Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

Babcock & Wilcox said yesterday that Gary Camper is being promoted to serve as Vice President for Programs, Contracts, Procurement and Business development of its Nuclear Operations Group. Camper is a 30-year veteran of B&W Nuclear Operations Group’s Lynchburg facility, where B&W said he has assumed management roles of “increasing responsibility in engineering, quality control […]

George Dials is resigning from Babcock & Wilcox, effective at the end of this month, Weapons Complex Morning Briefing has learned. Since late 2010, Dials has headed B&W Conversion Services, LLC, which is made up of B&W and URS and is responsible for operating the two depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) conversion plants at the Department […]

Former National Nuclear Security Administration official Ted Sherry is joining the consulting firm Longenecker & Associates as a Senior Manager, effective Dec. 9. Sherry, who retired from federal service in late 2011, previously served as deputy manager and manager of the NNSA Y-12 Site Office, among other positions. Most recently, he has served as the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is still analyzing whether portions of the Uranium Processing Facility can withstand an aircraft crash without a release of radiological material, according to a letter recently sent from acting NNSA Administrator Bruce Held to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board detailing the agency’s response to the Board’s UPF safety concerns. […]

The Environmental Protection Agency and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have signed off on a five-year review of efforts to clean up legacy contamination at the Pantex Plant. Pantex Plant contractor B&W Pantex said this week that groups approved the plant’s cleanup plans in November, a milestone that the contractor said “confirms the effectiveness of […]

Even under the most optimistic scenario, officials with knowledge of a Department of Defense cost study on the Uranium Processing Facility are beginning to find it hard to imagine it being built as one massive standalone facility. DoD’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation group recently completed a study on the facility that suggested it could […]

Modernizing the Y-12 National Security Complex and building the Uranium Processing Facility received a vote of support from the Association of Tennessee Valley Governments last week. The association, which includes more than 200 local Tennessee Valley governments and municipalities, included its endorsement of Y-12 and UPF in a letter to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety […]

The United States should not further reduce the size of its nuclear arsenal, according to a new report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments that suggests continuing rounds of nuclear cuts could endanger strategic stability and the U.S. nuclear umbrella while wearing away the nation’s ability to deter nuclear use by hostile regional […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will continue to push toward reaching the 90 percent design threshold for the Uranium Processing Facility despite a recent report from the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation group that suggests the facility could cost billions more than the agency’s previous estimate. The recent CAPE report, which said the facility […]

The agreement struck between House and Senate leaders this week on the Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization Act criticizes the delays and cost overruns at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility project, according to a report accompanying the bill released yesterday. “We believe the rising costs associated with the program, canceled facilities, missed deadlines, […]

A safety culture review of the National Nuclear Security Administration released last month provided “sobering feedback” to the agency, according to Associate Principal Deputy Administrator Michael Lempke, who said yesterday that the agency was working to repair communications with employees and provide a better working environment for its workers. The safety culture study revealed a […]

Costs to modernize the nation’s nuclear stockpile and weapons complex from 2014 through 2031 increased $19 billion from Fiscal Year 2012 to Fiscal Year 2014, but the National Nuclear Security Administration may be understating the price tag for maintaining its portion of the nuclear deterrent, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability […]

Could a $35.5 million mathematical error sink the National Nuclear Security Administration’s latest Y-12/Pantex award? That’s one of the issues highlighted in a wide-ranging protest of NNSA’s most recent Y-12/Pantex award by Babcock & Wilcox-led Nuclear Production Partners. NW&M Monitor obtained a redacted version of NP2’s latest protest, which was filed last month and details […]

None of the cost savings proposals submitted by the three bidders in the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12/Pantex contract competition were judged to reach the 80 percent mark for cost feasibility, according to protest documents obtained by NW&M Monitor that raise questions about the likelihood of savings on the contract merger being realized. The Government […]

The High Explosives Pressing Facility being built at the Pantex Plant is on schedule to be completed next summer and begin operating in September of 2016, the National Nuclear Security Administration said yesterday. The agency said the $65 million facility surpassed the 85 percent construction completion threshold this month, with work to install overhead cranes, […]

