Department of Energy

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) on Monday offered an optimistic outlook on the future of the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. “Whether it’s been in the courts or Congress, we are winning the battle on Yucca, but we’re not there yet,” Fleischmann said in a prerecorded video message to attendees of […]

Congress was expected to vote on a final fiscal 2018 budget this week, but the text of the legislation — including spending details for Department of Energy nuclear programs — still were not available late Monday. The Department of Energy (DOE), like all federal agencies except the Pentagon, will run out of money after midnight […]

Gaps in safety assurance documents filed by Bechtel National are not serious enough to imperil the schedule for the Waste Treatment Plant the company is building at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state, the head of DOE’s Hanford Office of River Protection said Monday. “No, I don’t think it’s a significant issue,” ORP […]

A Department of Energy review has found more quality assurance issues at the Waste Treatment Plant being built at the Hanford Site in Washington state. Quality records “needed to demonstrate that the important-to-safety structural steel could perform its safety function were either missing or of indeterminate quality,” according to a March 6 letter from DOE’s […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus, this morning will kick off the plenary session for the 2018 Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix, Ariz. Fleischmann, whose district includes the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation, will speak this morning at the Phoenix Convention Center alongside Billy Morrison, CEO of Veolia Nuclear […]

The Department of Energy has named a new federal project director and assistant manager for the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant as the $17 billion project moves into a new phase. Tom Fletcher, now deputy manager of DOE’s Hanford Richland Operations Office, will move to the DOE Hanford Office of River Protection to take the […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry ducked and dodged in the first congressional hearing of the year about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget, evading questions from the dais about when the agency would provide a congressionally mandated cost estimate that could allow it to cancel a massive plutonium disposal plant under construction at the Savannah […]

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Thursday expressed his opposition to continuing sales of excess government uranium to help finance cleanup of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, an issue that is holding up confirmation of Anne Marie White to head the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management. The topic came up in the […]

The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state should start converting low-activity radioactive waste into vitrified glass by the end of 2021, in advance of a legal deadline, the highest-ranking official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management said Wednesday. James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant energy secretary for environmental management, […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board is preparing to issue a recommendation on the future of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), sources said this week. The Energy Department advisory board will hear public input on potential future uses for the AMWTP during a conference call on March 28. The […]

Centrus Energy is almost finished with decontamination and decommissioning of its American Centrifuge demonstration project at the Energy Department Portsmouth Site in Ohio, President and CEO Daniel Poneman said Thursday. “All the machines and plant equipment have been removed and are set for disposal, we have a few more limited tasks to wrap up,” Poneman […]

A Department of Energy proposal to fill a Hanford Site radioactive waste storage tunnel with grout will not preclude future cleanup options for the tunnel, according to information presented at a public meeting Wednesday in Richland, Wash. The meeting covered DOE’s proposed changes to the Hanford Dangerous Waste Permit issued by the state of Washington, […]

Mid-America Conversion Services earned just under $1.1 million in award fees for eight months of work on depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to the contractor’s recently released performance scorecard. That was just under half of the $2.3 million available for fiscal […]

By John Stang Complications in waste treatment operations and closure costs of a facility in Tennessee trimmed Perma-Fix Environmental Services’ revenue and produced an operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2017. However, executives said the company’s outlook is strong in 2018 as it vies for new government and commercial contracts and looks toward a potential […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy’s final budget for the 2018 fiscal year that began last October might be published Monday, the agency’s top House appropriator told reporters Thursday. After a hearing on the 2019 budget with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said congressional leaders “hope to put it [the bill] online” […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management is promising by to soon spell out steps for “final” revisions to bid proposals for the liquid waste management contract at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. At least one industry source, however, doubts DOE will fully reconsider its original contract award from last fall. After […]

Vahid Majidi, a former Pentagon and national-lab hand who most recently worked in industry, is scheduled today to replace the departing Terry Michalske as director of the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. Majidi will be executive vice president at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), which runs the lab and the Savannah River Site’s […]

The Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) at the Hanford Site in Washington state should start converting low-activity radioactive waste into vitrified glass by the end of 2021, in advance of a legal deadline, the highest-ranking official at the Energy Department Office of Environmental Management said Wednesday. James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant energy secretary for environmental management, […]

Complications in waste treatment operations and closure costs of a site in Tennessee trimmed Perma-Fix Environmental Services’ revenue and increased its operating loss in the fourth quarter of 2017. The Atlanta-based environmental services company said Wednesday it recorded $12.6 million in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2017, compared to $13.4 million in the same period […]

Vahid Majidi, a former Pentagon and national-lab hand who most recently worked in industry, is scheduled today to replace the departing Terry Michalske as director of the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. Majidi will be executive vice president at Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), which runs the lab and the Savannah River Site’s non-liquid-waste-cleanup mission for […]

Mid-America Conversion Services earned just under $1.1 million in award fees for eight months of work on depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio and Paducah Site in Kentucky, according to the contractor’s recently released performance scorecard. That was just under half of the $2.3 million available for fiscal […]

The Department of Energy has named a new federal project director and assistant manager for the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant as the $17 billion project moves into a new phase. Tom Fletcher, now deputy manager of DOE’s Hanford Richland Operations Office, will move to the DOE Hanford Office of River Protection to take the […]

During meetings today in Aiken, S.C., the three parties that bid on the Savannah River Site liquid waste contract could get some insight into what steps the Department of Energy will take after the Government Accountability Office in February sustained one of the bid protests over the $4.7 billion award to Savannah River EcoManagement. An […]

The Idaho Cleanup Project Citizens Advisory Board is preparing to issue a recommendation on the future of the Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP), sources said this week. The Energy Department advisory board will hear public input on potential future uses for the AMWTP during a conference call on March 28. The […]

U.S. Energy Department officials, possibly including Energy Secretary Rick Perry, have reached out to persuade Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to lift his hold on the nomination of Anne Marie White to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, an informed source said Monday. Barrasso wants White and DOE to commit to ending the agency’s […]

Details about the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2019 budget proposal for Cold War nuclear cleanup and civilian nuclear waste programs still were not available at deadline Monday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, only days before Energy Secretary Rick Perry is due on Capitol Hill to explain his agency’s latest spending plans. The week the White […]

Maryland-based Centrus Energy will release its fourth-quarter and full-year 2017 earnings after the markets close on Wednesday, followed by a conference call with financial analysts at 8:30 a.m. EDT Thursday. Centrus, formerly known as USEC, supplies nuclear fuel and services for the nuclear power industry. In September 2015, Centrus began closing out its three-year demonstration […]

The heads of the Department of Energy’s multibillion-dollar nuclear arms and cleanup programs are slated to testify Wednesday in a Senate hearing that could shift the course of the weapons complex policies Congress writes into this year’s annual defense authorization bill. The witness list includes Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who was confirmed last month as head of […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., has extracted more than 3,000 tons of salt since Jan. 15 when it resumed its underground mining operations, a spokesman for site prime contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership said Friday. NWP spokesman Donavan Mager cited the figure during in a phone call and email exchange […]

The aftermath of the February 2014 radiation release that closed the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for almost three years is the common thread between two recent developments at the nation’s only underground repository for transuranic waste. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking comments through April 19 on whether to […]