Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) expects to meet with President Donald Trump Thursday to plead a case for reversing the White House’s Oct. 10 decision to terminate the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, the palmetto state chief said Monday. The exact timing of the meeting could change due to how sudden […]

Days after the Department of Energy said it was cancelling MOX Services’ contract to build the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) vowed to appeal the decision directly to the White House. The local Aiken Standard reported Graham’s comments Saturday  As first reported Friday by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing’s affiliate publication Nuclear Security […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Wednesday notified MOX Services that the agency will terminate the company’s contract to build a long-delayed plutonium disposal plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency sent the letter one day after a federal appeals court lifted a lower court’s injunction […]

The secretary of energy and the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on Wednesday expressed condolences for the death of an agency security employee who helped move special nuclear material across the country. Kristopher Youngberg, 41, died after a passenger van he was riding in last week along with four other Department of Energy […]

Companies interested in building custom road equipment to transport tritium-bearing rods to the Savannah River Site from a nuclear reactor in Tennessee got an extra month-and-a-half, until Nov. 9, to file their bids, the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said Tuesday. Battelle, which runs the Washington state lab for […]

Charles Verdon, a longtime manager at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, on Tuesday officially started his new job leading the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) $11-billion-a-year nuclear weapons portfolio. Verdon was sworn in as NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs by Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, according to an agency press release. […]

The managing contractor for the Nevada National Security Site, Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS), envisions significant subcontracting opportunities for construction and consulting services in the near future, a senior manager said recently. The venture comprised of Honeywell International, Jacobs, and Stoller Newport News Nuclear (SN3) took over management of the site for the Department […]

The secretary of energy and the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on Wednesday expressed condolences for the death of an agency security employee who helped move special nuclear material across the country. Kristopher Youngberg, 41, died after a passenger van he was riding in last week along with four other Department of Energy […]

Companies interested in building custom road equipment to transport tritium-bearing rods to the Savannah River Site from a nuclear reactor in Tennessee got an extra month-and-a-half, until Nov. 9, to file their bids, the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said Tuesday. Battelle, which runs the Washington state lab for […]

A federal appeals court on Tuesday effectively cleared the Department of Energy to cancel construction of a controversial plutonium disposal plant under construction in South Carolina. The decision, which followed oral arguments before the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in late September, could result in the eventual loss of some 2,000 jobs at MOX […]

Charles Verdon, a longtime manager at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, on Tuesday officially started his new job leading the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) $11-billion-a-year nuclear weapons portfolio. Verdon was sworn in as NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs by Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, according to an agency press release. […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee has scheduled an Oct. 16 confirmation hearing fro William Bookless, the Donald Trump administration’s nominee to be second-in-command at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The hearing is a central step to installing Bookless as principal deputy administrator at the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory senior physicist was nominated in August. […]

The Department of Energy hosted a three-day meeting in South Carolina last week to talk about plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site, the agency’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said. The NNSA Office of Defense Programs led a what an agency spokesperson called “a plutonium pit production workshop” from Oct 2-4.“Workshop attendees […]

Nevada is “actively exploring all possible avenues” to prevent the Department of Energy from moving nuclear weapon-usable plutonium into the state, Gov. Brian Sandoval wrote in a Sept. 28 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The Nevada Independent website first published the letter Wednesday. In response to a federal court order in December, DOE is contemplating moving […]

The White House this week officially nominated Bruce Hamilton to take over as the full-time chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board: an independent federal nuclear health-and-safety watchdog he has led on an acting basis since February. The Donald Trump administration nominated Hamilton with around a month of legislative days left on the Senate’s […]

Days after asking as much in oral arguments, the Department of Energy this week again asked a federal appeals court to let it shut down the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. In early June, as part of a lawsuit filed by the state of South […]

A metric ton of plutonium once slated to be de-weaponized forever would instead be used to help the Department of Energy manufacture new nuclear-weapon cores next decade, the agency confirmed this week. Earlier this year, the Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) decided that “a fraction of the plutonium that’s […]

Nevada is “actively exploring all possible avenues” to prevent the Department of Energy from moving nuclear weapon-usable plutonium into the state, Gov. Brian Sandoval wrote in a Sept. 28 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The Nevada Independent website first published the letter Wednesday. In response to a federal court order in December, DOE is […]

A metric ton of plutonium once slated to be de-weaponized forever would instead be used to help the Department of Energy manufacture new nuclear-weapon cores some time in the next decade, the agency confirmed Monday. The fissile material is part of a large tranche declared surplus to defense needs by the Bill Clinton administration in […]

Days after asking as much in oral arguments, the Department of Energy on Monday again asked a federal appeals court to let it shut down the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. In early June, as part of a lawsuit filed by the state of South […]

To resolve one of the many claims tacked on to a roughly $200 million lawsuit, the Department of Energy and contractor MOX Services are working a legal settlement over some $1 million the federal agency allegedly refused to pay after the company gave 55 employees raises a few years ago. In a Wednesday order, U.S. District […]

Federal judges could soon issue rulings in a pair of appeals cases over the future of plutonium and plutonium operations in the state, following oral arguments in a federal appeals court this week. Arguments in both cases ― separate lawsuits the state brought against the federal agency in 2016 and 2018 ― happened Thursday in […]

Bechtel National will have a new project manager in place next month for the next-generation Uranium Processing Facility the company is building at the Department of Energy’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. However, it is not ready yet to identify the project chief. Bechtel is moving current UPF project manager Valerie McCain across […]

The Department of Energy again moved to waive a requirement to continue building a planned plutonium disposal facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., papers filed with a federal appeals court this week show. The waiver came in the form of a Sept. 18 letter from Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of DOE’s semiautonomous National […]

Nuclear Fuel Services, of Erwin, Tenn., will downblend 20.2 metric tons of uranium needed to produce tritium for U.S. nuclear warheads under a roughly seven-year National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) contract worth $505 million, parent company BWX Technologies announced Friday. The NNSA needs to turn some of its stock of highly enriched uranium into low-enriched […]

The Department of Energy and South Carolina are set today to deliver oral arguments in a pair of appeals cases over the future of plutonium and plutonium operations in the state. Arguments in both cases ― separate lawsuits the state brought against the federal agency in 2016 and 2018 ― are set for 9:30 a.m. […]

The Department of Energy has again waived a requirement to continue building a planned plutonium disposal facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., papers filed with a federal appeals court Monday show. The waiver came in the form of a Sept. 18 letter from Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security […]

Bechtel National will have a new project manager in place next month for the next-generation Uranium Processing Facility the company is building at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. However, it is not ready yet to identify the project chief. Bechtel is moving current UPF project manager Valerie McCain across the country to […]

In a move first proposed by the Senate this summer, the final fiscal 2019 budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) moves funding for uranium downblending into the agency’s tritium sustainment account. The move was contrary to the Donald Trump administration’s request, which grouped money for uranium downblending under the NNSA domestic uranium enrichment […]

Despite threats of severe weather that required the Savannah River Site to brace for impact, the facility emerged unscathed after Hurricane Florence slammed into South Carolina last week. The storm, which has been linked to dozens of deaths in several coastal states, had no impact on missions or facilities at the 310-square-mile Department of Energy […]