Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

Exchangemonitor.com has refreshed its website and now posts news and commentary from across the defense- and civilian-nuclear industries in (near) real time.  If you haven’t gotten used to checking exchangemonitor.com throughout the day, we could hardly blame you. Our old website didn’t allow us to push updates to you as quickly as we could write […]

Maryland-based Amentum, a major player in the Department of Energy’s weapons complex, announced this week it is buying another federal contractor, Virginia-based PAE in a cash transaction valued at $1.9-billion. The acquisition, which includes Amentum’s assumption of some debt, was approved by PAE’s board of directors, according to the release. As a publicly-traded company, PAE […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has maxed out the options on Consolidated Nuclear Security’s short-term extension to run the Pantex Plant and the Y-12 National Security complex, keeping the short-timer incumbent on the job through March while the agency finalizes the award of a follow-on deal. With an expected four-month transition period to the next […]

The roughly 250 confirmed, active COVID-19 cases across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s complex at the end of October was only a little higher than the number the agency recorded for the corresponding week of 2020 but down by about half from the summer’s high. Also, as of late this month, the National Nuclear Security […]

The Secretary of State used a meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency to talk tough on Iran this week, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee approved a couple of nuclear-nonproliferation nominees at State. Secretary Anthony Blinken’s Monday meeting with Rafael Grossi, director general of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), happened […]

Non-executive board chair John Fees will end a 43-year career with BWX Technologies and its predecessor companies on May 3, the Lynchburg, Va.-based naval nuclear reactor provider, fuel fabricator and defense-nuclear site-manager announced this week in a regulatory filing. Fees, who has been the non-executive chairman since 2018, will retire after the company’s board of directors […]

Sister Megan Rice, a peace activist whose 2012 break-in to the Y-12 National Security Complex spurred an overhaul of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s physical security apparatus, died Oct. 10 at 91, her order said. Rise was born in 1930 and joined the Society of Holy Child Jesus in 1947. After breaking into Y-12 at age […]

SHINE Technologies, Janesville, Wis., got $35 million through a cooperative agreement with the National Nuclear Security Administration to help produce the molybdenum-99 medical isotope in the U.S. without relying on highly enriched uranium, the agency announced this week. This was the third of four agreements planned under a funding opportunity Congress ordered the National Nuclear […]

Corey Hinderstein, the Joe Biden administration’s nominee to run the National Nuclear Security Administration’s defense nuclear nonproliferation office, cleared the Senate Armed Services Committee this week by a voice vote. The full Senate had not scheduled a confirmation vote for Hinderstein at deadline Friday. If confirmed, she would lead a roughly $2-billion-a-year portfolio that includes […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ prime contractor for decommissioning of the SM-1 reactor at Fort Belvoir Army base in Fairfax County, Va., is APTIM AECOM Decommissioning LLC (A2D), a joint venture of Aptim and Amentum. “Decom Work at Ft. Belvoir Reactor to Begin in November” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Oct. 19, 2021].

Sister Megan Rice, a peace activist whose 2012 break-in to the Y-12 National Security Complex spurred an overhaul of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s physical security apparatus, died Oct. 10 at 91, her order said.  Rise was born in 1930 and joined the Society of Holy Child Jesus in 1947. After breaking into Y-12 at […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is “targeting” fiscal year 2026 as the startup date for a new facility at the Savannah River Site that will process 34 metric tons of surplus weapon usable plutonium for disposal in New Mexico, an agency official told advisors to South Carolina’s governor on Monday. That’s two years earlier than […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: October 18 – Meeting: South Carolina House of Representatives SRS and ARPA Appropriations Ad Hoc Committee. 11 a.m. Eastern time. South Carolina Statehouse Blatt Building, Room 110. Testimony of the Office of Regulatory Staff. Streaming online.  […]

Vaccination holdouts at two of the first Department of Energy contractors to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations filed lawsuits against their employers, pleas are being made to elected officials on behalf of those who don’t want the shot and labor unions are wrangling with management at nuclear sites about mandate implementation. Those are a few highlights from […]

