Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management appointed Michael Mikolanis to lead its Los Alamos National Laboratory field office in New Mexico, a DOE advisory board learned Wednesday. The Mikolanis appointment was announced to the Northern New Mexico Citizens’ Advisory Board by Lee Bishop, DOE’s deputy designated federal officer, during a virtual meeting. Mikolanis, […]

John “Devin” Biniaz was appointed deputy associate administrator for defense nuclear security, the National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday. In his new role at headquarters, Biniaz wil backstop Jeffrey Johnson, the head of the office responsible for physical and information security at the agency’s labs, plants and sites.  Biniaz was most recently assistant manager of […]

Jill Hruby was scheduled for a 1:30 p.m. confirmation vote in the Senate Thursday that would install the ex-Sandia National Laboratories director as head of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Hruby would be the sixth Senate-confirmed administrator of the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the part of the Department of Energy responsible for nuclear-weapons […]

An internal Department of Energy watchdog gave Consolidated Nuclear Security a public calling-out, but no other penalty, for letting an employee at the Pantex Plant in Texas work in radioactive areas for six months last year after the contractor realized the person had lost their dosimeter, according to a report published this week. The employee […]

An auxiliary manufacturing space, known as Kansas City East and Building 23, should be christened in the fall, the president of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main non-nuclear parts maker said Tuesday. The headcount at the Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC) is “currently around 5,500 with plans growing to 6,000 here before the end […]

A fiery summer continues at the former Nevada Test Site, with another blaze reported in the southwest part of the site at Area 25 and 29, according to a press release. By Monday afternoon local time, the fire had spread across some 860 acres, compared with the 300 on which it was burning earlier in […]

The House Appropriations Committee’s proposed Department of Energy budget for fiscal year 2022 would slash funding for one of the potential disposal routes for surplus weapon-usable plutonium that has to be removed from South Carolina under terms of a record-setting legal settlement. The bill would deny $145 million in 2022 funding requested for the Versatile […]

House Appropriators didn’t go for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to trim the Inertial Confinement Fusion program’s budget by about $5 million in 2022 by using leftover 2021 funding to continue a portfolio of high energy density physics projects that can aid nuclear-weapons maintenance.  A bill approved Friday by the House Appropriations Committee would […]

The Department of Energy this week publicly released its long-delayed draft Record of Decision for a proposed new landfill to handle low-level radioactive waste from building demolition at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. The 350-page draft on the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, dated June 22, now will undergo a 60-day review, by the Tennessee […]

Two protests filed with the Government Accountability Office over long-term Department of Energy contracts awards, each worth more than a billion dollars, were withdrawn this week. Bechtel-led Idaho Remediation on Tuesday withdrew its challenge of a $6.4-billion nuclear contract at the Idaho National Laboratory awarded in May to a Jacobs-led team, Idaho Environmental Coalition.  “The […]

President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration is one of many political appointees for key national defense posts whose confirmation votes have been blocked in the Senate, multiple people have told Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. Some of these people told the Monitor this week that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) had held Jill Hruby’s […]

With COVID-19 vaccines now widely available in the U.S., federal agencies including the Department of Energy are supposed to set plans by Monday to return personnel to offices. The White House Office of Management and Budget gave federal agencies until July 19 to “finalize their phased plans for reentry and post-reentry,” according to a June […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said this week it completed the first production unit of a refurbished submarine-launched nuclear warhead, setting the stage for a mass-production run that could begin early next year and which will fit the weapon with a new detonation system rated for 30 more years at sea. Workers at the Pantex […]

The Secretary of Energy recognized three National Nuclear Security Administration projects that demonstrated significant results in completing projects under budget and ahead of schedule, the agency announced this week. The Secretary’s Project Management Achievement Awards at the NNSA went to the Exascale Class Computing Cooling Equipment project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New […]

While nobody had walked off the job at deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, some 240 people were set to go on strike at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California over what the union called the management’s refusal to negotiate terms of a mandatory on-call policy for some craft workers. The Society of Professionals, […]

The Savannah River Site has been running a four-shift glove box operation at its main plutonium-disposal program in the site’s K-Area for a little more than a month now, a site spokesperson said this week. The Aiken, S.C., site ratcheted up to four shifts from two on June 1, the spokesperson wrote Tuesday in an […]

On a party line 33-24 vote Friday, the House Appropriations Committee approved a 2022 civilian nuclear weapons budget that includes requested funding for proposed plutonium pit factories but withholds funds for a few smaller nuclear weapons programs. The full House had not scheduled a vote on the bill at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & […]

A coalition of more than 30 citizen groups, called the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, wants President Joe Biden to nominate a Department of Energy assistant secretary for environmental management committed to cleanup and environmental justice, according to a Monday letter. Whoever gets picked to run the $7-billion-plus DOE Office of Environmental Management must have a […]

There has been no big retirement spike among federal employees at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office during the COVID-19 pandemic but officials who spoke at a virtual hearing this week fear that could change.  The assessment was offered by William “Ike” White, acting assistant secretary for environmental management, in response to a question […]

The legacy cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has shipped off a bottle of unidentified liquid found around a pothole along a contaminated stretch of a public road for analysis. On July 8, Newport News Nuclear-BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) discovered an intact 500-milliliter amber glass bottle containing […]

Since starting up in October, the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has processed 1 million gallons of radioactive tank waste, plant builder Parson wrote this week in press release. The 140,000-square-foot Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) is the center of DOE plans to empty 36 […]

President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration is one of many political appointees for key national defense posts whose confirmation votes have been blocked in the Senate, multiple people have told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.  Some of these people told the Monitor this week that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) had held […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday it completed the first production unit of a refurbished submarine-launched nuclear warhead, setting the stage for a mass-production run that could begin early next year and which will fit the weapon with a new detonation system rated for 30 more years at sea. Workers at the Pantex Plant […]

The Savannah River Site has been running a four-shift glove box operation at its main plutonium-disposal program in the site’s K-Area for a little more than a month now, a site spokesperson said Tuesday. The Aiken, S.C., site ratcheted up to four shifts from two on June 1, the spokesperson wrote in an email to […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is holding a long-anticipated virtual public hearing today on ongoing safety issues for tritium production and other work at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Witnesses listed on the agenda include the acting assistant secretary for the DOE Office of Environmental Management, William “Ike” White […]

The relatively flat National Nuclear Security Administration budget proposed by a House appropriations subcommittee on Monday “short changes” the national defense, the panel’s ranking Republican said Monday. The bill’s proposed “increase of less than 1% for the Weapons Activities does not even keep up with inflation,” Rep. Mike Simpson(Idaho), the ranking Republican on the House […]

Some 240 people were set to go on strike at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California over what the union called the management’s refusal to negotiate terms of a mandatory on-call policy for some craft workers. The Society of Professionals, Scientists and Engineers Local 11 – University Professional and Technical Employees, Communications Workers of […]

Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs would get almost exactly the funding they requested for fiscal year 2022, if the House’s first draft of the Department of Energy’s budget bill becomes law. The House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee released its draft 2022 energy and water appropriations act on Sunday and planned to mark up […]

Responders at the Nevada National Security Site have completely contained the wildfires that broke out there last week in the site’s western region at Area 16, Area 29 and Area 30, the site said this week. The total estimated burn area was about 275 acres, according to a Tuesday press release from site management and […]

The Secretary of Energy did not deny any written requests for information from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in the six months ended June 30, the chair of the independent federal board reported recently to Congress. “The Board has no denials of access to information to report in the past six months,” Defense Nuclear […]