The government of Canada announced this week it is entering into a four-year contract worth up to C$304 million with AtkinsRéalis to support the development and modernization of a new, large-scale, natural uranium–fuelled Canadian deuterium uranium (CANDU) nuclear reactor.
The contract with AtkinsRéalis is meant to finance half of the design project, according to the March 5 press release. “This modernization work will also include Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), the operators and the broader Canadian supply chain,” the government said in the release. “Specifically, AECL owns the CANDU intellectual property and is working with AtkinsRéalis to leverage it for success in today’s energy markets.”
Staff from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico recently reached a milepost in an effort to recover devices containing potentially harmful radioactive material from domestic research labs, universities and hospitals.
According to a Feb. 27 lab press release, the Los Alamos Mobile Loading Source Recovery Team, launched in 2019 as part of the Repository Science and Operations division, has now received 100 such shipments. As a result, 190,023 curies worth of radioactive material in sealed sources have been disposed of at DOE facilities. The program gets funding from DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
Recovery and disposal of such material benefits national security by preventing it from potentially being lost, stolen or even used in terrorist attacks, according to the lab’s press release. “We’re trying to reduce the amount of radioactive material in the public sphere that could be used in a dirty bomb,” said Bill Stewart, program manager source recovery said in the release.
Chantilly, Va.,-based Amentum has appointed Michele St. Mary as its chief legal officer and general counsel, the government contractor said Feb. 17.
In her role, St. Mary will oversee a wide array of legal issues ranging from ethics to contracts to litigation, according to the press release.Before Amentum, St. Mary was the vice president and deputy general counsel for L3Harris Technologies, where she spent 19 years. Before that, St. Mary was senior counsel for Sun Microsystems, Inc. and an associate at the Crowell & Moring law firm.
St. Mary becomes chief legal officer job as Stuart Young retires from the company after over 30 years working for Amentum and its legacy companies.
Carrie Meyer, who heads communications and stakeholder engagement for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, has left the agency.
“After 18 years with the US Department of Energy, I’ve officially checked out for the last time,” Meyer said over the weekend on her LinkedIn profile page. “Excited for new opportunities on the horizon!” Meyer did not say if she would taking one of the White House deferred resignation buyouts.
Meyer spent much of her federal career working in communications at DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state. She has also worked in public affairs for the National Nuclear Security Administration. In the private sector, Meyer has worked for Bechtel National, Energy Northwest, BNFL and Jacobs.
The Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee (CROET), a nonprofit organization dedicated to repurposing older Department of Energy facilities at the Oak Ridge Site, has begun the first phase of turning a uranium enrichment area into a private park.
The organization will conduct road improvement projects, lighting and landscaping as part of a closure plan of the former DOE Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant K-25, according to a Tuesday press release from CROET.
Major demolition at the K-25 area at Oak Ridge was finished in fall 2020. The park project is set to begin in April of this year, and is set to complete in the fall. It is currently out for review and pricing, and the design process was recently completed as part of the standards for the City of Oak Ridge.
