of the memorandum, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will create a program to develop a mid-power space reactor with a lunar fission surface power […]

In a Sunday editorial, the Tri-City Herald newspaper in Richland, Wash., blasted the Donald Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 request that would cut by more than $390-million the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup budget for the Hanford Site. While Hanford would still receive around $2.9 billion, more than a third of the budget for the DOE […]

The Department of Energy wants $10 million to fund the standalone Office of Fusion in fiscal 2027, according to DOE’s recent budget justification document. DOE said the $10 million request will support the office by providing funding for personnel, travel, advisory and start up assistance. The Office of Fusion will lead DOE in advancing “a […]

A South Carolina woman pleaded guilty last week to stealing money from her deceased relative’s pension benefits earned from working at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site.  On April 9, the Department of Justice announced Effie Mae Youmans, 71, of Columbia, admitted to theft of public money by wrongly collecting someone else’s pension benefits. […]

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), ranking member of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, on April 8 unveiled a $19.2 million Department of Energy award to support a new nuclear safety training and workforce development program. Kaptur spoke of the initiative, led by the University of Toledo, during a visit to the Davis-Besse Nuclear […]

Here are events related to nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking:  APRIL: 13: Meeting: The South Carolina Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council meets starting at 1 p.m. Eastern Time in Columbia, S.C.  16: Meeting (hybrid): The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission meets starting at 10 a.m.Central Time at the Texas State Capitol […]

The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said last week it is preparing a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) for producing the fissile cores of the nation’s nuclear weapons, or plutonium pit production. As part of the environmental review, required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), NNSA must open the review […]

The Department of Energy has completed construction of its National Research Innovation Center’s Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) test bed, located at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory, the agency said last week. DOME is a first-of-a-kind facility that will allow private nuclear companies to test their microreactor technologies. The test bed facility serves to accelerate development, […]

The House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development and related agencies scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, April 15 to review the Department of Energy’s budget request for fiscal 2027. This hearing comes after the White House issued a budget request for fiscal 2027 that would give $32.8 billion to the DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has received an application from Westinghouse this week that seeks to update and renew its AP1000 reactor design certification to support fleet-scale deployment. The Westinghouse application incorporates lessons learned from the construction of Vogtle 3 and 4 units into the design control documentation and uses Vogtle Unit 4 as its standard […]

Nearly half of the states have sprung to respond to the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus request for information by the April 1 deadline. An industry source told Exchange Monitor on Thursday that 25 to 28 states submitted a response to DOE, with a handful of them taking an interest in managing nuclear […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy awarded $49.7 million across 10 university-led projects seeking to grow nuclear safety training. DOE’s new Nuclear Reactor Safety Training and Workforce Development Program will provide up to $100 million in funding to support nuclear workforce development. All the selected university-led projects are responsible for a 50% cost […]

The Department of Energy approved Antares Nuclear’s documented safety analysis for its test reactor, Mark-0, under DOE’s reactor pilot program, the company said this week.  The documented safety analysis marks the acceptance of Antares’s final design for its Mark-0 reactor. The company now enters the DOE’s readiness review process, which is the final phase of […]

The Department of Energy is requesting $1.53 billion for its Office of Nuclear Energy in fiscal 2027, a slight funding reduction, despite the Donald Trump administration’s push for more nuclear power. The $1.53 billion request outlined in DOE’s fiscal 2027 budget justification document represents a $151 million or 9% budget cut from fiscal 2026, which […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a proposed rule to create an additional licensing path for the Department of Energy and Pentagon demonstration reactors seeking commercial use. NRC said in a Monday press release that within its new rule it will look to leverage design information from the DOE and Department of Defense reactor demonstrations […]

Jessica Kunkle is the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) newest acting associate administrator for the Office of Infrastructure, a spokesperson for the agency told Exchange Monitor Thursday. Kunkle will be taking over for Nicole Nelson-Jean, who as of March principal associate administrator of NNSA’s Office of Environment, Safety and Health. The Office of Infrastructure is […]

Most Department of Energy nuclear cleanup sites would receive modest reductions in their fiscal 2027 funding, under the budget justification document released last weekend by the White House. At the same time, DOE says the Office of Environmental Management (EM) will play a vital role in future nuclear energy and reindustrialization.  “EM will change the […]

The Donald Trump administration is requesting $7.2-billion for Defense Environmental Cleanup in fiscal 2027, which accounts for most of the funding, for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. That would be down slightly from the $7.4-billion estimated figure for fiscal 2026, which ends Sept. 30. It would also be down from the $8.2-billion […]

Under the Department of Energy’s budget request for fiscal 2027, the DOE Office of Legacy Management would receive $200 million or $2.2 million more than in fiscal 2026. If appropriators in the House and Senate should go along with the White House request, the Office of Legacy Management funding would represent a 1% increase over […]

Nuclear cleanup managers at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina expect to complete liquid waste remediation sometime between 2037 and 2041, according to an updated federal plan. The DOE Office of Environmental Management and contractor Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC), a BWXT-led joint venture, issued the latest update of the site’s […]

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)  vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, says the Donald Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 nuclear cleanup budget for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site is “a slap in the face to the Tri-Cities, threatening the Hanford cleanup mission and the community with this absurd budget request.” “This proposal is completely unacceptable,” […]

The Department of Energy said Wednesday it has deposited its first big batch of glass logs, made from liquid radioactive tank waste, at the Hanford Site’s Integrated Disposal Facility at Richland, Wash. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management and contractor Central Plateau Cleanup said in a press release that the Integrated Disposal Facility received the first […]