Wrap-up: No. 2 Senate Democrat retiring; Anti-nuclear activist petitions Three Mile Island name change; Los Alamos TRISO fuel; more

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the no. 2 Senate Democrat and a senior defense appropriator, announced Wednesday in a video he will not seek reelection in 2026.

Durbin, 80, was elected to the Senate in 1996 and has served as the upper chamber’s Democratic Whip since 2005. He was previously the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee (SAC-D), taking on the role in 2012, before opting out of that leadership post in 2020 to assume the party’s top spot on the Judiciary Committee. His decision is likely to set off a highly contested Democratic primary for the open Illinois seat.

Durbin remains the second highest ranking Democrat, in terms of seniority, on both the full Appropriations Committee and the SAC-D panel. He is the latest senior SAC-D member to announce his retirement, with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is also the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, confirming last month she would not seek reelection in 2026. A version of this article was first published in Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily.

Eric Epstein, who has served as the chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, has filed a petition opposing the proposed name change for Three Mile Island Unit-1 to “Christopher M. Crane Clean Energy Center”.

In the petition, filed on April 18, Epstein requested a hearing to challenge the name change as he claimed the notion to rename the Three Mile Island unit is “an act of cultural vandalism. You can’t rebrand a nuclear disaster or erase memory,” he stated. 

In Jan.13, Constellation submitted an application to rename the unit after Christopher Crane, the former CEO of Constellation’s parent company, Exelon. The NRC accepted to review the amendment on Jan. 23, with the expectation of completing the review by May 23.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced on Monday that the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) recently performed a sequence of first-of-a-kind criticality experiments that provide data that supports the transportation of high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) TRISO fuel.

The experiment was performed at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center. Kairos Power collaborated with the LANL as it intends to use HALEU TRISO fuel for its fluoride-salted cooled high temperature reactors.

The project experiment, TRISO-form HALEU-fueled Experiment for Transport Applications (THETA), was performed as a bigger effort by the DOE and Nuclear Regulatory Commission to further investigate usage, storage and transportation of HALEU.

The Navy this month announced the Navy’s Naval Foundry and Propeller Center (NFPC) delivered the final major propulsor component for the future USS District of Columbia (SSBN 826) to General Dynamics-Electric Boat on April 8. 

SSBN-826 is the under-construction first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. Electric Boat accepted the component in Philadelphia, Pa., and brought it to their Groton, Conn., shipyard on April 10. NFPC has been working on the propulsor patterns, models and castings for years before the boat started construction in 2022. 

The Navy argued this work has pushed engineering innovation to “new heights, resulting in multiple record-breaking pours for nonferrous castings in the U.S. The largest casting was over 260,000 pounds and is already at Electric Boat for installation. NFPC has produced four components for SSBN-826, which will be transported to Groton, where Electric Boat is responsible for final assembly of all of the Columbia-class submarines. A version of this article was first published in Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily.

Consolidated Nuclear Security, the prime joint-venture managing the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 National Security Complex, signed a memorandum of understanding recently with technology software and development company CrewXR, a press release said.

CrewXR will focus in the partnership on data-driven visualizing of manufacturing data at Y-12’s Oak Ridge Enhanced Technology and Training Center. 

The memorandum stems from an NNSA-funded project with Case Western Reserve University that focuses on data-driven manufacturing.

Lockheed Martin and Amentum on Wednesday said they have reached a deal for Amentum to sell its engineering and technology-focused Rapid Solutions business to Lockheed for $360 million in cash.

Rapid Solutions will become part of Lockheed Martin’s Space segment when the transaction closes, which is expected in the second half of 2025. Rapid Solutions accounted for about 1 percent of Amentum’s sales in 2024, which were $8.4 billion. The business has about 230 employees.

Rapid Solutions manufactures intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance systems, advanced communications, and tactical systems.Amentum said the divesture is part of its strategy to focus on advanced engineering and technology-focused solutions, and will help with debt reduction. The company expects the deal to provide $325 million in after-tax proceeds. A version of this article was first published in Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily.