The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board wants improvement in emergency response preparation at tank waste pretreatment facility at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state.
Amentum-led Washington River Protection Solutions went through a simulated tornado drill last month at the Tank Side Cesium Removal (TSCR) and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board’s onsite inspector found the performance subpar.
“The resident inspector notes that response activities in the contamination reduction zone were not effectively managed and personnel assigned to work in this zone did not have appropriate personal protective equipment for the radiological contamination levels simulated,” the board said in a staff report dated Oct. 20. A DOE spokesperson said by email Tuesday Washington River Protection Solutions is working on shortcomings identified through the drills.
Six small modular reactors that NuScale, Portland, Ore., planned to use in a canceled generation project in the southwestern U.S. could be diverted to another customer, the company’s CEO said this week.
“I want to be able to take those modules and move them over to our next customer,” John Hopkins, president and CEO of NuScale, said Tuesday in a speech to the American Nuclear Society’s annual winter meeting in Washington. Fluor Corp., Irving, Texas, is NuScale’s majority shareholder.
Last week, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems and NuScale, citing lack of customers for the electricity, announced they were canceling plans to build small modular reactors that could have delivered power to seven states.
The National Nuclear Security Administration started its oral interviews with four joint ventures vying for a contract to operate the Pantex plant in Texas, a source said Monday.
A second source familiar with the ongoing search for a Pantex maintenance and operations contractor for the U.S. nuclear weapons clearing house confirmed to Exchange Monitor that the oral exams are underway.
There are four teams invited to take part in the oral exams this week, one of these people told Exchange Monitor on Monday. Among the rumored team members are Fluor, BWX Technologies (BWXT), Amentum, Bechtel National, Jacobs, Honeywell and Huntington Ingalls Industries. Some information on potential bidders can be gleaned from the federal government’s procurement database, the System for Award Management.
The village of Piketon, Ohio, which borders the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site, last week re-elected longtime Mayor Billy Spencer to a new term.
Spencer beat out council member David Isaac Dixon 377-to-244 in the Nov. 7 election, according to results from the Ohio Board of Elections. The victory will provide Spencer, who worked for 30 years at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant site, with a sixth term as mayor, according to the Pike County News Watchman newspaper.
Spencer, who has been active on various Portsmouth Site issues, has been mayor since 2004. Dixon, who joined the village council in 2022, is a Piketon High School graduate who returned to his hometown after earning a bachelor’s degree from Wright State University.
