The legacy waste cleanup contractor at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory has sent its first shipment of transuranic waste derived from corrugated metal pipes to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), DOE said this week.
Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) has completed the first shipment of transuranic waste to WIPP that resulted from unearthing, chopping up and packaging the previously buried corrugated metal pipes, DOE said in a Tuesday announcement.
In the 1980s, 158 of the concrete-filled metal pipes were buried at Los Alamos Technical Area 54. DOE and N3B announced in February that worked crews had finished digging up and slicing down to size the pipes.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited has awarded BWX Technologies-led Nuclear Laboratories Partners of Canada the C$1.2-billion per year contract to manage Canadian National Laboratories.
Nuclear Laboratories Partners of Canada are made of three primary partners of BWXT Government Group, Amentum Environment and Energy, and Kinectrics. Battelle Memorial Institute is also involved as a key subcontractor.
The Canadian joint venture will manage all of AECL’s sites and assets, including the Chalk River Laboratories and environmental remediation projects in Port Hope, Ontario, according to AECL’s Thursday press release. The Nuclear Laboratories Partners of Canada will assume the responsibility of the CNL, with Dennis Carr as its CEO and president, on Sept. 13, following a transition period that will begin in the coming weeks, AECL said.
The Department of the Air Force and the Defense Logistics Agency’s energy office plan to award California-based Oklo, Inc. a 30-year, firm fixed price contract for a microreactor, likely at Eielson AFB, Alaska.
The contract is contingent upon Oklo receiving a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Oklo “would be required to site, develop, and operate a licensed microreactor facility at a DAF installation selected for site exploration,” the Air Force said on Wednesday. “Eielson Air Force Base, in Fairbanks, Alaska, is the DAF’s preferred location for the pilot, and the DAF and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are preparing an environmental analysis for the project as a next step. This initiative marks a potentially groundbreaking advancement for U.S. energy security, pioneering the first deployment of a commercial microreactor for the Department of Defense.”
Los Alamos National Laboratory, in a media tour May 28, coordinated a visit to the Emergency Operations Center, the Interagency Fire Center and the Transuranic Waste Facility to show its operations for mitigating wildfire risk, according to local paper Los Alamos Daily Post.
According to the article, New Mexico is approaching wildfire season while going through a prolonged drought. Jeff Dare, Emergency Management Division Leader, said that the Los Alamos Police Department and Fire Department both hold drills and exercises throughout the year to assist Los Alamos County, Los Alamos Field Office, and the surrounding community that includes the park and forest services and the Pueblo tribes. The area also has a 23,000-gallon groundwater tank, firefighting helicopters, and lumber cut from spacing trees 15-20 feet apart to thin tree canopy.
The team said lessons have been learned from previous fires, including the Cerro Pelado fire of 2022 that burned 45,000 acres and cost over $45 million in damage. “I think we are very well prepared,” Mark Davis, Deputy Director of Operations, said in the article.
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was thrown to the ground and handcuffed by FBI personnel after being forcibly removed from a press conference Thursday in Los Angeles with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
In a video shared across platform X by many lawmakers, including by former vice president Kamala Harris, Padilla introduces himself and says “I have questions for the Secretary” before being pushed out by people in plain clothes before the FBI takes over. Noem was in Los Angeles among demonstrations against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Southern California.
“I just saw something that sickened my stomach,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor Thursday. “The manhandling of a United States Senator, we need immediate answers to what the hell went on.” Padilla himself, in a statement on X, said “if that’s what they do to a United States Senator with a question, imagine what they can do to any American that dares to speak up. We will hold this administration accountable.”
