DOE opens month-long search for new spent-fuel lead

The Department of Energy is once again seeking candidates to run the agency’s spent nuclear fuel disposal programs, according to a job posting listed last week.

DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy is looking for a “seasoned executive” to join the agency as its Deputy Assistant Secretary for Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition, according to the listing, posted Jan. 18 on federal job board USAJobs. The application is open until Feb. 17, the listing said.

The successful candidate would “provide leadership and expertise in managing the national program that utilizes national laboratory, universities and industry assets to develop an integrated waste management system,” for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste inventories, DOE said.

The deputy assistant secretary role, a position known within DOE as NE-8, is part of the federal government’s senior executive service. Like most such positions, it requires a DOE-issued Q security clearance. 

Among the NE-8’s responsibilities is oversight of the department’s ongoing effort to build a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel under the agency’s consent-based siting model. DOE is currently accepting bids on roughly $16 million in funding for communities potentially interested in hosting such a site — applications are due Jan. 31.

The new NE-8 would also have to incorporate “environmental and energy justice principles into procedures, engagements, collaborations, and communications underpinning consent-based processes,” DOE said.

DOE has been without a full-time NE-8 for around a month. The agency said in December that Sam Brinton, the former spent fuel lead, had left the role after Brinton was charged with felony theft in two states. Kim Petry has led DOE’s spent fuel storage efforts on an acting basis since around November, while Brinton was placed on leave.

Petry did not comment at an event in Arlington, Va., Tuesday whether she would seek the role full-time.