Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

Weapons Complex Morning Briefing will not be published from Dec. 25 to Jan. 1. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

New AREVA said Monday that in recent months it has secured three contracts valued at 9 million euros ($10.7 million) for processing and disposal of radioactive waste at two French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission sites. The French company will provide treatment of liquid chemical wastes, “of varying radiological intensity … ranging from very […]

Katherine Herrera will become deputy technical director of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) effective Dec. 24, a spokesperson for the independent federal nuclear health-and-safety group said Monday. In her new position, Herrera will help manage about two-thirds of the board’s full-time employees as the No. 2 official in DNFSB’s Office of the Technical […]

At least where it concerns maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal under the care of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, the National Security Strategy that President Donald Trump released Monday does not depart radically from the nuclear modernization plan set in place by his predecessor. The United States must sustain “a nuclear force […]

The Federal Aviation Administration on Monday announced that it is prohibiting flights of unmanned aerial vehicles over seven Department of Energy sites around the country. Drone flights will be banned from the surface to 400 feet above ground level at the Hanford Site in Washington state, the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Los Alamos National […]

One of the parent companies of the prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility said Monday it will be acquired by Houston-based McDermott International in a $6-billion all-stock deal slated to close in the second quarter of 2018. At the close of the transaction CB&I, the Woodlands, […]

The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission (TLLRWDCC) has canceled its Jan. 11 meeting due to a lack of new business for the agenda. The commission announced the cancellation in a recent email to stakeholders. The next meeting is scheduled for Feb. 22 in Austin, Texas. Texas and Vermont are members of the compact […]

A recently leaked study that claims it would be cheaper to manufacture nuclear-weapon cores in South Carolina than New Mexico is full of holes, and an internal National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) document proves it, U.S. lawmakers from the Land of Enchantment wrote in a Monday letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. In a so-called […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration wants to ship some 3 pounds of weapon-grade uranium abroad for eventual conversion into medical isotopes in four European countries, according to a license application the semiautonomous Energy Department stockpile agency filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week. The unalloyed metal covered by the application is a roughly 93-percent […]

Privately operated Bannister Transformation and Development has taken deed to an old nuclear-weapon support facility in Kansas City, Mo., the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) confirmed Friday. The semiautonomous Department of Energy stockpile steward transferred ownership of more than 200 acres of the Bannister Federal Complex in November, according to an NNSA press release. “We […]

BWX Technologies said Thursday that Executive Chairman of the Board John Fees would become non-executive chairman as of May 4, 2018. The Lynchburg, Va.-based Department of Energy contractor noted also in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it has entered into a “transition agreement” that spells out financial compensation for Fees […]

Navarro Research and Engineering earned more than 97 percent of its total potential fiscal 2017 award fee from the Department of Energy Nevada Environmental Program Services (EPS) contract. Navarro garnered $835,975 of a potential $857,037 for the period from Oct. 1, 2016, through Sept. 30, 2017, for work at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). […]

A longtime advocate for the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has again been named chairman of the SRS Community Reuse Organization, a nongovernmental group that works with local stakeholders to benefit the site and local economy.    David Jameson’s two-year term will begin Jan. 1. He previously chaired the SRSCRO from 2010-2011.    As […]

President Donald Trump this week signed the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which makes it harder to move plutonium pit production out of New Mexico, calls for a competition to design a new nuclear warhead for ballistic missiles, and authorizes Congress to keep funding a controversial plutonium-conversion facility. Trump inked the bill Tuesday, nearly […]

In fulfillment of a long-circulating rumor, the Donald Trump administration announced it will nominate former National Security Council and Department of Energy staffer Lisa Gordon-Hagerty to run U.S. nuclear warhead programs as undersecretary for nuclear security and head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). If approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed […]

One thing at least is now known about the Dec. 6 closed-door meeting of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB): it was the only one the five-member federal nuclear-site watchdog needed to mull a possible safety recommendation to the Department of Energy. The meeting was one of two planned so the DNFSB could “discuss […]

One thing at least is now known about the Dec. 6 closed-door meeting of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB): it was the only one the five-member federal nuclear-site watchdog needed to mull a possible safety recommendation to the Department of Energy. The meeting was one of two planned so the DNFSB could “discuss […]

An article in the Dec. 11 edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing should have said that the Canadian municipality of Port Hope sits on Lake Ontario.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which would make it harder to move plutonium pit production out of New Mexico and authorizes Congress to keep funding a controversial plutonium conversion facility in South Carolina. Trump signed the bill nearly a month after Congress sent the measure to his […]

In fulfillment of a long-circulating rumor, the Donald Trump administration announced it will nominate former National Security Council and Department of Energy staffer Lisa Gordon-Hagerty to run U.S. nuclear warhead programs as undersecretary for nuclear security and head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). If approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed […]

Navarro Research and Engineering earned more than 97 percent of its total potential award fee for its work on the Department of Energy’s Nevada Environmental Program Services (EPS) contract in fiscal 2017. Navarro garnered $835,975 of a potential $857,037 for the period from Oct. 1, 2016, through Sept. 30, 2017, at the Nevada National Security […]

In a sign it still plans to install power lines on a hilltop the local government would rather stay bare, the National Nuclear Security Administration has asked the City of Oak Ridge to pick, by Dec. 13, the color the agency should use to camouflage the line poles. That is according to a late-Friday press […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (NNFSB) this week held the first of a pair of closed-door meetings during which the five-member watchdog group will discuss what could become its first recommendation to the Donald Trump administration’s Department of Energy. Jessie Hill Roberson, the board’s longest-serving member and a veteran of the George W. Bush […]

Boeing says its Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) effort completed its first major review with the Air Force in November. The system requirements review was designed to ensure that Boeing fully understands the system’s requirements. In August, Boeing and Northrop Grumman both received three-year contracts to conduct technology maturation and risk reduction for the new, […]

A recent drone sighting at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri underscores the need for the Air Force to continue developing systems to counter unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that trespass on its installations, according to a four-star general. “That got real to us not too long ago with Whiteman,” said Gen. Robin Rand, commander of […]

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has begun analyzing whether the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico would be a viable facility for storage of plutonium that would be downblended at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In its fiscal 2017 budget, Congress mandated that the nongovernmental research organization conduct […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration believes manufacturing plutonium pits at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina might be cheaper than keeping the work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency settled on Savannah River after ruling out the Idaho National Laboratory as part of a congressionally […]

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has begun analyzing whether the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico would be a viable facility for storage of plutonium that would be downblended at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In its fiscal 2017 budget, Congress mandated that the nongovernmental research organization conduct […]

The city of Oak Ridge, Tenn., this week asked the Department of Energy again not to despoil the natural landscape near the Y-12 National Nuclear Security Complex with power lines for a next-generation uranium-processing plant. The Department of Energy (DOE) contracted with the Tennessee Valley Authority to build the lines on a hilltop known locally […]

The city of Oak Ridge, Tenn., on Monday asked the Department of Energy again not to despoil the natural landscape near the Y-12 National Nuclear Security Complex with power lines for a next-generation uranium-processing plant. The Department of Energy (DOE) contracted with the Tennessee Valley Authority to build the lines on a hilltop known locally […]