Department of Energy

Holtec will receive a $1.52 billion loan from the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office to restart the shuttered Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan, the agency announced Wednesday. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm announced the conditional commitment ahead of a planned tour of the Holtec Palisades Training Center in Covert, Mich. Granholm is visiting […]

The Department of Energy and contractor Bechtel National at the Hanford Site in Washington state have heated up the second melter at the vitrification plant to its operating temperature of 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit. The agency announced the heat up of the second melter in a Tuesday press release, calling it a big step toward operation […]

The acting head of the Department of Energy’s cleanup branch, William (Ike) White, as well as an Xcel Energy New Mexico manager, will speak Wednesday at the clean power information day at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. White, who heads the $8-billion-plus DOE Office of Environmental Management, will be one of the headliners, according to […]

The Leidos-led landlord at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site asked a federal court in Washington state Monday to throw out litigation by the Department of Justice and a whistleblower alleging the contractor padded its fire safety bills to the government by millions of dollars. The contractor, which has a 10-year contract now worth $4 […]

The Department of Energy prime for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Monday stood by its handling of a January incident where two workers were temporarily stuck in a hoist 1,500-feet below the surface of the facility in Eddy County, N.M. “The safety of our workforce is always our top priority,” a Waste Isolation Pilot Plant […]

There are about three-dozen small businesses on the “interested vendors list” published by the Department of Energy earlier this month for a potential Technical, Management, and Administrative Services contract at the Oak Ridge Site’s Environmental Management field office in Tennessee. The list was published earlier this month by DOE’s procurement office as a means to […]

The Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is drafting its formal response to public comments filed on the Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade Project, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration field office said last week. The environmental assessment public comment period ended Feb. 20 on the upgrade project for the […]

Speed cameras will soon be installed to help curb speeding and aggressive driving along the truck route at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s top local fed told county officials last week. The laboratory is “finding ways to try and better manage traffic flow,” National Nuclear Security Administration […]

The Tri-City Development Council thinks the best way to spur carbon-free power at the Hanford Site in Washington state is for the Department of Energy to transfer a chunk of buffer land there to local control, a vice president with the organization, David Reeploeg, told Exchange Monitor by phone Friday. Reeploeg responded to the publication’s […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management expects to issue at most two final solicitations between now and September, according to a quarterly notice published Wednesday. The final request for proposals (RFP) for Consolidated Technical Support Services would be released no sooner than June and the Paducah Infrastructure Support Services contract no sooner than […]

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant should have reported a Jan. 23 incident, where two miners were stuck up to 30 minutes in a waste hoist lowering them underground, to the Department of Energy’s accident reporting system, a federal safety watchdog says. “Site personnel determined that an erroneous digital signal caused a breaker to trip, resulting […]

A plaintiff who grew up within two miles of the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio, filed an amended federal court complaint last week against contractors he claims violated the Price Anderson Act and caused his acute myeloid leukemia. Joshua Shaw, now in his early 50s, was diagnosed with leukemia in 2008 and even […]

At least for now, the Department of Energy will not extend the April 9 proposal deadline for a solicitation for a new five-year Technical Support Services contract at the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office. In a set of questions and answers posted last week, DOE turned down a questioner who asked the final request for proposals (RFP) […]

A federal district court judge in Tennessee has again refused to allow a group of more than 20 people to join a COVID-19 lawsuit filed by fired contractors at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site. U.S. District Judge Travis McDonough rejected a motion for reconsideration filed last month by prospective plaintiffs who say they […]

A 21-year-old who starts working at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state this year could have a 50-plus-year career and still retire before the former plutonium production facility is officially cleaned up. DOE currently projects, with between 50% and 80% confidence, the Hanford Site will be deemed clean sometime between 2078 and […]

Kasgro Rail, New Castle, Pa., started building part of a prototype heavy-duty rail car to transport spent nuclear fuel, the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy announced Monday. Fabrication of deck components for the prototype, eight-axle Fortis railcar began “recently,” according to the office’s press release. Fortis is one of two rail cars DOE is […]

The Department of Energy and its prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant are conferring with stakeholders and generators to better define legacy transuranic waste, managers said during a public meeting Tuesday in Roswell, N.M. In addition, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) should bring online two major infrastructure projects, the ventilation system and […]

PHOENIX — Hanford Site managers in Washington state intend to have their transuranic waste program certified by the Department of Energy in fiscal 2026 and start shipping to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico in 2028, a contractor official said at a conference last week. Mike Douglas, waste projects manager for Amentum-led Central […]

Merging the Hanford Site’s two field offices in Washington state will not deprioritize cleanup of millions of gallons of radioactive tank waste, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told House appropriators Wednesday. DOE has for years planned to combine Hanford’s Office of River Protection with the Richland Operations Office in 2025, the same year the site […]

The Department of Energy’s Amentum-led environmental prime at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee on Wednesday signed a new contract affecting 550 members of North America’s Building Trades Unions at the nuclear property. United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) said in a press release the project labor agreement, which covers a quarter of its 2,200-person workforce, […]

Under a settlement with the state, the Department of Energy will install portable showers at the Integrated Disposal Facility once it starts receiving canisters of glass made from radioactive waste at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The agreement, dated March 4 and signed by attorneys for DOE and the Washington Department of Ecology, was […]

A new cost and schedule estimate for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s new factory for nuclear weapon secondary stages will be done “soon” and will not change the scope of the project, the secretary of energy said this week in congressional testimony. The “baseline change proposal” for the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National […]

No, the Secretary of Energy said this week during the first budget hearing of the 2025 fiscal year, the Department of Energy does not plan to fund a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. “I just want to ask you if you can quickly confirm on the record what the department’s fiscal year 25 funding […]

Subcontractors and small businesses should have benefitted more over time from Bechtel National’s multibillion-dollar contract to build the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, DOE’s Office of Inspector General said. By self-performing so much of the work, “Bechtel reduced subcontracting opportunities for small businesses and other […]

A 21-year-old who starts working at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state this year could have a 50-plus-year career and still retire before the former plutonium production facility is officially cleaned up. DOE currently projects, with between 50% and 80% confidence, the Hanford Site will be deemed clean sometime between 2078 and […]

The Department of Energy’s Amentum-led environmental prime at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee on Wednesday signed a new contract affecting 550 members of North America’s Building Trades Unions at the nuclear property. United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) said in a press release the project labor agreement, which covers a quarter of its 2,200-person workforce, […]

The Department of Energy will “move with alacrity” to jumpstart a new civilian uranium refining industry once Congress bans imports of Russian uranium to unlock billions in funding, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told lawmakers today. “[H]opefully we can get that ban in place,” Granholm said during the first DOE budget hearing of the year […]

Merging the Hanford Site’s two field offices in Washington state will not deprioritize cleanup of millions of gallons of radioactive tank waste, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told House appropriators Wednesday. DOE has for years planned to combine Hanford’s Office of River Protection with the Richland Operations Office in 2025, the same year the site […]

The fiscal-year 2025 budget season is heating up and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm was set to appear Wednesday before appropriators on Capitol Hill. Granholm was scheduled to testify about the Department of Energy’s $51-billion budget request at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time before the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee, which is chaired by […]

The Department of Energy and its prime contractor at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant are conferring with stakeholders and generators to better define legacy transuranic waste, managers said during a public meeting Tuesday in Roswell, N.M. In addition, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) should bring online two major infrastructure projects, the ventilation system and […]