Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

A new cost and schedule estimate for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s new factory for nuclear weapon secondary stages will be done “soon” and will not change the scope of the project, the secretary of energy said this week in congressional testimony. The “baseline change proposal” for the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National […]

The story “NNSA seeks study contractor for effort to mature Oak Ridge defense refining tech” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, March, 19, 2024] should have said that the National Nuclear Security Administration is developing uranium enrichment technology and that the agency has enough low enriched uranium to meet defense needs through the 2040s.

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Friday solicited bids for a one-year study about a pilot plant to test defense uranium-enrichment technology developed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Bids are due April 15, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) wrote in a procurement notice posted online for the firm-fixed-price NNSA Domestic Uranium Enrichment Pilot […]

The White House this week requested about $25 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, more than $860 million, or 3.6%, above the 2024 appropriation signed into law late last week. The agency also said in the budget request that the cost of a planned South Carolina facility to make the nuclear-weapon first-stage cores called […]

PHOENIX — The Savannah River Site could send as many as 40 shipments of diluted surplus plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in 2024, a manager at the Savannah River Site said here. Or maybe half that many, Lee Sims, K Area Facility Manager at Savannah River for the site’s Fluor-led prime contractor, Savannah […]

PHOENIX — The Savannah River Site could send as many as 40 shipments of diluted surplus plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in 2024, a manager at the Savannah River Site said here. Or maybe half that many, Lee Sims, K Area Facility Manager at Savannah River for the site’s Fluor-led prime contractor, Savannah […]

Funding for the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons program would rise and funding for its nuclear-waste-cleanup programs would fall slightly year-over-year, under the fiscal year 2025 budget request President Joe Biden (D) released Monday. The Department of Energy had not released detailed budget justification documents as of Monday afternoon, but according to a document published Monday […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration stands to see its roughly $24 billion budget request fulfilled under the compromise funding agreement reached by Congress this week.   The House approved the bill on Wednesday by a vote of 339 to 85, the Senate was still debating the measure at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration stands to see its roughly $24 billion budget request fulfilled under the compromise funding agreement reached by Congress this week.   The bill includes just over $19 billion for NNSA weapons activities and includes a requirement that the agency work with the scientific advisory group JASON to “conduct an assessment of […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration stands to see its roughly $24 billion budget request fulfilled under the compromise funding agreement reached by Congress this week.   The bill includes just over $19 billion for NNSA weapons activities and includes a requirement that the agency work with the scientific advisory group JASON to “conduct an assessment of […]

The story “NNSA ponders potential Vegas office move” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, February 22, 2024] should have quoted public affairs officer John Daniels as saying there are many planning and “fiscal” considerations to be considered. 

All shifts were scheduled to report normally to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, again on Friday, even as nearby wildfires of historic intensity continued to burn.  The plant’s website shows normal scheduling for the day, swing and graveyard shifts on Friday. Workers were recalled Wednesday after operations at the National […]

All shifts were scheduled to report normally to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, on Thursday, despite several wildfires still raging north of the site.  The plant’s website shows normal scheduling for the day, swing and graveyard shifts on Thursday. Workers were recalled Wednesday after operations at the National Nuclear Security […]

Operations at the National Nuclear Security’s Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, were suspended Tuesday evening because of nearby wildfires, but workers were recalled for Wednesday’s shifts. Several large wildfires are burning north of Amarillo, where the NNSA’s nuclear weapons assembly-and-disassembly hub is located. They include the Smokehouse Creek Fire, which has burned half a million […]

Fluor Chairman and CEO David Constable expects the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration to decide on a new management contractor for the Pantex Plant in Texas in the second or third quarter of this calendar year. Constable made the comment during a Tuesday earnings call with Wall Street analysts. The Fluor chief is […]

Fluor Chairman and CEO David Constable expects the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration to decide on a new management contractor for the Pantex Plant in Texas in the second or third quarter of this calendar year. Constable made the comment during a Tuesday earnings call with Wall Street analysts. The Fluor chief is […]

