Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has finished a readiness assessment as it prepares to make its first shipment of transuranic waste in 14 years to the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The national laboratory on March 29 completed the formal evaluation of its ability to characterize TRU waste and […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has finished a readiness assessment as it prepares to make its first shipment of transuranic waste in 14 years to the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The national laboratory on March 29 completed the formal evaluation of its ability to characterize TRU waste and […]

Proportionally or by raw dollars, the W80-4 life-extension program would get the biggest increase of any active Department of Energy nuclear warhead refurbishment in fiscal 2020, if the Trump administration’s budget request became law. The program led by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California already received an enormous budget increase in 2019 to pace […]

The U.S. Department of Energy could do a better job of monitoring how its contractors spend billions of dollars in federal money, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday. A new GAO report recommends DOE entities, including the Office of Environmental Management and the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, put more emphasis on how management and […]

Kim Budil started this week in her new job as director of weapons complex and integration at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, making her the point person for the nuclear warhead to be used on a next-generation cruise missile. Monday was Budil’s first day in her new role, a lab spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. […]

Kim Budil started this week in her new job as director of weapons complex and integration at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where her responsibilities will include overseeing the Department of Energy facility’s moderniztion of the nuclear warhead for the Air Force’s next-generation air-launched cruise missile. Monday was Budil’s first day in her […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., is expected to receive 330 shipments of transuranic waste over the next 12 months, with some coming from sites that have not shipped material in years. The Energy Department and its WIPP contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership, held a breakfast presentation Monday for New Mexico lawmakers, […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., expects to receive 330 shipments of transuranic waste over the next 12 months, with some coming from sites that have not shipped material in years. The Energy Department and its WIPP contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership, held a legislative breakfast presentation Monday for New Mexico lawmakers, […]

With the partial shutdown of the federal government resolved, at least until mid-February, a lawsuit between the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) has resumed, according to a Monday court filing. The $200-million lawsuit ground to a halt during the 35-day shutdown, during […]

A senior official at the University of California has been picked to lead nuclear weapons programs at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory effective Feb. 4, the Department of Energy facility said Tuesday. Kimberly Budil will be principal associate director for weapons and complex integration: the top nuclear weapons job at the Livermore, Calif., laboratory that […]

It will take Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California about a week to fix broken windows on a glove-box at the lab’s Plutonium Facility, once the work starts. The four windows broke Dec. 19, after a seal connecting the glove-box furnace failed and caused the interior of the system to negatively pressurize, according to a Department […]

It will take Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California about a week to fix broken windows on a glove-box in the Departent of Energy site’s Plutonium Facility, once the work starts. The four windows broke Dec. 19, after a seal connecting the glove-box furnace failed and caused the interior of the system to negatively pressurize, according […]

Michael Dunning retired as the acting head of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Weapons and Complex Integration Directorate on Wednesday, capping a 30 year career at the nation’s second-oldest weapons laboratory. “Michael Dunning has retired after a long and impactful career at LLNL,” a spokesperson for the California facility said by email Thursday. “It was […]

A Kansas City, Mo., company will help upgrade infrastructure at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to accommodate future exascale computing capability, under a contract from lab prime Livermore National Security. Burns & McDonnell announced the award Monday. The company did not provide the financial terms of the contract, which involves design services for Livermore’s […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California sent many of its 7,000 employees home early Wednesday and Thursday because of poor air quality resulting from wildfires burning in other parts of the state, a lab spokesperson said. The early dismissals applied both to employees at the main Livermore campus and the lab’s Site 300 non-nuclear-explosives […]

A Kansas City, Mo., company will help upgrade infrastructure at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to accommodate future exascale computing capability, under a contract from lab prime Livermore National Security. Burns & McDonnell announced the award Monday. The company did not provide the financial terms of the contract, which involves design services for Livermore’s […]

Another Department of Energy facility is preparing to resume shipping its transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. Shipments of contact-handled  waste from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California should begin in 2019, lab spokesman Nolan O’Brien said Tuesday by email. The resumption is based on availability of funding […]

The White House on Friday announced the anticipated nominee to fill the No. 2 slot at the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which has been vacant throughout the Trump administration. Longtime Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory senior physicist William Bookless would take over as NNSA principal deputy administrator upon Senate confirmation, according to the […]

The Energy Department is doing early planning on a potential solicitation for teardown and removal of facilities at sites including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state. The department’s Office of Environmental Management on Aug. 9 issued a request for information (RFI)/sources sought notice for deactivation, decommissioning, and […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced last week it completed a pair of flight tests on non-nuclear components of the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb near the Nevada National Test Site. “The tests involved releasing a B61-12 non-nuclear test assembly, which includes the NNSA designed bomb assembly and U.S. Air Force acquired tail-kit, from a B-2A […]

The Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration are seeking bids on a new series of exascale supercomputers, including one at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that would cost up to $600 million and switch on early next decade, according to a request for proposals released Monday. Funding for the proposed Livermore […]

The Department of Energy and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration are seeking bids on a new series of exascale supercomputers, including one at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that would cost up to $600 million and switch on early next decade, according to a request for proposals released Monday. Funding for the proposed Livermore […]

Laying out the annual weapons budget for some of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) major sites over the last decade yields little in the way of surprise: generally, the weapons budget is going up. Source: DOE Congressional Budget Requests (Laboratory Tables). Link: Interactive Version of Chart. Figuratively speaking, these trends were written on […]

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) stuck to its guns that it does not need to conduct further environmental reviews for its plan to perform bigger explosive tests nearby the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, a Thursday regulatory filing shows. “[A]fter considering all comments received, DOE NNSA has determined that the […]

President Donald Trump this week nominated current Lawrence Livermore hand Charles Verdon to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) roughly $9-billion-a-year nuclear weapons portfolio. The White House sent Verdon’s nomination to the Hill Tuesday. If recommended by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed by the full Senate, Verdon would be put in charge […]

President Donald Trump plans to nominate current Lawrence Livermore hand Charles Verdon to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) roughly $9-billion-a-year nuclear weapons portfolio. The White House announced its intention in a press release late Monday. If recommended by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed by the full Senate, Verdon would be put […]

A former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory official has landed in a senior Pentagon arms-control post, the Department of Defense announced Monday. Charles Ball was appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for threat reduction and arms control in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics: part of the Office of the […]

When Congress returns to work next week, lawmakers will once again find themselves barreling toward another fiscal cliff with federal funding set to expire in just a matter of days without some kind of compromise. The federal government is operating on its fourth short-term budget since fiscal 2018 started on Oct. 1 of last year. […]

A former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory official has landed in a senior Pentagon arms-control post, the Department of Defense announced Monday. Charles Ball was appointed deputy assistant secretary of defense for threat reduction and arms control in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics: part of the Office of the […]

The Department of Energy praised the prime contractor at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for on-time work on nuclear warheads and bombs in fiscal 2017, but clipped some award fee dollars because of delays with electrical upgrades at the California weapons lab. Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS) earned about $40 million in fees for 2017: […]