National Laboratories

Operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s 65-year-old Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) building could extend two years past their latest intended end date, according to management at the Department of Energy facility. The “potential slip” of programmatic operations from 2019 to 2021 was reported in a December letter from lab Director Charles McMillan to […]

In a widely noted report this week calling for hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending for the U.S. Defense Department, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) largely appeared satisfied with the present program for modernizing the nation’s nuclear deterrent. “There is bipartisan consensus in support of the current nuclear modernization plan – replacing our ballistic […]

The Sandia National Laboratories’ Weapons Evaluation Test Laboratory (WETL) reached its testing baseline for just four of eight U.S. nuclear weapons systems over a three-year period, the Department of Energy Inspector General’s Office said in a report Monday. The primary culprit was unanticipated equipment downtime, along with a new safety program and a change in […]

Both the National Nuclear Security Administration and President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team this week denied new reporting earlier that the incoming administration is dismissing the agency’s top two officials. Gizmodo reported Monday that NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz and Principal Deputy Administrator Madelyn Creedon were being dismissed from their current roles come Jan. 20, the day […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California recently broke ground on a $9.4 million, 13,000-square-foot facility that will support the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear stockpile maintenance operations. The Advanced Manufacturing Facility is due to be finished by this summer, according to an NNSA press release. It will house two laboratories, each 5,000-square-feet in size: […]

The Sandia National Laboratories’ Weapons Evaluation Test Laboratory (WETL) reached its testing baseline for four of eight U.S. nuclear weapons systems over a three-year period, the Department of Energy Inspector General’s Office said in a report Monday. The primary culprit was unanticipated equipment downtime, along with a new safety program and a change in the […]

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will make two high-profile public appearances this week as he prepares to leave office in a matter of days. Moniz will offer comments during the formal reopening at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., which last week conducted its first emplacement of Energy Department transuranic waste in nearly three years, […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) might not have enough heavy water to meet its long-term nuclear weapons and non-weapons activity needs, according to a newly released audit report from the DOE Inspector General’s Office. Heavy water for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) weapons activities is stored primarily at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee […]

National Security Technologies (NSTec) and Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technology (FM&T) have received the highest marks across the nuclear complex in newly released National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) contractor performance evaluations for fiscal 2016. Each contractor was rated in six performance areas, each carrying a different weight, which were used to determine the award fees […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California should enhance its communications and information management processes to enhance emergency management, the Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments (EA) found in a newly released report. EA assessed the lab’s program with test scenarios for personnel of LLNL managing contractor Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS). One […]

President Barack Obama on Dec. 23 signed the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law, following Congress’ approval of the conference version of the bill earlier in the month. The bill authorizes nearly $619 billion in spending through the end of the budget year on Sept. 30, though the actual funding the Defense […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) might not have enough heavy water inventory to meet its long-term nuclear weapons and non-weapons activity needs, according to a newly released audit report from the DOE Inspector General’s Office. Heavy water for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) weapons activities is stored primarily at the Y-12 National Security Complex in […]

A onetime scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for submitting false data and reports to the U.S. government to defraud it out of quantum computing research funding, the Justice Department said this week. S. Darin Kinion, 44, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for […]

The newly awarded management and operations contract for the Sandia National Laboratories will incorporate governance initiatives to boost transparency, improve project management, and increase engagement between the Department of Energy and its contractors, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The semiautonomous DOE agency announced on Dec. 16 it had awarded the new contract […]

A onetime scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in prison for submitting false data and reports to the U.S. government to defraud it out of quantum computing research funding, the Justice Department said this week. S. Darin Kinion, 44, was sentenced in U.S. District Court for […]

Several New Mexico lawmakers on Friday highlighted the need to focus on workforce recruitment and retention efforts at the Sandia National Laboratories, just hours after the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced it had awarded a new management and operations contract for the facility to a subsidiary of Honeywell International. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Sen. Martin […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Friday said it had awarded the management and operations contract for the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) to National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia (NTESS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International. Northrop Grumman and the Universities Research Association consortium will support NTESS under the contract, which, with all […]

A senior National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) official said Monday that fostering nuclear security relationships between U.S. and Russian technical experts, as was done in the 1990s, would play a significant role in restoring otherwise chilly relations between the two countries. “There is a quality to science-to-science relationships that transcends a lot of the political […]

The Sandia National Laboratories said Monday it is offering a series of open houses to provide information for small businesses interested in providing goods and services to the National Nuclear Security Administration facility in New Mexico. More than 70 companies have sent representatives to the seven meetings held since Oct. 4, according to a Sandia press release, […]

A senior National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) official said Monday that fostering nuclear security relationships between U.S. and Russian technical experts, as was done in the 1990s, would play a significant role in restoring otherwise chilly relations between the two countries. “There is a quality to science-to-science relationships that transcends a lot of the political […]

Federal agencies including the Energy Department will remain funded at fiscal 2016 levels through at least the first two months of President-elect Donald Trump’s term, Republican congressional leaders decided this week. “To this end, my Committee will begin working immediately on a Continuing Resolution (CR) at the current rate of funding to extend the operations […]

Former University of California executive and Department of Energy national lab hand Glenn Mara has joined the strategic advisory board of Las Vegas-based nuclear-cleanup consulting specialists Longenecker & Associates. From 2009 to 2016, Mara was associate vice president for laboratory programs at the University of California Office of the President. In that job he led the university’s oversight […]

The Energy Department is scheduled to begin today a critical review of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant that could clear the way for the transuranic waste disposal facility to reopen its doors after more than two years of recovery from a pair of underground accidents. Sources in New Mexico had pegged Nov. 14 as the date […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has determined it has jurisdiction over the Mixed Waste Landfill at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, but will forgo oversight of the facility, DNFSB Chairman Joyce Connery said in an Oct. 27 letter to a nongovernmental watchdog organization. The closed landfill covers 2.6 acres at the Department of […]

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory technology used at the Hanford Site in Washington state this year received an R&D 100 Award, an annual contest by R&D Magazine sometimes called the “Oscars of Innovation.” The Department of Energy lab developed technology that allows scientists and engineers to remotely look at underground soil environments in real time, in […]

Several projects at National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratories were among the winners last week of R&D Magazine 2016 R&D 100 Awards. The awards honor 100 innovative technologies from the past year. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California won an award for its GLO Transparent Ceramic Scintillator, which involves the nondestructive imaging of the 3D […]

Several projects at National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratories were among the winners last week of R&D Magazine 2016 R&D 100 Awards. The awards honor 100 innovative technologies from the past year. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California won an award for its GLO Transparent Ceramic Scintillator, which involves the nondestructive imaging of the 3D […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has determined it has jurisdiction over the Mixed Waste Landfill at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, but will forgo oversight of the facility, DNFSB Chairman Joyce Connery said in an Oct. 27 letter to a nongovernmental watchdog organization. The closed landfill covers 2.6 acres at the Department of […]

By spring, the Energy Department should be ready to make safe a tranche of the same kind of potentially explosive transuranic waste that leaked radiation into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant more than two years ago. The waste, known as inappropriately remediated nitrate salt, is currently sitting idle in the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) […]

Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have built an observatory in an abandoned gold mine to study how rocks, such as those surrounding carbon stored in geological formations, fracture, the lab said Wednesday. “As important as the subsurface is for U.S. energy strategy, our understanding of how the subsurface responds to common perturbations, such […]