Nuclear Weapons & Stockpile

The difference between the original and new style of spent fuel canister deployed at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in California is effectively a minor tweak, manufacturer Holtec International said in response to concerns about a broken bolt found in the newer version of the container. The New Jersey energy technology company issued […]

Laying out the annual weapons budget for some of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) major sites over the last decade yields little in the way of surprise: generally, the weapons budget is going up. Source: DOE Congressional Budget Requests (Laboratory Tables). Link: Interactive Version of Chart. Figuratively speaking, these trends were written on […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory contracted out just shy of 60 percent of its total procurement dollars to small businesses in fiscal 2017, handily exceeding the Department of Energy’s goal for the nation’s oldest nuclear-weapon lab. In the penultimate year of Los Alamos National Security’s (LANS) management and operations contract, the northern New Mexico weapons […]

More than a week after the Senate confirmed him for the job, Brent Park was sworn in Tuesday as the National Nuclear Security Administration’s top nonproliferation official. Park will be deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation: the roughly $2 billion-a-year stovepipe charged with controlling the spread of weaponizable nuclear material while encourage peaceful atomic programs. […]

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims (CFC) should require the Department of Energy to pay South Carolina $200 million in their dispute over plutonium disposal at the federal Savannah River Site, rather than allowing the lawsuit to go to trial, the state said in a March 30 motion. Specifically, the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has denied a request from a group of New Mexico lawmakers to extend its public comment period on the scope of its environmental review of Holtec International’s license application to build an interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility in the state. In February, nine state senators and 21 state representatives asked […]

The Department of Energy says it should get to keep around $20 million in fees it clawed back from a contractor that failed to build a major nuclear-nonproliferation project in South Carolina on time. The federal agency’s filing in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims last week was the latest turn in one of the two slow-simmering […]

Registration will open at 9 a.m. April 10 for the 20 tours planned this year by the Department of Energy to let the public see cleanup at the Hanford Site in Eastern Washington state. The limited public bus tours are popular and all seats sometimes fill within a day, if not hours. Registration is available […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled four public meetings in late April and early May to receive input on the scope of its environmental impact statement for Holtec International’s application to build an interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility in southeastern New Mexico. “At the meeting, the NRC will receive comments from the public […]

Rather than reducing schedule delays and expense overruns, the Energy Department’s use of a cost cap at the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) cleanup project in upstate New York might have had the opposite effect, DOE’s Office of Inspector General said in an audit released Wednesday. The Energy Department in February 2011 instituted what was […]

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved the Chapter 11 reorganization plan for Westinghouse Electric, which said the authorization paves the way for its sale to a Canadian asset management company. The reorganization plan was overwhelmingly supported by Westinghouse’s creditors, the company said in a Tuesday news release. Brookfield […]

A U.S. Energy Department official last week defended plans for an on-site waste disposal cell at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Site in Ohio The disposal cell, intended to hold 2 million cubic yards of waste resulting from decontamination and decommissioning of buildings at Portsmouth, benefits the environment, reduces the amount of land in need […]

The Energy Department has proposed extending the Washington River Protection Solutions tank waste management contract at the Hanford Site in Washington state for up to one year. In a notice filed Thursday on a federal business opportunities website, DOE and its Office of River Protection at Hanford announced a proposed contract extension potentially from Oct. […]

Anne Marie White was sworn in Thursday as assistant secretary of energy for environmental management. She went to work Friday as head of the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management, an informed source said Friday. “It’s an honor to serve as Assistant Secretary of Energy for EM,” White said in a Friday press release from […]

Scores of Democratic congresspeople wrote to President Donald Trump this week to complain that the White House’s plans to add new low-yield nuclear warheads to the U.S. arsenal is dangerous and fiscally irresponsible. That was the takeaway of a letter dated March 26 and signed by 43 Democrats, including Rep. Adam Smith (R-Wash.): ranking member of […]

The U.S. Energy Department’s internal watchdog has initiated a formal investigation into the spread of radioactive contamination at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant. The DOE Office of Enterprise Assessments’ (EA) Office of Enforcement notified the contractor demolishing the plant, CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co., of the probe in a letter sent March 21 and […]

The Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal 2019 justifies spending cuts for cleanup of the Hanford Site in Washington state by focusing on some of the work that will soon be completed. The proposed budget would trim funding for DOE’s Richland Operations Office at Hanford to $747 million, down by $169 million from the enacted […]

The House Armed Services Committee plans to start marking up the fiscal 2019 defense authorization bill, which will include policies for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), in late April. All six of the Armed Services subcommittees are scheduled to conduct their markups on April 26, the committee said. That includes the strategic forces subcommittee […]

It was all over but the waiting at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, at which time Brent Park had still not been sworn in as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). But barring personal or political catastrophe, Park will soon take the reins of the […]

Organizations bidding to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory met with National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) officials last week, marking one of the final steps in the competition for a 10-year, $20-billion-plus management and operations contract. The meetings in Washington, D.C., between government officials and an undisclosed number of bid teams keep the Department of […]

Friday marked the official start of the 30-day window during which the Department of Energy has said it will release a draft solicitation for the Savannah River Site management and operations contract that includes oversight of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s tritium-refining operations. The window is open through April 29, a Sunday, according to the presolicitation […]

Friday marked the official start of the 30-day window during which the Department of Energy has said it will release a draft solicitation for the Savannah River Site management and operations contract. The window is open through April 29, a Sunday, according to the presolicitation synopsis the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management posted online […]

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved the Chapter 11 reorganization plan for Westinghouse Electric, which said the authorization paves the way for its sale to a Canadian asset management company. The reorganization plan was overwhelmingly supported by Westinghouse’s creditors, the company said in a Tuesday news release. Brookfield […]

The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission has approved a revised rule aimed at providing additional information about low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) being imported into the state. Among a number of changes to the original proposal, waste disposal providers covered by the rule would now only be required to issue semiannual reports on their […]

Radioactively contaminated soil stored under tarps at three locations in Port Hope, Ontario, will beginning next month be moved into long-term storage, Canada’s Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) announced Wednesday. The low-level radioactive waste is the byproduct of long-retired uranium and radium refining operations in the region near Lake Ontario. The Port Hope Area Initiative […]

Organizations bidding to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory met with National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) officials last week, marking one of the final steps in the competition for a 10-year, $20-billion-plus management and operations contract. The meetings in Washington, D.C., between government officials and an undisclosed number of bid teams keep the Department of […]

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved the Chapter 11 reorganization plan for Westinghouse Electric, which said the authorization paves the way for its sale to a Canadian asset management company. The reorganization plan was overwhelmingly supported by Westinghouse’s creditors, the company said in a Tuesday news release. Brookfield […]

A couple working days after the Senate confirmed his nomination, the Department of Energy still had not sworn in Brent Park as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration. Park, a nuclear physicist, will lead a roughly $2-billion-a-year nuclear nonproliferation program that aims to prevent the spread of weaponizable nuclear […]

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers anticipates completing decommissioning of the reactor on the radioactively contaminated STURGIS barge by June, after which what remains of the former floating nuclear power plant will be transported for shipbreaking. “We’re getting really close. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we can tell […]

The Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission has approved a revised rule aimed at providing additional information about low-level waste being imported into the state. Among the changes to the original proposal, waste disposal providers covered by the rule are now only required to issue semiannual reports on their operations. The commission voted on […]