Department of Energy

The Southwest Experimental Fast-Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) in Arkansas moved closer to final remediation this week when contractor EnergySolutions removed the reactor from the containment building and placed it into a shipping container. Moving the roughly 90,000-pound reactor with a large crane took less than 30 minutes Monday, EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said by telephone Wednesday. […]

The state of Nevada has jumped the gun in seeking to force a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to recuse himself from any ruling over the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, so its petition in federal court should be dismissed, the NRC argued this week. Nevada in August filed the dismissal motion in […]

The contractor for legacy cleanup at the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B), has hired a subcontractor to remove telephone poles, old fences, and tons of concrete from Technical Area 21. The $1.5 million contract was awarded to a team of Montana-based Envirocon and Los Alamos-based […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., had received 250 shipments of defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste in 2018, as of the end of September. That figure, available from publicly accessible data, does not include a shipment from Area G of DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. The Energy […]

Rita Baranwal, the former Westinghouse executive tapped to be assistant secretary of energy for nuclear energy, will have her confirmation hearing Nov. 15, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee announced Tuesday. Baranwal was one of many White House nominees who were supposed to have a confirmation hearing ahead of the U.S. midterm elections Nov. […]

The contractor in charge of decommissioning and decontamination of the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio earned $24.3 million out of a potential fee of almost $33 million for the 16-month period ended Sept. 30, 2017. The Energy Department’s recent release of the scorecard showing Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth earned 74 percent of its potential fee, […]

Las Vegas-based Longenecker & Associates has hired James Veres as to its newly created post of chief financial officer and vice president of business operations effective Oct. 22. The Energy Department subcontractor announced the addition in a Monday news release. Since 2011 Veres has been chief financial officer at BCS, a government services firm and […]

The Energy Department’s prime contractor for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., should improve certain practices to ensure safe operation of its underground ventilation, according to a recent DOE report. Nuclear Waste Partnership (NWP) should also communicate more with union labor at the waste disposal facility, particularly when it comes to expectations […]

A story in the Oct. 9 issue of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing (“DOE Expects Benefits From Going With Single Contractor at 222-S Laboratory”) should have said the former Wastren Advantage had its corporate name retired after it was folded into Veolia Nuclear Solutions – Federal Services.

Energy Department contractor Fluor Idaho has found the fourth drum lid from an April 11 accident where four drums of radioactive sludge overheated and ejected their lids inside a building at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory. The lid was found by an airlock entry door near the floor within Room 106 of the WMF-1617 airlock at […]

CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation will have plenty of work to do over the next year after the Energy Department last month granted it a 12-month extension of its Central Plateau Cleanup contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state. When it issued the draft request for proposals for the upcoming $6.5 billion Central Plateau contract […]

The Energy Department has clarified what it means by the “Notice to Proceed” in its Hanford Site Mission Essential Services Contract, and answered other questions posed by bidders for the business, which could be worth $6 billion over 10 years. After releasing the final request for proposals on Sept. 20 on the contract at the […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in August spent $5,892 from its remaining Nuclear Waste Fund balance, with some of it going to legal costs in a petition against one of the commissioners. The agency after that spending had $443,310 remaining in unexpended, unobligated money from the fund intended to pay for development of the planned […]

The state of Washington has issued the permits needed for Bechtel National to complete construction of the final support facility at the Hanford Site’s Waste Treatment Plant to allow treatment of low-activity radioactive waste by a federal court deadline of 2023. Construction of the plant has advanced significantly, with the concrete walls of the 18,400-square-foot […]

The federal government has lifted spending restrictions placed on Bechtel National purchasing after it addressed issues raised in a routine audit by the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency. In an Oct. 5 announcement, Bechtel said it received notification on Oct. 1 that its purchasing system had been reapproved for subcontracting activities, including at the Waste […]

A new legally binding deadline requires cesium and strontium capsules at the Hanford Site in Washington state to be moved to dry storage by August 2025, though some key stakeholders argued the work should done sooner. The Department of Energy and its regulators, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington state Department of Ecology, […]

The Department of Energy on Wednesday issued a request for information (RFI)/sources sought notice for the next stage in cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project in New York state. The DOE Office of Environmental Management is officially calling this “Phase 1B” of deactivating and tearing down buildings at West Valley, plus conducting soil remediation. […]

PacTec, a maker of industrial bags for radioactive and hazardous waste, this month reasserted its federal court patent-infringement claim against a rival and fought back against that company’s counterclaim of improper behavior. In an Oct. 1 filing in U.S. District Court, the Clinton, La.-based company acknowledged that an employee in early May photographed work being […]

Valve replacement at the Savannah River Site’s Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is expected to wrap up this month, according to the Department of Energy. Meanwhile, a new project baseline for the facility submitted earlier this year is still under DOE review. Parsons, the DOE contractor building and initially operating the facility, in April discovered […]

The Energy Department has apparently decided having two contractors running the 222-S Laboratory at the Hanford Site in Washington state is like having too many cooks in the kitchen. The department hopes to improve productivity by not having two contractors “competing for priorities because they are working on the same equipment,” Dawn MacDonald, DOE Office […]

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is considering a 10-year permit renewal for the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory. The current permit expired June 4. However, INL cleanup contractor Fluor Idaho filed its renewal application six month prior to that date so it is allowed to […]

The Department of Energy has paused rollout of a solicitation for a 10-year, $14-billion contract to manage the Savannah River Site for most of the next decade, pending an internal review that could radically reshape the nuclear-weapon mission at the South Carolina facility. The agency announced the move late on Oct. 5 in a post […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has tentatively determined there would be no environmental impact from renewing the license for a storage pad for waste from reactor Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. The Department of Energy has requested a 20-year renewal of the license for the independent spent fuel […]

The public has 60 days to weigh in on a proposal to modify the fashion in which the Department of Energy classifies “high-level radioactive waste” (HLW), following publication Wednesday of a formal notice in the Federal Register. The Energy Department announced Oct. 4 it would seek to classify HLW more on its radioactive traits and […]

Fluor on Wednesday said its revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 will be about $4.6 billion, down a bit from the $4.9 billion during the same quarter in 2017. The figures Fluor announced Thursday were preliminary and the regular, full earnings report will be released Nov. 1. Fluor said to expect its third-quarter 2018 […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina sustained minor impacts from Hurricane Michael late Thursday and early Friday, during a 24-hour workforce reduction activated as the storm approached. Effects included minimal damage to some administrative buildings at the 310-square-mile Department of Energy facility near the city of Aiken, along with some loss of power and […]

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has scheduled a confirmation hearing next month for the White House nominee to lead the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. The White House last week announced the intended nomination of Rita Baranwal as assistant energy secretary for nuclear energy. The actual nomination paperwork was submitted to […]

By John Stang Staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recommended that two environmental organizations be allowed to intervene in deliberations over Holtec International’s license application to build and operate a used reactor fuel storage site in southeastern New Mexico. However, staff also determined several watchdog organizations and spent fuel storage container manufacturer NAC […]

The public has 60 days to weigh in on a proposal to modify the fashion in which the Department of Energy classifies “high-level radioactive waste” (HLW), following publication Wednesday of a formal notice in the Federal Register. The Energy Department announced Oct. 4 it would seek to classify HLW more on its radioactive traits and […]

Fluor on Wednesday said its revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 will be about $4.6 billion, down a bit from the $4.9 billion during the same quarter in 2017. The figures Fluor announced Thursday were preliminary and the regular, full earnings report will be released Nov. 1. Fluor said to expect its third-quarter 2018 […]