Plutonium Pit Production

The Department of Energy said this week it has started work to move a metric ton of plutonium out of South Carolina, after three federal appeals judges affirmed a lower court’s order to remove the material from the state by Jan. 1, 2020. Barring an escalation to the U.S. Supreme Court, or a rehearing in the U.S. […]

The Department of Energy on Monday said it has started moving a metric ton of plutonium out of South Carolina. The statement came after three federal appeals judges on Friday shot down the agency’s argument that a lower court’s order to remove the material from the state by Jan. 1, 2020, was legally flawed. Barring an escalation to […]

Barriers to producing plutonium nuclear weapon cores in South Carolina remain, but the way is wide open in New Mexico, where the National Nuclear Security Administration has entered the peak spending years of upgrades aimed at producing a war-usable “pit” by fiscal 2024.  The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous stockpile steward is entering peak construction years on […]

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 […]

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 […]

The Department of Energy’s Defense Programs Advisory Committee is scheduled meet in closed session Oct. 22-23 at agency headquarters in Washington to discuss, among other things, a classified report on plutonium aging, according to a Federal Register notice filed last week. The all-day committee meetings will also address finalizing the charter for a high-performance computing subcommittee, the note says. […]

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’s secretive Defense Programs Advisory Committee is scheduled meet in closed session Oct. 22-23 at agency headquarters in Washington to discuss, among other things, a classified report on plutonium aging, according to a Federal Register notice filed Friday. The all-day committee meetings will also address finalizing the charter for a high-performance computing subcommittee, […]

WASHINGTON ―  It would make sense for the Department of Energy to have more than one production facility for the fissile cores of nuclear warheads, a senior Pentagon official with broad responsibility for nuclear weapons procurement said here Friday. “To me, it doesn’t quite make sense to go down to a single point of failure […]

A judge recently spiked the Department of Energy’s motion to dismiss a complaint lodged by CB&I AREVA MOX Services in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, potentially allowing the government contractor to collect what it alleges are almost $6.5 million in improperly denied fees. The complaint is one of eight now consolidated under a $200-million-plus […]

A sentencing date has been scheduled for the second man who pleaded guilty to defrauding the federal government while serving as a subcontractor for the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). Aaron Vennefron is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 1 in Columbia, S.C., according to an order last week from U.S. […]

The budget for the Department of Energy’s controversial Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) under construction in South Carolina would be cut to the lowest level at least since the start of this decade, under the 2019 DOE budget Congress approved this week. The  plant, being built by CB&I AREVA MOX Services, would get a […]

Congress’ final 2019 budget bill for the National Nuclear Security Administration, unveiled in detail Tuesday, would increase funding for maintenance and cleanup to buildings across the nuclear weapons complex, decrease funding for a controversial plutonium-disposal project, and provide initial funding to produce a low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead. The House and Senate are set to vote […]

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) this week demanded the Department of Energy conduct additional environmental reviews before sending any defense plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site from the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. In December 2017, a federal judge ordered DOE to move not less than 1 metric ton of defense plutonium out of […]

The Department of Energy will not be able to deliver 80 new nuclear-warhead cores per year in 2030 unless it starts building new plutonium processing facilities in South Carolina by the middle of 2019, the head of the Nuclear Weapons Council said Thursday. “From the Nuclear Weapons Council perspective, the Department of Energy (DOE) needs […]

Halting construction on the controversial Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) is not only legal, but it’s the quickest way to remove nuclear weapon-usable plutonium from South Carolina, the Department of Energy said Friday in a brief filed in federal court. The DOE reply brief in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals provides more pieces […]

Halting construction on the controversial Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) is not only legal, but it’s the quickest way to remove nuclear weapon-usable plutonium from South Carolina, the Department of Energy said Friday in a brief filed in federal court. The DOE reply brief in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals provides more pieces […]

The South Carolina attorney general has revealed most of the argument he will use to convince a federal appeals judge that a lower court was right to stop the Department of Energy from canceling construction of an over-budget plutonium disposal project at the Savannah River Site. In an appellee brief filed Aug. 10 with the […]

To support a manufacturing effort crucial to future U.S. nuclear arms-modernization programs, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) still plans to drastically increase the amount of plutonium permitted inside a building at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to a recently completed environmental review. In a final environmental assessment dated July 18 […]

The next incremental legal argument in a $200-billion-plus lawsuit over alleged mismanagement of a federal arms-reduction construction project in South Carolina is set for Sept. 11, court papers filed Aug. 1 show. The arguments were set in an order from U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Thomas Wheeler and will cover seven former cases now […]

LA VISTA, Neb. — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) may not be able to produce 80 nuclear-warhead cores a year by 2030, unless it resolves issues this year that have prevented it from converting an unfinished plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina into a weapons facility, the commander of U.S. nuclear forces said here […]

A federal judge on Monday stood by his earlier ruling that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) must return more than $20 million in fees it clawed back in 2016 from the prime contractor building the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Judge Thomas Wheeler of the U.S. […]

LA VISTA, Neb. — The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) may not be able to produce 80 nuclear-warhead cores a year by 2030 unless by the end of this year it solves issues preventing it from converting an unfinished plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina into a weapons facility, the commander of U.S. nuclear forces […]

A federal judge on Monday stood by his earlier ruling that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) must return more than $20 million in fees it clawed back in 2016 from the prime contractor building the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Judge Thomas Wheeler of the U.S. […]

The U.S. Department of Energy will argue in September why a federal court in South Carolina should not have prevented the agency from shuttering the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). Designed to convert weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear reactor fuel, construction at the unfinished MFFF was expected to halt around June 11, […]

The U.S. Department of Energy will argue in September why a federal court in South Carolina should not have prevented the agency from shuttering the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). Designed to convert weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear reactor fuel, construction at the unfinished MFFF was expected to halt around June 11, […]

A federal judge has placed a South Carolina lawsuit against the Department of Energy on hold until an appeals court decides if she was right to block the agency from stopping work at the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). It would not make sense to address other issues in the high stakes […]