Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Northrop Grumman on Thursday said it can’t currently predict the impact on its business from the COVID-19 pandemic but warned investors of potential increased borrowing costs and of potential disruptions to its customers and operations. In addition to higher capital costs and limits to capital, the company warned that “If […]

The Department of Energy’s three nuclear weapons laboratories had all widely expanded teleworking Friday due to COVID-19, with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California taking drastic measures as its host county went into lockdown. After lagging behind the other two labs, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico said Tuesday it had implemented […]

President Donald Trump will nominate a familiar face, Joyce Connery, to serve a new term on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), the White House said Tuesday morning. If confirmed by the Senate, Connery would serve a term expiring Oct. 18, 2025, according to the intent to nominate announcement. Initially nominated by President Barack […]

The U.S. Nuclear Industry Council (USNIC) on Thursday said interim President and CEO Bud Albright would remain in the position on an ongoing basis. Albright has been chairman of the business group’s Executive Board since 2018, and stepped into the leadership role in January following the unexpected death of President and CEO David Blee. Albright […]

The Department of Energy is still preparing a report to Congress on “innovative options” for meeting its legal requirement to dispose of tens of thousands of tons of U.S. nuclear waste. “The Department is currently working on the report, and we’ll follow up once it’s public,” a spokesperson said by email Monday. The spokesperson did […]

By John Stang Telecommuting and social distancing are in play across the nation’s radioactive waste industry as the novel coronavirus 2019 sweeps the United States. The limited number of companies that responded to inquiries this week reported no COVID-19 cases among their workforce and no cutbacks in operations, though they did not rule out slowdowns […]

By John Stang Coming off a strong 2019, Perma-Fix Environmental Services anticipates taking a significant revenue hit in the second quarter of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Atlanta-based radioactive waste management specialist expects the novel coronavirus 2019 to affect its customers, slowing their on-site work and shipments to Perma-Fix’s waste processing plants In […]

PHOENIX – Two Nevada officials with distinctly different opinions on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository last week offered distinctly different views on what the Trump administration’s latest budget might mean for the future of the always-embattled project. In February, the White House issued a fiscal 2021 spending plan that included nothing to resume licensing […]

All field work was halted Wednesday at a large-scale cleanup project for radioactive contaminants spread across two municipalities in Ontario, Canada, in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. In a late-morning Tweet, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories said it had suspended field operations at the Port Hope Project and Port Granby Project, which are managed jointly under […]

Energy Harbor Corp. on March 13 said it had reversed its decision to retire the two reactors at its Beaver Valley Power Station in Pennsylvania. The announcement came just weeks after the former FirstEnergy Solutions emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with a new name and no longer owned by FirstEnergy Corp. Management at the Akron, […]

As part of a much larger spending request, the White House has requested $28 million in emergency 2020 funding to help the Department of Energy telework during the COVID-19 pandemic. The DOE share will pay “for additional information technology requirements and telework support, also including increased cybersecurity costs, in response to coronavirus,” according to a […]

Perma-Fix Environmental Services on Thursday said it had nearly doubled its revenue in the fourth quarter of 2019, to $22.1 million from $11.7 million for the corresponding period the year before. The 88% spike was built on sales boosts in its two key businesses for the quarter ended Dec. 31: Revenue in the Services Segment […]

A bipartisan group of over 100 lawmakers pushed House appropriators in a letter this week to fund a second Virginia-class submarine in the fiscal 2021 defense budget bill. Led by the chairman and ranking member of the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee, Reps. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Rob Wittman (R-Va.), the letter has a total of 112 signatures. […]

All field work was halted Wednesday at a massive cleanup project for radioactive contaminants spread across two municipalities in Ontario, Canada, in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. In a late-morning tweet, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories said it had suspended field operations at the Port Hope Project and Port Granby Project, which are managed jointly under […]

As the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons laboratories conduct mass teleworking amid the COVID-19 pandemic, production sites with work already in the pipeline are still chugging along at about full staff while trying to protect their workforces. At the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for example, construction continues on the Uranium Processing […]

