Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

Glovebox component vendor Central Research Laboratories, Red Wing, Minn., again popped up in connection with a glovebox breach at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility, this time after a close call involving a plutonium machining operator.  On Sept. 23, an “ergonomic” glovebox glove assembly provided by Central Research Laboratories unexpectedly disconnected from the […]

A story in Wednesday’s Weapons Complex Morning Briefing (“NRC to Address COVID-19 Exemptions Moving Forward”) should have said staff members will discuss work hours, security inspection exemptions and other pandemic-related topics at the Thursday meeting. No commissioners will be involved.

A story in Monday’s Weapons Complex Morning Briefing (“Nun Who Breached Y-12 Perimeter Dies at 84”) should have said that SOC is the physical security provider under Consolidated Nuclear Security’s contract to manage the Pantex Plant and the Y-12 National Security Complex.

The Sandia National Laboratories confirmed nine new cases of COVID-19 among its workforce last week, raising the lab network’s total since the start of the outbreak to 86 cases. As of Friday, Sandia Albuquerque had nine new cases while Sandia California, near the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, had two new cases, a Sandia spokesperson said. […]

Sister Ardeth Platte, the nun who breached the perimeter of the Y-12 National Security Site in 2010 as part of an anti-nuclear protest, died in her sleep late last week in Washington at age 84, media reported. Platte, by the time of her death a well-known anti-nuclear-weapons protester, served time in jail for her trespassing […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s six major management and operations contractors have so far reported about $140 million in reimbursements for paid leave granted to people who could not work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, an agency spokesperson said this week. The tally includes reimbursements claimed from March 27 through Aug. 31 under Section […]

New infections eclipsed recoveries this week across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s labs, plants and sites, where there were 41 more active COVID-19 cases than in the prior week, an agency spokesperson said Friday. The agency discloses only confirmed cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that broke out in Wuhan, China, late […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration should hold a COVID-19-safe virtual meeting to brief New Mexico residents about a planned venting of tritium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, members of the state’s congressional delegation said Tuesday in a letter to the lab’s local fed. “[W]e strongly urge you to hold an open public information meeting […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration should hold a COVID-19-safe virtual meeting to brief New Mexico residents about a planned venting of tritium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, members of the state’s congressional delegation said Tuesday in a letter to the lab’s local fed. “[W]e strongly urge you to hold an open public information meeting […]

The story “Teaming Arrangements Taking Shape for Y-12, Pantex Contract Recompete” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, Sept. 30, 2020] should have said that the National Nuclear Security Administration must onboard a new management and operations contractor for the Pantex Plant and Y-12 National Security Complex by Oct. 1, 2021.

The National Nuclear Security Administration picked up nearly 40 new confirmed COVID-19 cases this week, but recoveries well outstripped new infections, leaving the nuclear-weapon steward with six fewer active cases, at deadline Friday. The semi-autonomous Department of Energy agency was tracking 87 active cases among its federal and contractor workforce Friday, making for a total […]

Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, it’d be a surprise if anybody engaged in, or cleaning up after, nuclear-weapons production at Department of Energy sites across the country went to bed this week disappointed that atomic energy defense activities didn’t rate a few minutes on the presidential debate stage.  We might say […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory confirmed a pair of COVID-19 cases among its workforce last week, during which the lab performed nearly 400 tests for the viral disease, a spokesperson said late Friday. That brings the total number of confirmed cases at the lab since the start of the outbreak to 59, the spokesperson for […]

Gene Sievers is taking over as manager of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., backfilling a position left vacant after his predecessor was promoted as part of the leadership shuffle that ensued when Morgan Smith retired as head of the outgoing nuclear-weapons production-site prime. Sievers, most recently vice president of the Bechtel […]

Active cases of COVID-19 among the National Nuclear Security Administration contractors and civil servants rose by 15 week to week, a spokesperson with the semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency said Friday.  That left the agency with a total of 93 active cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at deadline for Nuclear Security & […]

The story “FirstEnergy Outs its Own Investigation by SEC” [Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, 09/23/2020] should have said that FirstEnergy Corp. no longer owns the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear power plants, which allegedly benefited from a financial bailout that the Ohio legislature agreed to pass because of a bribery scheme to which FirstEnergy has been tied […]

