Plutonium Pit Production

A federal judge this week stayed the almost 3-year old lawsuit filed by MOX Services against the National Nuclear Security Administration after the parties announced they were close to settling the $200-million-plus case over a now-terminated plutonium conversion plant in South Carolina. “After mediation, the parties have come to an agreement in principle on proposed […]

The Department of Energy can annually produce 80 nuclear weapon cores in two states without beginning an all-new environmental review of the full program, according to an already-contested review of the issue released on Wednesday. Instead, DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) concluded that the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) requires the agency only […]

A federal judge on Monday stayed the almost 3-year old lawsuit filed by MOX Services against the National Nuclear Security Administration after the parties announced they were close to settling the $200-million-plus case. “After mediation, the parties have come to an agreement in principle on proposed settlement terms which, if approved, would resolve this consolidated […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the prime contractor for a canceled plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina have reached an agreement in principle to settle a $200 million lawsuit the company filed nearly three years ago after the agency moved to shutter the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. MOX Services and the agency […]

The House of Representatives this week approved a fiscal 2020 minibus spending bill that would slow development of the next-generation, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), bar deployment of a low-yield nuclear missile, and provide more money than sought to research the use of low-enriched uranium as fuel for the nuclear Navy. The bill went through […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will dedicate $1 million annually over the next half-decade to train college students in South Carolina and Georgia to take over the upcoming plutonium pit mission, among others, at the Savannah River Site (SRS). NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty discussed the $5 million commitment Monday afternoon during a press event […]

The Department of Energy remains on track to remove a remaining half-metric of plutonium from the Savannah River Site and the state of South Carolina by the end of the year as ordered in a federal lawsuit from 2016, according to a recent status report. South Carolina sued the federal government in 2016 in the […]

The House on Wednesday approved a 2020 spending bill that would provide more funding that sought to clean up shuttered nuclear weapons sites, and less funding that requested for active weapons programs. The Democrat-led House approved the bill on an essentially party line vote of 226 to 203. The so-called minibus spending measure funds the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will dedicate $1 million annually over the next half-decade to train college students in South Carolina and Georgia to take over the upcoming plutonium pit mission, among others, at the Savannah River Site. NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty discussed the $5 million commitment Monday afternoon during a press event at […]

The U.S. Department of Energy remains on track to remove a remaining half-metric of plutonium from the Savannah River Site and the state of South Carolina by the end of the year, thereby meeting an order in a federal lawsuit from 2016, according to a June 13 status report. South Carolina sued the federal government […]

South Carolina has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court’s 2018 decision to let the Department of Energy close a proposed plutonium disposal plant in the western part of the state, according to papers filed recently with the highest court in the land. After years of political and legal wrangling, DOE’s National […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to prepare an environmental impact statement for plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., according to a notice filed this week in the Federal Register. The public will have 45 days to comment on the agency’s proposed environmental impact statement (EIS) regarding its contentious plan to […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security has received the go-ahead to install a piece of hardware at the Y-12 National Security Complex that will one day help the National Nuclear Security Administration end uranium processing in the World War II-era Building 9212 and transfer the work to the planned Uranium Processing Facility. In a report published Friday, the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to perform an environmental impact statement about plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., according to a notice filed Monday in the Federal Register. The public will have 45 days to comment on the agency’s proposed environmental impact statement (EIS) about a contentious plan to […]

Democrats on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee on Tuesday used their majority on the panel to kill a GOP amendment that would have kept the Department of Energy’s plan to produce plutonium pits in South Carolina off the chopping block. Subcommittee Democrats, led by Rep. James Cooper (Tenn.), quashed the amendment from Rep. […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is laying the groundwork to acquire the three custom-built gloveboxes needed for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition program: the proposed replacement for the cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Under the currently unfunded and unauthorized program, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would install the gloveboxes at Savannah […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is laying the groundwork to acquire the three custom-built gloveboxes needed for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition program: the proposed replacement for the cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. Under the currently unfunded and unauthorized program, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would install the gloveboxes at Savannah […]

Democrats on the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee on Tuesday used their majority to kill a GOP amendment that would have kept the Department of Energy’s plan to produce plutonium pits in South Carolina off the chopping block. Subcommittee Democrats, led by Rep. James Cooper (R-Tenn.), quashed the amendment from Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) […]

The Department of Energy would no longer have to make 80 plutonium pits a year by the end of the next decade, if legislation unveiled Monday in the Democrat-controlled House becomes law. The legislation, due for a vote Tuesday by House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee “would repeal the requirement for the Secretary of Energy […]

MOX Services will not receive any interest payments on $20 million in clawed-back fees the shrinking company won from the Department of Energy in a lawsuit over the agency’s cancellation of a controversial plutonium disposal plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler handed down the […]

After three years of wrestling with Congress, the Department of Energy has finally convinced at least one chamber that it is time to move on fully from the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). In a bullet point so brief as to belie the drama that has beset the failed plutonium disposal plant, the House […]

MOX Services will not receive any interest payments on $20 million in clawed-back fees the shrinking company won from the Department of Energy in a lawsuit over the agency’s cancellation of a controversial plutonium disposal plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler handed down the […]

South Carolina and the Department of Energy need at least another month to decide whether it is “feasible” to settle the state’s $100-million 2018 lawsuit over several metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium stranded at the Savannah River Site. “The parties continue to engage in discussions to determine whether it is feasible to resolve this matter […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration this week appealed a court decision in a lawsuit to let some 20 employees of contractor MOX Services retain access to vital project information about on the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina. The federal government filed its appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act would allow for full funding of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) plan to build plutonium nuclear-weapon cores in two states, a senior committee aide confirmed Thursday. The committee finished a closed-door markup of the annual military policy bill Wednesday, then had senior staffers […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) does not anticipate initiating oversight of a planned plutonium warhead core plant in South Carolina until the National Nuclear Security Administration approves an official cost and schedule estimate for the expected multibillion-dollar nuclear facility — a milestone that could be years away. “I predict that oversight will begin […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) does not anticipate initiating oversight of a planned plutonium nuclear-warhead core production plant in South Carolina until the National Nuclear Security Administration approves an official cost and schedule estimate for the expected multibillion-dollar facility — a milestone that could be years away. “I predict that oversight will begin […]

A proposed nuclear weapons budget due for a committee vote in the House of Representatives today would tap the brakes forcefully on the next intercontinental ballistic missile warhead and sharply curtail another pair of nuclear weapons programs. That is according to a detailed bill report released Monday by the House Appropriations energy and water development […]

On Friday, a U.S. attorney representing the National Nuclear Security Administration in a contractor lawsuit appealed a court decision to let some 20 MOX Services employees retain access to vital project information about cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina. The federal government had not filed its appeal with the U.S. Court of […]

Oral arguments are set for Thursday between the contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) and its customer, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), over some $800,000 in interest the contractor says it is owed. CB&I AREVA MOX Services sued the NNSA in 2016, and repeatedly afterward in cases that have been […]