Stockpile Stewardship

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s failure to achieve fusion ignition has stirred debate about future funding for the National Ignition Facility, and the New York Times is the latest to question how much should be spent on the massive laser project. The issue has generated renewed interest in the wake of the missed Sept. 30 deadline […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has increased laboratory surveillance tests by 142 percent in Fiscal Year 2011 to address concerns about insufficient surveillance data for annual stockpile assessments, the Department of Energy’s Inspector General said in an audit report released yesterday. The increase, combined with a new way of assessing performance of the agency’s enhanced […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director Parney Albright defended the laboratory’s quest to achieve fusion ignition in a memo to senior laboratory officials Monday, suggesting that the lab should get more time to pursue the challenging scientific breakthrough. Albright’s memo comes on the heels of revelations last week that the National Ignition Facility missed a key […]

With the Obama Administration contemplating new reductions to the nation’s nuclear stockpile, the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee is set to hold a hearing next week about the “proper” size of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. The hearing will take place at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Room SD-192 of the Senate Dirksen Office Building, and […]

A bipartisan group of 100 House lawmakers is appealing to Energy Secretary Steven Chu to preserve funding for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility. The facility has been beset by complications in its quest to achieve fusion ignition and after the facility missed a key milestone at the end of June, the National Nuclear […]

In a potential glimpse into the Obama Administration’s plans to reduce the nation’s nuclear stockpile, a top Air Force official told the Boston Globe yesterday that the U.S. could move to cut from its reserve stockpile of nuclear weapons. “We have more backup systems in terms of weapons systems than we actually have deployed,” Air […]

Despite technical advancements in recent years, two former nuclear weapons laboratory directors still aren’t convinced that the United States should foreswear its right to nuclear testing. Speaking at the Heritage Foundation yesterday, former Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Director John Foster and former Sandia National Laboratories Director Paul Robinson provided a counter to a recent National […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Stockpile Stewardship Program received a strong vote of confidence from the National Academy of Sciences panel analyzing technical issues facing the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, but committee members continued to register concern about the future of the program. Speaking at a report briefing Friday, study chair Ellen Williams suggested that political […]

While the National Nuclear Security Administration and Department of Defense are currently able to manage known limitations to the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, Pentagon officials have raised concerns that the effect of the limitations could be intensified by reductions to the nation’s nuclear arsenal, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office. […]

As he left the Department of Energy, former Under Secretary of Science Steve Koonin sounded a note of alarm about Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s effort to achieve fusion ignition at the National Ignition Facility by the end of Fiscal Year 2012, suggesting in a Nov. 8 memo obtained by NW&M Monitor that success on the […]

The Washington Post highlights the advancements made by the NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship Program and the nation’s fleet of supercomputers. Read the story here.