Department of Energy

Several publicly-traded companies doing business within the Department of Energy weapons complex are scheduled to report earnings in the coming weeks. Here is a rundown of currently scheduled earnings releases and conference calls.  July 31: Huntington Ingalls Industries, Newport News, Va., will report its second quarter earnings results, the company said in a press release. […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Timothy Walsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, or EM-1, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Wednesday his military and business background has prepared him to lead the world’s largest nuclear cleanup. An Army veteran and company commander in the 82nd Airborne Division […]

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday said the White House can go ahead with plans for major layoffs and restructuring of the federal government while legal challenges play out, according to media reports. The Washington Post  and other media outlets reported Tuesday afternoon that the high court elected not to block planning for mass layoffs at […]

Several nuclear and energy groups urged Secretary of Energy Chris Wright Tuesday to undertake federal action to address the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle in the United States. The Nuclear Energy Institute, Energy Communities Alliance, Nuclear Industry Council, American Nuclear Society, Decommissioning Plant Coalition, Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, National Association of Regulatory Utility […]

The Bonneville Power Administration, a regional authority for the Department of Energy, and DOE’s Office of Environmental Management have flipped the switch on a major new 18-mile electric transmission line at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The new 230-kilovolt transmission line connects two substations at the nuclear cleanup site and replaces an 80-year-old line, […]

Montreal-based AtkinsRéalis said recently Chief Operating Office Philip Hoare is leaving the company this summer to pursue other opportunities and his exit leads to the return of a former AtkinsRéalis executive. On Aug. 23, Louis Véronneau will return to AtkinsRéalis and succeed Hoare as chief operating officer, the company announced in a June 17 press […]

Several publicly-traded companies doing business within the Department of Energy weapons complex are scheduled to report earnings in the coming weeks. Here is a rundown of currently scheduled earnings releases and conference calls.  Fluor, Irving, Texas, is scheduled to report its financial performance for the quarter ending June 30 on Aug. 1. Fluor will webcast […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has asked the Department of Energy for a briefing on plans to refurbish an old shaft and hoist relied upon for emergency evacuation of underground workers at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). “Despite long-standing recognition of underlying problems, age-related degradation and technical obsolescence issues with the shafts […]

Three months after he was nominated to head the Department of Energy’s $8-billion nuclear cleanup office, Colorado developer Timothy Walsh will undergo a hearing this week before the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee. Walsh, nominated in March to head DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, is one of four people nominated to the Department of […]

The Department of Energy’s underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste is still well behind its shipment rate from before a major accident in 2014, but things are gradually rebounding, according to the Government Accountability Office. “According to DOE officials, WIPP [the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.] had been receiving as many as […]

The Senate could vote this week on the nomination of Preston Griffith to be undersecretary of energy. The Senate is expected to vote Monday July 7 at 5:30 p.m. on whether to invoke cloture, effectively ending debating, on the Griffith nomination, clearing the way for a floor vote. Griffth’s nomination was passed out of the […]

Here are events related to nuclear matters that Exchange Monitor staff are tracking: July: 09: Forum: The Energy Technology and Environmental Business Association kicks offr the Savannah River Federal Business Opportunities Forum starting at 8 a.m. Eastern Time and running through July 10 at the Crown Plaza Hotel in North Augusta, SC.  16: Virtual meeting: […]

The House Appropriations subcommittee on Energy and Water will mark up its fiscal 2026 budget bill, which would appropriate funds to the Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration, on Monday July 7. The hearing is scheduled to start on Monday at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Also, on Thursday, July 17, the full House […]

The final version of the budget reconciliation package signed into law July 4 by President Donald Trump includes a long-sought bipartisan proposal to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). “After nearly two years of negotiations—and two separate passages of RECA packages by the Senate in 2023 and 2024,” the RECA expansion was included in […]