Maintaining and modernizing the nation’s nuclear deterrent over the next 10 years is likely to cost about $355 billion, $141 billion more than the Obama Administration suggested in 2011, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released in late December. The report also notes that other nuclear-related activities, like nonproliferation, nuclear dismantlement, missile defense, and […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Contractor Assurance System (CAS) did not adequately alert lab or National Nuclear Security Administration management to problems on a botched nuclear security upgrade project at the lab’s Technical Area 55, according to a report released yesterday by the Department of Energy’s Inspector General that suggested the CAS problems at Los Alamos were […]

It could cost more than $1 trillion to maintain and modernize the nation’s nuclear deterrent over the next 30 years, according to a new report released yesterday by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. The report, “Trillion Dollar Nuclear Triad: US Strategic Modernization over the Next Thirty Years,” is among the first efforts by […]

A Babcock & Wilcox-led team has three times protested the National Nuclear Security Administration’s actions on the Y-12/Pantex procurement, and a senior B&W official yesterday said the company supports scrapping the entire procurement and starting over, perhaps competing the two management and operating contracts separately. “We think there’s merit in DOE considering just calling time […]

Countries around the world are making progress in securing nuclear material within their borders, according to a report released yesterday by the Nuclear Threat Initiative that continued to push for a global system governing all nuclear materials. The report, released in advance of the third Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands in March, noted that […]

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel backed maintaining support for the nation’s nuclear deterrent last week. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) followed up with a call to hold him to his word. In a statement issued Friday, Corker urged Hagel to provide the “necessary” funding for the nation’s nuclear deterrent in the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request. He […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has begun to take the first steps toward scaling back its plans for the Uranium Processing Facility, saying yesterday that it is developing “alternative mission delivery scenarios” that focus on replacing the Y-12 National Security Complex’s Building 9212 complex. In a statement, NNSA spokesman Keri Fulton said the agency would […]

The size of the United States’ active nuclear arsenal has remained stable for the last year, according to a recent assessment published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that estimates about 4,650 nuclear warheads remain in the active stockpile of the U.S. Another 2,700 warheads are retired and awaiting dismantlement, meaning the U.S. has a […]

Project officials on the Uranium Processing Facility are planning to submit a design package for the massive construction effort by October of 2014 and begin construction in October of 2015, according to a recent report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In its Aug. 23 site representative report, which was released this week, the […]

The Project on Government Oversight has released a new report calling for the government to stop pouring money into the Uranium Processing Facility in Oak Ridge until the project’s need has been better documented and other, far-less-expensive options have been explored. POGO noted that the cost of UPF has skyrocketed from $600 million to current […]

Faulty welds have led to cracks in HVAC filter housings supplied by a vendor for installation in the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, according to a report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week by construction contractor Shaw AREVA MOX Services. “The filter housings are credited for the confinement of radioactive material. There is a […]

The size of the United States’ strategic deployed nuclear stockpile increased by 24 warheads over the last six months according to the latest data released by the State Department. According to the Oct. 1 declaration, the U.S. had 1,688 strategic deployed warheads under the treaty’s counting rules as of Sept. 1, 2013, a small increase […]

After pushing out indefinitely the release of a final Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, the National Nuclear Security Administration last week sought to extend a support contract for the EIS until September 2014. The NNSA released its draft report in July 2012, and had planned to release its final SEIS early this year. […]

An explosives research facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory failed to control access to its explosive operations area, according to a Department of Energy Inspector General report issued Friday. Investigating allegations that the lab hadn’t controlled access to the High Explosives Applications Facility (HEAF), and the IG found lab officials had been lax in limiting […]

Contractors running the National Nuclear Security Administration’s various sites began initiating shutdown plans yesterday after direction from the agency established Oct. 21 as the latest date for shutdown, NW&M Monitor has learned. Sites could shut down before then, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director Parney Albright informed employees in an all-hands meeting yesterday that the […]