Non-Proliferation

Two senior Democrats on Tuesday requested that the U.S. Congressional Budget Office evaluate the potential costs to the United States from expiration of the New START nuclear arms control treaty. The 2011 accord prohibits the United States and Russia from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads on a maximum of 700 fielded delivery systems. It […]

Minutes after President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that John Bolton would leave his job as national security adviser, voices in the arms control community wondered if the White House now would be more likely to extend the New START nuclear-weapons treaty with Russia. “Is there hope for the New START Treaty?” Madelyn Creedon, principal deputy administrator […]

As negotiations begin on the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act this week, the White House asked the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee not to cut development of new proliferation-detection technologies at the National Nuclear Security Administration. The Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed in June, would not authorize some […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Wednesday it had completed the last of four new funding agreements for private manufacturing of the medical isotope molybdenum-99. This means Northwest Medical Isotopes, of Corvallis, Ore., will now receive $15 million from the NNSA that it must fully match. The announcement comes almost five weeks after […]

Plutonium downblending at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina has increased significantly after more shifts were added in November 2018. Assuming work continues to proceed well, shifts could be further increased in fiscal 2020, about a year sooner than the initial target date. Workers have downblended just over 17 kilograms […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Wednesday it had completed the last of four new funding agreements for private manufacturing of the medical isotope molybdenum-99. This means Northwest Medical Isotopes, of Corvallis, Ore., will now receive $15 million from the NNSA that it must fully match. The announcement comes almost five weeks after […]

Plutonium downblending at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina has increased significantly following the addition of shifts in November 2018. Assuming things go well, another increase in shifts could come late in fiscal 2020, about a year sooner than the initial target date. Workers have downblended just over 17 kilograms […]

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday it plans to appoint a new director general in October, following the death in July of Yukiya Amano. Whoever succeeds Amano would take office in January, the United Nations body in charge of international monitoring of nuclear materials said in a Twitter message. U.N. member states may submit […]

The private company pushing the Donald Trump administration to fast-track sales of nuclear-power technology to Saudia Arabia is the latest incarnation of a long-running entity that periodically pitches “impossible” nuclear projects, one executive wrote in an email published this week by the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The details are part of a second interim staff […]

As long expected, the United States officially withdrew Friday from the 32-year-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, triggering a reciprocal withdrawal from Moscow and leaving both parties free to deploy ground-based missiles with a range of 310 miles to 3,100 miles anywhere in the world. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo made the announcement […]

The private company pushing the Donald Trump administration to fast-track sales of nuclear-power technology to Saudia Arabia is the latest incarnatation of a long-running entity that periodically pitches “impossible” nuclear projects, one executive wrote in an email published this week by the House Oversight Committee. The details are part of a second interim staff report […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Monday it had issued three cooperative agreements, each worth $15 million in matching funds, to companies aiming to produce the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). The recipients are: Niowave, of Lansing, Mich.; NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, of Beloit, Wis.; and SHINE Medical Technologies, of Janesville, Wis. An agreement with […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Monday it had issued three cooperative agreements, each worth $15 million in matching funds, to companies aiming to produce the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). The recipients are: Niowave, of Lansing, Mich.; NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, of Beloit, Wis.; and SHINE Medical Technologies, of Janesville, Wis. Talks are continuing […]

The Donald Trump administration has not “committed wrongdoing” by authorizing U.S. companies to share nuclear-energy technology with Saudi Arabia, Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform said this week. The committee minority on Monday published the conclusion in a nine-page report posted online almost six months after the House Democratic majority announced it was investigating […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Monday it had issued three cooperative agreements, each worth $15 million in matching funds, to companies aiming to produce the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). The companies are: Niowave, of Lansing, Mich.; NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, of Beloit, Wis.; and SHINE Medical Technologies, of Janesville, Wis. Talks are continuing […]

The Donald Trump administration has not “committed wrongdoing” by authorizing U.S. companies to share nuclear-energy technology with Saudi Arabia, Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform said Monday. The committee minority published the conclusion in a nine-page report posted online almost six months after the House Democratic majority announced it was investigating the […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) this week removed a breached cesium-137 source from a University of Washington medical research building in Seattle, clearing the way to begin remediation of the facility following its May 3 contamination. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency on Tuesday trucked the cesium-137 source to the Pacific Northwest National […]

NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes said this week it has finished building a facility for processing the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). The 20,000-square-foot plant in the company’s home city of Beloit, Wis., will eventually be used to dissolve irradiated molybdenum-99 targets to fill NorthStar’s Mo-99 source vessels. It is expected to more than double NorthStar’s current output […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Wednesday it has removed a breached cesium-137 source from a University of Washington medical research building in Seattle, clearing the way to begin remediation of the facility following its May 3 contamination.  The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency on Tuesday moved the cesium-137 source to the Pacific […]

Mark Esper, President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, held strictly to nuclear orthodoxy in his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, boosting the Department of Energy’s stockpile stewardship program and urging continued funding for long-term modernization and maintenance of the nuclear arsenal. Esper, a former Raytheon lobbyist and current secretary of the Army, said in written testimony the […]

The Department of Energy is scheduled next week to send a cesium-137 source that contaminated a University of Washington building in May to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for “forensic analysis,” an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. Until then, the damaged irradiator’s cesium-137 source remains in the Research and Training Building near the university’s Harborview […]

WASHINGTON — The Barack Obama administration’s National Nuclear Security Administration leadership duo whipped the Donald Trump administration here Wednesday to immediately extend the New START nuclear arms control treaty with Russia and forget, for now, about modifying the pact. The bilateral treaty, which limits Moscow and Washington to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and 700 […]

WASHINGTON — The Barack Obama administration’s National Nuclear Security Administration leadership duo whipped the Donald Trump administration here Tuesday to immediately extend the New START nuclear arms control treaty with Russia and forget, for now, about modifying the pact. The bilateral treaty, which limits Moscow and Washington to 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and 700 […]

The Department of Energy is scheduled next week to send a cesium-137 source that contaminated a University of Washington building in May to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for “forensic analysis,” an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. Until then, the damaged irradiator’s cesium-137 source remains in the Research and Training Building near the university’s Harborview […]

The U.S. Senate has confirmed former Pentagon and State Department career man Jeffrey Eberhardt to be special representative of the president for nuclear nonproliferation. In his new State Department job, for which he was confirmed last month, Eberhardt will be the Trump administration’s central figure in talks over international nonproliferation agreements, including for the 2020 […]

Saudi Arabia will have to sign “a very strong 123 agreement” to be counted among the “adult members of the world community” that use nuclear power, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said this week in congressional testimony. Perry has made that point directly to the Saudi government, the Energy Department chief told the House Science […]

Saudi Arabia will have to sign “a very strong 123 agreement” to be counted among the “adult members of the world community” that use nuclear power, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said Tuesday in congressional testimony. Perry has made that point directly to the Saudi government, the Energy Department chief told the House Science Committee […]

Nuclear forces worldwide in 2018 declined by roughly 4% over the course of the year, or by 600 weapons, to 13,865, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its latest annual yearbook on nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Russia, which have more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world’s seven nuclear-armed states combined, drove […]

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency amped up criticism of Russia’s nuclear weapons activities last week, saying the nation at some point “has conducted nuclear weapons tests that have created nuclear yield.” That is a step beyond what agency Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley told reporters and the public in May at the Hudson Institute in […]

Nuclear forces worldwide in 2018 declined by roughly 4% over the course of the year or by 600 weapons, to 13,865, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its latest annual yearbook on nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Russia, which have more nuclear weapons than the rest of the world’s seven nuclear-armed states combined, drove the […]