Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

By Calvin Biesecker Defense Daily Lockheed Martin on Tuesday posted strong financial results in its first quarter buoyed by operating performance, a lower tax rate and a pension tailwind, and the company raised the outlook for its top and bottom lines in 2018. Net income soared 47 percent to $1.2 billion, or $4.02 earnings per […]

Citing declining health due to multiple sclerosis, and the need for 24-hour assistance, one of the men who defrauded the federal government while working for the Savannah River Site MOX project is hoping to avoid a prison sentence of up to five years. Phillip Thompson is instead requesting five years of probation, with the special […]

While neither the United States nor Russia met a nonbinding target to start disposing of tons of plutonium this year, neither country has actually violated the agreement to get rid of the nuclear material, the U.S. State Department said in a recent report. The Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), negotiation of which began in […]

Fundamental physics research at the University of Texas at Austin will get a $7 million boost from the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is funding the work under a 16 year-old program aimed at providing people with the technical qualifications to maintain U.S. nuclear weapons. The grant came from the NNSA Stewardship Science Academic Alliances […]

In court papers Wednesday, the Department of Energy doubled down on its argument that the contractor on an over-budget plutonium-disposal plant targeted for cancellation contorted the language of its deal in an attempt to convince a federal judge the company should keep $20 million in contested fees. The $20 million is only a small part […]

The University of California submitted its best and final offer to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next decade, a spokesperson for the institution said last week. “It’s my understanding that all teams have submitted their final bids at this time,” the spokesperson wrote in an April 20 email to Nuclear Security & Deterrence […]

Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who is running for the Senate seat now occupied by Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), this week introduced legislation to turn Yucca Mountain into a non-nuclear economic hub. The text of the measure, which Rosen calls the Jobs, Not Waste Act, had not been published at deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor. In […]

WASHINGTON — There will be no discussion of low-yield warheads, plutonium pits, or a controversial plutonium-disposal plant today when the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee marks up its portion of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). However, the bill will recommend setting the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) fiscal 2019 budget higher even […]

Alabama-based Caddell Construction will build a new office building in Albuquerque for more than 1,000 National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) employees under a contract worth a little under $150 million, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced late Tuesday. The Army Corps is procuring construction services for the planned Albuquerque Complex and managing the contract. The […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sufficient funds in its current budget and proposed spending plan for the next fiscal year to review license applications for two interim spent nuclear fuel storage sites proposed for New Mexico and Texas, NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki told a U.S. Senate subcommittee Wednesday. “We have sufficient resources for two spent […]

James Canafax, senior vice president and general counsel for BWX Technologies, will leave the company around Aug. 1, according to a recent regulatory filing. The Harvard-schooled lawyer, who got his J.D. in 1996, has been with the company since 2001: nine years before it was spun off from McDermott International, according to his LinkedIn profile. […]

While neither the United States nor Russia met a nonbinding target to start disposing of tons of plutonium this year, neither country has actually violated the agreement to get rid of the nuclear material, the U.S. State Department said in a recent report. The Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), negotiation of which began in […]

The deadline has passed for revised proposals from the three teams that bid on the contract for liquid waste management services at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to industry sources. The Energy Department requested the updated bids after one of the losing teams successfully protested the October 2017 award […]

Citing declining health due to multiple sclerosis, and the need for 24-hour assistance, one of the men who defrauded the federal government while working for the Savannah River Site MOX project is hoping to avoid a prison sentence of up to five years. Phillip Thompson is instead requesting five years of probation, with the special […]

Late last week, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) authorized the start of construction on a new office building in New Mexico that will house more than 1,000 employees affiliated with the agency’s headquarters. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon agency announced the milestone in a press release Tuesday. The planned Albuquerque Complex Project will […]

Joseph Henry, president and chief operating officer of BWX Technologies’ Nuclear Operations Group, will retire June 30, the company disclosed Monday in a regulatory filing. It was not immediately clear who would succeed the retired Navy admiral at the helm of the Lynchburg, Va.-based company’s nuclear manufacturing and fuel-enrichment business. “We will announce [Henry’s] successor […]

The Sierra Club intends to intervene in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s technical review of Holtec International’s application for a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear reactor fuel, an attorney representing the environmental organization said Monday. The intervention request would be filed when the regulatory agency releases its schedule for that process, Wallace Taylor, of […]

Fundamental physics research at the University of Texas at Austin will get a $7 million boost from the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is funding the work under a 16 year-old program aimed at providing people with the technical qualifications to maintain U.S. nuclear weapons. The grant came from the NNSA Stewardship Science Academic Alliances […]

Congressional markups of the fiscal year 2019 defense authorization bill begin at the House Armed Services Committee on April 26. The committee’s six subcommittees will take up the legislation, starting with readiness at 9 a.m., emerging threats and capabilities at 10 a.m., military personnel at 11 a.m., tactical air and land forces at 12:30 p.m., […]

The University of California submitted its best and final offer to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next decade, a spokesperson for the institution said Friday. “It’s my understanding that all teams have submitted their final bids at this time,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. The University […]

The public comment period on the scope of a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) for the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) in New York state has been extended by a month, to May 25. The deadline for comments had been today. The extension is being announced in an April 23 notice in the Federal Register […]

The Department of Energy said Thursday it plans in 15 to 45 days to release a draft request for proposals for the Central Plateau Cleanup Contract for the Hanford Site in Washington state. A presolicitation conference, site tour, and one-on-one sessions are tentatively scheduled for late May or June, DOE said as it released a […]

The Energy Communities Alliance got some good news last month when the omnibus budget for fiscal 2018 kept in place existing Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) agreements, ECA Director of Nuclear Energy Programs Kara Colton said Monday. The budget does call for a report on how the Energy Department formulates PILT payments to communities […]

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency plans to hold the U.S. Energy Department to its promise to dig up and consolidate contamination plumes and waste landfills at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. That is according to state EPA Director Craig Butler, in an April 6 letter to James Owendoff, principal deputy assistant secretary for DOE’s Office […]

Honeywell Aerospace, the division of that diversified contractor with major contracts throughout the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex, saw sales and profits rise by about 10 percent in the first quarter of 2018. Excluding costs related mostly related to foreign currency transactions, quarterly revenue for the Aerospace segment — which include the company’s work […]

About two months after he left the federal ranks, the former top Department of Energy official at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., joined Atkins in a new role created for him. Jack Craig, who in February retired as manager of DOE’s Savannah River Site office after three years in that role and over […]

The bid team that includes Texas A&M University has submitted its final offer on a contract to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the next 10 years, a university spokesperson said Thursday. “Best and final have been submitted and we believe NNSA [the National Nuclear Security Administration] will announce an award in the May […]

A new list published Tuesday by federal inspectors general called out crumbling Department of Energy nuclear infrastructure as one of the federal government’s top management challenges. “Agencies may be hampered in performing their missions effectively because of breakdowns in essential equipment or hazards posed by unmaintained infrastructure,” the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity […]

The Department of Energy relied on a flawed reading of a contract to justify its 2016 decision to take back some $20 million in fees from CB&I AREVA MOX Services, the company argued in the latest legal volley on an over-budget plutonium disposal plant being built in South Carolina. In a 2016 lawsuit filed in […]

Following a five-month pause, plutonium downblending resumed in mid-March at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The mission involves dilution of 6 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable, non-pit plutonium, and not the 34 metric tons of material intended to be processed by Savannah River’s MOX program. Operations began in September 2016, […]