Oak Ridge Today

B&W Y-12 again a premier sponsor of the Secret City Festival

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B&W Y-12 Secret City Festival Check Presentation

Chuck Spencer, center, B&W Y-12 president and general manager, presents a $25,000 sponsorship check for the Secret City Festival to Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan, left, and Mayor Pro Tem Jane Miller. (Submitted photo)

B&W Y-12 is returning to the Secret City Festival once again as the premier festival sponsor, a press release said.

“B&W has led the way in Secret City Festival sponsorships both financially and in kind for the past eight years,” the Oak Ridge Convention and Visitors Bureau said in a Wednesday press release. B&W Y-12 operates the Y-12 National Security Complex for the National Nuclear Security Administration.

Chuck Spencer, B&W Y-12 president and general manager, presented a $25,000 festival sponsorship check during a May 28 meeting. [Read more…]

Energy Secretary Moniz visits Y-12 National Security Complex

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Energy Secretary Visits Y-12

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, right, tours the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility during his visit Monday to the Y-12 National Security Complex. Joining him are, from left, B&W Y-12 President and General Manager Chuck Spencer, Julie Huff of B&W Y-12’s Materials Management Organization, B&W Y-12 Senior Vice President of Security Rod Johnson, and NNSA Production Office Manager Steve Erhart.

New U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz visited the Y-12 National Security Complex this week.

Before touring production and storage facilities at the site, Moniz held an all-hands meeting with Y-12, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and federal employees at Y-12’s New Hope Center. Joining him at the meeting was U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, a Tennessee Republican whose district includes Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

B&W Y-12 donates $25,000 to Secret City Festival

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B&W Y-12 Donates to Secret City Festival

B&W Y-12 General Manager Chuck Spencer, center, presents a $25,000 check to Oak Ridge officials for the Secret City Festival this month during a City Council meeting last week. (Submitted photo)

B&W Y-12 President and General Manager Chuck Spencer presented a check for $25,000 to Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan and Vice Mayor Jane Miller during a City Council meeting last week.

B&W Y-12 has been a premier sponsor of the Secret City Festival for the past eight years, a press release said.
 [Read more…]

DOE’s public bus tour begins Monday

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The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2013 Oak Ridge facilities public bus tour begins June 3 and continues through Aug. 30. The tour offers visitors a first-hand look at the DOE’s Oak Ridge facilities and provides historical commentary on the transformation of the Oak Ridge Reservation during the past 70 years.

The reservation-wide tour is a popular destination for tourists visiting the area. Since its inception in 1996, the DOE public tour program has attracted more than 29,000 visitors from all 50 states. The three-hour tour allows visitors to see the reservation and learn historical facts and updates on the world-class missions under way in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

Avisco Inc. receives $12 million Bear Creek Road construction contract for UPF project

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Uranium Processing Facility

Pictured above is the proposed Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 National Security Complex, with the administrative area in the front and the fortified section of the building in the rear. (Submitted image)

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently announced that it has awarded a $12 million contract to Avisco Inc. of Oak Ridge for road, bridge, and water line work on Bear Creek Road as part of the Uranium Processing Facility project at Y-12 National Security Complex.

The contract is part of the UPF site readiness subproject, a press release said. Avisco will be building about 4,000 feet of two-lane roadway, a bridge, and adjacent potable waterlines in order to prepare the site of the new UPF. Construction will begin in June and is scheduled for completion in September 2014. [Read more…]

UPF: World-class engineering problems to work through, but site work has started

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Uranium Processing Facility

Pictured above is the proposed Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 National Security Complex, with the administrative area in the front and the fortified section of the building in the rear. (Submitted image)

There are some “world-class engineering problems” to work through, but site preparation work has started on the giant new Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, a project official said Thursday.

“We’re finally starting to make some traction,” UPF Federal Project Director John Eschenberg told several hundred people at the two-day Tennessee Valley Corridor National Summit at Y-12’s New Hope Center.

