Plutonium Pit Production

Confirming what appeared intuitively obvious, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico will have to manufacture 80 nuclear-weapon cores a year by itself in 2030, if a planned facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina is not ready by then. Planned upgrades for Los […]

WASHINGTON — Some new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missiles might be deployed into silos with warheads from their predecessor, the Minuteman III, a senior National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) official said here this week. The fleet of next-generation missiles will use about a 50-50 mix of old W87-0 warheads, used on Minuteman III today, […]

As budget hearing season ramps up in Washington, D.C., hearings of a different kind are scheduled elsewhere in two court cases touching the nuclear security enterprise: one involving a former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who pleaded guilty to lying about ties to China, another involving weapon-usable plutonium sent to Nevada for safekeeping. First, Turab […]

WASHINGTON — Some new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missiles might be deployed into silos with warheads from their predecessor, the Minuteman III, a senior National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) official said here Wednesday. The fleet of next-generation missiles will use about a 50-50 mix of old W87-0 warheads, used on Minuteman III today, and […]

As budget hearing season ramps up in Washington, D.C., hearings of a different kind are scheduled elsewhere in two court cases touching the nuclear security enterprise: one involving a former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist who pleaded guilty to lying about ties to China, another involving weapon-usable plutonium sent to Nevada for safekeeping. First, Turab […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday it plans to soon start work on a South Carolina plutonium disposal project — operations that will consume about one-third of the amount Congress appropriated for the project in the current 2020 federal budget year. This site preparation work for the Surplus Plutonium Disposition project at the […]

In a housecleaning move to continue wrapping up legal issues surrounding the terminated plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site, a federal judge in South Carolina last week officially dismissed a 2018 state lawsuit against the Department of Energy. In the two-page decision filed on Feb. 20, District Judge J. Michelle Childs wrote that […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Pentagon plan deploy W87-0 warheads, without new plutonium pit cores, on some Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missiles missiles. The plan, confirmed Thursday through an NNSA spokesperson, could give the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon agency more time to get a pair of planned pit factories up […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday it plans to soon start work on a South Carolina plutonium disposal project — operations that will consume about one-third of the amount Congress appropriated for the project in the current 2020 federal budget year. This site preparation work for the Surplus Plutonium Disposition project at the […]

In a housecleaning move to continue wrapping up legal issues surrounding the terminated plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site, a federal judge in South Carolina last week officially dismissed a 2018 state lawsuit against the Department of Energy. In the two-page decision filed on Feb. 20, District Judge J. Michelle Childs wrote that […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) seeks nearly a fourfold funding increase for development of the W87-, silo-based intercontinental ballistic-missile warhead in fiscal 2021, plus more than $1 billion to help build the plutonium cores for that warhead, according to new budget details released Monday. The budget proposal from the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) management contractor for the Savannah River Site plans by June to finalize the design for a new plant capable of making 50 plutonium nuclear-warhead cores a year, the company’s president said here Wednesday. The conceptual design report for the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), to […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) management contractor for the Savannah River Site plans by June to finalize the design for a new plant capable of making 50 plutonium nuclear-warhead cores a year, the company’s president said here Wednesday. The conceptual design report for the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), to […]

The Department of Energy and South Carolina are discussing options for removing excess plutonium that was intended to be processed at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, and looking at options to settle the state’s claim that the agency owes hundreds of millions of dollars for missing deadlines to remove that plutonium from the Savannah […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Surplus Plutonium Disposition project has reached Critical Decision 1 (CD-1), paving the way for the agency to begin procurement on the long-awaited replacement for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The project hit the milestone on Dec. 19, a spokesperson […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration last spring quietly backed off a drive to produce 30 plutonium nuclear-warhead cores per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory earlier than the long-established target of 2026, a recently published contract modification shows. The April 30, 2019, modification to Triad National Security’s lab management and operations contract scrubs out […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Surplus Plutonium Disposition project has reached Critical Decision 1 (CD-1), paving the way for the agency to begin procurement on the long-awaited replacement for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The project hit the milestone on Dec. 19, a spokesperson for […]

Last spring, the National Nuclear Security Administration quietly backed off a drive to produce 30 plutonium nuclear-warhead cores per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory earlier than the long-established target of 2026, a recently published contract modification shows. The April 30, 2019, modification to Triad National Security’s lab management and operations contract scrubs out […]

A recently unsealed lawsuit accuses a former U.S. Department of Energy contractor at the Savannah River Site’s now-canceled plutonium recycling plant of filings thousands of dollars’ worth of false claims by paying out a relocation package to an employee who never actually moved. Then, when employee Peter Michael Wanco Jr. resigned from MOX Services after […]

A recently unsealed lawsuit accuses a former U.S. Department of Energy contractor at the Savannah River Site’s now-canceled plutonium recycling plant of filings thousands of dollars’ worth of false claims by paying out relocation packages to an employee who never actually moved. Then, when employee Peter Michael Wanco Jr. resigned from MOX Services after allegedly […]

A federal judge is not pulling the plug yet on Nevada’s lawsuit to have a half-metric ton of plutonium trucked out of the state, despite the Department of Energy’s repeated requests to dismiss the case. The U.S. District Court for Nevada has scheduled a teleconference for March 12 to discuss the state’s desire to conduct […]

In what could be the final brief before an appeals panel rules on the case, South Carolina hammered home its argument that federal law does not prohibit the Department of Energy from paying $200 million in fines after blowing a legal deadline to remove plutonium from the state. South Carolina is appealing the case after […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would not rule out the possibility here Thursday that one of two planned production plants could independently supply all the fissile nuclear-weapon cores initially required for planned refurbishments of the nation’s nuclear weapons. “[W]e are not looking at [using] one exclusive of […]

A federal judge is not pulling the plug yet on Nevada’s lawsuit to have a half-metric ton of plutonium trucked out of the state, despite the Department of Energy’s repeated requests to dismiss the case. The U.S. District Court for Nevada has scheduled a teleconference for March 12 to discuss the state’s desire to conduct […]

The JASON group of scientists has endorsed a plan for the U.S. Department of Energy to immediately begin building new infrastructure to produce fresh nuclear-weapon cores, according to a letter written by the group’s program manager and published Monday by the Federation of American Scientists. “[W]e urge that pit manufacturing be re-established as expeditiously as […]

In what could be the final brief before an appeals panel rules on the case, South Carolina hammered home its argument that federal law does not prohibit the Department of Energy from paying $200 million in fines after blowing a legal deadline to remove plutonium from the state. South Carolina is appealing the case after […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans a somewhat expedited environmental review of its plan to convert a partially built plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., into a plutonium-pit factory, according to a decision posted online this week. The agency has studied since June whether it must complete a brand new environmental […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans a somewhat expedited environmental review of its plan to convert a partially built plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., into a plutonium pit factory, according to an “unpublished” decision posted online Tuesday. The agency has studied since June whether it must complete a brand […]

MOX Services, prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), played fast and loose with federal contracting rules, the U.S. Department of Energy’s inspector general wrote in a scathing report published days before the winter holidays. The audit, which focused on MOX Services’ administration of project subcontractors, identified some $8.5 million in questionable […]

MOX Services, prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), played fast and loose with federal contracting rules, the U.S. Department of Energy’s inspector general wrote in a scathing report published days before the winter holiday. The audit, which focused on MOX Services’ administration of project subcontractors, identified some $8.5 million in […]