The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management should not rush to embrace costly nuclear cleanup options without first checking with independent experts on less-expensive alternatives, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Thursday July 2.
In the just-released report, GAO said the DOE cleanup branch needs to do more research before advocating megadollar solutions. DOE often spends billions on costly infrastructure like waste treatment facilities, GAO said.
“When planning these projects, DOE should identify a need without having a particular solution already in mind,” GAO said. “This allows for openness to a range of solutions. But legal and regulatory constraints and contractor involvement in this stage have sometimes led to a less optimal solution,” the congressional watchdog goes on to say.
The Washington state Department of Ecology Monday officially launched its 120-day public comment period on Revision 9A to the Department of Energy’s sitewide permit for the Hanford Site in Richland, Wash.
In an online notice, the state regulator said the sitewide permit is one of its key tools for monitoring the “treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous and radioactive waste” from the roughly 580-square mile site the federal government used for decades to produce plutonium for national defense. The comment period remains open until Oct. 27. The permit seeks to implement provisions of the Tri-Party Agreement between the state, DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which was first signed in 1989. The agreement lays out guidelines for remediation of the nuclear site.
On July 22, Ecology will start a series of online “lunch and learn” sessions at noon Pacific Time on Wednesdays about the contents of this latest revision. The July 22 session will walk stakeholders through the structure of the latest permit revision, Ecology said in the online notice.
Centrus Energy and the Department of Energy have signed the contract for the $900 million DOE award to bolster the domestic uranium enrichment production that was announced in January.
American Centrifuge Operating, a Centrus company, was one of the three companies awarded $900 million by DOE, totaling $2.7 billion given out in task orders. Centrus said in a Wednesday press release that this contract would assist in large-scale production capacity for high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) as a part of the company’s multi-billion-dollar expansion.
According to the release, the new, fixed-price HALEU enrichment contract with DOE includes options, at DOE’s discretion, for up to $170 million in HALEU purchases for departmental missions.,That would amount to $1.07 billion if all options are exercised. Centrus’ expansion at its uranium enrichment plant at DOE’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, announced in September 2025, will increase both low-enriched uranium (LEU) and HALEU capacity, Centrus said.
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration have finished a key project to shrink the area inside the fence at the Y-12 National Security Complex at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
NNSA said last week that the West End Protected Area Reduction (WEPAR) Project is expected to save $300 to $500 million through a reduction of Y-12’s high security area by 70 acres. With moving these areas out of the high-security boundary, cleanup activities can operate with fewer clearance requirements, lowering operational costs, NNSA said in a June 26 press release.
Construction on the roughly $260-million project began in April 2021 under NNSA’s Y-12 Project Management Office and contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security. NNSA completed major construction at the Y-12 building earlier this year.As part of the project, a new entry control facility was built, six new technological sectors were installed and three existing sectors of the Perimeter Intrusion Detection and Assessment System were restored.
Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS), the Bechtel-led joint venture that runs the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., said Friday that Todd Ailes will become its new president and CEO effective July 1.
Ailes will succeed Rich Tighe who is leaving CNS after about four years to become project director for Bechtel’s Sentinel project in Utah, CNS said in a June 26 press release. Tighe, a Bechtel senior vice president, served as CNS’s president and CEO since September 2022, overseeing the separation of Pantex from CNS’s contract.
Ailes, who has most recently been the CNS chief operating officer, has about 35 years of nuclear production, weapons manufacturing and related work, CNS said in the release. Previously in his career, Ailes spent 15 years with CNS management at the Pantex Plant in Texas where he served as vice president of plant operations and site manager.
Exchange Monitor offices are closed Friday July 3 for the holiday weekend. Don’t worry we will be back on the beat Monday. Happy 250th birthday America.