Department of Energy

An assistant attorney general for the state of Washington in a filing Monday asked a federal court to dismiss Gov. Jay Inslee (D) from litigation filed last month by an individual angered by COVID-19 policies implemented by both the state and federal government. Joseph B. Jensen, Sr., who reportedly works at the Department of Energy’s […]

Idaho-based North Wind Portage is expected to remain on the job as a remediation contractor for up to two more years at an old Department of Energy research site within the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley, Calif., the Department of Energy said this week.  In an amendment to a justification for an exception […]

The House Appropriations Committee’s proposed two-month stopgap spending bill for 2022 that would keep the Department of Energy cleanup office at roughly fiscal 2021 levels, but also includes a provision to prevent a shortfall in uranium cleanup funds after Oct. 1. The plan released Tuesday by House Appropriations, and passed later the same day in […]

The Department of Energy plans to hire a firm, Co-Physics., to provide emergency response support services for mixed transuranic waste storage at the Separations Process Research Unit in New York. The DOE Office of Environmental Management  Consolidated Business Center announced its intention to hire Co-Physics, which has provided radioactive materials support services in the Northeast […]

A North Wind Group company will continue to carry out the Portsmouth Infrastructure Support Services Contract work at the Department of Energy cleanup site in Ohio under a potential five-year, $135-million award announced last week. Idaho-based North Wind Dynamics was chosen as the bidder that would provide the best value to the government, DOE said […]

Now that a state administrative law judge recommends the Department of Energy be allowed to continue digging a new underground shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., parties in the case have until Wednesday, Sept. 29, to file responses. In a 56-page report provided Sept. 14 to DOE, prime contractor Nuclear Waste […]

While the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad, N.M., field office believes passage of time has made transuranic drums stranded since 2014 at Waste Control Specialists in Texas safe for travel to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is not yet convinced. That is the crux of a Sept. 8  letter sent to […]

An uptick in COVID-19 cases and some uneven underground floor conditions led the Department of Energy to temporarily halt disposal of defense-related transuranic waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant recently, according to a safety board report. An increase in COVID cases required some Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) workers to quarantine, according to a […]

An assistant attorney general for the state of Washington in a filing Monday asked a federal court to dismiss Gov. Jay Inslee (D) from litigation filed last month by an individual angered by COVID-19 policies implemented by both the state and federal government. Joseph B. Jensen, Sr., who reportedly works at the Department of Energy’s […]

The Department of Energy wants its employees fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before Thanksgiving, which means they have until Nov. 8 to receive their final injection, according to a memo from the agency’s chief of staff. The memo, dated Tuesday from DOE’s chief of staff Tarak Shah and viewed by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, does not […]

A local wish list for speeding cleanup at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site in Kentucky headed the agenda as Paducah Chamber of Commerce representatives visited federal officials in Washington, D.C. yesterday and today. “During this two-day trip, we will meet with Members of Congress, federal officials and key federal agencies to share details on […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina spends much of its infrastructure money taking care of “aging, old systems” some of which are 70 years old, an agency official told the site’s Citizens Advisory Board Monday. David Bender, the DOE infrastructure services director at the federal complex along the Georgia state line, […]

The head of the United Steelworkers Local 1-689 at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio estimates more than half of his 939 union members at the uranium cleanup site have been vaccinated against COVID-19. The Steelworkers union local has asked DOE and its contractors at the former gaseous diffusion plant in Pike County, […]

Nuclear energy and advanced nuclear technologies should be a “critical part” of a net-zero energy economy, the secretary of energy said Monday in Vienna at the U.N.’s big nuclear conference. “[T]oday, we see that transitioning to net-zero represents a great economic opportunity: a global clean energy market that will grow to at least 23 trillion […]

The Department of Energy plans to hire a firm, Co-Physics., to provide emergency response support services for mixed transuranic waste storage at the Separations Process Research Unit in New York. The DOE Office of Environmental Management  Consolidated Business Center announced its intention to hire Co-Physics, which has provided radioactive materials support services in the Northeast […]

A North Wind Group company will continue to carry out the Portsmouth Infrastructure Support Services Contract work at the Department of Energy cleanup site in Ohio under a potential five-year, $135-million award announced late Friday. Idaho-based North Wind Dynamics was chosen as the bidder that would provide the best value to the government, DOE said […]

The Department of Energy redentlydefended a 2020 update to a key nuclear safety management regulation but said the agency will work with a federal nuclear watchdog over its “technical concerns” with the final rule — including as it relates to aging nuclear facilities. The DOE “continues to conclude that its current regulatory framework, as revised […]

In the end, most if not all big Department of Energy contractors will fall in line behind a federal requirement for workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, although some workers will quit rather than taking the shot, based on conversations with five industry sources this week. Most of these people, whom Weapons Complex Monitor granted […]

A second draft of the Department of Energy’s Record of Decision to build a new on-site landfill for low-level radioactive waste at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is now expected in mid-October, the agency said late recently. Originally slated to appear this week, publication of the updated draft has been pushed back until mid-October […]

Recent federal employee forms show 90% of workers at the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have been vaccinated against coronavirus infection, a spokesperson for the board said Tuesday. All Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) personnel have submitted the recently-required forms to attest to their COVID-19 vaccination status, said Tara Tadlock, associate director for board […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission opened the door for history this week when it approved a private company’s application to build what would be the only consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. In a much-anticipated decision Monday, NRC greenlit Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) proposed consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in Andrews […]

While the Joe Biden administration in its appropriations request floated the idea of moving a military cleanup program to the Department of Energy from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, lawmakers seem inclined to keep things as they are, according to a recent analysis from the Congressional Research Service. The White House budget request in […]

The Department of Energy last week defended a 2020 update to a key nuclear safety management regulation but said the agency will work with a federal nuclear watchdog over its “technical concerns” with the final rule — including as it relates to aging nuclear facilities. The DOE “continues to conclude that its current regulatory framework, […]

Construction of a plant to treat mercury-laden water stemming from building demolition at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is more than a third complete, an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. Construction of the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility by a joint venture of Louisiana-based APTIM and Idaho-based North Wind is about 35% […]

The Justice Department last week asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a 2020 ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding a state law making it easier for workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to win compensation for work-related health problems. The move has prompted swift rebukes from the Washington […]

After recording one of its busier months in more than a year, shipments of transuranic waste to the Department of Energy’s underground disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M., declined in August. Data available on the DOE’s public website for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) show only seven shipments during August, with the most recent being […]

Oregon state officials are “cautiously” behind the U.S. Department of Energy’s effort to “prove out” technology to grout up to 2,000 gallons of low-activity tank waste at the Hanford Site in neighboring Washington and dispose of it outside of the Pacific Northwest. “Oregon has not previously issued public statements regarding the Test Bed Initiative,” Maxwell […]

States and tribal governments along haulage routes leading to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico could divvy up about $8.9-million in federal project grants during fiscal 2022, according to a recent notice. “The participating States, tribes, and the DOE will work to develop, coordinate, and implement activities in accident prevention, […]

The Secretary of Energy will head off to Europe next week to lead the U.S. delegation at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference, the Department of Energy announced Thursday. At the annual conference in Vienna, Austria, Secretary Jennifer Granholm will give a speech “underscoring the use of nuclear to combat climate change, advance medical […]

Oregon state officials are “cautiously” behind the U.S. Department of Energy’s effort to “prove out” technology to grout up to 2,000 gallons of low-activity tank waste at the Hanford Site in neighboring Washington and dispose of it outside of the Pacific Northwest. “Oregon has not previously issued public statements regarding the Test Bed Initiative,” Maxwell […]