Gene Sievers is taking over as manager of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., backfilling a position left vacant after his predecessor was promoted as part of the leadership shuffle that ensued when Morgan Smith retired as head of the outgoing nuclear-weapons production-site prime. Sievers, most recently vice president of the Bechtel […]

According to a recently declassified report, the National Nuclear Security Administration thinks it will cost some $14.8 billion to build W87-1 warheads for the Ground Based Strategic intercontinental ballistic missiles planned to replace Minuteman III as the land-based leg of the nuclear triad starting around 2030.  That could make W87-1 — a newly manufactured copy […]

A two-university team is offering its services to prospective bidders on a potentially 10-year contract to manage the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two major nuclear-weapons manufacturing sites, but it had not hooked on with any industry partners as of Tuesday, a spokesperson said. “The University of Tennessee System and the Texas A&M University System have […]

Sandia National Laboratories was preparing Tuesday to reopen its MO285 office space after deep-cleaning the area after an employee there tested positive for COVID-19, the nuclear-weapons engineering hub said. Only one employee working at MO285 tested positive, the labs network wrote in a statement Monday, when it began the deep cleaning that typically allows work […]

A nuclear brain-drain in the military has shown signs of reversing course in the decade-plus since the mistaken delivery of nuclear-armed cruise missiles to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, the head of the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory’s Center for Global Security Research said Monday. “My sense of it is that that bottomed out,” Brad […]

The Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories combined picked up less than a handful of new confirmed COVID-19 cases last week, the New Mexico nuke sites reported late last week after the ExchangeMonitor’s weekly deadline. Sandia’s cumulative case count rose to 63 from 60, with all three new cases logged at the lab network’s main […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved retired Army Gen. Lucas Polakowski to be assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs, and staff director of the joint civil-military group that coordinates nuclear weapons acquisition. Polakowski was one of six civilian nominations the Committee advanced in a meeting Tuesday, held just over a […]

A House-passed 2021 spending bill, which would provide the $816 million the National Nuclear Security Administration requested for its B61-12 life-extension program, would “impair” the government’s ability to deliver that refurbished nuclear bomb on time, a senior Pentagon official told Congress Thursday. “It might not be intuitively obvious how that would affect certain programs because […]

The paperwork went through this week to officially extend Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies for another year as the management and operations contractor of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear-weapons components hub. A notice about the modification that picked up the Honeywell subsidiary’s option appeared Monday on the federal government’s online hub for acquisition and procurement documents, […]

Congress’ fight over the National Nuclear Security Administration’s 2021 budget poses “challenges” for rolling out new nuclear delivery systems and carrier vehicles that already are poised to debut “just barely in time,” the vice chair of the joint chiefs of staff said Thursday morning. “If you’ve been in the acquisition business in this building very […]

Turab Lookman, a former Los Alamos physicist, dodged a six-month prison sentence last week, when a federal judge sentenced him to five years probation and a fine for lying to federal investigators about his connection to China’s Thousand Talents program. With good behavior, Lookman’s probation might end sooner, according to the sentencing minute sheet filed in the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration finished building a non-nuclear prototype of the B61-12, a refurbished version of the oldest deployed U.S. nuclear weapon that will homogenize four existing versions of the nuclear gravity bomb. The semiautonomous DOE nuclear weapons agency announced the milestone late last week in a press release. Personnel assembled the B61-12 first production […]

“Individuals from the Department of Energy” collaborated with House Democrats to destroy the National Nuclear Security Administration’s autonomy within the DOE, and cut the Pentagon out of civilian nuclear-weapons budget planning entirely, Sen. James Inhofe said Thursday. “I suppose we should have expected this sort of political maneuvering to continue after what happened earlier this […]

COVID-19 recoveries outpaced new confirmed cases this week at the National Nuclear Security Administration, which recorded 13 new confirmed infections among personnel nationally, but saw active cases drop by 26, week to week. The semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency was tracking 78 active cases of the disease caused by the novel coronavirus on […]