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The money will be used for conceptual designs U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced Mar 8 selections for the award of $40 million to two teams led by Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co. and San Diego-based General Atomics for conceptual design and planning work for the Next Generation...

If a butterfly flaps its wings in Ohio, does it matter in Wyoming? (Portions of this blog post also appeared in Fuel Cycle Week , V8:N349 10/21/09 published by International Nuclear Associates, Washington, DC) The answer, it turns out, is yes, according to Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal , who did some...

DOE fails to get the $30 million it promised last August The Energy & Water appropriation, sent by Congress this week to the White House, does not include $30 million promised by the Department of Energy (DOE) to USEC ( NYSE:USU ) to help it with its plans to build a uranium enrichment plant in Piketon...

Warren “Pete” Miller comes to Idaho Falls DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Warren "Pete" Miller (right) was in Idaho Falls Sept 22 and told a news conference he is "pro-nuclear."  "Every interaction I've had in the (Obama) administration, at every level, has...

DOE official says the Obama administration is “still thinking” about nuclear energy It’s doubtful that Dallas Morning News reporter Elizabeth Souder was intentionally trying to be funny in her column published Sept 22 on the Department of Energy’s “stop sign” policies when its comes to reviving the nation...

The funding opportunity is for design work on a high temperature gas cooled reactor The Department of Energy announced Sept 18 a significant funding  opportunity for work on the Next Generation Nuclear Plant ( NGNP ). U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that up to $40 million in funding will be...

Even if there isn't much left of it The Department of Energy is soldiering on with the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership ( GNEP ) even though Congress has repeatedly shredded its budget. The nuclear industry has ignored it except when it handed out money.  Critics have attacked it as a giant...

Westinghouse cites technical, funding, and schedule problems The project manager at Westinghouse, which is under contract to the Department of Energy develop a design for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant ( NGNP ), told attendees at an ASME conference this week construction for the plant won't begin...

The Department of Energy's loan guarantee program is overloaded In an old joke told to me by a man who made a living clearing  farmers' fields of tree stumps with dynamite, a truck is driving down the street of a small town and something unusual happens every time it comes to a stop light...

NRC and DOE deliver report to Congress The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S.  Department of Energy (DOE) this week delivered to Congress the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Licensing Strategy Report . The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directed the agencies to jointly develop a strategy...

The government will ship 16 million tons of waste 30 miles.  Within the next 10 years approximately 12 million cubic  yards of the MOAB uranium mill tailings will take a final journey of just 30 miles and end a disturbing episode in the history of the West.  This week the Department of...

The reality is new nuclear R&D is not cheap or easy The U.K. announced this week that it will charter and fund a new national nuclear laboratory (NNL) at a cost of L$2 billion ($4 billion US at current rates).  In the U.S. the Department of Energy worried out loud how it will "re-establish...

It removes a threat to the Snake River aquifer from transuranic wastes Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter (left) stepped into history  this week joining former Idaho governors Cecil Andrus and Phil Batt by signing a ground breaking cleanup agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy. ...

Prospects are uncertain in the Senate The House Appropriations Committee voted this week to zero out funding in FY2009 for the Department of Energy's ill-fated and much maligned Global Nuclear Energy Program ( GNEP ).  This is a repeat of last year's action by the House which kicked GNEP...

Lawrence Livermore lays off 440 hitting a total of 1,800 out the door The Associated Press reports that a major Department   of Energy national laboratory has laid off 440 employees as part of a total reduction in staffing of 1,800.  Of that number the wire service reports over 100 are...

DOE puts GNEP reports online  The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has released detailed reports and presentations developed by four industry consortia that provide industry perspectives on closing the nuclear fuel cycle in the US. The reports and presentations were submitted by EnergySolutions;...