Los Alamos County, N.M., is calling on the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to take responsibility for remediation of radioactive waste discovered last month off the property of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Debris contaminated by uranium and plutonium was discovered Feb. 14 by a county contractor doing sewer line excavation for a planned low-income […]

There are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 among U.S. nuclear forces, and fewer than 50 people supporting that interservice group are self-quarantining because of possible exposure during the global pandemic, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said Tuesday. “[W]e have zero people in STRATCOM headquarters or in the components that have tested positive, so I […]

Nevada and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are attempting to resolve the state’s federal lawsuit seeking the immediate removal of 500 kilograms of weapon-usable plutonium from the Nevada National Security Site, court papers filed Tuesday show. To comply with a court order in a separate federal lawsuit, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is transitioning to minimum-safe operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a move that by next Monday will sharply shrink staffing levels and curtail some scientific activity at the Department of Energy nuclear weapons facility. Livermore Director William Goldstein made the announcement Monday night after the government of […]

The Department of Energy is still preparing a report to Congress on “innovative options” for meeting its legal requirement to dispose of tens of thousands of tons of U.S. nuclear waste. “The Department is currently working on the report, and we’ll follow up once it’s public,” a spokesperson said by email Monday. The spokesperson did […]

On top of the $6.5 billion required to build the Uranium Processing Facility by 2026, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will have to spend nearly $1 billion to modernize other facilities needed to support the next generation weapon-uranium hub, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The spending figure comes from an integrated master […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is soliciting bids for a potential five-year contract, encompasssing a one-year base and four single-year options, to store low-enriched uranium required for tritium production. The semiautonomous Department of Energy branch, civilian steward of the U.S. nuclear weapon stockpile, released the solicitation Thursday. The agency wants new deals in place […]

A federal judge last week rejected a request to dismiss a February 2019 fraud lawsuit against a former contractor and subcontractor for the Department of Energy’s never-completed plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Project prime MOX Services and subcontractor Wise Services failed to explain why the case should be thrown […]

James Taiclet will become president and  chief executive officer of aerospace and defense titan Lockheed Martin, of Bethesda, Md., effective June 15. He will succeed Marillyn Hewson, who has led the company since 2013, according to a Monday press release. Taiclet, who came up in the defense industry through Pratt & Whitney and was later […]

Naval Sea Systems Command on Thursday awarded Fluor Marine Propulsion a $1.776 billion modification for naval nuclear propulsion work at the Naval Nuclear Laboratory. Work will be split between Schenectady, N.Y. (52%), Pittsburgh (31%), Idaho Falls, Idaho (11%), and Charleston, S.C. (6%). The Navy did not disclose how long the contract runs through or what additional […]

The Department of Energy should retool its proposed changes to the federal regulation governing nuclear safety management, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said Friday. This is the third recommendation from the independent federal nuclear health and safety watchdog to the Donald Trump administration and addresses a slate of changes DOE proposed to the […]

A federal judge last week dismissed a discrimination lawsuit filed by a former employee of the security contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, ruling there was no proof race played a role in the worker’s termination. In the March 6 order, U.S. District Judge Terry Wooten ruled in favor […]

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday told senators that industry is ready for and able to build two Virginia-class attack submarines in fiscal 2021, even though the administration’s budget request would fund only one. The Navy is under a Block V multiyear procurement contract that covers nine vessels with an option for a 10th. […]

The head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) should serve a fixed term, a National Academies panel said this week in an interim report on a four-and-a-half-year study into nuclear security governance. The National Academies panel did not say how long the NNSA administrator should serve. However, the group did cite the findings of a […]

There were no documented cases of COVID-19 among Department of Energy federal or contractor personnel at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, although one contractor was being tested for the disease. This person works for Mission Support Alliance, of Richland, Wash., the site-wide support services contractor for the sprawling, remote Hanford Site in […]