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration is shopping around for a new Nevada Field Office headquarters in greater Las Vegas, a federal advisory board heard Wednesday evening. Jill Hruby, who heads DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, is slated to meet with Las Vegas officials next week in Washington, D.C., to discuss a […]

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration is shopping around for a new Nevada Field Office headquarters in greater Las Vegas, a federal advisory board heard Wednesday evening. Jill Hruby, who heads DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, is slated to meet with Las Vegas officials next week in Washington, D.C., to discuss a […]

Fluor Chairman and CEO David Constable expects the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration to decide on a new management contractor for the Pantex Plant in Texas in the second or third quarter of this calendar year. Constable made the comment during a Tuesday earnings call with Wall Street analysts. The Fluor chief is […]

“Downwind” producers said this week their 2023 documentary about the aftermath of decades of nuclear testing at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, can be seen on Peacock, the same platform where the Oscar-nominated blockbuster “Oppenheimer” is available for streaming this weekend. According to a press release, “Downwind” can help the public understand […]

Honeywell this month marked its 75th year of work at what is now the Kansas City National Security Campus in Kansas City, Mo. Run by the National Nuclear Security Administration today, the campus relocated in 2014 from the old Bannister Federal Complex, portions of which were scheduled for transfer to the Department of Energy’s Office […]

“Downwind” producers said this week their 2023 documentary about the aftermath of decades of nuclear testing at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, can be seen on Peacock, the same platform where the Oscar-nominated blockbuster “Oppenheimer” is available for streaming this weekend. According to a press release, “Downwind” can help the public understand […]

“Downwind” producers said this week their 2023 documentary about the aftermath of decades of nuclear testing at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, can be seen on Peacock, the same platform where the Oscar-nominated blockbuster “Oppenheimer” is available for streaming this weekend. According to a press release, “Downwind” can help the public understand […]

Police in Bellevue, Wash., last month got an alarming call from an Air Force Museum in Ohio, alerting them that a town resident had offered to donate a pre-Vietnam unguided nuclear rocket.  The department’s bomb squad responded to find the remains of an AIR-2 Genie Rocket, produced until 1962. The unguided air-to-air rocket would have […]

Mission Support and Test Services is under investigation for two incidents in the summer of 2023 in which falling rock injured employees at the deep-underground explosive testing facility it is building in Nevada for the National Nuclear Security Administration.  The enforcement arm of NNSA’s Office of Enterprise Assessments notified Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS) […]

Los Alamos glovebox fire sprinklers could cause criticality, safety watchdog says Los Alamos National Laboratory is trying to prevent accidental criticalities caused when fires inside gloveboxes trigger a building’s sprinkler system, which might allow water to touch fissile material, according to a federal safety watchdog. In a report dated Jan. 19, the National Nuclear Security […]

The prime contractor of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is being investigated for an April incident in which radioactive contamination from the nuclear weapons lab was found on and off-site. The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Enterprise Assessments announced its intent to investigate Lawrence Livermore National Security on Jan. 26. Anthony Pierpoint, director […]

As the annual Academy Awards prepares to honor a movie on the life of physicist Robert Oppenheimer, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) hopes people who run the Hollywood movie business might also focus some attention on radiation victims from the Manhattan Project’s nuclear testing program. “The Oppenheimer film tells a compelling story of these test programs,” […]

WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration will extend the Bechtel National-led prime contractor at Y-12 National Security Complex that builds nuclear weapon secondary stages in Tennessee through September 2027, the head of the agency said here Thursday. The agency also plans to extend Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies at the Kansas City National Security […]

The annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit, hosted by the Exchange Monitor, kicks off in Washington on Wednesday with more than 60 speakers from the top ranks of the U.S.  nuclear security enterprise. Expect much discussion of the National Nuclear Security Administration striving to produce at least 80 plutonium pits for use in modernizing nuclear weapons as close […]