Plutonium Pit Production

Groups from the traditional political right and left banded together Friday to cosign a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee criticizing the committee’s push to fund continued work on the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility at Los Alamos. They ranged from the small-government advocate Taxpayers Protection Alliance to the Quaker-based Friends Committee on […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration won’t need Los Alamos National Laboratory to make new plutonium pits for the nation’s stockpile until Fiscal Year 2019, according to the latest Quarterly Pit Production Report from the agency that advocates maintaining plutonium capabilities at Los Alamos until pits for the W87 warhead are needed in seven years. The […]

Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee are expected to make a strong statement about the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility at today’s markup of the Fiscal Year 2013 Defense Authorization Act, authorizing funding for the project the Obama Administration wants to defer and including language that would prevent money from being spent on […]

The top two lawmakers on the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee aren’t fans of a House plan to move management of two major National Nuclear Security Administration projects, the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility and the Uranium Processing Facility, to the Pentagon, and they expressed their discontent in a recent letter to Senate […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory late last week delivered to the National Nuclear Security Administration the so-called “60-day” study of alternatives to the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility, and there don’t appear to be any showstoppers, according to an official with knowledge of the report. NNSA spokesman Josh McConaha declined to comment on the document, […]

Because of the administration’s decision to defer construction of Los Alamos National Laboratory’s multi-billion dollar plutonium facility, a definitive price tag for the high hazard nuclear structure remains elusive. “We expect that most of the design deliverables will be completed at the end of this fiscal year,” Steve Fong, the NNSA project manager for LANL’s […]

Activists claimed success yesterday in the Administration’s deferment of the Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and said the fate of the facility would be a model for the elimination of other large Department of Energy construction projects. At a Capitol Hill briefing, members of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, a […]

The Government Accountability Office is expected to release a report today on the National Nuclear Security Administration’s now-deferred Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility, and the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee has suggested the report won’t reflect favorably on the project. Much has changed since the committee chaired by Sen. […]

If the National Nuclear Security Administration restarts the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility project at Los Alamos National Laboratory, it will likely need to be bigger—and more expensive—than current plans, according to a Government Accountability Office report released yesterday. According to the report, “New Plutonium Research Facility at Los Alamos May Not Meet All […]

Gen. Robert Kehler, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, acknowledged yesterday that fiscal belt tightening has forced difficult funding choices for the nation’s nuclear forces, but he singled out concern for the decision to defer construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The facility, as recently as last […]

The Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility project planned for Los Alamos National Laboratory will be “indefinitely deferred,” according to President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget request that will be released today. Nuclear weapons complex observers and Los Alamos officials have long expected a massive cut to the multi-billion-dollar construction project, but the exact approach […]

With the Obama Administration deciding to defer the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility project for at least five years, Los Alamos National Laboratory will not be able to ramp up pit production, lab Director Charlie McMillan told employees in a lab-wide email yesterday. The multi-billion-dollar CMRR-NF was not designed to be used for pit […]

The decision by the Obama Administration to defer work on the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility and accelerate work on the Uranium Processing Facility wasn’t an easy or popular one, but it’s one that had to be made, according to a senior Pentagon official. “The fiscal situation forced some hard choices,” John Harvey, the […]

In what could be a sign of things to come, Capitol Hill lawmakers began to question the Obama Administration’s decision to defer construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility that had been planned for Los Alamos National Laboratory, with Sen. Jeff Bingaman quizzing Energy Secretary Steven Chu about the move at a Senate […]

B&W Pantex executive Jeff Yarbrough is set to take over as Los Alamos National Laboratory’s new Director of Plutonium Science and Manufacturing. Yarbrough will succeed Carl Beard, who became the lab’s Principal Associate Director for Operations and Business in May, and acting Plutonium Science and Manufacturing chief Tim George. Yarbrough most recently oversaw directed stockpile […]

Following the retirement of Ken Bromberg in October, Pete Hanlon is now in place as Assistant Deputy Administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Fissile Materials Disposition. Hanlon previously was executive staff director and military assistant to NNSA Administrator Tom D’Agostino. Before coming to NNSA he had a 25-year career in the U.S. […]

Shaw AREVA MOX Services earned $7 million out of an available $8.7 million in award fee in 2011 for construction of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site, according to the contractor. On top of that, MOX Services also earned $2 million for meeting 2012 milestones ahead […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is finally moving forward with a plan to establish a pit disassembly and conversion capability that relies primarily on existing facilities. In an expected cost-saving measure, the agency signed an amended Notice of Intent Friday that identifies a mix of facilities to provide plutonium feedstock for the Mixed Oxide Fuel […]

A government watchdog group is urging the Obama Administration and Congress to kill one of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s biggest planned construction projects, the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear. Calling the CMRR-NF project planned for Los Alamos National Laboratory a “behemoth of overspending,” the Project on Government Oversight yesterday issued a report urging the […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory has completed key seismic upgrades to the lab’s Technical Area 55 Plutonium Facility, NNSA Defense Programs chief Don Cook notified the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Monday. Repairs completed to date, primarily a new roof strut intended to protect against building collapse in a major earthquake, have reduced the worst-case off […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration still has made no decisions about the two main construction options—deep or shallow excavation—for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF), according to a Nov. 18 letter to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The shallow excavation option “will save money and result in lesser environmental impacts without undermining […]

A federal court Monday ruled against the government’s latest effort to throw out a lawsuit against the proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) planned for Los Alamos National Laboratory. The National Nuclear Security Administration previously won a lower court ruling that allowed work on the project to proceed, but the U.S. Court of […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration, as expected, issued a Record of Decision yesterday to go forward with the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility—CMRR-NF—at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The unsurprising move was needed as a part of the agency’s National Environmental Policy Act compliance process for the project. The ROD left open which if […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration came down hard on Los Alamos National Laboratory Sept. 16 over the lab’s failure to fully implement required criticality safety programs at its PF-4 plutonium complex, according to documents made public Sunday by the Albuquerque Journal. The documents detail the agency’s concerns with 23 criticality infractions in 2010, a trend […]