Sixteen single-wide office trailers in the 100-K area of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site at Richland, Wash., have been torn down, DOE said Tuesday. Hundreds of engineers and other staff at the former plutonium production complex near the Columbia River have worked at the office trailer complex since 2000, DOE said in a Tuesday […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public online meeting on June 26 to take comments on closure plans for the Calcined Solids Storage Facility at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. “Calcine is a solid, granular waste form produced through the calcination of liquid radioactive waste resulting, in part, from spent nuclear fuel (SNF) […]

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright this week announced Department of Energy plans to end what he calls “permitting paralysis” under the National Environmental Policy Act. Wright announced the changes, which are in line with a prior executive order by President Donald Trump, in a July 2 press release. DOE published an interim final rule rescinding […]

Fermi America and Texas Tech University have agreed to collaborate on a power and data campus in Amarillo, Texas. Co-founded by former Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and his son Griffin Perry, the energy development company Fermi America and Texas Tech intend to build an Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus on around 5,800 acres of […]

A dozen universities, two developers of small modular reactors and some national laboratories, have landed Rapid Turnaround Experiment projects with Nuclear Science User Facilities, from the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. The 23 award winners were announced June 26 and DOE said their work would support advanced nuclear deployment and nuclear materials. Rapid […]

California-based Deep Isolation has praised the U.S. Nuclear Industry Council for its plan to address nuclear waste disposal policy in the United States, including establishment of an independent body outside the Department of Energy.  The NIC’s action plan, Action Plan for Transforming the Back End of the U.S. Nuclear Fuel Cycle, provides an outline for […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair David Wright’s term has concluded on Monday and is no longer with the commission, at least temporarily. Wright was originally sworn as a commissioner in May 2018 as he was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term. Wright was renominated on June 16 and underwent a hearing before the […]

A Centrus Energy subsidiary American-Centrifuge Operating has delivered 900 kilograms, or 1,984 pounds, of high-assay low-enriched uranium to the Department of Energy, Centrus said last week. The Bethesda, Md.-based nuclear energy company has now achieved phase two of its DOE contract, which called for it to produce the 900 kilograms of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) […]

The Government Accountability Office, which serves as Congress’s watchdog over federal programs, would see its budget nearly cut by nearly half in fiscal 2026, under a bill advanced by the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday June 26. The Legislative Appropriation Act for fiscal 2026, which passed through the committee Thursday 34-to-28, provides  $415.4 million for […]

If things don’t change by mid-October, what is designed to be a five-person safety panel for Department of Energy sites could be down to one member. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) currently has only two members, Acting Chair Thomas Summers and board member Patricia Lee. Summers was confirmed by the Senate in July […]

The Government Accountability Office, which serves as Congress’s watchdog over federal programs, would see its budget nearly cut by nearly half in fiscal 2026, under a bill advanced by the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday. The Legislative Appropriation Act for fiscal 2026, which passed through the committee Thursday 34-to-28, provides  $415.4 million for the Government […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said June 17 it has removed waste from two more radioactive waste tanks at the 310-square-mile facility near the Georgia state line. Tanks 11 and 15 are the fourth and fifth waste tanks in 12 months to meet the “preliminary cease waste removal” designation, DOE’s […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico received 53 defense-related transuranic waste shipments in May, based on revised figures. DOE revised the figures on its public website for WIPP around June 27 after learning the website initially failed to update and record the 24 shipments that took place between May […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico received 53 defense-related transuranic waste shipments in May, based on revised figures. DOE revised the figures on its public website for WIPP around June 27 after learning the website initially failed to update and record the 24 shipments that took place between May […]

The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina said June 17 it has removed waste from two more radioactive waste tanks at the 310-square-mile facility near the Georgia state line. Tanks 11 and 15 are the fourth and fifth waste tanks in 12 months to meet the “preliminary cease waste removal” designation, DOE’s […]

In a study on the environmental effects of nuclear war, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine said to focus less on extreme cases and more on the “realm of possible outcomes,” the organization said in a public panel announcing the study. The nonprofit, in tandem with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), released […]