Eschenberg said the site prep work could last 18 months, and it will include work on power distribution and underground water lines as well as moving a section of Bear Creek Road to the north. Three contracts have already been awarded to East Tennessee small businesses. [Read more…]

House leader’s speech emphasizes research, mixes in politics

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Eric Cantor

Eric Cantor

Note: This story was updated at 12:35 p.m.

In his first visit to Oak Ridge, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor paid tribute to the national security and science work that has occurred here dating back to World War II, called for a continued emphasis on research and discovery, and touched on political topics including the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, unemployment, and the nation’s social safety net.

A Virginia Republican, Cantor said the U.S. House of Representatives last week passed the Northern Route Approval Act, allowing the Keystone XL pipeline to be completed. The bill declares that a presidential permit is not required to approve the section of the pipeline from Alberta to Nebraska, which crosses a national border. [Read more…]

Alexander unveils his four principles for clean, cheap, reliable energy

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U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander

Lamar Alexander

It’s been five years since U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander called for a new Manhattan Project for energy independence, and during a Wednesday update, the senator said four “grand principles” should guide America’s energy policy.

The senator said his principles—which include research and development, free market forces, and cheaper, clean energy—would “end an obsession with taxpayer subsidies and strategies for expensive energy.” They would instead focus on “doubling research and allowing marketplace solutions to create an abundance of clean, cheap, reliable energy,” Alexander said during a Wednesday afternoon speech at the Tennessee Valley Corridor Summit in Oak Ridge.

The senator called for doubling research funding and ending long-term subsidies for “big oil” and “big wind.” [Read more…]

UT, Y-12, Stanley Healthcare work to cut down on patient wait times

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KNOXVILLE—Most people have experienced a long wait to see a doctor. Technology being developed through a new collaboration between the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Y-12 National Security Complex, and Stanley Healthcare aims to cut down on wait times.

The three entities are developing an intelligent interactive dashboard that crunches data in real time to help managers determine how best to administer flow.

An official signing of a cooperative research and development agreement was signed during the Tennessee Valley Corridor’s National Technology Summit on Wednesday evening at the Y-12 National Security Complex’s New Hope Center in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

TVC Summit next week includes House majority leader

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Eric Cantor

Eric Cantor

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Business, community, and political leaders and senior decision-makers will convene at the 2013 Tennessee Valley Corridor Summit next week to discuss issues that are critical to the economic engine of the Tennessee Valley, a press release said.

Hosted by Third District Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, the two-day meeting themed “Securing America’s Future” will focus on energy and environment, innovation and entrepreneurism, public and private partnerships, and advanced manufacturing, the release said.

The Summit will be held at the Y-12 National Security Complex’s New Hope Center in Oak Ridge on May 29-30. [Read more…]

ORFD: After Y-12 refuses wet nitric acid package, FedEx driver finds leak

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FedEx Nitric Acid Spill

Workers from a commercial cleanup company place a leaking nitric acid package in a secure container along Administration Road on Tuesday afternoon. (Photo by Tom Scott)

The cardboard container contained one liter of nitric acid, and the delivery had been refused at the Y-12 National Security Complex because the bottom of the package was wet, the FedEx driver told Oak Ridge firefighters.

The delivery driver checked the 11-pound package at his next stop, and he found fluid leaking out of it and immediately called 911, Oak Ridge Fire Chief Darryl Kerley said in a Tuesday afternoon statement. [Read more…]

Equipment used in uranium casting falls from Y-12 furnace

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Equipment and materials used in uranium casting operations at the Y-12 National Security Complex fell several feet from a furnace in Building 9212 last month after someone accidentally bumped a control lever, a federal safety board said in a recently released report.

The lever controls the movement of what is known as the stack assembly, which includes a crucible, mold, and uranium “charge.”

The loaded stack assembly had recently been cast, and it fell several feet from the body of an induction furnace to the base of the furnace, where loading and unloading occur, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a report for the week ending April 19. [Read more…]