The Department of Energy will relocate its Washington, D.C. headquarters from the James V. Forrestal Building to the Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) building, which currently houses the Department of Education.
That is according to a Thursday announcement from DOE and the General Services Administration. The Education Department, which has undergone significant cuts under the Donald Trump administration, will be moving to small quarters, the Associated Press reported.
Relocation of DOE should save taxpayers $350 million, according to the Thursday release. All DOE Forrestal staff will be reassigned to LBJ, DOE Germantown Campus, Portals, or 950 L’Enfant. The release did not list a projected date for the relocation. In a memo to DOE staff, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said a “town hall” will soon be scheduled to discuss the issues with staff.
The Richland, Wash.-based Tri-City Herald reported Friday morning that a worker at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site died on the job this week.
The worker died Thursday and the newspaper quoted a manager with DOE contractor Hanford Tank Waste Operations and Closure as confirming the death, which was not believed to be work-related. “Despite the best efforts of his co-workers and first responders, he passed away,” H2C Chief Operating Officer Phil Breidenbach is quoted as saying in an employee memo.
The individual, identified in the story as Bryan Foster, was in a supply vehicle located at the Hanford tank farms when he died, according to the Tri-City Herald. Foster was a member of the Field Crew Operations team supporting in-tank camera inspections in SX Farm who had worked at Hanford about five years, according to H2C.
Major construction has concluded on a key security modernization effort at the Y-12 National Security Complex, with federal officials emphasizing cost savings and operational efficiencies tied to a significantly smaller high-security footprint.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said the West End Protected Area Reduction (WEPAR) project achieved full beneficial occupancy on Feb. 24, marking the end of major construction on the roughly $260 million effort. The project reduces the size of Y-12’s protected area, currently about 150 acres, by nearly 50% while upgrading core security infrastructure.
Construction began in April 2021 under NNSA’s Y-12 Project Management Office and contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security. The release estimates the project will generate between $300 million and $500 million in savings for NNSA and the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. Much of that comes from reducing the area requiring the highest level of security, which lowers both operational costs and the complexity of future work.
An hour-long webcast is now available online from last week’s groundbreaking ceremony at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio for the new energy and artificial intelligence data center.
The Donald Trump administration officially announced Friday March 20 that the DOE gaseous diffusion plant site in Piketon, Ohio has been selected for a new multi-billion-dollar project that will be executed by a public-private-partnership.
“We are going to win the AI race,” DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Tim Walsh said during the Friday afternoon ceremony. Walsh said the project should be completed within two years. The youtube webcast was posted online by Japan-based Softbank company and its energy division in the United States.
After two Canadian agencies received more than 900 public comments on Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s (NWMO) proposed deep geological repository in Ontario, the project has been referred to an independent review panel for additional vetting, officials said this week.
The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC), which oversees the application, issued a notice of referral on Monday March 23. IAAC said in a separate statement that further assessment was needed due to the adverse effects the project may cause and comments it received.
“IAAC has chosen to issue the notice of referral to a review panel prior to the notice of commencement to provide greater certainty to participants and the proponent regarding next steps in the integrated assessment and to facilitate collaboration with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission,” IAAC said.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to issue its long-awaited new licensing process to speed reviews of advanced nuclear reactors.
The rule, known as 10 CFR Part 53 or Part 53, is the first new set of regulations for approving reactors since 1989 and the first major update to reactor licensing standards since 1956 when the Atomic Energy Commission issued Part 50, NRC said in a Wednesday press release.
Part 53 is designed to take a risk-informed, technology-inclusive approach to provide an accelerated and hopefully more cost-effective licensing method for advanced reactors, NRC said. The final rule should be released on April 3, according to NRC’s website.