Funeral services were scheduled for Nov. 9 at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., for a submarine officer who had a second career in the civilian nuclear world as a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board staffer for most of the last decade. Captain John Pasko (Ret.) died Sept. 7, according to a memorial post published […]

While no details were provided, a Department of Energy spokesperson officially confirmed last week that Centerra will continue at least in the short term as security contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. “Yes, they’ll be extended,” the spokesperson said. The most recent extension for Centerra, provider of security services […]

A decommissioned U.K. cargo vessel that once helped ship weapon-usable plutonium to the U.S. from Sweden has been completely recycled, ship operator Nuclear Transport Solutions announced this week. The INF3-class Oceanic Pintail, a 3,865 metric-ton (4,260 U.S. tons) vessel, was decommissioned in Scotland by Dales Marine Services of Leith near Edinburgh, Scotland, said Nuclear Transport Solutions, a […]

Personnel at the Savannah River Site should wrap up commissioning of transuranic waste characterization equipment by March, in time to get a shipment of proliferation-resistant plutonium-oxide mixture shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant next summer, a site spokesperson said Wednesday. Testing and certification of the transuranic waste-characterization equipment at the site’s recently completed K-Area […]

The story “NNSA Active COVID Cases Hit Summer High in September; Three Deaths This Week” [Vol. 25, No. 37] should have said that an employee at the Sandia National Laboratory’s California campus died of complications related to COVID-19.  

Funeral services were scheduled for Nov. 9 at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., for a submarine officer who had a second career in the civilian nuclear world as a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board staffer for most of the last decade. Captain John Pasko (Ret.) died Sept. 7, according to a memorial post published […]

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week: October 12 – The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant plans a town hall presentation online starting at 5 p.m. Mountain Time on regulatory issues surrounding Panel 8 for underground disposal. 12 –The Department of […]

Department of Energy contractor officers should by Friday, and unilaterally, if necessary, modify the agency’s existing major site contracts to include a COVID-19 mandate, according to long-awaited guidance published Wednesday by DOE. The directive applies to “Management and Operating (M&O) contracts, major site/facility contracts and onsite support service contracts,” the agency wrote in the guidance. […]

There were 3,750 nuclear warheads in the U.S. stockpile as of Sept. 2020 the State Department and National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday, down more than 250 since the final year of the Barack Obama administration. State and the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency disclosed the count after Bonnie Jenkins, under secretary for […]

The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and a State Department arms control official this week released a tally of stockpiled U.S. warheads at the United Nations in New York.  On its website, the NNSA subsequently posted Administrator Jill Hruby’s prepared remarks from the event. “We still believe in minimal credible deterrence as […]

The article “Over Half of NRC Employees Vaccinated, NRC Says” (Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, October 05, 2021) should have said that a full return to work at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is scheduled for Nov. 7 and that some staff are already working in-person.

There were 3,750 nuclear warheads in the U.S. stockpile as of Sept. 2020 the State Department and National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday, down more than 250 since the final year of the Barack Obama administration. State and the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency disclosed the count after Bonnie Jenkins, under secretary for […]

A Sept. 23 article in Weapons Complex Morning Briefing [“DNFSB Questions if Time Made Stranded Drums Safe for Travel”], should have identified a Sept. 8 letter to the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office as a letter requesting a report. The article relied upon an incorrect reference to the letter on the Defense Nuclear Facilities […]

The story “NNSA Active COVID Cases Hit Summer High in September; Three Deaths This Week” [Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Vol. 25, No. 27] should have said that an employee died of complications related to COVID-19 at the Sandia National Laboratories’ California campus.

Here are some events related to defense and civilian matters that the Exchange Monitor staff is tracking this week. 05 – Virtual event, Hudson Institute: The Iran Nuclear Showdown: What’s Next? 12 p.m. Eastern time. Non-government speakers. Register here.  05 – Virtual meeting: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee on the Medical Uses of Isotopes. 10 […]

The minority leader of the South Carolina Senate this week made an opening bid in the statewide tug-of-war over hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal money up for grabs from last year’s plutonium settlement with Columbia: $100 million for the state, $425 million for seven counties near the Savannah River Site. “That would […]