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The Senate has unanimously confirmed a former member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to head the Department of Energy. Ernest Moniz will take the position vacated by Steven Chu and lead the agency charged with overseeing a broad range of energy and nuclear cleanup initiatives...

Questionable procurement decisions at the National Nuclear Security Administration have emerged with the release of a ruling on a contested contract awarded for management of the Y-12 and Pantex sites. Babcock & Wilcox currently oversees the sites and was among the bidders that challenged the award...

Three anti-nuclear-weapons protesters who defaced the side of the Y-12 highly enriched uranium facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., remained in jail Thursday following their conviction the previous day. Megan Rice, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed were convicted on felony counts, but a U.S. district judge...

The Department of Energy and Babcock & Wilcox mPower have hammered out the financial details of DOE's first round of funding to accelerate the development of small modular reactors. DOE selected mPower in November as part of a cost-matching program aimed at licensing SMRs by 2022. In a release...

The United States and Russia have helped move the final shipment of highly enriched uranium from a research reactor in the Czech Republic, representing the last of the material in the country that could be used in a nuclear weapon. Since 2004, a partnership under the Global Threat Reduction Initiative...

In a letter to a senator likely to bring enhanced political scrutiny to the Department of Energy, a federal panel has reiterated several concerns it lodged with the DOE over its partially built vitrification plant and waste storage at the Hanford site. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board outlined...

Earlier this week, NuScale Power announced it will pursue the second round of small modular reactor funding recently offered by the Department of Energy, joining the other two unsuccessful firms from the program's first round. With backing from Fluor, Oregon-based NuScale is working on a 45 megawatt...

As it announced earnings this week, Usec also offered an update on the demonstration program at the American Centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in Ohio. It remains on time and on budget, although the company's efforts to finance full build out of the plant remain ongoing. Last year the Department...

The Department of Energy announced Monday that it is taking applications for the second portion of $452 million set aside for the development and licensing of small modular reactors. Babcock & Wilcox and Bechtel received a grant for up to half of that amount in November to pursue B&W's mPower...

As it confronts potential leaks in waste tanks at the Hanford site, the Department of Energy has proposed sending some of the material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The DOE announced earlier that sludge levels have been falling in six tanks at the former weapons complex. Then the...

Sweeping federal budget cuts that took effect Friday have led the largest contractor at the Savannah River Site to announce cutbacks affecting thousands of employees in the coming weeks. In a memo to employees obtained by the Augusta Chronicle, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions CEO Dwayne Wilson said...

On Monday the president nominated a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and former member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to serve as the next secretary of energy. If confirmed by the Senate, Ernest J. Moniz will replace outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu....

The number of underground liquid waste tanks with suspected leaks at the Hanford site has grown to six. A week after announcing the first suspected leak in a single-shell tank since an interim stabilization program in 2005, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday that five additional single-shell tanks...

Babcock & Wilcox is a step closer to building the country's first small modular reactor at Tennessee's Clinch River site after announcing an agreement Wednesday with the Tennessee Valley Authority to pursue licensing of the plant. Specifically, B&W and TVA have signed a contract to prepare...

Sludge levels in a buried single-shell tank at the Hanford site in Washington are dropping at a rate of 150 to 300 gallons per year, the Department of Energy acknowledged Friday. The source of the drop within tank T-111 has not been confirmed, the DOE said in a release. Nearby monitoring wells have not...

With Congress fast approaching a March deadline to avert automatic spending cuts across the federal budget, a report released last week suggests they could result in thousands of furloughs at Department of Energy cleanup sites. According to an analysis prepared by the staff of the House Appropriations...

In its recurring review of "high-risk" government programs, the Government Accountability Office on Thursday noted that the cost estimate for Savannah River's Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility recently increased by $2 billion. The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security...

Steven Chu announced Friday that he will relinquish his post as head of the Department of Energy. Known for his prominent academic background and a focus on emerging technologies, his tenure saw the licensing of the first new reactors in decades at Plant Vogtle and V.C. Summer. He also supported loan...

Another bidder has filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office after the National Nuclear Security Administration awarded a Bechtel-Lockheed Martin consortium an extensive contract to manage security sites. Earlier this month, the semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy awarded...

Relations have soured between the Department of Energy and construction contractor Parsons at the Savannah River Site, a recent department report suggests, with the company alleging DOE favoritism toward other contractors and both parties citing poor communication in managing the over-budget Salt Waste...

Work on a new waste treatment plant at the Department of Energy's Hanford site will pick back up after construction problems delayed progress on some of its facilities. In a statement Tuesday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and former Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said work over the last several months...

The Obama administration is preparing to present a new plan for spent nuclear fuel to Congress that envisions an interim storage site opened by 2025. The proposal would implement ideas proposed last year by the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, which recommended that spent fuel...

The National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded a consortium led by Bechtel National and Lockheed Martin Services a contract worth upwards of $709 million to take over management of nuclear weapons facilities that include Y-12 and Pantex. Subsidiaries of Babcock & Wilcox had held the management...

As part of a $500 million program to dispose of Cold-War era waste stored at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the Department of Energy plans to move material containing uranium-233, U-235 and U-232 to a facility in Nevada this year. DOE officials recently told the Knoxville News Sentinel...

Utilities building two new reactors at Plant Vogtle will ask for a second extension to complete negotiations on an $8.3 billion loan guarantee. A Southern Co. executive confirmed the move during a recent meeting with state power regulators, the Augusta Chronicle reported. The Department of Energy conditionally...